I stood outside the little radio room and watched as the others talked with family. Just a few minutes each. I didn’t really listen because these were private conversations between spouses or with children and while we all knew about the asteroid, I don’t think any of us really thought that it would hit. A glancing blow, or maybe a huge atmospheric detonation like in Siberia in 1908 which devastated the forests for hundreds of miles and created spectacular sunsets for a couple of years but that didn’t alter the climate and destroy civilization. We just couldn’t believe that this was a planet killer.
When we had finished with our private business, we went back to the work NASA had assigned us. The President, I think, as he talked about this on television in the hours before the impact made it clear that no one should take this as a sign to quit work, to spend freely, commit crimes, or change their lifestyle. True, if the asteroid hit land, the surrounding territory would be destroyed and hundreds of thousands, probably millions, would be killed, but there would be survivors. Civilization would survive. In a kind of a joke, he said that the IRS wouldn’t be worried about a little asteroid and they’d be there on April 15th, with their hands out, waiting for their cut of the money that we earned.
I didn’t understand the President’s warning at the time. It seemed like just so much rhetoric, but someone had to explain that the rules still applied and if you were among those who survived the asteroid, there would be an accounting for aberrant behavior at some point. The magnitude of the disaster just couldn’t be comprehended by a human mind that had never experienced an extinction level event.
So, in addition to our normal assignments, carried out with a precision that we hadn’t shown before, we had to watch the asteroid as it approached and report on anything out of the ordinary. We were looking for anything that would tell us that the orbital detail, worked out on so many computers, by so many scientists, was somehow wrong and the object would somehow miss the earth.
The one thing that I had to laugh about. The one thing that didn’t seem to change was the idea that the United States was somehow responsible for this. Something we had done in space had sent the asteroid spinning toward us. It was retribution for our pollution of the planet, the moon, Mars, and the space around us. It was the cost of our excessive consumption of the world’s resources. But when we suggested an atomic answer. When we said that a properly placed detonation might be enough to nudge the thing away from earth, the cries began. We’d better not launch any weapon if we feared retaliation. There were voices who challenged us just because we were Americans and we had, what we thought of an answer . . . or rather, some of us thought we had an answer.
Ballistic missiles aimed into space was the only thing that could be done, given the short time we had. Fancy tales of huge solar wings, lasers focusing on a single spot, or ion engines to nudge it aside didn’t have time to be created, launched and then used. Atomic weapons were the only chance and I knew that it wasn’t much of a chance. I suspect the President knew it too, but he had nothing to lose by ordering the launch.
I went to watch the show on the flat panel because it was something to do. The launch of the weapons, while spectacular on earth, wasn’t much to see from space, not to mention that the launch site was on the other side of the planet. There were feeds from the launch sites so that I did get to see some of that. But it was just missiles lifting from their holes hidden around the United States, and surprisingly, on some of the Pacific Islands that had been contested during World War Two.
Thinking about it, I’m not sure that anyone expected this to work. It was a last ditch effort, made because we just didn’t have any other choice. The danger was breaking the thing into a hundred pieces, but, of course not all of them would have hit the earth and it would be better to be peppered by a bunch of little rocks rather than one huge planet killer, if we could break it into small enough pieces.
Of course, all that debris could have super heated the atmosphere creating a whole different set of problems. But when you’ve run out of logical choices, you run with the illogical.
Once the missiles had cleared the atmosphere and ripped into space, the television coverage changed. No longer could they see the missiles, but they could illustrate them in flight in a hundred different ways. There were facts about the warheads, the size of the launch vehicle, discussions of throw weight, and a hundred other details that meant nothing to anyone but filled the air time. Or the news hole, if you were thinking in the old print medium days. Besides, the purpose was not to destroy the asteroid but to push it. Everyone knew that it would work and the mood in the television studio was upbeat, nearly giddy. Had they interviewed the man on the street they would have seen thousands getting drunk while others celebrated the salvation of the Earth by atomic energy.
I leaned back in the molded chair that was bolted to the deck and wished for a martini. Normally, I don’t drink that much, but once in a while I felt the need for a drink. But, of course, there was no alcohol on the station and although I knew that some of the earlier residents had sneaked a bottle or two up, I hadn’t done it, never figuring we’d end up watching a desperate attempt for planetary salvation.
Tracking cameras, telescopes, satellites and television kept us informed of the progress of the missiles and as the time of the impact approached, the others joined me in the cramped little alcove we thought of as the radio room. They hadn’t been interested in the launch because there would be nothing to see that we all hadn’t seen a thousand times before. Besides, we had first-hand experience in a launch so why would we care to see a missile or two, or a hundred for that matter, without crew, lift off.
But now that the missiles were nearing the target, everyone wanted to watch. The little alcove was crowded with only the five of us as we watched the flat panel. The commentary of the talking heads was the same half-bright descriptions of what was going to happen and their opinions about the success of the plan. The fate of the world, literally, hung in the balance and they were making the same inane comments they would have made had the story been about the wreck of a commercial airliner or a hurricane ripping up the coast. They just weren’t bright enough to understand what they were watching.