Читать книгу The Andromeda Evolution - Michael Crichton - Страница 14

THE COALITION OF COUNTRIES THAT FUNDED THE International Space Station (and hoped to share in its discoveries) had neglected to include one of the largest and most ancient civilizations in the world—a proud and capable nation with the strength to develop its own competing effort to study Andromeda.

Alone and forced to act unilaterally, the People’s Republic of China inevitably set out to do just that.

Suspicion, distrust, and competitiveness had fractured the international effort to understand the Andromeda Strain. Although the AS-1 microparticle had proven that it would kill any human with equal savagery, no matter their ethnicity, the vagaries of politics blunted what could have been a united response. And that enmity came to a head with the creation of a new space station.

The Tiangong-1, whose name meant “heavenly palace” in Chinese, was launched on September 29, 2011. It was an auspicious date for both travel and grand openings, according to the astrological predictions of the Chinese zodiac calendar, the Sheng Xiao. After a successful launch, the station was placed into orbit at a slightly inclined attitude of nineteen degrees—a trajectory that coincided perfectly with regular resupply launches from the Chinese Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Hainan Province.

Although the launch had not been advertised, American spy agencies watched intently and continued to monitor the station until its premature demise.

The end occurred in 2013, only two years into the multibillion-yen effort, when China suddenly announced that the project was over. Authorities there officially hailed Tiangong-1 as an “unmitigated success for the China National Space Administration and the Chinese people.”

However, around-the-clock observation from a series of earth-based imaging assets revealed a narrative very different than that of the official reports. It seemed Chinese Mission Control had lost radio contact, including telemetry, with their station.

Without any means of control, the Tiangong-1 fell into a decaying orbit.

Thermal readings from multiple spy agencies determined that life support had been shut off, with the surface of the station as cold as the space around it. Abandoned, the station continued to orbit the earth for several years, engines offline and radios silent.

On April 10, 2018, the scant air particles percolating in the upper atmosphere finally managed to drag the station into destructive reentry. The metal cylinder was ripped to superheated shreds by atmospheric friction, reduced to a flaming confetti that rained down on the planet below—directly above the primordial jungles of the eastern Amazon.

Thus, the entire effort ended in a brief streak of light and heat.

The failure would likely have been deemed harmless were it not for a single, final bit of information. During the continuous monitoring of the space station—from launch, to resupply missions, to its last fiery reentry—operatives had noticed something the Chinese space agency never mentioned publicly.

The last crew of three taikonauts had never emerged from the Tiangong-1.