First to the Sun - 1. Story

Dawn began, as it so often does, in the east on that troubled day.

“Gentleman, we have a problem,” declaimed General Houston.

“You can say that again, Houston, we definitely have a problem,” said the janitor, in whom Houston most often engaged regarding affairs of state.

Waving and wafting thick sheaves of paper through the air, the General rambled on, “Now, as if the problems here on Earth were not enough, the Sun is acting up.”

“Whose son?” inquired the janitor as he fervently polished the brass.

“Quit shining my head and I’ll explain,” the General said, gesticulating wildly in his enraptured state at a profusion of charts. “It’s the Sun, you know, s-u-n. That bright thing the Earth orbits. Solar activity is still very low, so low it’s off the top of the charts.”

Coming up for air, his task hardly done, the janitor turned the charts right side up before declaring, “That’s a big worry, but what can we do?”

Shrugging and tugging, the General deflated, “Not much, I suppose, but I think this could be serious and in need of probing!”

Bending with new fury on his shrinking task, the janitor’s muffled voice could be heard. “Houston, can’t Congress help?”

“It sure relieves the tension,” the General said with gasp, “Oh, you mean Congress, them... ah, yeah, harder, that...”

The janitor, planting the seed, groaned, “They love fact-finding, right? I’m sure they would amply reward anyone who made them look good.” The janitor delved deeply, plumbing the depths of his plan, as the enraptured General caught the thrust of his diatribe.

Minutes later, basking in the afterglow, listening to the roar of afterburners, the General let go of his zipper to snap his fingers, “Fortunately, I hold the answer to it all: The United States Congress!”

“I wish I’d have thought of that,” said the janitor in a sarcastic tone, one that was lost, like so much else, on General Houston.

In that frenzied, impassioned dawn, the seed of success had been planted. From that enraptured notion, a plan would grow, swelling ever larger, destined to fulfill a dark and gaping need.

* * *

In the marble halls of Capital Hill (once known as Capitol Hill, before bribery was institutionalized), the denizens of Congress, great and greater, scurried about upon their endless, futile quest for useful purpose.

There was so much to do, and so little time. Or was that the other way around? Overarching all was the need to look like they were doing something. Disastrously, this occasionally resulted in something actually being done.

Congress is and always has been forthrightly devoted to preserving, protecting, and defending Congressional privilege. Foremost amongst those privileges was their most sacred duty: the finding of facts.

Facts, though, are persnickety things. They hide in the darnedest of places. Congress, ever virile in its quest, seeks them with verve and gusto; sparing no expense, (Congress is constitutionally incapable of sparing expense in any form. Indeed, they are utterly without mercy when it comes to expense) as they delve, long and deep, into the taxpayer’s ‘folds and thenceforth and thereby launching themselves on the trail of those ever-elusive facts.

If Congressional fact-finding missions are any indication, facts seem to primarily be the denizens of sunny climes. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, seems to find the Caribbean and the French Riviera to be areas very rich in facts that desperately need to be found.

Congress, through exhaustive research, has infallibly deduced that said facts most often are to be found in lush, tropical climes, lurking in five-star resorts. In such a state of affairs did the nation find itself, and thus, by virtue of the pressing Solar Problem, did it seize, prodded by a lustful janitor, upon the solution.

* * *

At the appointed hour, which was several days late as usual, General Houston stood in turgid reverence before a Senate subcommittee, and duly proposed that Congress should be sent on a fact-finding mission, to determine exactly what was going on with the sun.

A chorus of ribald exclamations resulted, passionate declarations of “Impossible,” and “I can’t spare the time to save the world, I’m up for re-election in five years!”

Calming the rampant disagreements, General Houston led the way, declaring loudly and often, “This is not a problem. We have the technology; all it takes is a firm will.”

Nodding sagely, and with a desultory glance at the General’s janitor, who had written the actual plan, the gathered denizens probed, “How can this be consummated?”

”The answer, in this case, is that Congress must act at once and investigate from intimate proximity,” the janitor replied.

Much debate followed, and the Senators, envisioning sunny climes, were obviously enraptured by the apparent thrust of the plan. The janitor, however, sealed the deal with one quiet phrase, “It would, incidentally, make you all national heroes and thus shoe-ins for reelection.”

Nearly two seconds later, the motion passed by unanimous acclamation. Congress, all five hundred and thirty five members of the House and Senate, leaped with lustful abandon at the proffered plan, though, as was their usual practice, not one of them bothered to read the details prior to voting on it. In this one case, in their rampant haste, they succeeded in doing unto themselves what they usually did to the taxpayers.

* * *

A crash program was initiated, and after the resulting horrific fiery crash in the parking lot, the actual work began.

It took months, and then the historic thrust commenced.

In groups of a hundred and fifty, the members of Congress, per the particulars of the bill they had so prematurely passed, were ushered aboard a fleet of private jets, heading south.

Once they were at the Cape, questions were run up the flagpole, mainly enquiring as to their destination, with a few members pondering whether it would be Jamaica, or the Caymans.

“No,” the janitor declared, pointing up into the noon sky, “You must break the surly bonds of earth and climb high, followed by your approval ratings once the public learns of your actions. Onward, to reelection, or remain here and face the ignobility of defeat.”

The rapturous lure of reelection beckoned them insatiably onwards, and without further questions, the esteemed members of Congress were guided, one by one, to their cryogenic chambers.

Two months later, the International Space Station, its solar panels glittering in the harsh sunlight of space, swooped within six miles of the Moon’s airless peaks. The station, using the last of the reaction mass for its solar-powered ion drive, whipped around the Moon, using it as a gravity handle, slingshoting the Space Station back along Earth’s orbital path fast enough to negate the Earth’s sixty-seven-thousand miles per hour orbital speed. The Space Station and its passengers were now motionless, relative to the sun. Gravity would do the rest.

* * *

In breathless rapture, a reporter covering the mission’s eagerly awaited terminal phase explained the daring venture to his TV audience. “Cryogenic suspension is the key. Normally, it is true that we don't know how to resuscitate someone who has been frozen, but in this case, with careful planning and a unique set of circumstances, that problem will not occur. Our intrepid congressional fact-finders have been placed into cryogenic suspension and in that state are undertaking their daring mission to save us all.”

General Houston paused in his frenzied mastication and with his mouth full mumbled, “I know that part, get on with it.”

The reporter resumed his ecstatic droning. “Once frozen, the members of Congress were loaded into Space Shuttle orbiter cargo bays to begin their journey.

“Once in orbit, they were stacked aboard the evacuated Space Station and its heating was turned off to maintain them in cryogenic suspension. At that point, the hastily installed solar-powered Ion drive was switched on, increasing the station's velocity –and thus raising its orbit– gradually. It took a month, but once the Moon was in an ideal location in its own orbit, approximately between the earth and the sun, the Ion drive fired again, propelling the space station on a last loop around the earth and then into a trans-lunar trajectory.”

“We know all that already, get to the good part,” the General gasped, meaning any accolades for his role. He was eager to expose his own personal plan to endow the nation.

The reporter shrugged. “From this point in the mission, it will take the Space Station, moving ever faster, sixty-five days to reach the Sun, at which point it will be traveling at over one hundred and fifty thousand miles per hour. This velocity is important, because the Space Station could not long remain intact in the sun's corona. Only the station’s enormous speed will get it to the sun's surface before the corona's heat can destroy it.

“The sun is, amongst other things, rather hot, over eleven thousand degrees at the visible surface. That temperature will suffice to quickly thaw the cryogenically-suspended members of Congress. On that joyous and historic day, they will be completely capable of doing their fact-finding with their normal level of competence.”

The janitor emerged from under the General’s table to say, “This project has been enormously costly but shall deliver us from our greatest peril.”

General Houston, zipping up his fly, stood up and proclaimed, “With this critical mission under my belt so near to its success, I hereby announce my candidacy for Congress.”

The janitor cast a sideways glance. “Isn’t that what we were just doing? Oh, wait, you mean you want to run for Congress...” The janitor shrugged and sighed, realizing that his task was not yet complete. “It is important to seize the day and passionately thrust forward into the sweet rapture of success. Generally speaking, I think we’ll need a follow-up mission to the Sun. Any objections?”

There were none.