There was the nearly simultaneous publication in America and England of practically identical ideas in 1985. Paul Birch published an article in The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, while in America Keith Lofstrom published his article in a supplement to The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, he recalled. Nobody could agree on the names: Skyrail, Launch Loop, Beanstalk. There were others, but the idea is what counted, the sky-shaking idea that you don’t need rockets to get into space.

  Newspapers were full of explanations three-and-a-half years ago when the aging president of a computer software giant made the announcement. He would funnel a significant portion of company profits into the consortium. Space travel would become as commonplace and inexpensive as the personal computers his pioneering work had made possible. He went on to outline the easy-to-understand concept.

  Imagine a water hose streaming water in a parabolic arch. Deflect the water and funnel it back to the start through a pump, creating a closed system. Make the stream strong enough and the hose light enough, and the entire structure will support itself—the water holding up the hose structure. Now, replace the water with a thin, closed-loop pipe of segmented soft iron. Make it 5,000 kilometers around and accelerate it to orbital velocity with gigantic linear induction motors from two points on the equator 2,000 kilometers apart. The center section of the structure, including both the outgoing and return legs of the loop, will rise to about eighty kilometers above the Earth. Supply access to the upstream end in space with a Kevlar-hung elevator, and you can launch capsules by magnetically coupling them to the rapidly moving pipe of iron.

  Slingshot, they called it. The greatest engineering undertaking in the history of the world, they said.

  As the on-scene project manager, Alex was responsible for getting the job done, on schedule, on budget. He was building a gossamer structure over 2,500 kilometers long, a frail spider web, completely invisible when viewed from more than a few kilometers. Alex grinned wryly. All Slingshot really consisted of was a fancy evacuated tube, a flexible iron pipe, four linear drivers and their power sources, some guy wires, and a couple of elevators. Put that way it seemed simple enough. But, of course, it wasn’t simple at all, and for all his skill and engineering competence, and despite surface appearances, deep down Alex was not entirely sure that he could make it happen.

  Margo and Alex climbed up the ladder and onto Skimmer One’s bobbing fantail. This was one of two skimmers on the project—twelve-meter-long surface-effect boats that looked more like a floating aircraft than a traditional motorboat. They were capable of 200 knots, skimming about one-and-a-half meters over the wave tops. They had a small open fantail, just large enough for a couple of divers to doff their gear. Being on the fantail when the skimmer was on its cushion was more than dangerous, and was strictly prohibited throughout the project.

  Alex signaled to the waiting coxswain, and they got underway for Baker, plowing through the water while Alex and Margo remained exposed. He and Margo stood near the stern railing and removed their dripping skins. Alex looked back at the buoys, now presumably in their proper places.

  “How many more times?” Alex looked quizzically at Margo.

  “Who knows?” She glanced back at the bobbing buoys. “We have repair people available at both ends. We shouldn’t be doing this ourselves, you know.” She turned and looked directly at Alex. “What do you think—weather or sabotage?”

  Alex shrugged and tossed the spent carbon dioxide cartridge from his shark stick in the general direction of the cavorting dolphins. “I wanted to see for myself, and I still don’t know. Does it matter? We can’t patrol the entire eighteen-hundred-twenty-eight-kilometer length anyway.”

  “What are we dealing with?” Margo asked. “You don’t get out here in a rowboat.”

  “We’re two thousand wet klicks from any kind of civilization,” Alex said. “At minimum, that’s a large motor-yacht or even an ocean sailer—you know, one of those we maybe can afford when this job is done.” He sighed. “We’re dealing with lots of money and someone with a major bitch.”

  He looked into her green eyes.

  “Just keep my tubes at depth.” His blue eyes flashed, and he turned toward the cockpit to radio his orders to test pipe continuity.

  Margo dropped her eyes at his challenge. For the thousandth time, she asked herself if she had bitten off more than she could chew with this assignment. Was it her fault that the flotation chambers kept ripping? Was she missing something important? Was she copping out to imply there might have been sabotage? And yet, Alex seemed to agree that it might be sabotage. When she joined the project two years ago, the newspapers had acclaimed her as the ideal role model for the new twenty-first-century woman. At times that burden lay heavily on her shoulders, as it did now, she reflected.

  It was a vast responsibility, and there was no way one person actually could control all of it at once. How Alex handled the weight of the entire project awed her, but she was careful never to let him know.

  Margo watched Alex step into the cockpit. He was tall and slender, richly tanned from his constant outdoor work. She felt a softness well up inside her, a gentle warmth spreading out from the pit of her stomach. She bit her lower lip and turned angrily to lean on the after-railing.

  None of that, she chided herself. This assignment was too important, and the stakes too high, to let any kind of emotion intrude. As she entered the cabin and sealed the port, the skipper switched modes, and pressurized air quickly filled the hard-sided skirt. In moments the skimmer lifted out of the water, except for the port and starboard skirts that protruded about a meter into the waves. Within seconds, high-pressure water nozzles jetted water from the end of each skirt, and within thirty seconds Skimmer One was approaching 200 knots.

  As Skimmer One headed into the afternoon sun, trailing an arrow-straight wake of white foam, Margo stood looking aft through the sealed port, remembering her instinctive sharing, and their underwater kiss following the fright of nearly becoming shark food. She shook off the sensation and busied herself with putting away their diving equipment. But a hint of a smile remained on her lips as they shot over the surface, finally settling back onto the water as they entered the small protected artificial harbor on the west side of Baker Island, just south of a shallow reef that went dry at low tide.

  You have just been reading from Chapter One of Slingshot, the 1st book in The Starchild Trilogy, Robert Williscroft’s exciting Science Fiction trilogy. To read the rest of this book, click here: Slingshot.

  Slingshot does for the launch loop what Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradise or Sheffield’s Web Between the Worlds did for the space elevator. Again, Williscroft delivers a great mix of hard science fiction and action.

  — Alastair Mayer

  Author of the T-Space Series

  Robert Williscroft deftly crafts an energetic story around a phenomenal technological development just over the horizon: the space launch loop. The technical detail woven into this story is an education unto itself. But don’t assume that Williscroft chooses raw infodump over story—Slingshot is an adventure that pulls you in, gives you characters that are engaging, and invites you to follow them through their challenges. What Williscroft has done in Slingshot is no easy task—he has balanced the hard aspect of science fiction with the character portrayals that those who despise that very hard science fiction beg for. The last decade has seen impressive leaps in the theoretical work toward the launch loop—this book couldn’t come too soon! And you won’t be able to keep from reading all the way to the end. Williscroft’s art continues to be praise-worthy!

  — Jason D. Batt, 100 Year Starship

  Author of The Tales of Dreamside series

  I’ve been a fan of Robert Williscroft’s books for a while now. They’re action-packed and filled with all kinds of interesting, real-world information. Slingshot fits right in.

  Slingshot is about the development of an earth-bound spaceport in which spaceships are taken 80 kilometers above the Earth by elevator and hurled onto their trajectory by a very fast moving ribbon of soft iron. It is much easier, cheaper, and cleaner to launch spaceships from here due to the rarified atmosphere. This concept may be a reality someday. The book begins with a foreword by Keith Lofstrom, the originator of this concept called the “launch loop.”

  Learning about the launch loop is the most interesting aspect of this novel. Williscroft’s descriptions of the construction techniques, its operations, and the benefits for space travel are absolutely fascinating. The book takes place about thirty years in the future, and I could easily see such a project becoming a reality in that time.

  The plot of the novel is driven by the development and construction of the project, which is being threatened by ill-informed environmentalists bent on destroying the project. The launch loop is far greener than the current method of launching vehicles into space, but a sinister power has misled the environmentalists into believing that sabotaging the launch loop is saving the planet. Meanwhile, the sinister power is protecting its own economic interests.

  As usual, Williscroft has created a cast of interesting and driven characters. The book is a fascinating read, and you are guaranteed not only to learn a lot, but to dream about the future of space travel.

  — Marc Weitz, Past President

  The Los Angeles Adventurers’ Club

  Click here to read Slingshot

  Dr. Robert G. Williscroft served twenty-three years in the U.S. Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He commenced his service as an enlisted nuclear Submarine Sonar Technician in 1961, was selected for the Navy Enlisted Scientific Education Program in 1966, and graduated from University of Washington in Marine Physics and Meteorology in 1969. He returned to nuclear submarines as the Navy’s first Poseidon Weapons Officer. Subsequently, he served as Navigator and Diving Officer on both catamaran mother vessels for the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle. Then he joined the Submarine Development Group One out of San Diego as the Officer-in-Charge of the Test Operations Group, conducting “deep-ocean surveillance and data acquisition”—which forms the basis for his Cold War novel Operation Ivy Bells.

  In NOAA Dr. Williscroft directed diving operations throughout the Pacific and Atlantic. As a certified diving instructor for both the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) and the Multinational Diving Educators Association (MDEA), he taught over 3,000 individuals both basic and advanced SCUBA diving. He authored four diving books, developed the first NAUI drysuit course, developed advanced curricula for mixed gas and other specialized diving modes, and developed and taught a NAUI course on the Math and Physics of Advanced Diving. His doctoral dissertation for California Coast University, A System for Protecting SCUBA Divers from the Hazards of Contaminated Water was published by the U.S. Department of Commerce and distributed to Port Captains worldwide. He also served three shipboard years in the high Arctic conducting scientific baseline studies, and thirteen months at the geographic South Pole in charge of National Science Foundation atmospheric projects.

  Dr. Williscroft has written extensively on terrorism and related subjects. He is the author of a popular book on current events published by Pelican Publishing: The Chicken Little Agenda—Debunking Experts’ Lies, now in its second edition as an eBook, and a new children’s book series, Starman Jones, in collaboration with Dr. Frank Drake, world-famous director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe and the SETI Institute.

  Dr. Williscroft’s 1st novel in The Starchild Trilogy, Slingshot, tells the story of the construction of the world’s first Space Launch Loop. Slingshot was launched at the Seattle International Space Elevator Conference in August 2015. His 2nd novel in The Starchild Trilogy, The Starchild Compact, is based on the discovery that Saturn’s moon Iapetus is actually a derelict starship, and how Earth explorers eventually meet with the “Founders,” who originally arrived on the starship and populated the Earth long ago. The 3rd book in The Starchild Trilogy, The Iapetus Federation, the Federation expands Solar Systemwide, while a new Caliphate sweeps Earth. The Starchild Institute creates wormhole portals to enable the Exodus. Earth becomes medieval, while human focus shifts to the Iapetus Federation. Humans settle every potentially habitable spot in the Solar System and begin expanding into the rest of the Galaxy.

  The SWIC Daedalus Files takes place in the world of Slingshot. In four short stories, Daedalus, Daedalus LEO, Daedalus Squad, and Daedalus Combat, Dr. Williscroft follows the U.S. Navy SEALS Winged Insertion Command (SWIC) and its development of the Gryphon hard wingsuit for combat drops from Low Earth Orbit

  Dr. Williscroft is an active member of the venerable Adventurers’ Club of Los Angeles, where he is the former Editor of the Club’s monthly magazine. He is a board member of the Colorado Authors’ League. He lives in Centennial, Colorado, with his wife, Jill, whom he met upon his return from the South Pole in 1982 and finally married in 2011, and their twin college boys (when they are home from school).

  Please visit Amazon.com to discover other eBooks by Robert Williscroft and your favorite online or Brick & Mortar bookseller for their paper versions:

  Current events:

  The Chicken Little Agenda—Debunking “Experts’” Lies

  Children’s books:

  The Starman Jones Series:

  Starman Jones: A Relativity Birthday Present

  Starman Jones Goes to the Dogs (scheduled for release in 2019)

  Short Stories:

  The SWIC Daedalus Files:

  Daedalus

  Daedalus—LEO

  Daedalus—Squad (scheduled for release in 2019)

  Daedalus—Combat (scheduled for release in 2019)

  Novels:

  Mac McDowell Missions

  Operation Ivy Bells

  Operation Snow Cone (Scheduled for release 2020)_

  The Starchild Trilogy:

  Slingshot

  The Starchild Compact

  The Iapetus Federation

  The Oort Chronicles:

  Icicle—A Tensor Matrix (scheduled for release in 2019)

  The Oort—Interstellar Consequences (scheduled for release in 2020)

  Oort Andromeda—Galactic Diaspora (scheduled for release in 2020)

  I really appreciate you reading my book! Here are my social media coordinates:

  Friend me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robert.williscroft

  Follow me on Twitter: @RGWilliscroft

  Subscribe to my blog: Thrawn Rickle

  Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/argee/

  Visit my website: http://robertwilliscroft.com

  Atoll—A ring-shaped reef, island, or chain of islands formed of coral.

  Baker Compound—The Slingshot facility on Baker Island.

  CPA—Closest point of approach.

  EMT—Emergency Medical Technician.

  Gryphon-7—A wingsuit-like carapace strapped on the body. It stopped short of the feet, but in flight could extend to a full two meters, stretching beyond the feet. It attached to the legs and arms, with special controls for each hand, and had a broad Velcro band across the midriff. It had extensible delta wings with a three-meter wingspan. The back end contained a small steerable hypergolic rocket engine, and the left and right wings each contained pressurized hypergolic fuel components. Switches in the hand units controlled the fuel valves. The Gryphon had a heads-up display with height-over-ground, airspeed, groundspeed, compass, and GPS coordinates superimposed on a map, plus various system readouts.

  Gryphon-10—Like Gryphon-7 with some radical changes including full body armor with circulating fuel for heat protection, an increased surface area using dimples, wrinkles, and rolls that dramatically boosted heat shedding, and it incorporated a new type of polymer that was stronger, lighter, and more heat resistant than anything before. The biggest change was Mother, the guidance computer unit designed to act on its calculations before the human pilot was even aware of them. Still man-transportable, although more ungainly than Gryphon-7. Its unpowered glide ratio was 14-1, and it could fly 100 level klicks under power.

  Howland Island—A coral island in the equatorial Pacific about sixty-five kilometers north of Baker Island. It was the destination of Amelia Earhart when she disappeared.

  Hypergolic fuel– Fuel that ignites spontaneously when the individual fuel elements come into contact.

  Hypergolic rocket– A rocket that uses hypergolic fuel.

  Keith Lofstrom—Inventor of the Launch Loop.

  Kick thruster—A small, reigniteable solid-state rocket attached to a capsule or pallet, used for vector changes after release from the rail, or to slow down a capsule or pallet used to transit from Baker to Jarvis. The rocket was extinguished with an iris-like very strong magnetic field that sliced through the solid fuel column just above the burn.

  Klick—Slang word for kilometer.

  Launch Loop— A means for getting into space without using rockets. Consists of a segmented soft iron ribbon moving at orbital speed, starting at ground level, elevating itself to eighty km, following the Earth’s curvature for 1,800 km, returning to ground level, and then tracing the path back forming a continuous loop. Two elevator-equipped skytowers extend from the ground to the loop. At the top are two skyports at eighty km altitude. Personnel capsules and cargo pallets are magnetically coupled to the moving loop and launched into space.

  Launch Loop International—The company that and manages Slingshot.

  Launch pouch—Attaches to the capsule underside, enabling magnetic acceleration of the capsule by the rail.

  LEO—Low Earth Orbit

  Mach number—The ratio of the speed of a body to the speed of sound in the surrounding medium.

  Maglev train—A magnetically levitated train; it floats above the track propelled by magnetism.

  Rail—Common term for the portion of the launch loop between the skyports.

 

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