“Understood, Peterson,” Miller acknowledged. He glanced at his head-up display, checking their computer-driven countdown clock. “Thirty seconds to TLI.” He tapped their thrusters again, pitching the S-29’s nose up to align the spaceplane for its upcoming burn.
His eyes flicked toward Hannah Craig. “You ready for this, Major?”
In answer, she laughed. “I suppose it’s too late to hit the john?”
Miller grinned back. “Afraid so. You’ll just have to hold it—” The indicators on his HUD flashed green. Cued by the flight computer, he shoved their engine throttles all the way forward.
With a muffled
Immediately, G-forces slammed Miller and Craig back against their seats. “For… just… a few… more minutes,” he grunted, forcing the words out against the sudden intense acceleration.
Those minutes dragged on and on. Steadily, the spaceplane’s speed increased. “Nineteen thousand miles per hour,” Miller said tersely. They were now pulling around five-G’s. He nudged the sidestick controller slightly to follow the steering directions sent to his head-up display. In response, all five LPDRS engine nozzles swiveled a degree, minutely changing their direction of thrust. “Nineteen thousand five hundred… miles per hour. Still accelerating.”
Beside him, Hannah Craig strained to read the engine status readings on one of her MFDs. They were starting to blur out as the blood drained out of her brain and pooled in her lower body. “Temperatures and pressures… still look good,” she reported.
Nearly ten minutes after their TLI burn started, Miller saw the readouts on his HUD shift. “Ten seconds to engine cutoff… four… three… two… one.” He pulled all the way back on the throttles. “Shutdown.”
The engines cut out. And as quickly as it had come, the powerful acceleration that had slammed them back against their seats disappeared. Now back in zero-G, they floated forward against the safety harnesses holding them in place. Through the cockpit canopy, stars blazed across the black depths of space. The earth was somewhere out of sight behind them, receding fast. The moon, still far, far away, hung out in space off to the side of their spacecraft.
Miller let go of the throttles and controller and locked them out. He tapped at his own displays, checking their numbers. “That was a good burn. We’re outward bound at a scooch over twenty-one thousand miles per hour,” he said in satisfaction.
“Well, nuts. I guess we’re not gonna break the record,” his copilot said with a wry smile. On their way back from the moon in May 1969, the crew of Apollo 10 had captured the all-time speed record for any manned flight, hitting 24,791 miles per hour.
“Afraid not,” Miller agreed. He turned more serious. “How’re we doing on fuel?”
Craig pulled up the readings from sensors inside their tanks. “Our JP-8 and BOHM are down to eight percent, a little better than we’d hoped. Thruster hydrazine looks very good, with ninety-five percent remaining.”
“Outstanding,” Miller told her. He keyed his mike. “Peterson Mission Control, this is Shadow Bravo One. Our TLI was good. Our fuel status is nominal. We’ve got enough gas to make our rendezvous burn when needed.”
Several hundred miles ahead of the S-29B Shadow, the Falcon Heavy’s spent second stage detached from its payload — two connected BOHM and JP-8 fuel tanks coupled to a pair of remote-controlled booms identical to those developed for the S-29A tanker spaceplane. Thrusters studded around the Falcon booster fired. Slowly, it drifted away, deflected onto a trajectory that would impact the moon’s near side in several days. The twin JP-8 and BOHM fuel tanks flew onward, gradually being overtaken by the slightly faster spaceplane coming up from behind.
Three hours later, aboard the Space Force Shadow, Dusty Miller and Hannah Craig finished an array of final post-TLI navigation, life support, and other systems checks. Then, obeying their mission plan, they dimmed the spaceplane’s cockpit lights and settled back to try to sleep while still strapped into their seats. The next several hours were set aside as a mandatory crew rest period. Both of them knew they would need to be fully alert when the time came to make the first-ever deep-space refueling attempt.
