will kill somebody, if it hasn’t already killed Lovell and his crew” – that’s what is being said, isn’t it? I imagine a curtailment wouldn’t be impossibly difficult to sell, even within NASA, now that the first landings have been achieved. And –’
Muldoon kicked back his chair and stood up. ‘So we’re cutting the Moon flights,’ he said. He was tall, intimidating, his disgust majestic. ‘Just when we’ve got there. Jesus Christ, Fred. The later flights would have been the crown of the program,’ Muldoon said. ‘J-class missions, with advanced LMs, three-day stays on the surface, long-duration backpacks that would extend eachmoonwalk to up to seven hours, and electric cars. We’d have gone to sites of terrific wonder, and beauty, and scientific interest. We’ve even got a tentative plan to go to the far side of the Moon.’
Michaels stared at Muldoon. He prided himself on being a great off-the-ballot politician, but he found words deserting him, at this moment of all moments.
‘I know, Joe. I know.’
Michaels could imagine the attacks he’d suffer from the scientists. It was even possible he wouldn’t be able to sell a deal like this to Paine, and to others in the Agency, such as George Mueller, the great space station proponent. And, looking further ahead, he supposed there was a danger that a Mars program would keep NASA a single-issue Agency, everything subordinated to one goal, just like in the days of Apollo.
He tried to focus on Muldoon, to handle the situation in front of him.
‘It may not be a case of canceling the flights, Joe. Maybe we could stretch out the schedule. Defer some of the flights until later –’
Muldoon faced Michaels; the knotty muscles bunched around his shoulders, under his shirt. ‘Don’t do this, Fred. Don’t kill the missions.’
From the corner of his eye Michaels could see Agronski’s face, his revulsion at this outburst of monomania.
He knows he’s won. He knows I’m going to have to do more than just defer; that I’m going to agree to make these sacrifices, to sell them within the Agency and then manage them through as Administrator, in order to give us all a future. And there is more pain, much more, to come
.
Michaels felt as if all of history, past and present, were flowing through him, in this room, right now; and that whatever he decided might shape the destiny of worlds.
Sunday, June 21, 1970
Hampton, Virginia
When Jim Dana passed Richmond he turned the Corvette off Highway 1 and onto the narrower State Highway 60, heading southeast. The towns were fewer now, and smaller. And, at last, after Williamsburg, there seemed to be nothing but forests and marshland, and the occasional farmhouse.
It was a fresh June day, and soon Dana could taste salt and ozone from the coast; the sunlight was sharp on the bare arm he propped in the window frame. The landscape around him seemed to expand, to assume the huge, hollow dimensions of his childhood, echoing with seagull cries.
A little after noon he reached Hampton: his home town, right at the tip of the Peninsula. It was a fishing town, a backwater. He drove down streets so familiar it seemed his memories had reached out to reconstruct an external world. Here were the same shabby boatyards, the crab boats lolling in the brackish tidal flow, the gulls: all the symbols of his childhood, still in place. It was as if twelve years had rolled off him, taking away all his achievements – Mary and the kids, the Academy, his USAF service – leaving him a scraped-raw ten-year-old again.
Men had walked on the Moon. And the thinkers of the Langley Research Center, just a few miles to the north, had played a key role in putting them there, Dana’s father Gregory included. But it all seemed to have made damn little difference to Hampton.
Both his parents came out onto the porch to greet him. The house’s windows gleamed, the porch was swept until it shone, and the wind-chimes glittered in the fresh blue
Muldoon kicked back his chair and stood up. ‘So we’re cutting the Moon flights,’ he said. He was tall, intimidating, his disgust majestic. ‘Just when we’ve got there. Jesus Christ, Fred. The later flights would have been the crown of the program,’ Muldoon said. ‘J-class missions, with advanced LMs, three-day stays on the surface, long-duration backpacks that would extend eachmoonwalk to up to seven hours, and electric cars. We’d have gone to sites of terrific wonder, and beauty, and scientific interest. We’ve even got a tentative plan to go to the far side of the Moon.’
Michaels stared at Muldoon. He prided himself on being a great off-the-ballot politician, but he found words deserting him, at this moment of all moments.
‘I know, Joe. I know.’
Michaels could imagine the attacks he’d suffer from the scientists. It was even possible he wouldn’t be able to sell a deal like this to Paine, and to others in the Agency, such as George Mueller, the great space station proponent. And, looking further ahead, he supposed there was a danger that a Mars program would keep NASA a single-issue Agency, everything subordinated to one goal, just like in the days of Apollo.
He tried to focus on Muldoon, to handle the situation in front of him.
‘It may not be a case of canceling the flights, Joe. Maybe we could stretch out the schedule. Defer some of the flights until later –’
Muldoon faced Michaels; the knotty muscles bunched around his shoulders, under his shirt. ‘Don’t do this, Fred. Don’t kill the missions.’
From the corner of his eye Michaels could see Agronski’s face, his revulsion at this outburst of monomania.
He knows he’s won. He knows I’m going to have to do more than just defer; that I’m going to agree to make these sacrifices, to sell them within the Agency and then manage them through as Administrator, in order to give us all a future. And there is more pain, much more, to come
.
Michaels felt as if all of history, past and present, were flowing through him, in this room, right now; and that whatever he decided might shape the destiny of worlds.
Sunday, June 21, 1970
Hampton, Virginia
When Jim Dana passed Richmond he turned the Corvette off Highway 1 and onto the narrower State Highway 60, heading southeast. The towns were fewer now, and smaller. And, at last, after Williamsburg, there seemed to be nothing but forests and marshland, and the occasional farmhouse.
It was a fresh June day, and soon Dana could taste salt and ozone from the coast; the sunlight was sharp on the bare arm he propped in the window frame. The landscape around him seemed to expand, to assume the huge, hollow dimensions of his childhood, echoing with seagull cries.
A little after noon he reached Hampton: his home town, right at the tip of the Peninsula. It was a fishing town, a backwater. He drove down streets so familiar it seemed his memories had reached out to reconstruct an external world. Here were the same shabby boatyards, the crab boats lolling in the brackish tidal flow, the gulls: all the symbols of his childhood, still in place. It was as if twelve years had rolled off him, taking away all his achievements – Mary and the kids, the Academy, his USAF service – leaving him a scraped-raw ten-year-old again.
Men had walked on the Moon. And the thinkers of the Langley Research Center, just a few miles to the north, had played a key role in putting them there, Dana’s father Gregory included. But it all seemed to have made damn little difference to Hampton.
Both his parents came out onto the porch to greet him. The house’s windows gleamed, the porch was swept until it shone, and the wind-chimes glittered in the fresh blue
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