Patreon or PayPal Me keeps this site and its author alive. Thank you. |
Stories from the Verse
In Verse Proportion
Chapter 122: Brown 234
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 215
The next morning Derek explained what he needed to do to Vashti, who began working on the calculations. He would need to begin a deceleration of the ship such that they would begin to fall out of orbit, but slowly, achieving reentry at a point which would permit them to make landfall within a few miles of their original campsite, currently directly below them but which would have traveled a full day before they reached it.
At first he was concerned about timing the deceleration, but then he realized that since he was in a geostable orbit the timing didn’t matter--as long as the calculations were correct, they would land in the right spot, because the right spot would be moving with them and be in the right place when they reached it. Anyway, it made sense to him.
Part of the problem was that Wanderer was not aerodynamic, so its engines would have to be used to keep it airborne during the atmospheric descent. That was something Derek had never done and, he realized, something that had never been done, because Wanderer was built in space and had never touched down on any planetary surface. He decided that he should run through the procedure on the simulator once, at least, perhaps a few times, to be certain he knew what he was doing. He almost decided not to bother, since whoever programmed the simulator had no real data on landing one of these, but since it would have been computer calculated he thought it likely that it would be correct.
The other problem with a simulated descent was that their proposed trajectory would mean they were losing altitude for twenty hours before they hit reentry, and then maybe twenty minutes before they touched down, if they did it right. That was a long time to spend in the simulator, but he didn’t see any way around it.
He informed the Captain of his intention, had the robot prepare meals they could eat at their stations, got a good night’s sleep, and reported with Vashti to the simulator the next day.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #452: Versers Ready. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
