Involuntary Beta Test Pilot

Despite what the so-called experts might say, space flight is not that complicated.  It is similar to getting lost while on a road trip.  That happens all of the time, but finding your way back toward the planned destination can take multiple detours if at all.  Hopefully none of those detours involves exploding vehicles, which has been our problem with our test flights.

It appears that surviving the return trip into Earth’s atmosphere is more difficult than our calculations predicted.  Our Upward Mobility initiative has been proving that on a daily basis.  We have been launching models into space the last several months to help find the solution to our re-entry issues.  Models are a lot cheaper than full-size composite airframes with experimental propulsion systems.  Unfortunately, we’re only able to retrieve our GoPros and cell phones, but none of the test vehicles.  I am certain it is a calibration issue, but we keep losing the test vehicles before I can validate my suspicions with data.

We had to resort to model flights because our full size test crafts were garnering too much attention.  It is difficult to hide behind the shield of classified intelligence when we have not been given the authority to classify intelligence.  I also suspect that our airport yeti wasn’t helping the situation.  A plausible and credible explanation for the existence of a screaming yeti on the runway has proven elusive.

Because I am a problem solver at my core, I thought I had finally found the solution when I stumbled onto a 3D printed spacecraft.  The design looked promising, and my unsubstantiated gut feeling was that it could work.  This design would finally give us a chance to activate our 3D printing fleet in our adjacent print factory.  I was finally about to prove wrong all of the naysayers who claimed we would never print anything.  Victory was almost mine.

 

I nominated Snob Duben to be our first test pilot because he absconded from the F-One factory we supplied him.  Somehow he picked the electronic locks being used to keep him inside--for his safety--and has been on the loose for weeks.  He spoofed the camera feeds and created a holographic representation of himself to make us think he was still in the factory, not getting the job done.  Investigative Services hasn’t completed its forensic analysis of his actions since escaping, but we have a pretty good idea what he could have been doing.

Snob is a loose cannon on his own, so he needs direction, guidance, and a project to capture his attention.  Once his mind is focused, he is capable of great feats, but it is hard keeping him focused.  We are having more luck with our rail gun targeting system at the moment, which is to say none at all.

I knew this was the perfect assignment to keep Snob from meddling in core AcMo operations while also fooling him into thinking he is involved in future development.  Yes, this was an incredibly dangerous assignment with short odds on success, but Snob lives for danger.  This is especially true when the numbers he received indicated a 99.99% success rate.

Disaster entered the room and laughed at my brilliant plan just moments before we were scheduled to fire up the printers.  Everything had looked so wonderful in my mind.  I knew this was going to be our moment, but fate intervened in the form of a scale and the sound of failure.  I am familiar with that cold, hard, mocking laugh and hate it.

We are running into the type of problem that requires a functioning shrink or enlarging ray to resolve.  It worked once when we shrunk the turbos for Fred, but every subsequent attempt has failed.  I thought that 3D printed ship was the winning design until I realized—right after one of the desk engineers told me—that 10 µm is too small for Snob to safely pilot.  I shouldn’t be forced to know every single detail of a project.  10 µm meant 10 micrometres, not 10 ultra massive units.  That was not at all acceptable, and I looked dumb in front of my staff.  I had to use a lot of memory wipes to resolve that gaffe.

Due to this discovery, we are pushing even more development resources toward creating a functional shrink or enlarging ray.  Either one will work for our purposes because we can either shrink Snob to fit in the ship, or enlarge the ship so Snob can fit in it.  We just need to figure out how to get the ray to do something other than blow up everything it fires upon during testing.  Perhaps I have been looking at this from the wrong perspective.  There are some groups who might pay well for our current failed shrinking/enlarging ray that is actually an explosion ray.

It’s a problem, but as I said, I’m a problem solver.  AcMo will eventually get there, or we’ll copy someone else’s successful design when the time comes.  The most important thing is that we make sure Snob has passed his flight training courses when the time comes for him to launch into space on his first involuntary beta test flight.