The Throne of Saturn, page 8
“Which you are, of course,” Connie Trasker said.
“You can’t afford to have anybody in that crew you can’t be absolutely sure of,” Hank said. “Everybody’s got to be an absolutely top-pitch astronaut as well as a good doctor or scientist, or whatever. And Jayvee just isn’t that good. And you know it,” he concluded quietly, “as well as we do.”
Connie shrugged.
“You’re right. I just wanted to raise the point, because I’m sure others will.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bert said.
“We’ll take the flak,” Hank added calmly. “We always do.”
“We worship you for it,” Colonel Trasker said with a grin, and dropped the subject. “You’re going to have a pretty full list to submit to that meeting in Washington tomorrow, aren’t you?”
“Never let it be said,” Bert remarked, relaxing into his lazy smile, “that the Astro Office was unprepared.”
“I suppose we’ll go around and around and around in our usual tight little NASA circles,” Hank said with a resigned air, “but at least we’ll have something for them to chew on.”
“It’s a good thing,” Connie said. “Otherwise, we’d just sit and contemplate each others’ navels all day.”
But in this, as they and the whole wide world found out at 5 pm Washington time, 3 pm Houston, Connie was mistaken. At that hour it became apparent that the meeting at headquarters tomorrow would have much graver matters to discuss. The first inkling of this reached the Astronaut Office shortly before 2:30 pm their time, as Connie was preparing to leave.
He was halfway out the door when the voice of Hank’s secretary came in on the override and announced that Dr. Balkis was on the viewer and Mrs. Trasker was waiting.
“Popular,” Hank remarked with a smile.
“Always,” Connie agreed. “Put Pete on,” he ordered. The square, darkly handsome face of “the Greek loner from Tarpon Springs” appeared on the screen. Usually, whatever his restless inner feelings, he managed to conceal them with a quick-flashing smile. This time he wasn’t smiling.
“There you are. I’ve been tracking you down for the last half hour. Hi, Hank, Bert. Have you guys heard the reports from Washington? There’s a big special White House announcement coming up at 3 pm and they’re all speculating it has something to do with space. Maybe Mars.”
“The hell you say,” Hank remarked softly.
“The hell I do,” Pete agreed with a return of his smile. “Better turn on the tube and sit tight.”
“We’ll do that,” Bert said.
“Thanks for telling us, Pete,” Connie said. “You’re a good man.”
“We’ll give you six Brownie points and a ticker-tape parade through beautiful downtown El Lago,” Hank said.
Pete’s smile became a grin.
“I’d settle for less, you guys. You know that. But, gee, thanks.”
And he faded cheerfully from the screen. The pretty and intelligent face of Jane Trasker came on.
“There’s a distinguished-looking body of men,” she remarked. “I understand Pete got in ahead of me, so I suppose he told you the news, I will therefore confine myself to command decisions, Colonel Trasker. To wit: please stop at the shopping center in Nassau Bay on the way home and pick up a dozen eggs, some soap for the dishwasher, and some steaks for us and Dr. Balkis and his lady friend. And, oh, yes, I almost forgot, four rolls of toilet paper.”
“Because even astronauts,” Bert remarked thoughtfully, “have to—”
Jane interrupted with a merry laugh.
“Stop that, Bert, you disrespectful old war horse. Some things are sacred.”
“Lady,” Bert responded, “when you’ve spent two weeks in orbit, nothing is sacred.”
“Janie,” Hank said, “Louise and I want you folks to come over soon for cocktails. We’ll have the director and a few others. Can you make it?”
“Hadn’t we better see what’s coming from Washington?” Jane suggested. “Who knows where we’ll all be after that?”
Hank tossed her a salute.
“Spoken like a true astronaut’s wife,” he said. “Connie, you have the prize of the program.”
“I like her,” Connie said, and his wife’s expression softened with a genuine pleasure.
“It’s mutual,” she said. “And now I must run and turn on the television. Don’t forget the shopping list.”
Connie smiled.
“I won’t.”
“Well,” Bert observed as the screen went dark, “that was nice.”
“She’s a good girl,” Hank said. “You’re lucky.”
“She is that,” her husband agreed. “And I am.” He sat down again at the cluttered table, swiveled his chair, and began to fiddle with the television set. “Well, friends of the space program, what do you think’s coming?”
The announcement was made by the president’s press secretary, a selection that surprised a good many but was obviously the result of a deliberate decision to keep it relatively low-key at the moment.
“The president has asked me to tell you,” the press secretary said, his round, youthful face staring solemnly into the cameras, “that intelligence reaching him indicates beyond all reasonable doubt that the Soviet Union today began preparing a series of major space launches apparently designed to carry large numbers of men and large amounts of materiel to Space Station Stalin.
“It is the president’s belief, and that of his advisers in the space and intelligence communities, that this indicates the start of a massive and determined effort to launch a planetary expedition, probably to Mars, at the earliest possible moment.
“The president expects to meet with officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at the White House tomorrow to determine the proper course of action this country should pursue in view of this major effort by the Soviet Union. He expects to discuss with you himself tomorrow night the results of this meeting.”
“And what ‘course of action’ should we pursue?” Percy Mercy demanded scornfully in Senator Williams’ office in the New Senate Office Building as the press secretary’s earnest face faded from the screen. “Some sort of hysterical, demeaning attempt to scramble after the Soviet Union, wasting untold billions in the process, while our own cities and minorities suffer, and our own problems get worse and worse? It’s insanity!
“And furthermore,” he said, getting up and striding back and forth in his agitation while Kenny Williams watched him with a speculative eye, “I have an article by Alexei Kuselevsky running in next week’s issue of View that’s entitled ‘Toward A Better World Through Space’ and in it he absolutely denies they have any intention of trying a Mars expedition until, as he puts it, ‘well into the eighties.’ He says that ‘the sole intention of the Soviet Union is to cooperate with the United States in bringing a better world to space and here on our own Earth.’ He says ‘the Soviet Union would be quite content to see the United States, home of space heroes equal to our own cosmonauts, make such a venture first. We and all mankind would applaud.’ He says, ‘I can categorically deny that the Soviet Union would make such a basically hostile attempt’ as to try to beat us to Mars. He says, and he asked me to put it in italics, ‘We will not do it!’ And now those insane fools in NASA are using the phony argument of a threat from Russia to persuade the president to start neglecting our own problems and start wasting billions again. It’s absolutely criminal!”
“You tell ’em, Percy,” Senator Williams said admiringly. “And so,” he said, his chubby face settling into grimly determined lines, “will I. I don’t see why we have to get so frantic just because the Russians want to run a few experiments at their space station. Hell, we do it all the time.”
“Of course, that’s what it is,” Percy Mercy said impatiently. “We must get this thing back in perspective.”
* * *
“Yippeee!” Hugo Gaudet shouted as he and Stu Yule linked arms and went into an impromptu war dance in the midst of the excited group of secretaries and astronauts who filled the corridor outside the Astronaut Office. “We’re on our way again!”
And as the afternoon wore on, and night came, and throughout NASA and Washington and America and the world all those who directly or indirectly would be involved in or affected by the flight of Piffy One absorbed the news, the reactions of Percy Mercy and “Gaudy” Gaudet seemed to sum up pretty well the two prevailing points of view.
In the administrator’s office in Washington phones rang and excited messages flew as they had not done for six or seven years. In Houston, Bob Hertz could not resist another jubilant call to Vernon Hertz at JPL. Vernon kidded him good-naturedly and pointed out that unmanned probes would be even more important as launch time neared. In Huntsville Hans Sturmer and his colleagues looked at one another with pleased smiles as they took out their blueprints and went over them with many excited comments in a jumble of English and German. At the enormous vehicle assembly plant at Michoud, Louisiana, and at the nearby Mississippi Test Facility, both standing silent and almost deserted through the doldrum years, the small managerial staffs broke out bottles and raised glasses in anticipation that they would soon be busy again. At Ames Research Center in California and at Langley in Virginia, at Edwards Air Force Base and Vandenberg Air Force Base, and all the other NASA installations across the country and around the world, the same excited conviction spread. At North American Rockwell, at Bendix and Boeing and Grumman, and all the plants of all the other contractors and subcontractors, men were jubilant. And at the Cape, Emerson Wacker, Roger Webb, and the other astronauts in training left the Simulator Building, jumped into staff cars, and roared out to the Vehicle Assembly Building, where they cheered and slapped upon the back a sentimental old man who stood at the huge glass window next to Firing Room I, staring out at the deserted pads of Launch Complex 39 with tears in his eyes.
And in certain offices on Capitol Hill, and in such mighty centers of the art of telling America what it ought to think as the offices of View—the editorial conference rooms of the Times, the Post and other major newspapers—the news magazines and television networks—men grim-faced and somber prepared to marshal all the words, photographs, and propaganda techniques at their powerful command to thwart what they were convinced would be a wasteful and probably futile attempt to overtake the Russians. And at a reception at the United Nations, Academician Alexei V. Kuselevsky met the ambassador of the United States, and they smiled and smiled and smiled and smiled upon one another.
Around Clear Lake as the night wore on, at the Cape and at towns and cities around the country and across the world where their tours and speaking engagements had taken them, one small group of men in particular seemed to feel, with a sort of mass instinct, the same impulse. Wherever they were, they went outside and stared up into the sky.
The tiny new moon had risen and set, only the stars and planets in their infinite depths gave illumination to the heavens. Across them presently drifted and disappeared a quite large, brightly lighted object. After it in about five minutes came one much smaller, also brightly lighted, equally visible 132 miles below: Space Station Stalin and Space Station Mayflower, on their regular orbits around the earth.
The silent men looked up, and watching that arrogant first passage and that more modest, almost apologetic second, felt something they had never felt before. For the first time since America entered space, and for some primordial, instinctive reason they could not quite understand or define, they felt fear: not of space, but of their own kind.
Chapter Two
So, the day of decisions came in Washington, and rarely had there been a more reported, televised, analyzed, admonished, advised, and scolded gathering than that which met at 10 am in the Cabinet Room of the White House.
PRESIDENT SAYS RUSS MAY PLAN QUICK MARS LAUNCH, MEETS WITH ADVISERS TO DECIDE U.S. COURSE, said the headline in the New York Daily News. NASA JUBILANT OVER POSSIBLE BOOST TO PROGRAM, said the headline in the Houston Chronicle. CONGRESS WARNS AGAINST “MORE MONEY DOWN DRAIN” IN MARS CONTEST, said the headline in the Times. MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX STANDS TO GAIN IN NEW MARS FLING, said the headline in the Post. And further down the front page, in all of them, a smaller headline which said, in essence, EDITOR FORMS ANTI-MARS COMMITTEE TO BLOCK NEW SPACE RACE.
Editorial comment ranged from the Times’ somber beginning, “It is with much misgiving that we detect signs that the United States, instead of tending to its own badly neglected domestic needs, may once again be about to plunge headlong into the exciting but futile pursuit of a new space race with the Soviets,” to the New York Daily News’ flat assertion, “We say it is TIME TO BEAT THE RUSSIANS AGAIN.” Polarized at those two extremes of opinion lay most of the newspaper giants in the country, with the greater majority, by far, siding with the Times. Somewhere in between lay most of the smaller metropolitan and rural dailies.
Vehemently agreeing with the critics were the major television networks. Kenny Williams was given twenty-five almost uninterrupted minutes by NBC to explain why the country should not attempt to compete with the Soviet Union in the try for Mars; Chairman Satterthwaite of the House Space Committee was allowed four minutes of rebuttal at the end, frequently interrupted by politely hostile questions from his two interrogators. Percy Mercy found his spiritual home with CBS, which gave him fifteen minutes of uninterrupted editorializing at 8:30 am to fan opposition to the Administration’s presumed speed-up plans and to describe formation of his overnight inspiration, CAUSE: the Committee Against Unilateral Space Exploration. ABC presented a hastily thrown-together round table entitled, “Mars: Necessity or Fantasy?” The panel’s membership was carefully selected to leave no doubt what ABC thought the answer was.
Lost in all the clamor was the point of view of the average American, at this point somewhat confused, somewhat uncertain, but basically quite determined that the United States should not again take a back seat to the Soviet Union. The happy euphoria of the Moon landings had given way in recent years to the constant fretful annoyance of having Space Station Stalin preempting the skies in ostentatious supremacy. The annoyance had not been alleviated much by Space Station Mayflower, smaller, less glamorous, less dominating. The administrator in a number of public speeches had patiently pointed out that this calculated inferiority was what the country had apparently wanted and been willing to pay for. Characteristically, the country was not mollified: it wanted supremacy on the cheap and was upset when it didn’t get it. Now supremacy might be within grasp again, if America moved fast enough.
As they took their seats at 10 am around the cabinet table, the men of NASA were aware that if the country was not to be beaten again, a great, scrambling, desperate effort would have to be made to recover lost ground. All of this could have been prevented if they had been listened to five, six, eight years before; but they had not been. A careful president had opted for the mini-dream and the mini-goal. As a result, the United States stood in danger of a defeat whose full scope and ultimate implications could not accurately be assessed at the moment, except that everyone in NASA’s upper echelons had a blind, instinctive, absolute certainty that they would be ominous and far-reaching.
They did not, however, know how the present president felt; and so, an uneasy silence fell while they waited for him.
The administrator stared at the table and fiddled absentmindedly with a pencil. Hans Sturmer and Albrecht Freer whispered together in German, their expressions intent and uneasy. The Director of MSC leaned back and studied the ceiling. Bob and Vernon Hertz stared thoughtfully at one another across the table. Hank Barstow, Bert Richmond, and Connie Trasker sat side by side with a carefully casual air that did not conceal the tension in their eyes. Jim Matthison and his crew from North American Rockwell, last night’s euphoric jubilation vanished in the morning’s cold contemplation of the crash program that might lie ahead, scribbled and scrawled and nervously scratched-out on the pads of lined yellow legal notepaper that had been placed at every seat.
All of them stiffened for a moment as outside in the corridor there came that combination of businesslike bustle and hushed excitement that signifies in the White House that the president is on his way. Then he was in the room, they were on their feet, he was saying, “Gentlemen, please be seated,” and they were down again, before they realized that the expression on his forceful face was grave and concerned. They immediately concluded that this was a hopeful sign for the space program. But he was too shrewd a man to let them know immediately if they were right.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said with a sigh, “we seem to be in the middle of a pretty kettle of fish. The vice president, head of the Space Council, is on an official visit to Europe, as you know. He sends his very deep regrets he cannot be here. The problem rests with us. What do you think we ought to do about it? Andy?”
Dr. Anderson shrugged.
“That’s pretty obvious, Mr. President, isn’t it? Work like hell and beat them to it, is my attitude. How could I feel any differently?”
“And be administrator of NASA?” the president asked with the start of a smile. “You couldn’t. I suppose that applies to the rest of you?” He looked down the table, carefully studying them all as they nodded, each in turn. The smile broadened. “Yes, that’s my boys in NASA, all right. One for all and all for one, and everybody for the program.” His expression changed, became serious again. To their dismay, his tone turned regretful. “Well: if only it were that simple.”
“And why isn’t it, Mr. President?” Dr. Anderson asked. “It doesn’t seem to us that we have much choice.”
