Atmosphere: A Love Story By Taylor Jenkins Reid - 14

Almost anyone who is cleared to be in the flight control room is there. The director’s suite is filled with men in jackets and ties. The simulation supervisors’ room is packed.

Joan can tell, just based on the hum within the room, that the theater behind her is filling up.

She cannot turn around, and she cannot consider just how many people are listening in on the main loop right now. It is accessible to almost three thousand people, across the Johnson Space Center and the wider Houston area, including the astronauts’ homes and news organizations.

On a normal day, most of them would not be listening. Now they almost certainly all are. This accident has, most likely, already been reported all over the world.

Which means that Donna and Helene know. Even if they weren’t listening earlier, they know by now.

In fact, because of the way some of the men keep glancing behind themselves, Joan suspects that either Donna or Helene is in the theater now. Most likely Helene. Donna is the sort of person who needs to be alone in a situation like this. She has most likely handed Thea over to someone and locked herself in her bedroom or bathroom, refusing to respond to anyone. Helene, on the other hand, is the sort of person who needs to see what is happening for herself. It is almost certainly Helene.

Joan keeps her gaze forward.

The commotion around her is distracting, but the din of murmurs and whispers within Mission Control forms a calming reminder that NASA is not merely a collection of individuals. NASA is a team. Joan had never before in her life felt the sense of belonging that she has with the people here at NASA.

If they get the shuttle home with Vanessa, Lydia, and Griff still alive, the entire campus will share in the relief. And if tragedy strikes further today, Joan knows this team will carry that burden together.

Still, there is a burden that Joan will carry alone.

Joan watches Jack. His shoulders are hunched, his fists tight. Joan opens and closes her own hands, trying to make space in the bones.

Since the end of November, Joan has been having dreams in which her life is less complicated than it really is. When she wakes in the morning, she always has to take a moment to understand that the dream wasn’t real.

But today, she keeps forgetting that this is real.

Steve and Hank are dead. Griff and Lydia might not make it.

At least Vanessa is safe right now.

“Houston, the galley has been deactivated.”

Jack: “Let’s prep her to close the payload doors.”

Joan on the loop: “Copy, Houston. We want you to begin to close the payload doors.”

“Roger that,” Vanessa says.

“Let’s go to the deorbit checklist, page two-dash-fifteen. You will be running a deorbit burn soon.”

“Copy that,” Vanessa says. And then, more quietly: “Okay. I can do this.”

Joan knows that tone in Vanessa’s voice. The tiny waver.

“Ford,” she says. There is so much she wants to say to Vanessa that she can’t. “Everyone here believes that you have the ability to land Navigator safely today on your own.”

Joan believes this. Even though no one in the history of NASA has ever had to do it before.

Vanessa does not respond for a moment. Then: “Thank you, Houston. After a certain point, the shuttle can land itself. We just need to get to that point as quick as we can. I’m going to get started.”

What if Joan got on the loop and said what she was really thinking? What if she told Vanessa everything she needed her to know?

Watching the telemetry monitors, Joan can see that Vanessa has thrown the first switch to close the payload bay doors. The left one has closed. As Vanessa begins to close the right, Sean Gutterson stands up.

Sean: “Flight, this is RMU. The latches on the right forward bulkhead aren’t closing. We think the PLBDs were hit in the explosion.”

Jack stares ahead and blinks.

“Houston,” Vanessa says. “I’m getting a malfunction signal on the right forward bulkhead gang.”

“Roger that,” Joan says and looks to Jack.

Jack holds his pen, clicking it over and over, grasping it so tight his fist is red and his knuckles turn white. He closes his eyes and inhales, shaking his head. “Ford’s going to have to do it manually.” He opens his eyes. “If she’s going back into the payload bay, that means she has to get into the suit on her own. She can do that, right, EVA?”

Chuck Peterson, the man assigned to extra-vehicular activity, stands. “The suits were not designed that way. But she got out of it by herself, so we believe she can get into it by herself.”

“If you tell her she has to do it,” Joan says, “she will.”

Jack nods. “EECOM, are we still at 10.2 psi?”

“Affirmative.”

“What does that give us for a pre-breathe?”

Greg does not answer Jack at first, still calculating. Jack stands up, tosses the pen onto his desk. “C’mon! What does that give us for a pre-breathe?”

Greg: “We believe seventy-five minutes. The team is evaluating whether we can shorten it.”

Jack leans onto the desk in front of him. “Either way, when you add in the time to get in the suit, and get the latches closed, and get back in and start the deorbit, we’ve lost a rev, maybe two.”

He looks across the room to Tony Gallo, the flight dynamics officer. “FIDO, get us landing site options.”

FIDO: “Copy that.”

Ray: “Flight, Surgeon. Based on Griff’s vitals, he may have more time than Danes. But if we don’t get them home in the next seven hours, one or both may not make it.”

Jack: “The shuttle cannot land without the payload bay doors shut. It will burn up on reentry.”

Ray: “Yes, but Griff and Danes may not survive the time it takes for her to get into the payload bay.”

Jack: “None of them will survive reentry if she doesn’t.”

FIDO: “We can still land at Edwards on the next rev, but then the closest opportunity after that will be twelve hours after.”

Jack closes his eyes and nods. “Then let’s hope she can do it within ninety minutes. CAPCOM, prepare her for EVA.”

Joan: “Roger that. Navigator, Houston. You will need to close the payload bay doors manually. Please prepare to get into the EMU.”

“Copy, Houston.”

And then, more quietly, Vanessa says, “I . . . I don’t know how to get into the suit without help. It was hard enough getting it off.”

“Understood,” Joan says. “Tell me what you need from us.”

“You can’t help me,” Vanessa says. “No one can.”

Joan does not know what to say. “Copy that,” she says, finally. It is so useless.

Joan can see the future for a moment—everything that happens if this doesn’t work.

“I’m going to start the oxygen for the pre-breathe,” Vanessa says. “And then figure out how to get in the damn suit again. I hope you all can talk me through how to put my shoulder back in the socket if I dislocate it.”

Joan considers how to respond, but then Vanessa speaks up again.

“I’ll have to get Hank and Steve out of the airlock. Then I’ll get in there and depressurize again. Then I’ll figure out what’s wrong with the latches and come back in here and start deorbit and land this thing. And somehow do it in less than four revolutions.”

Joan waits an extra moment, to make sure Vanessa is done.

“You and I . . .” Joan says. “We will do this together.”

“I’m . . .” Vanessa says. “I’m grateful you’re the one in that chair today, Goodwin. I’m glad it’s you.”

Joan stares forward, worried she might catch someone’s eye. She is good at this, understanding what Vanessa means. So this is enough for now.

She closes her eyes and begs the unfolding cosmos: Please. Please don’t take Vanessa.

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