Chapter 01.2

“3… 2… 1…” However, suffering from severe depression after a drunk driver killed his wife, Claire (and nearly took his right leg), Ty was scrubbed from the mission. It is hoped he will return to duty and join the Mission Support Team before the crew reaches Mars.

“0… We have ignition, and liftoff of Bolo One on the first manned mission to the red planet: a two-and-a-half year mission for the six-person crew. Godspeed, Bolo One. Our hopes and dreams go with you.”

“Roger that,” Commander Tom replied as the Falcon Super Heavy began slowly rumbling skyward. From the crew’s vantage point, seven-eighths of the way up the rocket stack and cocooned in their space suits, the roar and vibration of the 36 engines was somewhat muffled. “To get a feel for this,” Carl earlier told a group of reporters, “put a plastic five-gallon bucket over your head and stand under water at the base of Niagara Falls. Yeah, it’s kind of like that.”

In 2002, Elon Musk founded SpaceX and by 2011, they had successfully test-flown the Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Dragon Spacecraft through orbit and recovery. In 2013, they test-flew the Falcon Heavy, building on the success of these predecessors.

The Falcon 9 had nine engines in a single booster stage, whereas the Falcon Heavy was a set of three such boosters, set side-by-side with the payload mounted atop the center stage. The two outside boosters, cross-feeding propellant to the core booster, would give up a third of their fuel while lifting the payload higher and higher. Once the two outer boosters flamed out, they separated from the core booster and deployed parachutes to fall gracefully into the Atlantic Ocean for recovery and reuse. Meanwhile, the core booster, nearly fully fueled, was still rocketing the payload skyward.

But for the Bolo One mission, even the Falcon Heavy turned out to be inadequate. Thus was born the Falcon Super Heavy, consisting of five Falcon 9 boosters: four arranged in a circle spaced 90° apart, with the fifth one at the center. However, where three boosters are not quite enough to put the craft into orbit, five are actually too many.

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