The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(50)

“Righteousness should be a reward in itself.” I pulled the envelope open and more envelopes fell out. “Damn.”

“Ha!” Nathaniel opened the refrigerator and said again, “Ha!”

“Sandwiches, husband.” Some of the envelopes had beautiful penmanship, others had been addressed in actual crayon. Bemused, I picked up one of the crayon-addressed envelopes and laughed aloud. “This is addressed to The Lady Astronaut—well … more accurately, it’s the Laddy Astronot.”

“That will be my new pet name for you.” Nathaniel set a cup of iced tea on the table next to me. “Chicken on rye okay?”

“Mm-hm … a little onion, too, please?” I opened the Laddy Astronot letter and pulled out a sheet of grubby primer paper. “Oh … My heart is going to break. Listen to this: ‘Dere Laddy Astronot I want to go into space to. Do you have a roket ship? I want a rokket ship for Christ mas. Your fred, Sally Hardesty.’ And there’s a picture of a rocket.”

“Just wait until you actually get into space.” Dishes rattled behind me as he worked on the sandwiches. “We’ll have to get a bigger mailbox.”

“If. And that’s a big if, with a lot of other ifs before it.” I put Sally’s letter back in the envelope and set it aside. I wouldn’t be able to answer her until Shabbat was over, but I could triage the letters. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to answer all of them, but at least Sally Hardesty and the other crayon writers.

“I have faith—”

“I thought you were a bad Jew.”

“I have faith in you. Speaking of which, I could use your help on an orbital parameter question.” He pulled a loaf out of the breadbox and set it on the counter.

“Use a cutting board.”

“I was going to.” Releasing the knife he’d grabbed, Nathaniel bent to retrieve the cutting board from under the sink. “I think we can skip the translunar orbit and go straight to a lunar orbit, which would save a lot of time and materials.”

“And risk the astronauts’ lives through inadequate testing?” I pulled another letter toward me and ran my finger under the flap to open it.

Dear Dr. York, I didn’t know that girls were allowed to be doctors …

“I’m not saying we’d skip the Earth orbit, just the translunar one. We’re sending an unmanned mission around the moon to get pictures in September, so we’ll know that orbit can be done. Having someone orbit the moon, though…”

… I would like to be a doctor … “A lunar orbit involves transferring in and out of orbit, which is a whole different set of orbital mechanics. You have to change from the sphere of Earth’s influence to the moon’s and—”

“I know. I’m not asking about the mechanics of it. You already worked out fuel consumption and a flight plan … What I’m asking is if there’s any compelling reason to do the translunar orbit as a manned mission.”

“Seems like something you should be asking Parker.” I slapped the letter down on the table, not even sure why I was irritated with Nathaniel.

“Well, he’s not a physicist, is he?”

Ah … that was it. We’d been here before, where he asked me for advice because he wanted to prove Parker wrong about something. It reminded me too much of my college days, and being used as a tool to keep young men in line in math class. Nathaniel only knew about that in the most general sense, mostly as stories that I managed to make sound funny.

I took a slow breath and folded the letter carefully. Pressing down on the fold with my thumbnail, I creased the paper with a fair bit of vigor. “Sorry. I just … Okay. The primary reason to do the translunar orbit first is so that if we’re wrong about fuel consumption for the transit, it gives the crew a larger margin of error for getting home. And they only get one shot.”

“But the math—”

“Sweetie … I’m a physicist, but I’m also a pilot. If you’re asking me to tell you that skipping steps is okay, I’m not going to do it. They get one shot at getting home. If the math is off, even a little, and they don’t have the fuel to correct, then they go shooting past the Earth, or burn up on reentry.” I shoved the letter into the envelope. “And I also don’t want to work on Shabbat.”

“You’re answering fan mail. Doesn’t that involve writ ing?” His voice was consciously lighthearted, and I loved him for making the effort.

“I’m reading, not writing.”

He set a sandwich next to me, the bread sliced in a diagonal. Leaning down, he kissed the top of my head. “You’re right. And I’m sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have gotten cranky.”

“Well, let’s eat lunch, and then…” He walked to the shelf and pulled down a book. “And then, I’ll read.”

Narrowing my eyes, I stacked the letters on the side of the table until after lunch. “I see the word Mars on that.”

He laughed and showed me the cover. “It’s a novel. Clemmons lent it to me. Says it’s a comedy, at least in terms of spaceflight. Does that count as taking the day off?”

“Yes.” I beamed up at him. “Yes. And thank you.”

*

We had been sitting in the “dark room” with nothing to do for the last two hours and twenty-three minutes—and yes, we were all counting—as we waited for them to resolve an “issue” so the countdown clock could continue. It wasn’t even anything wrong with the rocket itself, just an automatic cutoff that tripped when it shouldn’t have at T-minus thirty seconds and holding. It had to be worse for the three men strapped into the giant Jupiter V rocket outside.