Artemis I Has A Stowaway - Day 14
November 29th, 2022
I was wrong. The second time the master alarm goes off and I’m no more composed than the first time. This is helped by the fact that I’m on the dark side of the moon in radio shadow, so it is impossible for NASA to be running this as a test.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, no-no-no-no-no.”
Like so much of space travel, this is one of those good news, bad news, situations. Good news. The LCD display was flashing red and wasn’t saying something totally incomprehensible. It might have said “Error code: x92284022”. It might have said “DSR - 5 Failure!” And I’d have no bloody idea what was wrong. “Radiation warning 130 𝝻Sv/hr“ was perfectly understandable.
Bad news: Radiation Warning 130 𝝻Sv/hr. I’m absolutely not going to get super powers from this.
NASA’s testing out these new radiation vests with this mission. I was already wearing Moonikin’s, because I’d be an idiot not to. But there are another two on sensor packages strapped into the Orion’s other seats. Sorry NASA… I take the vests off their sensor packages and put them on. You know the old saying, “you can never have enough radiation shielding”.
I put the first vest on over top of the one I’m already wearing, doubling up protection. And I was about to put the third one on over top of that when I got thinking. I wrap the final vest around my waist like a skirt.
While I’m doing that, I’m having a little mental debate: just how much radiation is this? Earth’s magnetic field is an amazing radiation shield. Inside the field’s protection (which extends up into the kinds of orbit’s the international space station and space shuttle fly at), you really don’t have to worry much about radiation. Out by the moon you’re basically getting full buck of what the universe can throw at you.
That can range from “nuclear power plant worker”, to the scene in RoboCop where the bad guy falls into the pool of chemicals and melts.
So just how bad is this? Do I have time for NASA to weigh in or do I need to do something now to try and save my life?
So, let’s see… 1 rad of radiation is enough radiation to raise the temperature of 1 liter of water by 1 degree Celsius in 1 minute. Then just convert over to Sv using the left hand conversion rule… I’m joking. I have no bloody idea on any of this. I know 3.6 roentgen is not great, not terrible. But I have no idea what a roentgen is, what a Sv is, or how to convert between them.
But there’s another way to do this. NASA does have some worry warts, but if an alarm is going off then it’s an issue. I could check the manual, figure out what the threshold amount is, and if I’m way over the line then it’s “I’m melting, melting, what a world, what a world,” time. But that’s when I look back at the alarm. 30,000 𝝻Sv/hr and the last three digits are basically illegible because they’re whirring up.
Well that was easy. I’m going to die. Now, how to save my life?
I need something that blocks radiation. There’s not much stuff on Orion that I could use to build a shield, and I have no idea how good a radiation block a 1 kg test weight is. Orion’s water tank is probably going to be the best radiation shield I could get.
Back to the emergency procedures manual. It takes a few minutes (and by the way, flipping through an index book while the clock on your life is ticking is a whole kind of fun), but eventually I figure out where the radiation sensor is mounted. The next part is something NASA’s not going to be happy about. I’m going to have to start flying the Orion.
Now, I’m an engineer, not a pilot, and looking at the gimbles, or artificial horizons, or whatever the hell you call those balls with the sky and ground painted on them that airplanes and spaceships have, looking at those things and the control stick this feels very much like something a pilot should be doing. Anyways, I strap myself in, and very gently pull the joystick back. Nothing happens. Ok, makes sense. There’s probably an ‘on’ button I need to press first.
I give up, unstrap, and get the emergency procedures manual. Fortunately for me, “orientation control failure” starts with just making sure you had set the system up right in the first place, and I follow along until I pull back on the control stick and Orion’s thrusters fire in response, the ship slowly starting to roll upwards.
“Fucking fucking fuck!” I slip out of the commander’s chair like a bar of soap off the edge of a tub. Always buckle up. I have to climb back into the seat which is all kinds of awkward and weird because of how it, and me, are rotating. I buckle up.
I’m watching two things, the artificial horizon, and the radiation meter, which is now up to 45,000 𝝻Sv/hr. I complete a full spin without obvious effect on radiation readings. I use another small jolt of thrust to stop the spin. Then I push the control stick to the side and Orion starts a very, very, very, slow spin like a frisbee. I stop it after about ten degrees, and again spin the ship end over end in a very slow tumble. The first three spins are totally exhilarating and terrifying. By the sixth, with the radiation meter doing nothing but rocket up, my brain is starting to wander.
You know… Technically I am now actually commanding the Orion to do things… Without permission… In international waters…
See, this is why engineers are a completely different breed from regular folk. This is what my brain chooses to think about. Or maybe it’s radiation sickness hitting already.
I’m either a nerd, or suffering radiation poisoning. Though the latter one is a very space pirate thing to suffer from.
The radiation meter hiccups, the 4, of 49,000 drops to a 1 then bounds back up. I stop the spin, then very, very, very, slowly, bring Orion back. The radiation meter drops down to 150 𝝻Sv/hr, and I stop the ship, right there, copying down my bearings.
Ok, situation: the radiation is now coming in, hitting Orion’s water tank, and the radiation sensor is in the shadow of the tank. Even better, the water tank is blocking a ton of radiation. I don’t know how good for me 150 𝝻Sv/hr is, but I do know it’s 99.7% better than 50,000 𝝻Sv/hr. More importantly, I’ve got a vector for the radiation. I need to get myself into that shadow. A quick look at the emergency manual’s schematic of Orion, and I float myself very quickly to a spot about 18 inches from the summers. Nope, I hate that. I’m just going to call it a head.
In theory this spot should be in the water tank’s radiation shadow.
New problem. Well new problems. Problem 1) I’m too far away from Orion’s controls to use the radio or see what the radiation meter is saying. I can’t just stay here forever, and I can’t really know when I can leave. Problem 2) remember when I said I “stopped” Orion on this bearing? That was a lie.
See, without friction, there is no such thing as zero motion. In space you’re always constantly twisting and turning on every axis. Your speed could be 0.001 degrees per second, or so slowly that a bacterium would be asking you to get out of its way you slow-poke, but over a thousand seconds (or sixteen point six minutes) you’ve still rotated a degree. Anyways, there’s no way I slowed to 0.001 degrees per second, Orion’s probably rotating at a couple of degrees every minute. This little area of shadow I’ve made for myself is at best ten minutes away from being out of the shadow.
What I need to do is figure out the heading to turn Orion onto in order to cast the water tank’s shadow onto the commander’s chair.
I go to work in the margins of the emergency manual. In space, radiation sources can just be thought of as a direction since everything’s so far away. Basically, like an umbrella blocking the rain, the radiation sensor is now in the shadow of Orion’s most radiation blocking part. Technically I’ve figured out a 3D vector for where the radiation is coming from. Now I need to figure out the 3D vector between the water tank and the commander’s chair (which is where I’m going to need to be), and then how to rotate the Orion to bring those two vectors into alignment.
Thank god a degree in aerospace engineering is good for something. Doesn’t even take ten minutes. The radiation sensor goes back to being baked, but according to my math I’m in the shade. For good measure I take off my two extra radiation vests and put them on the seat behind me - which is where the radiation is coming from. That way I should have five layers of protection in addition to the water tank between my chest and the radiation source.
There’s a problem to all this though - I’m not a good pilot and every few minutes I have to give Orion a nudge of thrusters to keep her where she needs to be. I can’t keep that up indefinitely because I’m burning fuel.
Small bit of pride. A full ten minutes before I get the radio back up with NASA, I find a control panel button labeled “or - lock” and just like that, Orion’s computers are doing the flying again.
So I'm stuck, in the commanders seat, until I figure out how to fix a radiation storm. I probably should have used the head when I had the chance. Note to self.
*******
I’m Nathan H. Green, a science-fiction writer with a degree in aerospace engineering, and I’m going to be doing daily semi-fictional stories tracking the Artemis I mission. You can follow along through my reddit (u/authornathanhgreen).
Artemis I Has A Stowaway is a work of semi-fiction. All incidents, events, dialogue and sentiments (which are not part of the mission’s official history), are entirely fictional. Where real historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, sentiments, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events, personality, disposition, or attitudes of the real person, nor to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. Save the above, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
© 2022 Nathan H. Green
I was wrong. The second time the master alarm goes off and I’m no more composed than the first time. This is helped by the fact that I’m on the dark side of the moon in radio shadow, so it is impossible for NASA to be running this as a test.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, no-no-no-no-no.”
Like so much of space travel, this is one of those good news, bad news, situations. Good news. The LCD display was flashing red and wasn’t saying something totally incomprehensible. It might have said “Error code: x92284022”. It might have said “DSR - 5 Failure!” And I’d have no bloody idea what was wrong. “Radiation warning 130 𝝻Sv/hr“ was perfectly understandable.
Bad news: Radiation Warning 130 𝝻Sv/hr. I’m absolutely not going to get super powers from this.
NASA’s testing out these new radiation vests with this mission. I was already wearing Moonikin’s, because I’d be an idiot not to. But there are another two on sensor packages strapped into the Orion’s other seats. Sorry NASA… I take the vests off their sensor packages and put them on. You know the old saying, “you can never have enough radiation shielding”.
I put the first vest on over top of the one I’m already wearing, doubling up protection. And I was about to put the third one on over top of that when I got thinking. I wrap the final vest around my waist like a skirt.
While I’m doing that, I’m having a little mental debate: just how much radiation is this? Earth’s magnetic field is an amazing radiation shield. Inside the field’s protection (which extends up into the kinds of orbit’s the international space station and space shuttle fly at), you really don’t have to worry much about radiation. Out by the moon you’re basically getting full buck of what the universe can throw at you.
That can range from “nuclear power plant worker”, to the scene in RoboCop where the bad guy falls into the pool of chemicals and melts.
So just how bad is this? Do I have time for NASA to weigh in or do I need to do something now to try and save my life?
So, let’s see… 1 rad of radiation is enough radiation to raise the temperature of 1 liter of water by 1 degree Celsius in 1 minute. Then just convert over to Sv using the left hand conversion rule… I’m joking. I have no bloody idea on any of this. I know 3.6 roentgen is not great, not terrible. But I have no idea what a roentgen is, what a Sv is, or how to convert between them.
But there’s another way to do this. NASA does have some worry warts, but if an alarm is going off then it’s an issue. I could check the manual, figure out what the threshold amount is, and if I’m way over the line then it’s “I’m melting, melting, what a world, what a world,” time. But that’s when I look back at the alarm. 30,000 𝝻Sv/hr and the last three digits are basically illegible because they’re whirring up.
Well that was easy. I’m going to die. Now, how to save my life?
I need something that blocks radiation. There’s not much stuff on Orion that I could use to build a shield, and I have no idea how good a radiation block a 1 kg test weight is. Orion’s water tank is probably going to be the best radiation shield I could get.
Back to the emergency procedures manual. It takes a few minutes (and by the way, flipping through an index book while the clock on your life is ticking is a whole kind of fun), but eventually I figure out where the radiation sensor is mounted. The next part is something NASA’s not going to be happy about. I’m going to have to start flying the Orion.
Now, I’m an engineer, not a pilot, and looking at the gimbles, or artificial horizons, or whatever the hell you call those balls with the sky and ground painted on them that airplanes and spaceships have, looking at those things and the control stick this feels very much like something a pilot should be doing. Anyways, I strap myself in, and very gently pull the joystick back. Nothing happens. Ok, makes sense. There’s probably an ‘on’ button I need to press first.
I give up, unstrap, and get the emergency procedures manual. Fortunately for me, “orientation control failure” starts with just making sure you had set the system up right in the first place, and I follow along until I pull back on the control stick and Orion’s thrusters fire in response, the ship slowly starting to roll upwards.
“Fucking fucking fuck!” I slip out of the commander’s chair like a bar of soap off the edge of a tub. Always buckle up. I have to climb back into the seat which is all kinds of awkward and weird because of how it, and me, are rotating. I buckle up.
I’m watching two things, the artificial horizon, and the radiation meter, which is now up to 45,000 𝝻Sv/hr. I complete a full spin without obvious effect on radiation readings. I use another small jolt of thrust to stop the spin. Then I push the control stick to the side and Orion starts a very, very, very, slow spin like a frisbee. I stop it after about ten degrees, and again spin the ship end over end in a very slow tumble. The first three spins are totally exhilarating and terrifying. By the sixth, with the radiation meter doing nothing but rocket up, my brain is starting to wander.
You know… Technically I am now actually commanding the Orion to do things… Without permission… In international waters…
See, this is why engineers are a completely different breed from regular folk. This is what my brain chooses to think about. Or maybe it’s radiation sickness hitting already.
I’m either a nerd, or suffering radiation poisoning. Though the latter one is a very space pirate thing to suffer from.
The radiation meter hiccups, the 4, of 49,000 drops to a 1 then bounds back up. I stop the spin, then very, very, very, slowly, bring Orion back. The radiation meter drops down to 150 𝝻Sv/hr, and I stop the ship, right there, copying down my bearings.
Ok, situation: the radiation is now coming in, hitting Orion’s water tank, and the radiation sensor is in the shadow of the tank. Even better, the water tank is blocking a ton of radiation. I don’t know how good for me 150 𝝻Sv/hr is, but I do know it’s 99.7% better than 50,000 𝝻Sv/hr. More importantly, I’ve got a vector for the radiation. I need to get myself into that shadow. A quick look at the emergency manual’s schematic of Orion, and I float myself very quickly to a spot about 18 inches from the summers. Nope, I hate that. I’m just going to call it a head.
In theory this spot should be in the water tank’s radiation shadow.
New problem. Well new problems. Problem 1) I’m too far away from Orion’s controls to use the radio or see what the radiation meter is saying. I can’t just stay here forever, and I can’t really know when I can leave. Problem 2) remember when I said I “stopped” Orion on this bearing? That was a lie.
See, without friction, there is no such thing as zero motion. In space you’re always constantly twisting and turning on every axis. Your speed could be 0.001 degrees per second, or so slowly that a bacterium would be asking you to get out of its way you slow-poke, but over a thousand seconds (or sixteen point six minutes) you’ve still rotated a degree. Anyways, there’s no way I slowed to 0.001 degrees per second, Orion’s probably rotating at a couple of degrees every minute. This little area of shadow I’ve made for myself is at best ten minutes away from being out of the shadow.
What I need to do is figure out the heading to turn Orion onto in order to cast the water tank’s shadow onto the commander’s chair.
I go to work in the margins of the emergency manual. In space, radiation sources can just be thought of as a direction since everything’s so far away. Basically, like an umbrella blocking the rain, the radiation sensor is now in the shadow of Orion’s most radiation blocking part. Technically I’ve figured out a 3D vector for where the radiation is coming from. Now I need to figure out the 3D vector between the water tank and the commander’s chair (which is where I’m going to need to be), and then how to rotate the Orion to bring those two vectors into alignment.
Thank god a degree in aerospace engineering is good for something. Doesn’t even take ten minutes. The radiation sensor goes back to being baked, but according to my math I’m in the shade. For good measure I take off my two extra radiation vests and put them on the seat behind me - which is where the radiation is coming from. That way I should have five layers of protection in addition to the water tank between my chest and the radiation source.
There’s a problem to all this though - I’m not a good pilot and every few minutes I have to give Orion a nudge of thrusters to keep her where she needs to be. I can’t keep that up indefinitely because I’m burning fuel.
Small bit of pride. A full ten minutes before I get the radio back up with NASA, I find a control panel button labeled “or - lock” and just like that, Orion’s computers are doing the flying again.
So I'm stuck, in the commanders seat, until I figure out how to fix a radiation storm. I probably should have used the head when I had the chance. Note to self.
*******
I’m Nathan H. Green, a science-fiction writer with a degree in aerospace engineering, and I’m going to be doing daily semi-fictional stories tracking the Artemis I mission. You can follow along through my reddit (u/authornathanhgreen).
Artemis I Has A Stowaway is a work of semi-fiction. All incidents, events, dialogue and sentiments (which are not part of the mission’s official history), are entirely fictional. Where real historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, sentiments, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events, personality, disposition, or attitudes of the real person, nor to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. Save the above, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
© 2022 Nathan H. Green
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