The Alignment Support System Hatchway Open Launch Engineer

For the last four years, eight months and fourteen days, Mark Wallace had worked this same desk in the basement of NASA’s Launch Control Center. For every launch, scrubbed launch and practice launch since moving to this office, he had sat at this same spot, and at the two seconds to lift-off mark had hit the same sequence of commands: blue square, green circle. There had been hiccups along the way, of course, but Mark’s mother had assured him that was normal at a place like NASA. 

The worst of these hiccups had taken place on the third launch at his old desk in the main control room upstairs when, because he was trying to pick up the Twinkie he had just dropped, Mark had forgotten to hit the button which released the walkway from the rocket. The rocket had tried taking off but, due to the reinforced steel still tethering it to the launch pad, it had only risen a few feet before ripping the walkway from the tower and crashing in an immense fireball a few hundred feet away on the adjacent runway.

But that was old news at this point. The walkway had been repaired, the rocket replaced and the runway re-paved. And while there had been some issues for his bosses, as the walkway issue had caused that project to go over-budget by a few million, and pushed all the other launches back almost a year, none of it appeared to have been all that serious. As his mother had said when the Administrator had mentioned this to her during one of her House budget hearings a few weeks later, “You’re NASA! That’s pocket-change!”

And besides, if it had been a big deal, he would not have promoted soon after to head up a department in public affairs as the Under Secretary for Evening Lunchroom Expert Science Symposiums. There, Mark had earned yet another promotion, after he had booked a large event with the entire Chinese National Space Administration science department, complete with a self-guided tour of one of the research labs. After that, the Administrator himself had gone back to speak with his mother about how great of a job he was doing, and decided with her that yet another promotion was in order. Now, he was the Alignment Support System Hatchway Open Launch Engineer, had a private office during launches, and his own control terminal where he was charged with making sure that the hatchway on the alignment support system opened for launches. Mark had still not quite figured out where the hatchway he opened was, but he had been assured that his work was necessary to ensure the success of each launch

So, as Mark heard the main controller say “8, go for main engine start”, he spun around in his chair to prepare. Unfortunately, in his eagerness, Mark’s elbow had knocked over the cup of tea that had been sitting on the edge of his terminal. Mark’s jaw dropped as the tea began to quickly spread across it, and under the buttons on the panel. Mark sprung to his feet as he heard the controller announce “7”, and began trying, and failing to soak up the tea without pressing any of the buttons on the panel. As he heard the controller move from “6, main engine ignition” to “5”, Mark stopped trying to soak up the tea, and instead began yelling into the microphone on his desk to stop the launch. He could not, WOULD not, be responsible for yet another lost rocket. As pleased as he knew his bosses were with him, as great as he had done his job over the last few years, he did not know if even his nearly perfect record would protect him if he caused the launch to fail.

But, to Mark’s horror, it appeared the tea had reached the microphone’s circuits, and it had stopped working. No one upstairs could hear him. And if the microphone was out, so too was the rest of the panel. He heard the countdown hit “4”, and decided there was nothing else to do. Drastic measures were necessary. It was these types of decisions that his bosses trusted him to make. It was why he was given a private office from which to work, while the rest of the team needed to be in the main control room, supervised by dozens of others. He sprinted around his desk, found the power cord and yanked with all his might to try and pull it from the outlet in the floor. He knew this would mean the launch being scrubbed, and the dressing down he was in for. He knew it might cost him his private control room. And for what? His morning cup of Earl Grey? But his comfort and pride were nothing to the millions of dollars that would be lost if he couldn’t hit his sequence. His bosses had been crystal clear when they had moved him down here: if he didn’t hit those buttons on time, the launch would fail. If the hatchway of the alignment support system didn’t open, it would be his head on the line.  

So Mark planted his feet, bent low in a squat, wrapped the cord around his hand for extra leverage and exploded backwards, pulling as he had never pulled before. This would be no easy feat, even for Mark. NASA regulations required that the cord be able to withstand 400 pounds of force before coming unplugged. Mark had learned that the hard way when he had tripped over cords at least a dozen times before. But as the announcer hit “2”, Mark was surprised to find himself flat on his back, the power cord in his hand. He had pulled the power cord clean out of the compartment in the floor, and had done so without a problem. He knew his workouts had been going well, but this seemed a bit much. It was as if the cord hadn’t been secured at all. But someone else’s mistake wasn’t Mark’s problem. Heck, his supervisors would probably give him a commendation for pointing out the installation error with the power cord. And imagine if this was not the only one! Mark could already visualize the award ceremony, and hear the praise coming down for discovering this major issue.

But, it was the present that was most important now. And lying on the ground, cord in hand,

Mark let out a huge sigh of relief, knowing that he had saved the American taxpayer millions of dollars. But his feelings of bliss soon turned to horror as he heard “0 and liftoff.” Mark heard the cheering from above him, but didn’t understand. The launch could not have happened. Instead of liftoff and cheering he should have heard yells of confusion and anger. Any moment he should have seen his bosses storming into the room to figure out what had happened to him. Had he pulled the wrong cord? Impossible. There had only been one cord back there. Mark scrambled to the hole in the ground where his terminal had been plugged in. Looking down into it he saw that it was just an empty hole, with no outlet. And at that moment, Mark realized, for the first time, what so many others had known for so long: his terminal had never been plugged in.