Read Online Back to the Moon-ARC by Les Johnson, Travis S. Taylor - Free Book Online Page A

was clearly in his element and enjoying every minute at the podium. “At an altitude of about twenty miles and a speed of Mach twelve , the rocket engines on the Dreamscape will ignite, pulling the passenger-carrying rocket away from its scramjet first stage and into a trajectory that will take it to a three-hundred-mile low Earth orbit. That’s just above the altitude of things like the International Space Station and low-flying satellites. Following in the footsteps of Virgin Galactic and doing it one better, we’ve already taken flights not only into space, but also into orbit—a much harder task. Getting into space is comparatively easy. Accelerating to the orbital velocity of seventeen thousand miles per hour is another task altogether. And Dreamscape ’s two stages accomplish this nicely.”
    The animation continued. Seemingly floating high above the Earth, the Dreamscape maneuvered close to a large cylinder that was also in Earth orbit. As Gesling resumed speaking, the two were moving close together.
    “Once in Earth orbit, the Dreamscape docks with a fuel tank launched by an unmanned rocket to refuel. After tanking up, the Dreamscape again lights its engines and begins its journey to the Moon.”
    The video at this point shifted to the interior of the vehicle, showing a computer-animated crew cabin and then the small passenger compartment. Sitting in what appeared to be tailor-made and very comfortable seats were five passengers eagerly looking out the windows and into space. One of the passengers unclipped from his seat at this point and pushed off to experience zero gravity.
    “Well, I think we need to tell our passengers they cannot float around while the engines are firing. I don’t believe Newton would be too happy. I’m sure our movie animators will be trained better if they ever get to go on a flight.” The remark received a few chuckles, but some of those chuckling didn’t really understand why it would be funny—just that floating around while firing rocket engines was somehow bad and that it had something to do with rocket science. “There will be ample time for our passengers to experience weightlessness during their six-day trip to the Moon and back.
    “Our trajectory will put us on a course to pass around the far side of the Moon and then return to the Earth. We’ll come within sixty-five miles of the Moon. And our passengers will have one heck of a view!
    “From that distance, this is what the Moon will look like to them. And as they swing around the Moon, this is how small the Earth will appear.” The video showed animated craters and mountains in amazing computer-graphic detail. In the distance was a small blue and white beauty—Earth. The video then shifted to more scientific details and illustrated the Earth-Moon system, showing the Dreamscape ’s trajectory as a dotted line from the Earth, around and behind the Moon, and then back to the Earth. The final frames showed the ship entering the Earth’s atmosphere and gliding to a landing at the Nevada Spaceport, changing almost seamlessly from the in-space animation to video shot of an actual Dreamscape landing.
    Gesling placed the pointer on the podium, still fully extended, in case he needed to pick it up again during the question-and-answer period. He picked it back up but then realized he was fidgeting with his hands. Flying in space didn’t make him nervous at all. In fact, it pleased and excited him. The damned press, on the other hand…
    The reporter from CNN was the first with his hand up. Paul nodded to him.  
    “You are charging your customers twenty-five million dollars per seat—that’s only one hundred twenty-five million total for the trip. Yet NASA is spending billions of dollars for its landing mission. Why such a big difference? How are you able to do so much yet charge your customers so little?”
    Childers motioned to Gesling and O’Conner that he wanted to answer this one, and he stepped up with a smile on