Skyfall

“We still have difficulty in realizing how big Prometheus is. When you say as high as a forty-storey building or as heavy as a battleship, some feeling is conveyed. But not the combined complexity of its construction, for this spaceship is really seven separate machines in one. This program is being transmitted on radio as well as television, and you lucky TV viewers must realize how impossible to visualize it must be for someone, say, in a small Asian village who has only seen a few simple machines in his lifetime. Perhaps the easiest way to understand its construction is to hold out your hand with fingers straight, then bring all the fingers together until they touch and make a circle. These fingers are the boosters, each one a completely separate rocket with its own fuel, pumps, motors, everything. Now if you take a pen with its cap on and, cap in your other hand, push it down between your fingers you will have some idea of the construction of Prometheus. The fingers and the pen, called the core body, are all the same. Complete rocket ships in their own rights. The cap is he payload, Prometheus, the part of the ship that will go into orbit high above Earth. And stay there forever.

“At takeoff all the boosters fire, as does the core body. Their fuel is the most powerful in the universe, hydrogen and oxygen, and it will be gulped and burned at the rate of fourteen thousand gallons a second. Yet this complex machine will not only burn fuel at that tremendous rate, but will transfer fuel from the outer boosters into the core body. This will be pumped in as fast as the core body burns its own fuel so that finally, when the boosters are empty and fall away, the core body will have a complete load of fuel. With the boosters gone the core body will burn to insert Prometheus into low orbit, then it will drop away as well, its job well done. At that point Prometheus will fire its own nuclear engine to push itself higher and higher into the correct orbit. Complex, yes, but still practical, for these Lenin-5 boosters have had a number of successful missions lifting larger and larger payloads into space. Also. . wait, a minute, yes, my countdown clock's moving again! The hold's over. Let's hope it's the final hold so I return you to Ground Control…”

“Two minutes,” Patrick said, “and this is it. The countdown now is automatic and locked in. They can't stop us.” He turned on the ship's intercom. “Crew compartment, are you secure?”

“In position,” Coretta said. “No changes, bio monitors functioning and all readings within predicted parameters.”

“Which means no one has died of boredom or fright yet,” Patrick said. “Roger. You can listen in but I won't have time to talk to you until after booster shutdown. This is it crew — we're on the way!”

“One minute fifteen seconds and counting.”

The computer was running the entire operation now, issuing instructions to men and machines, opening and closing switches — and counting down towards zero and lift-off.

“Minus eleven seconds and counting.”

“Minus ten.”

“Minus nine.”

A throb, more vibration than sound, swept through the towering metal structure as the engines ignited. Their flames shot down into the pit below and boiled out as smoke and steam at the sides. Second by second their thrust level rose until at zero the hold-down clamps would release.

“Three… two… one… zero!”

At full thrust the engines generated a fraction more lift than the immense weight of Prometheus. The clamps pulled free and flames wrapped the umbilical tower. Now the ground shook with the intensity of the rockets and the air roared and crackled with unbelievable sound.

Slowly, infinitely slowly, only ten feet in the first second, the towering cluster of rockets rose into the air.

“We have lift-off!”

Noise. Vibration. Thunder. Patrick found himself thrown back and forth against the restraint of his strap as the vectoring engines swiveled in their mounts to keep their course vertical. The first six seconds were critical, until they passed the umbilical tower and their speed built up. At lift-off the digital timer began to operate, its numbers flicking from 00:00:00 to 00:00:01, ticking off the seconds steadily to measure GET, the Ground Elapsed Time.

00:00:04. The G forces; the gravity that pushed them down into their couches was beginning to build.

00:00:06 First danger past. All instruments reading in the green.

Second by second the thrust increased until it reached 4.5G then 5G where it held firm. Five gravities pressing them down into their couches, standing on their chests and making breathing difficult. They had all learned how to breathe under high G in the centrifuge. Never breathe out all the way or it will be almost impossible to fill your lungs again. Keep your lungs full at all times, just letting out short breaths and breathing right in again.

Pressure and acceleration. Speed. The engines gulped sixty tons of fuel a second and pushed the great structure on, faster and faster.