Chapter Text
Kathryn Johnson got the command of the first crewed Mars landing and Ed Baldwin got angry. To him, of course a test pilot is the right approach for such cutting edge flying! Molly got it, but Margo and the other NASA desk jockeys didn’t. That’s why Deke Slayton had developed the tradition of an astronaut being fully in charge of astronaut decisions. ‘I decide who goes up and when’ had worked for over thirty years. Eggheads like Ms. Madison insisted NASA had changed, but Admiral Baldwin wasn’t buying it. Kathryn was good, but since now-old white guys were the first astronauts they had the most experience, so Ed suspected she had been picked for political reasons. Gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, ain’t that the truth.
Danielle Poole was also disappointed about not getting the assignment, at least it wasn’t another old white guy. Dani was pleased to see Kat come so far from her first flight. Poole led the backup crew, slated to be prime crew on a followup mission; that part of NASA culture hadn’t changed. Will Tyler and Nick Corrado would also get their shot at Mars on Ares II. Baranov would reach another planet as an astronaut not a cosmonaut.
The prime crew would include Tom Paris - still a crack pilot in a club of crack pilots; he would be the first choice on the control stick. Danny Stevens would be the second pilot.
Ed certainly had something to be happy about, which could be difficult even in normal circumstances. “Baldwin and Stevens, I see NASA’s still doing something right, like the good old days.” The names would be listed next to each other on the Ares I patch and the next generation would carry copies of the Apollo 10 patch. Ed and Karen’s adopted daughter Kelly was a scientist who had recently been in Antarctica studying microbes in the inhospitable environment. If there were such things on Mars, she would find them. The whole crew stood to follow the likes of Shepard, Armstrong and Cobb, but she could enter company of the sort of Darwin and Einstein.
“These are the voyages of the starship Sojourner - its nearly two year mission, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before,” Kelly said, much to Danielle’s amusement.
Timothy Russ’ even temperament would be a particularly valuable asset over the course of nearly two years; Ed Baldwin’s anger management issues had not helped his case.
Danny was destined for the stars of course, but so was Lisa Smith – she was born July 20th 1969. Even going through labor pains, her mother Ashley had followed the news of Apollo 11’s approach – this story gave Lisa an understanding of how captivating it was to look upwards. Labor pains were something Lisa also understood. She had recently given birth to a baby girl Michelle. Single mothers were not universally accepted in the 1990s but were not the anathema they had been in the 1960’s. Tom still did not regret marrying Lana, but they would not have needed to walk down the aisle today.
There had been another big change in marriage since the 1970’s. Restricting it to a man and a woman was ruled to be sex discrimination, one of many cases where it was determined that homosexuals and similar groups were protected by existing law. Interracial marriage cases were also precedent.
Sarah and Sofia were still together; many straight couples in the spacefaring family had not lasted so long. “Trace and Gordo, Valentina and Andriy, both got divorced not too many years after our wedding. Gordo didn’t take her fame well, she got tired of the other women. I don’t know what happened with Tereshkova and Nikolayev.”
Sam Cleveland had developed a luxury hotel in Earth orbit and offered it as the venue. Space tourism took some getting used to when used to working in limited environments. Still, Alighieri and Miller were overjoyed to go back up. So was Waverly, which the Secret Service was not so amused about. Moon Marines would largely be taking over her security for this trip.
Tom joked around with the pilots that shuttled them to Polaris, while Ed made simple comments of professional respect. Of course they were good – after all, they’d been poached from NASA. Lana was impressed by the engineering of the station including rotating it to provide artificial gravity.
Ellen had not been out to the general public when she won in 1992, and probably wasn’t the first closeted occupant of the White House – though James Buchanan was hardly august company, him being one of the ineffectual presidents in the leadup to the Civil War. His relationship with William R. King was likely romantic, speculated upon even at the time. That King being proslavery might’ve been a bad influence on the president. King County in Washington state had been named after him and its government changed the namesake to MLK.
There was an explosion which was not fireworks for the newlyweds. Sarah and Sofia found themselves putting clothes on rather than removing them. “Pussyblocked by shitty spacecraft,” Tom said – like the 70s he expressed sympathy with crudity.
Somehow the North Koreans had gotten something into orbit but not far beyond that. “Mayday!” was about all they knew in English. Ed had learned some Korean during the war, but not enough to fully comprehend their extended message. Ellen’s messages to Washington included an urgent request for a Korean translator
Three short beeps, three long ones and back to the truncated triplicate was universal. Two people who desperately needed help was clear enough. Politics did not enter anyone’s mind.
The Soyuz-like craft was spinning out of control. Tethers could stabilize and counteract this with the aid of the Polaris shuttle. Someone would have to throw and catch them. Sofia approached the hatch. “It’s your wedding day!” Ellen pointed out.
“If I bite it out there, the US doesn’t get stuck with President Moron.” The Vice President chosen to balance the ticket did not share NASA’s scientific nature, and was hard right to counteract the President in the middle.
“No. Comment.”
Sofia’s tether distribution was excellent, an easy catch for her North Korean counterpart. The Soyuz knockoff’s own maneuvering thrusters had failed but were supplanted by the entire Polaris craft moving in the opposite direction until the spinning stopped. The combination limped back to Polaris.
The craft appeared to contain two years of rations. The rescuers weren’t stupid but were in disbelief. Had they seriously intended a Mars shot in this tin can?
“I have wife too, back in Korea. With your help, I can see her again. Your wedding day? Lucky man.”
“Not exactly.”
“Great throw. You athlete?”
“Football, goalkeeper.”
The unexpected wedding guests were to be returned home via the Polaris shuttle landing on the south side of the DMZ.
Ellen had come out by 1996. Whether she won despite that or because of it, 270 electoral votes was 270 electoral votes. Ed felt NASA was going fruity but hadn’t expected that, though he maintained professional respect for Waverly and Tyler. Her heroics in space a few years prior hadn’t been intended for political effect, but were good for her in the press all the same. She didn’t forget her spacefarer roots, responded decisively to a crisis and demonstrated on a personal scale a policy of peace.
It was a good year for space travelers in politics. The 29th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union elevated Valentina Tereshkova to a full member of the Politburo. Yet she wasn’t retired from rocketry. Unlike the Americans, the Soviets had put one of their oldtimers in command of the new Mars mission. It pained the Cold Warrior in Ed to feel the USSR had done something right.
The Ares I launch was scheduled for soon after the election, and President Waverly wouldn’t be seeing them off as a lame duck.
“Danny, you sure take after your old man.” As a Navy astronaut, certainly, but also with drinking and sexual indiscretions. Don’t fuck my daughter too was the subtext to the subtext. Danny hadn’t had the audacity to marry Karen, but they had slept together more than once after that night of passion in the Outpost basement. Many times more than once. To Karen, what man she was with didn’t seem so risqué after the Sofia situation.
“I want NASA to actually land first this fuckin’ time.”
“Yes Sir!”