TAKE OFF! – Into Space

We’re on our way! The big day started at about 7:30 A.M. when I packed my bags into the back of the coach and set off for the launch complex with the ten other competition- winners from around the world. It’s a fantastic place, with blue glass walls and shiny metal panels everywhere. After handing over our tickets at the check-in desk and passing our luggage through the security booths we were led to the HOTOL boarding station by the Global Spaceways chair- man himself just like VIPs! We had to pose with him while hundreds of photographers took pictures for news- papers and the TV cameras rolled. Now we’ve arrived at the HOTOL passengers reception room where we can sit and gaze out over the entire layout of the complex.

The HOTOL hangar is a long, low building, like a regular aircraft hangar, at the end of a long, wide runway. A smaller building on the side houses the trolley which will be rolled under our spacecraft after we’ve taken our seats. A short distance from the hangar are clusters of large, white, spherical tanks. They contain the liquid oxygen and hydro- gen fuel for the HOTOLS. For safety reasons our HOTOL will not take on its fuel until we are all safely boarded.

There go the chimes – our boarding signal. We’ll board the HOTOL passenger module by walking across the ramp and up into the cylindrical body of the module itself. We enter by a door at the end of a windowless tunnel. Somewhere in the front of the HOTOL is a small cabin for the crew and the pilot. Inside the module it looks just like the interior of a jet airliner, with two rows of plush seats, one on either side of the aisle. There are twelve seats in each row, each with its The HOTOL passenger module is fitted with twin docking ports and a small flight deck, from where the pilot controls the passenger module as it orbits Earth.

own window, so that we can gaze down at Earth as we climb up into orbit. Everyone seems to be seated, apart from the space stewardess. It feels like we’re moving. The transport vehicle must be towing the module out of its boarding bay toward the HOTOL hangar. Through the windows we can see the sky beginning to cloud over. Luckily HOTOL can take off in any kind of weather.
That must be the HOTOL hangar ahead! The main door is firmly closed, and we’re entering through a sheltered side door. They keep the main doors shut for as long as possible to prevent the wind and rain from damaging any sensitive equipment in the open payload bay. I must say the inside of the hangar is much smaller than I expected. There are repair bays and maintenance platforms, but the largest area is taken up with the HOTOL’s own resting bay. What a beautiful sight! A long, sleek, white craft, very similar to the famous Concorde jet which flew in the latter part of the twentieth-century.

The dramatic red and blue stripes painted along its snow-white fuselage stand out clearly under the brilliant glare of the floodlights which surround it on all sides. It has a smooth rounded nose with a small shark-like fin at its tip. The wings are quite stubby and look very much like the wings of the old space shuttles. I can see its silvery underside with the air intake system at the back – a sort of half cylinder with a pointed structure at the front which sucks in oxygen from the air as HOTOL climbs into the sky. There is a small tank of liquid oxygen inside HOTOL which will be used when we reach the altitude where the air is too thin to be “breathed” by the air intake system.

We’re going up! A large crane is lifting us from the hangar floor and we are about to be gently lowered into the payload bay at the back of HOTOL. The payload bay is very adaptable and can be used for passenger modules like ours, or for satellites and scientific equipment; telescopes, laboratories, or cameras. Each module is an independent unit with its own power supply and life-

support systems. In an emergency, the module can be ejected from the payload bay. Of course, once we get into space the module will be pushed out of the payload bay to await collection by an orbital ferry. The HOTOL will return swiftly to Earth.
A dull clunk and our module is safely locked into the payload bay. Out of the windows I can just glimpse the trolley sliding under the hull. The stewardess is telling us all about emergency procedures. We might almost be on a regular airplane! We are moving again, and this time it’s not just our module, but the HOTOL itself rolling out of the hangar. Now all we have to do is fill up the fuel tanks.

Taking on fuel took just twenty minutes and now we are approaching runway H, awaiting final clearance from the control tower. We are not the only HOTOL flying today, there are six more, ferrying up satellites and crews to space stations. The “Please Fasten Your Seat Belts’ sign is flashing. And here we go! The engines at the rear of our craft have flared into life, and we’re hurtling down the runway at an incredible speed. Outside, the buildings are just gray blurs and we are approaching a bright red line marked across the runway. We’re free! We’re airborne! The trolley’s shrinking below us now. It will continue on down the runway until its parachute slows it down.

Meanwhile we are soaring up into the clouds like a white arrow, at a speed of over 310 miles per hour (500 km/h). That loud crack means we’ve broken the sound barrier so our speed must be over 625 mph (1,000 km/h). HOTOL is gulping in oxygen from the air as it climbs. A sign on the wall says MACH5 – that’s five times the speed of sound. Soon we’ll be 16 miles (25 km) high and the air will be too thin for the intake system to “breathe,” so it will close down and our pilot will switch the engines over to their own fuel supply. Outside, the sky is darkening to a rich dark blue. 56 miles (90 km) high now!

The main engines have fallen silent and the OMS – which stands
HOTOL boarding and maintenance facility.
The sleek white HOTOL spaceplane nestles inside its boarding and
maintenance facility, where flight crews check its vital systems, and the HOTOL passenger module is gently lowered into the open payload bay.
This large structure serves
many purposes – it is an easy access service platform; a mate/de-mate facility for the HOTOL trolley launch-assist vehicle, and a mate/de-mate facility for the HOTOL passenger modules.
During operations without the HOTOL trolley, the spaceplane is supported by two sturdy shelves.

for Orbital Maneuvering System – engines have taken over for the final push. The view outside now is glorious. The sky around us is a beautiful deep blue. The clouds below look like whirls of white paint, and above us the sky is ebony black, sprinkled with stars.
We must have reached orbit, because everyone’s grinning and floating up out of their seats! If we weren’t wearing these belts we’d drift up to the ceiling and crack our heads! There are brilliant stars all around us now, and far below us the Earth is a stunning blue and white globe, surrounded by a thin blanket of ocean-blue light – the atmosphere. It looks so frail and fragile from up here! On Earth we take the atmosphere for granted, but from this distance it is just a wafer-thin layer of color.

What was that loud thunk? Phew, what a relief, it was just our module being released from the payload bay. Look, down there! HOTOL is falling away, dropping back toward Earth. The orbital ferry should pick us up any minute. There it is: a small platform with a cluster of engines and a docking port for our module to fit into. Another loud thunk and we’re safely connected. Now up to the space station!

Actually there isn’t really any “up” or “down” in space,
but everyone refers to Earth’s direction as “down.” The space station looks like a tiny model, but it’s growing pretty rapidly as we approach. It’s much more impressive than I expected. There’s a long central platform with tall solar panels that look just like the sails of an old sea clipper! There are dozens of modules, cylinders and different-sized sections, and clusters of gleaming white satellite dishes. Along its length there are dozens and dozens of red and blue lights, some blinking slowly on and off. Spindly aerials and antennae jut out of the station like the quills on a porcupine. We are curving up toward the far left-hand side where the Global Spaceways Hotel is located. The station is used for all sorts of things: there are factory modules, communications centers, broad- casting stations, and military surveillance domes, all working twenty four hours a day. As we turn around to drift gently backward into the hotel docking bay I can see three astronauts out there all waving at us.

Docked at last! The stewardess says we can all unfasten our belts and drift through the hatch to the reception area. Hey, this is great! Weightlessness is a bit like swimming, except that the slightest push sends you tumbling in all directions. Inside the reception area there’s a smiling welcoming committee waiting for us, with special blue Global Spaceways Hotel jackets for us to wear while we’re up here. But the first thing on the agenda The restaurant is quite small – well, the hotel only has room for thirty guests. It’s very similar to restaurants on Earth, except that the tables and chairs are bolted to the floor. When we sit down we put our feet through special straps so that we don’t float up and knock the table over. The meals come in trays which slot into holes in the table tops, and we eat them with regular knives and forks. Space food has certainly come a long way from the dreadful Apollo fare, which was little more than a handful of pills and gray mush – “like lumpy mashed mouse” as someone described it – which you sucked through straws out of toothpaste tubes. Today anything eaten on Earth can be eaten in space, although the lack of gravity means that some things have to be covered with a fine cotton net and eaten carefully, like peas or beans. Oops! Someone over there has just torn a net and peas are floating around everywhere! It’ll take ages to scoop them all up. Drinks come in resealable cans or cups, and they slot into the table tops too. The food certainly tastes good. Time to unpack my luggage. Our rooms are small but
Orbital ferry viewed from above and the side.

Eozy, with their own computer terminals, video screens, and windows which look down onto Earth. But the windows are too small to really see anything. The beds have restraining straps for our hands and feet to keep us from “sleep-floating.” Before I test them out I am going to drift along to the observation deck. Literally float, that is. The observation deck looks just like an observatory, except that we’re looking down and not up. It’s actually an inverted dome in the base of the hotel. It has a large telescope in the center which we can use to examine Earth. First I want to look through the observation plate, a large section of the floor which is completely transpar- ent. It’s amazing how much detail I can see – mountain ranges, rivers, and valleys. It’s a bit like looking at a colored map but the big difference is the stunning 3D effect. The mountains jut up from the surface, casting dark shadows. The valleys look like folds or gashes in the ground, and the clouds hover over everything like cotton- wool flying carpets, casting long shadows beneath them. We’re passing over England now and I can see London as a dull gray smudge on the green countryside, with the Thames as a thin, blue hair snaking through it and reflecting the sunlight.

Now for that telescope. Wow! We are passing over Paris. The telescope’s magnification is so high that I can see the Eiffel Tower as a tiny, black spike, and individual streets and blocks of buildings. There are tendrils of gray smoke curling up from the large factories. The parks look like patches of green surrounded by a blue-gray mess of buildings. The airport looks like a white snowflake with thin, white lines criss-crossing it – runways probably. The view is unbelievable, almost as if someone was holding a photograph over the end of the telescope.
We’re approaching the terminator now, the line that divides night and day, and soon we’ll be plunged into darkness as the Sun slides behind the outer edge or limb of the Earth. Already I can see a few tiny clusters of lights down there. They must be the lights of towns and cities coming on as their sky grows dark and the Sun sets. And now there’s a huge cluster of lights which must be a large city glowing in the middle of the night.

Back into daylight, looking through the observation plate again, and we’re passing over North America. What a magnificent view! There’s the familiar outline of the California coast with the blue-gray smudge of San Francisco, and the rippled range of mountains that reveal the location of the San Andreas Fault. The cloud patterns below are strikingly beautiful delicate whirls and streamers of white, with bands of denser cloud flowing above them, and the occasional clear patch through which brown land and blue ocean show. There are needle-thin lines of white criss-crossing the area too – the vapor trails of airliners.

That really was a view worth waiting for, and it’s one I’ll treasure for as long as I live. But the next group of tourists have come for their turn to marvel, so I guess it’s time for
bed. I feel exhausted after all of today’s excitement. It should be fun to drift off in to a weightless sleep in a room lit by the rich blue glow of the Earth and at least a billion stars – proof that I really am in space at last.

Day Two

What a welcome to day two of our grand tour. As an extra treat we were all served breakfast in bed, on special trays that locked into the wall. Now we’re all lined up at the departure bay looking out at our tour liner for the first time. I thought HOTOL was good, but the Gagarin looks magnificent! It’s sleek and powerful, with four nuclear engines glowing softly at the end of four “arms” which slope gently back from its rear. There are four more engines, smaller ion-pulse units, which are used for cruising short distances. Along the sides of the ship are large observation windows, and below its central section is a small docking bay for its shuttle. The shuttle is the craft which will take us down to the surfaces of satellites and planets during our tour. At the very front is the bridge where the pilot and navigator sit. We’ve been told that if we are lucky we will get the opportunity for a tour of the bridge on our return flight.
Time to say good-bye to our hosts, and to thank them for the blue jackets which they are letting us keep as mementoes of our visit.

There I’m on board the Gagarin! As we enter the reception area a tall young man enters the room and introduces himself. “Hello. My name’s Max and I’m your tour guide for the next six weeks. Wherever you go, I’ll go too. I’m here to answer your questions and point out all the things you shouldn’t miss. Any problems you have, come to me, okay?”
High above Earth we can now see it in all its glory: huge swathes of milk-white cloud, swirling and billowing above the sapphire-blue oceans, with patches of brown and green land visible in the places where the clouds have been swept away by turbulent winds.

Satellite close-up of a Californian valley. With a special filter fitted onto the space station’s telescope we can zoom-in on a California farming community.
Climbing up out of Earth’s blue atmosphere, the space station comes into view with sail-like solar panels and sword-thin aerials protruding from its silver skin.
Great! That means I can ask him as many questions as I like without annoying him. He must be an astronomer because he’s got a badge on his sleeve with stars on it. Different members of the crew have different badges. The doctor has the familiar red cross, engineers have two crossed hammers, and the flight crew’s badges all show eagles. I’ll have to try and beg one of each for my album. “Your first trip on the Gagarin will be to the passenger lounge where you’ll be served beverages and snacks to welcome you aboard. Remember, our ship is your home for the next few weeks. I’ll see you all later. Bye.” Bye Max!

This lounge is very comfortable and much bigger than the hotel’s. The Gagarin can carry a hundred passengers and we’ll be joined by forty more when we reach the Moon.
Any minute now the ion engines should be coming to life, brightening from a dull blue to a fiery sapphire blaze. There they go! The whole ship is vibrating and throbbing. Outside, the space station is sliding past, its lights flashing a farewell message.

So long, Earth – see you again in six weeks’ time. Space, here we come!

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