The Throne of Saturn, page 5
For these, he and the Peenemünde Group were quietly but profoundly grateful. To those within NASA and outside it—and they were many—who could never quite understand the puzzle of men who in one moment of time were busily helping Hitler attempt to destroy democracy, and in the next had turned completely around and were with equal dedication helping democracy reach for the planets, Dr. Sturmer and his colleagues never bothered to comment or offer explanation. Many of them never made any conscious rationalization, for theirs was not the type of mind that needed rationalization to support what common sense proposed. But when they did, two factors seemed uppermost. The first was the money. They were scientists, and to them their dreams and experiments meant everything: whoever would give them the money to experiment was their friend, and for him they would work as devotedly and determinedly as they had for Hitler.
The second motivation was somewhat deeper and, to their credit, more worthy. There were many in NASA who, in moments of jealousy or annoyance, would refer to the Peenemünde Group as cold-blooded opportunists who had surrendered to the Americans rather than the Russians after World War II simply because the United States could give them more money. But thinking back on the frantic discussions that had finally persuaded them to follow Dr. Wernher von Braun into the American camp, Dr. Sturmer felt that there had been something more. An old historical fear and hatred of Russia, for one thing. More importantly, a genuine appreciation of the fact that the Americans, for all their haphazard ways and innumerable thoughtless and inexcusable mistakes, still possessed a basic decency and a very genuine devotion to intellectual and personal freedom that he and his fellow scientists felt they must have in order to live as functioning craftsmen and complete human beings.
Here in Alabama, they had settled in, joined clubs, civic groups, little theaters and orchestras; sent their children to American schools and universities and, sometimes, been dismayed by the long-haired results. They had made a conscientious effort to adapt, to become part of the community, to become Americans; and if they and their wives still spoke mostly German among themselves, and if there was a certain air of intellectual and personal superiority that set them apart and made them sometimes seem smug and arrogant to this very day, then that, perhaps, was something inherent in them that could never be changed. At least they did their best to change it—did their best to be Americans—did their best to help America. And their help was not to be minimized. Without it, no American missile program could have gone so far so fast or achieved so many technological triumphs unsurpassed in human history.
Secure in this knowledge, Hans Sturmer was preparing for what had become a typical Huntsville day: checking here and checking there, reviewing progress, making plans; plans that would not early see fruition, he believed, but which would be needed when the time came again, and should therefore be put in final form and neatly organized in Huntsville’s many files, ready to go.
He was about to put in a call to one of his colleagues when his secretary interrupted on the voice override of the Picturephone to announce the administrator from Washington. In a moment, the pleasantly familiar face appeared. Dr. Sturmer could see at once that it wore an expression both disturbed and determined.
“Ja, Andy?” he said, concerned. “Is anything wrong?”
“Our meeting here in Washington tomorrow is going to be much more vital than we thought,” Dr. Anderson said. “Vernon Hertz just called and he says—”
Two minutes later, having listened gravely to the news, Dr. Sturmer permitted himself a small, rather spiteful smile.
“Albrecht,” he observed, “is going to have to build himself another launching pad.”
And as it happened, that was exactly what Dr. Albrecht Freer, Director of Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, in Florida, was contemplating at the moment, although not with any idea that he would soon see anything done about it. Right now, it was simply an excuse to get out of the office, even if it only meant plunging into the Florida heat. Already in mid-spring the climate was becoming heavy and oppressively humid, but at least it provided a change from the endless frustrating round of discussions with which the top officials of KSC managed to keep themselves busy and persuade themselves that it was worthwhile staying in the program.
The exciting era of Mercury and Gemini was long gone, the thrilling days when Apollos 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 were all launched within the short space of ten months were far behind. The present schedule of a Moon expedition or two (if they were lucky) each year, interspersed with an occasional unmanned satellite, was hardly enough to keep either the launch crews or the management at top pitch. KSC was becoming too sleepy and somnolent for him, Al Freer often thought. But of course, now that he had succeeded Kurt Debus as director he could never leave it, because for him as for all his colleagues of the Peenemünde Group, rocketry was his first, most lasting, and most absorbing love. He could not live without the hope of seeing the great birds lift off once more in steady procession, their first landfall Mars, and then the outer planets.
Right now, he told himself as the motor-pool chauffeur drove him slowly along toward the now almost deserted Apollo launching sites, Pads A and B of Launch Complex 39, it was foolish of him to even contemplate asking Washington for funds to build another. The idea was simply an excuse to get out of the office and think. He knew he would not do anything about it. With Pads A and B idle most of the year, who could possibly justify Pad C? It was a pipe dream.
Nonetheless, quietly and strictly on his own, he had asked the launch director to prepare a set of tentative plans for him. The launch director had been more than enthusiastic. Already Dr. Freer had received preliminary sketches, delivered privately to his home in Melbourne, twelve miles south of KSC along the beach. The rough drafts had inspired an excited, far-ranging discussion that had lasted until almost 3 am. “This is absurd, you know,” Albrecht Freer had said when he finally bade his exhausted guest good night. “There is no reason at all for us to be even dreaming such things at this time.”
“You must have a hunch, Al,” the launch director told him, and he had nodded, with his hesitant, almost shy, smile.
“Maybe I do,” he said. But he could not have said why that night, nor could he say why now, as he smiled at the driver and said politely, “I think I’d like to visit Pad B, if I may.”
“Certainly, sir,” the driver said, and in a moment, they were rolling slowly along the deserted roadway beside the track where the huge crawler laboriously carried the missiles from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the pads—when there were any to carry.
“Not so many these days,” he said aloud, and the driver, a young fellow from Cocoa Beach who had only recently joined NASA, smiled somewhat ruefully.
“No, sir,” he said. “Not as many as when I was growing up. We used to see lots of them, then.”
“Is it a good idea?” Dr. Freer asked. The driver shot him a quick look and shook his head.
“Not the way I see it,” he said. “I think we ought to be sending a lot more out.”
“It costs money,” Albrecht Freer observed.
“They’ll beat us if we don’t,” the driver said, and Dr. Freer, who had no need to ask who “they” were, nodded and sighed.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s possible. Just drop me by the gate if you like. I can call for someone else to come and get me.”
“I’ll wait,” the driver said with a smile. “Give me a chance to eat my lunch. Take your time, Doctor.”
“Thank you,” Al Freer said. “I won’t be very long.”
But as he registered with the lone guard at the entrance, received clearance, and put on the special badge that still was necessary for access to the pad, even for him and even in these standby days, he was not so sure. The pads always tended to make him moody, he had found, which was why it would probably be better if he stayed away. But they also held an endless fascination, stimulated his imagination, and made him think. He was convinced their present desuetude would not last forever.
He walked slowly up the long ramp in the steaming heat. Away from the car’s air conditioning, he took off his coat, loosened his tie, rolled up his shirtsleeves. Thunderheads climbed in the east, off the Bahamas: later it might storm. In the swamp beyond the pad, he could see egrets, herons, water-turkeys, ducks. High above the pad, buzzards and sea gulls swung. Across the Indian River that divides Merritt Island from the beach, he saw the gantries of Cape Canaveral. Two or three were occupied by Titans and Atlas-Centaurs being readied for unmanned scientific launches. The rest stood as forlorn and deserted as his own Apollo pads here at KSC. A great effort had been arbitrarily choked down to half speed—or less. The indignation he often felt but usually suppressed welled up suddenly. He muttered something in harsh and angry German before he continued his slow walk up the long incline where so many brave men had traveled to keep their dates with the gleaming white giants that carried them into space.
Well: most of the brave men were still around, he reminded himself, and so were a good many of the dedicated support teams that had built their missiles and helped them fly. Many were hanging on because their whole major working lives had been in the space program and they knew nothing else. Still more were remaining because with them the dream of space was a matter of absolute faith and they could not conceive of careers that were not dedicated to making the dream come true. This was his own motivation, of course, as it was the motivation of most of the top men in NASA: the dream of going ever outward, ever beyond, the hope of penetrating some final secret of the universe that would make all things fall into place and become viable in some great, orderly scheme of things. Even though, rationally, as men understood reason, there still seemed no real justification for believing that there was anything in the solar system but a succession of dead and inhospitable worlds.
But if that were true, then what was the rationale that could explain why this one world, this lovely Earth, had been singled out of all the universe to receive green grass and thinking men? It did not make sense that this was the only fertile globe, here the only developed life. Yet even if it were, then all the more reason for going on and on until, at last, the fact was proved beyond all question, and man, robbed of his final excuse, would have no choice but to turn back upon himself and really come to grips with the passions, desires, ambitions, cupidities, hatreds, jealousies, and greeds that made of his inestimable heritage the beautiful Earth so unhappy and fearful a place.
The Director of KSC stood for a long, silent time at the foot of the tower on Pad B. Ghostly voices called out the countdowns for ghostly launches; a succession of smiling, white-suited figures, most of them his personal friends and good companions in the great adventure, passed him on the ramp, climbed into the elevator, ascended the tower, stepped into their command modules and roared away in thunder and flame upon their awesome journeys.
He came back down twenty minutes later, firmly resolved to prepare formally, and submit to Washington, his plans for Pad C. His driver met him at the gate, and he could tell from his manner that there was some emergency.
“Your office has just called for you on the intercom, Doctor,” the young man said. “The administrator wants you. They say it’s urgent.”
“I’ll take it in my office in the VAB,” Dr. Freer said. He made the quick ride in silence, an excitement that did not dare dream too much growing in his heart.
So, too, did excitement grow a few minutes later in Downey, California, at the sprawling plant of North American Rockwell Aviation, home of the command and service modules for the Apollo-Saturn program. There the production manager, Jim Matthison, had been going through one of his periodic spells of the space glooms, as his wife Betty referred to them. He was another veteran of the program who had supervised the building of a dozen sleek monsters and sent them on their way, then seen the program dwindle, the production lines grind to a halt, the skilled manpower fall away save for a skeleton crew kept on in the wistfully stubborn hope that sooner or later they would be needed again.
Hope, but not really belief—until ten minutes ago. Then his secretary had buzzed, he had snapped on the Picturephone. Andy Anderson had appeared.
“We’ve run into a little problem you’re going to be interested in,” Andy said without preliminary. “Better grab the company plane and get on back here tomorrow. We’re having a meeting.”
“What’s the matter?” Jim asked, rather stupidly, he thought later. But the call had taken him completely by surprise, he hadn’t heard from the administrator directly in months.
“Nothing to tell you across the continent,” Dr. Anderson said pleasantly. “Just get your tail back here.”
“Yes, sir!” Jim Matthison said with a big grin, which the administrator had returned before he faded from the screen.
Now there was excitement at North American Rockwell, too.
And still in Houston (except for Dr. Cavanaugh, to whom the administrator was even then confirming officially the words he had already received privately from Bob Hertz) there was no excitement, only the private tensions which this day surrounded the Astronaut Office—a place where, in any event, excitement was usually reduced to monosyllables as a matter of habit, temperament, and training.
The news that would cause genuine excitement, and even some whooping and horseplay when it finally came, still had not been given the men charged with selecting the crew for Planetary Fleet One of Project Argosy, or to the men who would be selected. In the long white corridors decorated with pictures of astronauts, pictures of the Earth, pictures of the Moon, pictures of Mars, pictures of missiles being launched and missiles in flight, it was, for the most part, just another typical day.
Many of the offices, most of them shared by two or more astronauts or astroscientists, were vacant. Some of the corps were working out in the simulators, either here or at the Cape: the cumbersome, fantastic machines that could duplicate almost every possible aspect of space flight and simulate almost every possible visual aspect of the planetary surfaces over which the flights took place. Some others were out on the endless speaking engagements that all the astronauts are constantly asked to undertake, either by NASA for its own public relations, or by the White House and Congress for the bolstering of political goals.
Astronauts spoke to the local Lions Club to assist Senator X or Congressman Y; astronauts were invited to the White House for well-publicized family get-togethers, to fortify the image of a president devoted to the program and bosom-chummy with its heroes; astronauts addressed high schools and colleges, scientific symposiums and industrial conventions, to increase NASA’s prestige and win NASA new recruits. Somehow in and around and between all this, astronauts managed to do some of the work for which they were hired and attend to some of the serious business to which they had dedicated their lives.
On this particular day, seven were in the simulators at Houston and eight were in the simulators at the Cape. Six were training in Space Station Mayflower. Six were absent on speaking engagements around the United States. Four were visiting the plants of North American Rockwell and other major contractors on morale-building junkets. Six were on goodwill missions to Europe and Asia. Ten were in their offices in the building, reading scientific publications, studying flight plans, or autographing pictures of themselves and answering the fan mail that still came in a steady flow from all over the world. Three of these ten were thinking seriously about resigning.
Of these, the most agitated at the moment was Commander Alvin S. Weickert III, still brooding over his angry argument with Colonel Trasker. But although they were less obviously upset than he, Astroscientists J.V. Halleck and Petros S. Balkis carried an equally unhappy burden inside.
For Jazz Weickert, Connie Trasker’s comments epitomized exactly the attitude which, to his mind, made further service in the program almost impossible. Smug, arrogant, inconsiderate of other people’s feelings, dutifully doing the hatchet work of the NASA establishment with a sort of smooth, ruthless perfection—these, to Jazz, were Connie’s major characteristics. They were, he suspected, the characteristics that had constantly thwarted his own chances for really good flights. They were the characteristics that had encouraged Hank Barstow and Bert Richmond to favor Connie over Jazz from the first day they had entered the program together. They were the characteristics that had turned those three into the Holy Trinity of the astronaut corps, placing them in an alliance with headquarters that gave them virtually unassailable authority to handle the corps just about as they pleased: to make sure that their favorites got the breaks and to guarantee for mavericks the cold and unhappy position of being part of the glamour without getting any of the action.
There was a reason why certain smiling faces kept turning up time and again before the cameras, to wave and fly away on famous missions: there was a reason why others time and again found themselves ignored and passed over. The public knew nothing of this, being in no position to penetrate the strong defensive barrier of silence that NASA and the corps erected around themselves; but within the corps, they knew who the favorites were. It was no secret in-house who could be sure of being assigned to good flights, and who could be certain of getting only secondary or backup crew assignments that would never bring them the public attention, the historic fame, and the good fortune so many sought within the program.
Jazz had seen this happen in the selection of crews for Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. It had happened so often to him, he sometimes told Clare bitterly, that he had lost count. She was always counseling him to have patience, always telling him to keep hoping, reminding him of his responsibilities to her and to Michael, John, and Joanna, and telling him he must stay in the program for the family’s sake, putting on a bright face for the other wives when they met in the Nassau Bay shopping center or gathered in Taylor Lake Village or El Lago or Timber Cove to keep up the spirits of crew wives during a flight.
