Coalesce

Science Fiction smashes hard up hard against Science Fact, intertwining philosophical elements force the impact of this terrifying problem into the light (like “Zen and the art of…” but for Orbital mechanics).

Abstract Extract below © Richard Grant/Coalesce:

“That night I looked up at the wisps and could see only the spiders web in my mind. A huge husk of tiny points so fine being nearly imperceptible. Clearer where they clustered in the now famous streaks. Back yard comets and orbital angel dust. I felt like never before, a bundled fly.

They are beautiful and mostly invisible, when a particularly large piece spins into view, picked up by the glint of the starlight it looks just the same as a drop of water on a strand of silk curved by the breeze. Sometimes, when you have spent too long staring up, when they slip into the foreground like the crazy frost pattern inside a cold-side window, as they become the backdrop for late night love; a kiss under the stars, just a speckled silver backdrop like a pin-pricked drape at a theatre.”

Abstract Extract below © Richard Grant/Coalesce:

“The first launches were a wonder to behold. At Base we were shown them, pilot propaganda reminding us our important role in the moral, social and technological progress of the free World. These recordings often take me back to when I was five or six and first saw a launch on the TV So big and loud I couldn’t figure what it really was and didn’t really understand any of it anyway. But I knew I had to be there soon. I thought for years that the rocket was a giant tube that sucked the clouds through it at the top and spat them out the back as it climbed. I wanted then to be in it. Watch as it swallowed the sky and left it behind. Burned but clean. I guess each time we watch those repeats all the cadets are reminded of young fantasies and strange misunderstood thoughts. Harsh reality bites a little harder, no fluffy clouds or cotton wool landscapes. The combination of soft flesh cargo, explosive charged propulsion and hard, cold composite ceramic skin was never an easy mix.

The climb glider launches certainly cut some of these risk factors out, but when this type of launch was made illegal due low orbit debris collision risk. The Field Path and high escape velocity Chemical Rocket method was it. The soft option suddenly wasn’t an option.

Instead of the Fast and loud approach used by rocket launch systems; Climb Gliders were immense and beautiful. Elegant Swans looking for love.

They have the longest wing Span of any craft. Slim wings like Dragonflies and below, slung possum fashion a payload. For the first 40 minutes or so a fairly conventional jet engine would climb continuously. Laboriously, yet efficiently lifting the payload with us in it higher and higher. When the Earth’s atmosphere became too thin to sustain conventional jet operation the Ramjets took over. These were really the same jets but they started to burn secondary fuel to fill the expansion exhausts. If a major system failed the option always existed to re-enter and glide to a pre-assigned landing zone. The real luxury of the Glider was time. Time to look at the planet below and it’s landmasses and Seas, cloud systems and landmarks. Almost as much valuable research could occur on the way up as once we were at our final destination.

Even more satisfying was the gradual ascent into weightlessness.

It was said the slow journey was like a morphine dope drip. I could only guess, as I don’t think they ever put me on one of those. We called it “High Class” and once you have experienced it’s special sensational hospitality little else compares. All your needs were taken care of and you wanted for little else”