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ASO-6

ANOMALOUS SPACE OBJECT Six was not a large chunk; in fact, by the time fiery reentry had burned off a bit, it would weigh just forty pounds on impact. The impact had been carefully calculated to be in the Atlantic Ocean, four hundred nautical miles west-northwest of São Miguel Island in the Azores.

But the loose grip of astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper changed that. During a 2008 space walk, astronaut Stefanyshyn-Piper had accidentally let go of a briefcase-sized tool kit.

Because ASO-6 was smallish, it picked up a bit of a wobble when it smacked into that orbiting space garbage, and went off in a different direction than its original trajectory. It hit water thirty miles off the coast of the Kings Bay submarine base in Georgia, just north of the Florida line.

The water wasn’t deep by Atlantic Ocean standards. The rock would likely be recoverable. But the vessels intended to carry out the recovery were all about two thousand miles from the location, a trip that would take them days to complete.

In the meantime the Coast Guard cutter Abbie Burgess was dispatched to monitor the scene.

Fourteen hours later, with the undersea research flotilla steaming toward them, the Abbie Burgess sank, with the loss of twenty-one lives.

The only radio message to be heard from the Abbie Burgess was, “Oh, God! Oh, G—”

A Coast Guard helicopter sent to the scene found only a few bits of floating wreckage. And no bodies.