It was a good thing Ken Redmond was used to being able to concentrate in noisy environments, because his office here in Engineering was anything but quiet. Not surprising when it had been constructed of the lunar equivalent of wallboard, fastened to a frame of lunar aluminum.
In a city where pressurized volume was at a premium, noisy machinery was never far away. Not so close as to require hearing protection, but still an ever-changing background din, just enough to draw one’s attention, to disrupt one’s focus on the task at hand. And given that he was looking over specs for a new installation, he needed his attention on his work.
Which was why he did not appreciate having his phone pick that moment to start ringing. Glowering, he grabbed it and growled, “Engineering, Redmond speaking.”
“This is Carter Branning down at Flight Ops. One of my crews just pulled a cryo-pump on one of the landers, and we’ve got a major problem. You know those low-temperature bearings we’ve been having no end of trouble with? They’re going out on this one too, and NASA’s had our spares backordered since before this mess started.”
A chill brought gooseflesh to Ken’s skin, even in the ever-present heat of Engineering. Without working cryo-pumps to move cryogenic fuels and oxidizers, spacecraft couldn’t fly. Although it would be possible to pull a working cryo-pump from a lander with a different problem, you couldn’t do it indefinitely. Eventually you had to either have a new supply of spares or you were sidelining so many that your fleet was understrength.
“Have you asked over at Slayton Field or Coopersvile whether they have any extras?”
“First thing I tried, and they’re under minimum to be able to lend us any. Even called Edo Settlement, since JAXA uses a lot of our equipment, but that’s one item they didn’t adopt. Everyone knows those things are garbage, and it was a political decision to switch away from McHenery Aerospace to the bozos who made them.”
Ken had plenty of recriminations of his own, but they didn’t get equipment repaired. “I’ll talk to Zack, see if he knows of anything compatible we’re using for other applications. Otherwise, we’re going to have to fabricate something, and those low-temperature applications are the devil.”
“Tell me about it. We’ve got a complete machine shop down here at Flight Ops, but even it doesn’t have the equipment to work on low-temperature fittings for cryo-pumps. Things start acting weird when you’re talking single digits in Kelvin.”
Ken had too much to do right now to waste time grousing about the situation. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know what we’re going to be looking at.”
Now to get Zack on the horn and get that kid to work on the problem. Then Ken could finally get back to what he was supposed to be doing, that actually needed his authority.