was thinking. The launch might have to be postponed until tomorrow. “Send up a weather balloon, please,” he ordered. “We’ll review the forecast again at five o’clock.”
Elspeth made a note to add the weather review meeting to her timetable, then she left, feeling despondent. They could solve engineering problems, but there was nothing they could do about the weather.
Outside, she got into a jeep and drove to Launch Complex 26. The road was a dusty, unpaved track through the brush, and the jeep bounced on the ruts. She startled a white-tailed deer that was drinking from a ditch, and it bounded off into the bushes. There was a lot of wildlife on the Cape, hiding in the low scrub. People said there were alligators and Florida panthers, but Elspeth had never seen either.
She pulled up outside the blockhouse and looked across to Launch Pad 26B, three hundred yards away. The gantry was a derrick from an oil rig, adapted for this purpose and coated with orange rust-resistant paint to protect it from corrosion by the humid, salty Florida air. At one side was an elevator for access to the platforms. The whole edifice was brutally practical, quite without grace, Elspeth thought; a functional structure bolted together with no regard for how it looked.
The long white pencil of the Jupiter C rocket seemed caught in the tangle of orange girders like a dragonfly in a spiderweb. The men called it “she,” despite its phallic shape, and Elspeth too thought of the rocket as female. A bridal veil of canvas covers had concealed the upper stages from prying eyes since it arrived here, but that had now been removed, and the missile stood revealed, sunshine gleaming off its spotless paintwork.
The scientists were not very political, but even they knew that the eyes of the world were on them. Almost four months ago, the Soviet Union had stunned the world by sending up the first space satellite, the Sputnik. In all the countries where the tug of war between capitalism and communism was still going on, from Italy to India, throughout Latin America and Africa and Indochina, the message was heard: communist science is best. A month later the Soviets had sent up a second satellite, Sputnik II, with a dog onboard. Americans were devastated. A dog today, a man tomorrow.
President Eisenhower promised an American satellite before the end of the year. On the first Friday in December, at fifteen minutes to noon,the U.S. Navy launched the Vanguard rocket in front of the world’s press. It rose a few feet into the air, burst into flames, toppled sideways, and smashed to pieces on the concrete. IT ’ S A FLOPNIK ! said one headline.
The Jupiter C was America’s last hope. There was no third option. If this failed today, the United States was out of the space race. The propaganda defeat was the least of the consequences. The American space program would be in total disarray, and the U.S.S.R. would control outer space for the foreseeable future.
All that, Elspeth thought, resting on this one rocket.
Vehicles were banned from the launch pad area, except for essential ones such as fuel trucks, so she left her car and walked across the open space between blockhouse and gantry, following the line of a metal conduit that housed the cables linking the two locations. Attached to the back of the derrick at ground level was a long steel cabin, the same orange color, containing offices and machinery. Elspeth entered by a metal door at the rear.
The gantry supervisor, Harry Lane, sat on a folding chair, wearing a hard hat and engineer boots, studying a blueprint. “Hi, Harry,” she said brightly.
He grunted. He did not like to see women around the launch pad, and no sense of courtesy constrained him from letting her know it.
She dropped an update on a metal table and left. She returned to the blockhouse, a low white building with slit windows of thick green glass. The blast doors stood open, and she walked inside. There were three compartments: an
Elspeth made a note to add the weather review meeting to her timetable, then she left, feeling despondent. They could solve engineering problems, but there was nothing they could do about the weather.
Outside, she got into a jeep and drove to Launch Complex 26. The road was a dusty, unpaved track through the brush, and the jeep bounced on the ruts. She startled a white-tailed deer that was drinking from a ditch, and it bounded off into the bushes. There was a lot of wildlife on the Cape, hiding in the low scrub. People said there were alligators and Florida panthers, but Elspeth had never seen either.
She pulled up outside the blockhouse and looked across to Launch Pad 26B, three hundred yards away. The gantry was a derrick from an oil rig, adapted for this purpose and coated with orange rust-resistant paint to protect it from corrosion by the humid, salty Florida air. At one side was an elevator for access to the platforms. The whole edifice was brutally practical, quite without grace, Elspeth thought; a functional structure bolted together with no regard for how it looked.
The long white pencil of the Jupiter C rocket seemed caught in the tangle of orange girders like a dragonfly in a spiderweb. The men called it “she,” despite its phallic shape, and Elspeth too thought of the rocket as female. A bridal veil of canvas covers had concealed the upper stages from prying eyes since it arrived here, but that had now been removed, and the missile stood revealed, sunshine gleaming off its spotless paintwork.
The scientists were not very political, but even they knew that the eyes of the world were on them. Almost four months ago, the Soviet Union had stunned the world by sending up the first space satellite, the Sputnik. In all the countries where the tug of war between capitalism and communism was still going on, from Italy to India, throughout Latin America and Africa and Indochina, the message was heard: communist science is best. A month later the Soviets had sent up a second satellite, Sputnik II, with a dog onboard. Americans were devastated. A dog today, a man tomorrow.
President Eisenhower promised an American satellite before the end of the year. On the first Friday in December, at fifteen minutes to noon,the U.S. Navy launched the Vanguard rocket in front of the world’s press. It rose a few feet into the air, burst into flames, toppled sideways, and smashed to pieces on the concrete. IT ’ S A FLOPNIK ! said one headline.
The Jupiter C was America’s last hope. There was no third option. If this failed today, the United States was out of the space race. The propaganda defeat was the least of the consequences. The American space program would be in total disarray, and the U.S.S.R. would control outer space for the foreseeable future.
All that, Elspeth thought, resting on this one rocket.
Vehicles were banned from the launch pad area, except for essential ones such as fuel trucks, so she left her car and walked across the open space between blockhouse and gantry, following the line of a metal conduit that housed the cables linking the two locations. Attached to the back of the derrick at ground level was a long steel cabin, the same orange color, containing offices and machinery. Elspeth entered by a metal door at the rear.
The gantry supervisor, Harry Lane, sat on a folding chair, wearing a hard hat and engineer boots, studying a blueprint. “Hi, Harry,” she said brightly.
He grunted. He did not like to see women around the launch pad, and no sense of courtesy constrained him from letting her know it.
She dropped an update on a metal table and left. She returned to the blockhouse, a low white building with slit windows of thick green glass. The blast doors stood open, and she walked inside. There were three compartments: an
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