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Follow-Up Week, Day Three
Oct. 3rd, 2007 12:37 pmWednesday, October 3, 2007
Clyde Tombaugh Science Operations Center
Boulder, CO
"Move over, Charlie," called a woman's voice from down the hall. "Dr. Bishop and the guys from Jodrell Bank are here."
"Thank you," said another woman's voice.
Charlie Rapoza grinned and started scooting chairs away from the custom-built, specially low instrumentation panel. T-SOC had been planning for a visit from Britain for months, and these days anything involving British space science involved Dr. Campbell, and by default, Dr. Bishop. Sure enough, the distinctly tinny sound of Dr. Campbell's piped-out voice spoke up: "I do hope you've got something promising for us today, after all the rot they put us through to get here..."
The go-kart wheeled around the doorframe and into the control room, Dr. Campbell's cylinder gleaming under the fluorescent lights. Dr. Campbell had achieved an amazing amount of mobility and control over the thing since his return to Earth last December, but it was still a little unwieldy. "Hallo, Rapoza," the cylinder called. "They tell us you've been getting some nice snaps from the Pluto Kuiper Express?"
As the rest of the English delegation- three scientists Rapoza didn't know and Dr. Bishop, who'd become Campbell's inseparable companion almost as soon as they'd stepped off the spaceplane- filed into the room, Rapoza nodded. "Sure have," he said. "Alice, LORRI, and PEPSSI're all churning out the kinds of feeds we used to only dream of. Need any help hooking yourself up?"
Campbell's cart fit snugly into the space allotted in the belly of the instrumentation panel. "No, I'm fine, thanks," the cylinder answered. "Dr. Bishop, everyone?"
A murmur of assent went up from Dr. Bishop and the English scientists.
"All right, then," said Campbell's cylinder. "Let's see what your girls have to show us."
Rapoza nodded and signaled the other engineers. The control room for the Express was at APL, in Maryland, but this was where the scientific instruments were controlled from, and they got the first look at all the incoming data. Alice was the probe's ultraviolet, X, and gamma imaging spectrometer. PEPSSI was the plasma sensor. As for LORRI, the images coming in off the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager were up on the room's main screen. Pluto wasn't much more than a glimmer in the distance, of course, but considering the technology involved it was one of the most detailed glimmers in NASA history. The British scientists were chattering excitedly to one another and to Dr. Ciaglia, the woman who'd brought them in, mostly asking about comparisons to earlier deep visual field imaging taken from Earth orbit. Rapoza was more than happy to let her handle that. Alice was his baby, and it warmed his heart to see that Dr. Campbell's own monitoring screen was flooding with data from the spectrometer.
With very strange data from the spectrometer.
"Dr. Campbell?" said Rapoza, leaning forward to peer at the screen. "What in the hell are you looking at?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing," the cylinder said grimly. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Pluto proper that cluster of pixels just right of center?"
"Coulda sworn it was," said Rapoza. "Let me try something with my controls-"
The image that Alice was returning looked... well, honestly? If he'd seen a visual spectrum camera spit up an image like that, he would've told somebody to go wipe the lens off. It looked like Alice was doing the equivalent of peering through a huge, distorting raindrop. They'd all been looking forward to getting a look at Pluto's atmosphere, but Alice shouldn't've been able to pick up on that just yet. Hell, the Express wasn't even as close as Neptune's orbit yet. No way it ought to've been picking up that kind of gamma distortion. It looked-
"Son of a bitch," Rapoza swore. "That thing's the size of Earth! What the hell?"
"It's not there on LORRI," said Dr. Ciaglia, peering over Rapoza's shoulder. "There's nothing at all in the visual spectrum- Dr. Campbell, would you mind?"
Obligingly, Campbell switched the image on his screen for a visual of corresponding size and placement. Pluto was exactly where they'd left it, but in the space marked out by Alice's scans there was no corresponding object. There were even a few stars visible in the distance. Campbell's cylinder hummed briefly as the disembodied scientist fiddled with the two images, and then superimposed LORRI's readout over Alice's.
Either Pluto's atmosphere was sufficiently large and active in the farthest gamma portion of the EM spectrum as to mimic that of a planet the size of Earth, or something was very, very wrong. Rapoza swore under his breath and turned back to his panel. "It was working five minutes ago," he muttered. "It was just fine five minutes ago. I've got the damn diagnostics-"
"I don't doubt you do." Campbell's tinny voice was surprisingly gentle. "I doubt very much that this is a flaw in your machinery, Mr. Rapoza. This is something else entirely."
Dr. Bishop's fingers tightened on the top-most part of the cylinder.
"'The sun shines there no brighter than a star,'" Campbell quoted, his voice not much more than a mechanized whisper, "'but the beings need no light. They have other subtler senses, and put no windows in their great houses and temples...'"
Clyde Tombaugh Science Operations Center
Boulder, CO
"Move over, Charlie," called a woman's voice from down the hall. "Dr. Bishop and the guys from Jodrell Bank are here."
"Thank you," said another woman's voice.
Charlie Rapoza grinned and started scooting chairs away from the custom-built, specially low instrumentation panel. T-SOC had been planning for a visit from Britain for months, and these days anything involving British space science involved Dr. Campbell, and by default, Dr. Bishop. Sure enough, the distinctly tinny sound of Dr. Campbell's piped-out voice spoke up: "I do hope you've got something promising for us today, after all the rot they put us through to get here..."
The go-kart wheeled around the doorframe and into the control room, Dr. Campbell's cylinder gleaming under the fluorescent lights. Dr. Campbell had achieved an amazing amount of mobility and control over the thing since his return to Earth last December, but it was still a little unwieldy. "Hallo, Rapoza," the cylinder called. "They tell us you've been getting some nice snaps from the Pluto Kuiper Express?"
As the rest of the English delegation- three scientists Rapoza didn't know and Dr. Bishop, who'd become Campbell's inseparable companion almost as soon as they'd stepped off the spaceplane- filed into the room, Rapoza nodded. "Sure have," he said. "Alice, LORRI, and PEPSSI're all churning out the kinds of feeds we used to only dream of. Need any help hooking yourself up?"
Campbell's cart fit snugly into the space allotted in the belly of the instrumentation panel. "No, I'm fine, thanks," the cylinder answered. "Dr. Bishop, everyone?"
A murmur of assent went up from Dr. Bishop and the English scientists.
"All right, then," said Campbell's cylinder. "Let's see what your girls have to show us."
Rapoza nodded and signaled the other engineers. The control room for the Express was at APL, in Maryland, but this was where the scientific instruments were controlled from, and they got the first look at all the incoming data. Alice was the probe's ultraviolet, X, and gamma imaging spectrometer. PEPSSI was the plasma sensor. As for LORRI, the images coming in off the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager were up on the room's main screen. Pluto wasn't much more than a glimmer in the distance, of course, but considering the technology involved it was one of the most detailed glimmers in NASA history. The British scientists were chattering excitedly to one another and to Dr. Ciaglia, the woman who'd brought them in, mostly asking about comparisons to earlier deep visual field imaging taken from Earth orbit. Rapoza was more than happy to let her handle that. Alice was his baby, and it warmed his heart to see that Dr. Campbell's own monitoring screen was flooding with data from the spectrometer.
With very strange data from the spectrometer.
"Dr. Campbell?" said Rapoza, leaning forward to peer at the screen. "What in the hell are you looking at?"
"I was about to ask you the same thing," the cylinder said grimly. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Pluto proper that cluster of pixels just right of center?"
"Coulda sworn it was," said Rapoza. "Let me try something with my controls-"
The image that Alice was returning looked... well, honestly? If he'd seen a visual spectrum camera spit up an image like that, he would've told somebody to go wipe the lens off. It looked like Alice was doing the equivalent of peering through a huge, distorting raindrop. They'd all been looking forward to getting a look at Pluto's atmosphere, but Alice shouldn't've been able to pick up on that just yet. Hell, the Express wasn't even as close as Neptune's orbit yet. No way it ought to've been picking up that kind of gamma distortion. It looked-
"Son of a bitch," Rapoza swore. "That thing's the size of Earth! What the hell?"
"It's not there on LORRI," said Dr. Ciaglia, peering over Rapoza's shoulder. "There's nothing at all in the visual spectrum- Dr. Campbell, would you mind?"
Obligingly, Campbell switched the image on his screen for a visual of corresponding size and placement. Pluto was exactly where they'd left it, but in the space marked out by Alice's scans there was no corresponding object. There were even a few stars visible in the distance. Campbell's cylinder hummed briefly as the disembodied scientist fiddled with the two images, and then superimposed LORRI's readout over Alice's.
Either Pluto's atmosphere was sufficiently large and active in the farthest gamma portion of the EM spectrum as to mimic that of a planet the size of Earth, or something was very, very wrong. Rapoza swore under his breath and turned back to his panel. "It was working five minutes ago," he muttered. "It was just fine five minutes ago. I've got the damn diagnostics-"
"I don't doubt you do." Campbell's tinny voice was surprisingly gentle. "I doubt very much that this is a flaw in your machinery, Mr. Rapoza. This is something else entirely."
Dr. Bishop's fingers tightened on the top-most part of the cylinder.
"'The sun shines there no brighter than a star,'" Campbell quoted, his voice not much more than a mechanized whisper, "'but the beings need no light. They have other subtler senses, and put no windows in their great houses and temples...'"
