As the habitat’s attitude leveled out, while suspended beneath the three huge parachutes, Carl glanced over at the nearest porthole. Entranced, he witnessed the fiery atmospheric entry of the Falcon 9 booster that had been their counterweight for the past six and a half months. As he watched it during the two to three seconds it was visible, an ominous thought traversed his mind: ‘I trust that was the Falcon 9 booster and not our Earth Return Vehicle turning into a charcoal briquette.’
Tom contemplated a previous historic moment. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the surface of the moon, Neil announced, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” However, Tom won’t be able to make such a proclamation, at least not until he gets the word from Ty that all is a GO on his end.
*
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Charlie is very good at what he does; problem solving and making things happen. Like many in his line of work, he is a man of multiple skills. Being a veteran pilot, Charlie can fly pretty much anything that has wings, along with a half-dozen, or so, things without, so he says. Within half an hour of Steve’s order, he had managed to wrangle up a Leer Jet Challenger 300. This particular craft, which seats eight passengers and a pilot, can make the trip from Charlottesville to Houston in just under two hours with Ty, Steve and five members of his ATAC team onboard. Moments before the 3 a.m. landing, Ty conveyed the necessary message to Tom:
From: Tyler Cody
Subject: Mars Landing Announcement
Date: November 28, 2018 2:55 a.m.
To: Thomas Castle
(CLT): 8 min 9.93 sec
Tom,
I assume you have made landing by this time. With the time lag, it takes some eight minutes for these communications to travel one-way. By the time you receive this and send a reply, we should be entering the control room of Mission Support. Give us a few minutes to take control of the situation and then feel free to broadcast to the world that you have safely touched down on Mars. I’ll make sure that message goes out on all channels and into the history books.