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by Carl Bussjaeger
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And then the bureaucrats' world came to an end.
We gotta get out of this place.
- Animals
Hank Hanners stared intently at his monitor, oblivious to the cluttered bookcases, space models, and victimized computer parts decorating his study. Comfort ranked higher in his priorities than some interior decorator's sense of style and efficiency. He leaned forward to peer closer at the text displayed, as if he couldn't quite believe his eyes. He could imagine his poor old computer decrying, "Don't shoot me; I'm just the messenger!" His shabbily comfortable office chair creaked under his weight, but he'd long since learned to subconciously tune out the sound, along with the soft whoosh from the air-conditioning vent and the accompanying flutter of papers on his desk. The idiots in his website discussion forum were far more important than his immediate surroundings.
From: Connors03
To: Freedom7
Subject: RE: Rehabbing NASA
Admitted. NASA does have some serious problems. "Better, Cheaper, Faster" was "Half-assed, Cheap, Rushed." But the root cause lies in Management; NASA is burdened with a bunch of bureaucratic bunglers who wouldn't know good science if it bit them on the ass.
So... We need the equivalent of a Justice Department "independent counsel" and grand jury to review and purge management. Maybe require science or engineering degrees. Pay the big bucks to hire competent senior management types away from private industry.
And by god cough up the cash to replace those STS dinosaurs with real lift vehicles.
-AC
From: KevinK
To:: Connors03
Subject: Re: RE: Rehabbing NASA
At least you're right about replacing the shuttles. But that's about all. The last thing NASA needs is to dump its core of experience and replace it with science-degreed ivory tower types. Do you really expect say, a theoretical physicist to understand real world budget constraints? And they'd expect to blow the whole budget on theoretical research, when what we really need is a permanent and large manned presence in space. That's for science and practical applications. If NASA had maintained its manned emphasis from the 60's, we could have a moon base now, even. Just think how much the astronomers would love the sort of lunar farside radio telescope that a moon base would allow. NASA needs to shelve the research crap for now, and concentrate on manned space access.
/s/
Kevin
From: SpaceCadet
To: KevinK
Subject: Re: RE: Rehabbing NASA
>>NASA needs to shelve the research crap for now, and concentrate on manned space access.<<
Sheesh. _Please_ tell me you're kidding. Research is exactly what NASA should be working on; government should stick with nonprofit science work and leave the money-making "practical" stuff to private industry.
From: CMDR Shepard
Yeah. Right. Like private industry can actually afford to put people into space. Yo, Bozo! Take a look at launch costs: It cost a frigging fortune to orbit even a few kilos of inanimate junk, much less a person with LS. How do you propose to fund this sort of thing without government support?
From: SpaceCadet
At least I'm not experiencing an identity crisis. Nor is my mind closed to non-government possibilities...
To: SpaceCadet
Subject: Re: RE: Rehabbing NASA
To: CMDR Shepard
Subject: Re: RE: Rehabbing NASA
Dear CMDR Shepard-wannabe,
He leaned back in his padded chair, propped his feet up on the euro-tech computer desk, and closed his eyes against the fluorescent glare of the ceiling lights. The heater had shut down,and he could hear the faint buzz of a dying light ballast. His mind automatically filed that with the other noises of his house, in a sort of mental ignore list. And he thought. After a while, his feet hit the carpeted floor and he grabbed his keyboard.
From: ForumAdmin (Hank)
To: ALL
Subject: Fresh Start
Look, for years I've been reading posts complaining about NASA's handling of the space program. And others replying that big business isn't going to do the job right, either.
On the NASA side, we have the Challenger O-rings, myopic Hubble ST, assorted lost Mars probes (my gods, why was a conversion to/from metric even an issue anymore??), a 75 megabuck satellite shaken to death, innumerable missed launch windows, a scaled back ISS that's STILL only partially operational- 12+ years overdue and $20B-odd overbudget. You get the drift.
And then there's "private" industry (which ain't so private, me buckos- even Boeing teamed with Russia for that sea launch fiasco): the aforementioned sea launch, Iridium (show of hands- who bought phones?), Ariane (again not-so-private) and its lost shots, and the general lack of any _manned_ action at all.
To my mind, both sectors are oh-for-ten where it should count.
Face it; NASA can't be rehabilitated. That suggests that NASA is "broken." It isn't; it does exactly what it's supposed to do admirably well- It's a government PR/propaganda (same difference) operation. A bureaucratic one, naturally enough. It was never meant to get man into space, only to beat the Soviets to a series of media coups; manned access was an interesting side effect. The STS is more of the same. If it had truly been an improvement in space access, Congress wouldn't have needed to kill any competition with it (and thus guarantee payloads for the shuttles) by ordering the military to effectively gut its own launch program.
Nor can we rely upon "private industry". In space access, there is no such thing at this time. No? Another show of hands: How many of you in the US have really looked into current corporate structures? In effect, a US (and most, if not all, other countries where gov grants special corporate existence to companies) corporation is an extension of government- in exchange for special tax favors, favorable legislation, and shielding against more real accountability for its officers pays government "danegeld." In effect, a corporation still receives gov subsidies. Just like a certain national space agency which shall remain nameless, but whose initials are NASA.
And that isn't even counting in little things like _NASA_ having to approve any "private" launch system (the greatest advantage of sea launch may have been that it took the launch out to sea beyond NASA's bureaucratic grasp), government construction incentives/subsidies in exchange for making the system available for government use (note that the gov supports American aircraft construction because the planes can be used to transport troops.)
"So what's the point?," I hear you mumbling. Easy. It's well past time we tried something different.
Why don't _we_ do it?
Stop waiting for a gov space agency to put the people's desires ahead of the politicians' (Who hold the checkbook after all. Which draws on _your_ accounts.). Forget about a pseudo-private savior coming to your rescue.
Moi, I'm a sorta-libertarian. I expect to take responsibility for my own life. Seems to me like that should extend to getting into space, if that's really what I want.
"Oh, no, Mr. Hank! That's much too hard for us (truly) private individuals to do," I hear some of you whining. "We wouldn't even know where to start!"
Frogsnot.
This is just one little web forum on one little (okay, maybe I'm not so little
...guy's private web site. There's less than two hundred people logging in, and just a darned few of those post regularly. Even so, I've seen no end of claims to expertise in everything from gardening to aerospace engineering. Unless you're BS'g each other (oh, dear; should I be PC and say, "exaggerating"), the skill and knowledge base is there. Now multiply that by the other various and sundry space-related BBSs, web forums, e-mail lists, and (gods save us) USENET groups. That's only the online tip of the iceberg (comet nucleus?). Let's not forget astronomy clubs, model rocketry groups, SF fen, et cetera (The L-5 Society? I stopped hearing from them years ago, but...) Hitting up all this year's WorldCon attendees for one measly buck would amount to how much?
Finances? Who needs big business? How many of you out there are reading this on a machine that ran more than $1500? How many are planning upgrades to $2000 machines? More RAM? A new 100G RAID? A flatscreen monitor? A CD/DVD writer? A new photo-quality printer? All around the world, this would be how many millions of people?
Try putting off those purchases for just a year (and get an even fancier new generation gadget) and kick in to a space travel fund. Just for starters, that would be how many dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of dollars per those millions of people? Quick, one of you self-proclaimed accountants open an offshore bank account, boot that financial program, and get the money rolling in.
Hey! Aren't the feddies after Gates again? Maybe he'd kick in a few billion from his foundation for the chance to relocate _waaaaay_ outa their jurisdiction.
What? Who said "nonprofit?" Bull. If space can't be accessed profitably, we should be doing something else anyway. So we don't just solicit "donations." Every dollar (or ruble, yen, lira, Mark... oops, scratch some of those, showing my age again; I guess; we _could_ accept EC whatsits) buys bonds.
We'd be talking serious money real quick.
And then there's the tech: Who says we have to buy into the big expensive booster idea, anyway? Who out there really believes that NASA is running manned space travel in the most cost effective manner? (I'm not convinced that _any_ government agency is capable of operating cost effectively) Already, we've seen cheap concepts from private outfits; ie- the SpaceCub. And that's '50's and '60's tech. This is the twenty first century; we can't think of something better? Didn't Rutan get involved with Roton? Now _there's_ a neat concept.
Folks, you're already pooling expertise on these boards and talking concepts for hours a day. That's half the battle now. Stop piddling around. Identify workable concepts, develop them into real-world applications, and _do_ it. Or go back to your Star Drek novels and pointless daydreams.
In fact, if we are serious about escaping "mankind's cradle," I see only one real obstacle: Bureaucrats. Those "not without a permit, is that approved, zoning ordinance, we'll take care of you" impediments to intelligent life. If that's enough to stop us, then we probably deserve to stagnate and fade into oblivion on one little abused planet."
Yeah, sure. Repost this if you want. Heck, I _want_ you to post it. Anywhere you bloody well please. And just maybe someone'll get off his or her butt and _do_ something. Even if it's only to prove me wrong. But don't just talk; _prove_ I'm wrong.
Feeling relief at the vented frustration, Hank hit the post button. "Well, no doubt it'll just give most of 'em something more to argue about incessantly."
"Hank, are you still fooling around on the computer?" Hanners' wife, Kristi, was standing in the study doorway, gripping the frame. Hank thought she looked a little fuzzy around the edges;.she'd been drinking again, no doubt. For all that she was a couple of years younger than Hank's late 30s, she looked ten years his senior. Booze; her current hobby. Hell, it was cheaper than the long distance calls to her mother that she used to indulge in.
"Yeah, but I'm about done," he answered tiredly. "Just more of the same whining as always." He gifted the screen with an expression of disgust.
Kristi walked into the room and peered over his shoulder at the screen. Her highly flammable breath wafted over him. Who says vodka has no odor? "I wish you put as much effort into work as you do that bulletin board," she nagged.
And here it comes again. She could never quite come to grips with the fact that seniority and butt-kissing count for more in the modern corporate world than did honest hard work. He spun his chair around with an extended squeal to face her. "I do put in the effort at work, Kristi. I make it in every day, something my boss doesn't manage. I avoid the unapproved water cooler rumors. I donate the company-approved amounts to the company-approved charities. And every now and then, when they'll let me, and the signs and portents in the sky are favorable, I indulge in the occasional bit of actual engineering." He tipped his chair back and spun to face her. She looked... frumpy. Faded housecoat, graying hair, maybe forty pounds overweight, and downright shrewish. What had ever happened to the cutie he'd married nearly sixteen years ago? Then he snuck a guilty peek at his own generous gut. Neither of them were who they had been. "What else do you want? I still get step and COLA raises."
"I heard that idiot Morgan Jackson got a promotion," she pointed out accusingly.
"Jackson kisses ass, and he works in a department that isn't under a promotion freeze."
Kristi crossed her arms over her protuberant belly and declared, "And if you'd kiss some ass, maybe we could put Erin in a better school." She referred to their teenaged daughter, just fifteen, pretty, with her father snugly wrapped around her little finger.
Hank shrugged noncommittally. "Like, which one? And why? Her grades are good, she likes where she's at. Why switch anyway?"
"She likes it because it's easy." She frowned suddenly. "And where is Erin now, anyway?" She peered about the room with eyes slightly out of focus, as if expecting the girl to be hiding in a corner.
Hank replied patiently. "She's at the library studying for a physics test. You're supposed to pick her up at..." he shifted his gaze to his wristwatch "...Now." He considered his wife's borderline inebriation. "Never mind; I'll go get her." He heaved his bulk erect, joints popping.
Kristi stepped back, snorting. "Hmmph. Oughta make her walk home. You spoil that girl rotten."
Hank grinned. That much was true. "What hey? She's my only daughter. If I can't spoil her, then who?"
Kristi waved dismissal and she walked carefully to the door. "Oh, whatever."She paused and turned. "Oh yeah. So long as you're gonna be out anyway, stop and pick up another bottle of vodka. And some tonic."
Hank's face fell. "Another... ?" Hell, it wasn't worth the argument that any comment would start. The time for subtle hints was usually before she started drinking. "Okay. Stoli?"
"Anything'll do." came Kristi's response from beyond the doorway. Damn; just seven-thirty, and she's already too far gone to drive. He thought about Al-Anon again. Then shelved the thought for the nonce, and went searching for his car keys. Erin would already be waiting, probably impatiently.
A few days later Hank's NASA debate had reached his cubical at work, where he and Bob Anderson spent their days pretending to be mid-level aeronautical engineers. The cube's walls stood about five feet high, pretended to be fabricated of drably pastel sound absorbing material, and afforded imaginary privacy. "Well, why not?" Hank demanded of his cohort in corporate criminal engineering. "Show me the law that says a private citizen can't build a spaceship." He fumbled blindly behind himself for his coffee cup, a chipped ceramic souvenir from a competing aircraft builder; he brought it to the office for primary purpose of torquing off the departmental brown-noses. He stared into Anderson's eyes, brown behind classically nerdish 'Clark Kent' glasses, waiting for the expected response, the one he'd been seeing on his computer forum. He'd never asked, but suspect the eyewear was a subtle joke on the nerdish engineer stereotype. Hard to say for sure, since Anderson was less in-your-face about annoying the bosses than was Hank.
"Oh, come on, Hank; get real," his office companion obliged him. Score one for predictability. "You know space travel has to be sponsored by the government. Who else can afford it?" he lifted his own mug, which dodged the corporate correctness issue by being embossed with inane cartoons. Hank had tried to convince him to at least get a Dilbert mug, guaranteed to annoy management. Unfortunately, Anderson still had dreams of corporate success. He even wore a company tie with a blue shirt. But those glasses... There was still hope.
Hank loosened his knotted Tweety Bird tie. It clashed with his business blue dress shirt; but then, it would conflict with anything. "With big, dumb, vertical boosters?" he inquired obstinately. "Heck, the government can't afford it either. That's why nothing's really happening. And I don't count the Shuttle; it loses money."
"Precisely why..."
"Precisely why we should be doing it differently, Bob," Hank insisted. He drained the dregs in his mug and rose to head in the direction of the pot, eager for a refill. He kept talking as he poured. "Vertical boosters suck. They waste too much energy lifting themselves out of the gravity well, when all they should be doing is contributing forward velocity to the payload."
Bob shook his head, leaned back and put his feet up on his simulated desk. "So you want... What? A linear accelerator? Some sort of giant rail gun? The tech isn't up to it. And potential passengers wouldn't be up to the acceleration. From your babbling over the past few months, I figure you want a system that'll put people up, and with g's low enough that they can disembark instead of being decanted."
"Who needs magic tech like that?" Hank retorted, ignoring the jibe. "You know about the Air Force's rocket sled track out in New Mexico?" He leaned back and bumped his head on fabric covered particle board. The cube was scaled too small for double occupancy; a fact which had escaped the management sorts who made cost-cutting decisions from private offices.
"Umm... Yeah." Anderson waved his empty hand vaguely. "Ten mile track; they test missile nose cones, ejection seats, and the like. So?"
"Ten kilometers, really," Hank corrected. "And it's nothing but a steel track. But they've gotten better than Mach 8 on it." He plopped his mass back into his chair, displaced air riffling the pages of a Far Side calendar. "And, unofficially, I've heard Mach 10 plus was done even back in the '80s." He stopped, and took a sip from his coffee mug; then continued. "That's fifty year old tech. We can do better than that surely. With maglev to reduce track friction to zero, and a longer track, we oughta be able to hit Mach 12. How's that for a first stage booster?" He leaned back.
Bob's raspberry made his position clear, but he elaborated anyway. "Never happen. Wasn't the Air Force going to try one of those? And they couldn't do it without bankrupting the DoD." A devilish grin spread across his face. "Which probably wouldn't have been any bad thing, at that." A brief chuckle, then, "But maglev costs too much. Come back and talk when we have cheap room temperature superconductors to play with; then we'll consider maglev boosters." Then he grinned. "And my god... You want Mach 12? At ground level?" He made a mock shudder. "Talk about noise pollution. And everyone for miles'll think the mother of all earthquakes just hit."
Hank sneered right back at him, downed a slug of bitter office coffee to brace himself, and retorted, "Well, I don't see you suggesting anything. So we start a little slower. And how would you reduce friction? Hovercraft?"
Bob laughed at the sudden mental image of a hovercraft trailing a machwave wake. "Hey, at least hovercraft actually work. Heck, at the speeds you want, you wouldn't even need or want lift fans- just redirect air from forward intakes into the plenum. Plenty of lift." He slid his hand just inches over his desktop, and made a swooshing sound. "Wheeee! Supersonic hovercraft coming through!"
A voice made itself heard from another cubicle. "Oh, shit. The Mad Scientists are at it again; re-inventing the aerospace industry for the third time this week." Hank wadded up a corporate memo and pitched it over the upholstered divider. "Missed again!" The voice taunted.The crumpled ball sailed back over the partition.
Hank ignored further comments from invisible kibitzers and smiled at Anderson's outrageous idea. "And wouldn't that be fun on the Interstates; I thought the semi's were bad. Maybe we'd best keep them on their own roads."
Bob dropped his feet to the floor, struck with another thought. He grabbed a pencil and steno pad and began sketching. "Nah, if you're gonna put 'em on their own routes anyway, do this." He held up a crude picture. Some people should really stick to computer aided drafting.
Hank stood up, and stepped into Anderson's personal space. He examined the picture of a rectangle with a semicircular bite taken out of the top. A second complete circle rested in the semi-circle like an egg in an egg cup "So what is it?" he wondered, thoroughly baffled.
"A track for a hovertrain, of course." his counterpart smirked. "Since it'll have it s own road, why not invest the concrete in something better suited to a hovercraft?" He pointed to a detailed image in the corner. "See here? Instead of making your hovercraft have its own air plenum for levitation, you put it in a concave track, a sort of 'trough', and let the track be the plenum."
Hank was dubious. "Okay... Why?" He handed the simplistic sketch back to the failed artist.
"So your supersonic hovercraft doesn't waste its precious energy accelerating a plenum; just itself and the payload." Bob's face acquired a thoughtful look, and he raised his eyebrows. "This way, the track would even provide most of the guidance."
"You're crazier than me, Bob," Hank said. "But..." He considered the odd concept. "I wonder if it it wouldn't work at that. Wonder what the Teamsters would think?"
"Or the railroads." Anderson laughed again.
"Or NASA." Hank, deep in cogitation, wasn't laughing.
His co-worker's chuckles tapered off abruptly. "Eh? NASA? How so them?" Confusion was evident on his face. The conversation had drifted too far from its origins for him to make the immediate connection.
Hank stared down at Bob. "Look what you just designed: a high speed, horizontally accelerated, levitated launch catapult."
"Say what?" Anderson re-examined his silly picture, trying to see whatever Hank had spotted in his version of reality.
"Sure, Bob," Hank explained. "Lose the jets for the thing and stick a throttled liquid fueled rocket in it. Run it down a... oh, say... 15 mile track. How fast do you think it would be going?"
"Nah," Bob scoffed. "I mean, sure, you might get some impressive Mach numbers out of it, but this is a joke. It isn't going to hit orbit; it's stuck on the ground."
"Wanna bet?" Hank challenged. "Yeah, your hovercraft stays on the ground; but it's just a carrier, a ground-bound first stage. What if you piggybacked a little one-man cargo shuttle on it? Hit Mach 10 or so, fire its engine, detach, and head to low earth orbit." He crossed his arms and gave Anderson a look that dared him to pick out flaws in the idea.
"Bull; it's not enough velocity to make a difference. Is it?" Bob considered his co-worker's outlandish proposal. Without computer modeling, he wasn't about to argue pro or con any other aspect of the ridiculous concept; better to not give it any more credence.
"I'll bet it is. I saw something a few years back about NASA looking at a maglev system that would accelerate a shuttle to about 600 miles per hour before firing the engines. They claimed it would more or less double the launch efficiency." He pointed to the sketch. "This would be a heck of a lot faster. And concrete's cheaper than maglev."
Anderson grimaced at the cubicle divider behind Hank, briefly lost in thought. "Six hundred would be enough to... ?"
Hank caught the man's drift. "Sure. Remember- The first seconds or minutes of a launch is when a rocket expends most of its propellant mass, because it has to accelerate the rocket _and_ the as-yet-unexpended reaction mass. It wastes energy boosting its own weight, without contributing otherwise to the velocity of the rocket." He shrugged as if it should have been self-explanatory. "If you've got something external to the rocket that provides that initial push to the _rocket_, not just the propellant, you start with a huge... head start. Hell of an advantage."
Bob raised his hands, as if warding off Hank. "Whoa! Okay; the basic concept of horizontal boost is sound in theory. Heck, that's what the old X-15 rocket plane did. But I'm the guy to come up with the better orbital mousetrap? I don't think so."
"Why not? At least you know something of engineering. Or that resume' you keep updating every week claims you do." Hank grinned, then picked up the sketch again. "Can I have this?" he asked.
"Why?"
"I want to scan it, and upload a GIF to my web forum. See if anyone else can spot any fundamental flaws in the basic concept."
"You're nuts; but sure." Then he shook his head. "Uh... If you're gonna post that thing in public, let me come up with something kind of prettier on my computer for you. I'll mail it to your home account. And keep my name outa this."
"Coward. But thanks." Hank shot a look at the wall clock over Anderson's computer. "When can you get it done? Aren't you supposed to be working on the passenger seat redesign?"
Anderson scowled, then brought up a CAD file on his machine. An engineering drawing of a cattle class airliner torture device appeared on-screen. The bespectacled engineer typed a command and the front-back proportions of the seat shrank half an inch. He saved the change. "What redesign?" With a glance at his portly partner, he added, "But you probably won't want to fly anything but first-class anymore."
"I don't fly anyway," Hank countered. "Not since 9-11," he referred to the terrorist strike years earleir that saw four commercial aircraft downed, killing thousands. "Not until the Transportation Gestapo will let me travel with defensive capability." Then he grinned and shrugged. Besides, don't you know those things are built by low bidder?"
"Good point." Anderson ignored the first part of Hank's diatribe. He'd heard it all before; Hanners was as about as pro-gun as you could get without advocating... No, the other man _had_ said private individuals should be able to own nukes. He cringed mentally.
That night Hank typed up a synopsis of Anderson's 'hoverlauncher' idea, and posted it for comment in the SPACEFLIGHT section of his forum. Most folks dismissed it as intentional humor, but it did draw some positive comments. And 'Net reposting and forwarding being how they are, the concept was quickly disseminated around the country, probably the world. It was generally discounted, ridiculed, occasionally praised. And mutated.
FROM:d_brinker@seccom.com
It's definitely a neat idea, but it'll cost a fortune to implement. A 15-20 mile stretch of land? And do you have any idea of what concrete is going to cost? A real rough estimate says concrete alone will run around $25 million. Then there's labor, forms, reinforcing rod. You want to do this privately, you'd better find a way to do it cheaper.
FROM: jgroome2@compuserve.com
Brinker's right. So make it cheaper. Lose the track; sure, it makes the system more efficient, but it makes the initial investment required too high. Go for a more conventional GEM with its own plenum. We'd still have one kick ass hovercraft. But now it isn't dependent on an expensive track. Instead we'd shoot it downrange at the salt flats where they run cars for land speed records, or somewhere else flat enough.
Up against the wall, redneck mother.
- Jerry Jeff Walker
Bill Neville scratched at his balding scalp as he peered at the computer screen. "I do believe I'll be goddamned," he muttered to himself. The grizzled old Texan sat in a very comfortable leather upholstered chair at a positively enormous - not to say "Texas-sized" - oak desk, working with an equally impressive desktop computer. The desk feet sank into a few inches of expensively plush carpet. All this was within a large, wood paneled den he shared with his wife, who happened to be watching an old SF classic on their widescreen HDTV.
Amy Neville looked over at the sound of his voice. "What for this time, dear?" She muted the exploding star furies. Their steroidal ranch house held plenty enough rooms for the retired couple to indulge their electronic vices in private, but after forty-some years together, they were used to one another.
Neville chuckled and tilted his tumbler of scotch and water, ignoring Amy's frown of disapproval as he sipped. So what if he'd just finished breakfast? Ain't as if I'm goin' to work. "I'm readin' over some list traffic. Some clown's got the bright idea of launchin' space shuttles from the back of a hovercraft."
Amy blinked. "Beg pardon?" That didn't sound right; she must have misunderstood. She scratched her head in a parody of puzzlement.
"Sure 'nough." He rotated his monitor in her direction so she could see the artist's concept drawing he had downloaded. Something big and black, like a legless, elongated beetle was roaring across a desert, while a miniature space shuttle trailed fire into the sky. "Idea's to use a big hovercraft as a kinda launch catapult for a shuttle. The hovercraft's to dodge friction; not a bad idea on first glance." Amy was nearly a big a fan of space technology as her husband, which allowed him to abbreviate the description somewhat. Anyone who had read "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" knew launch catapults. He sipped watered down scotch. "Damnedest thing is, it sounds as though it could actually work; least in theory."
"What? Your model rockets aren't enough? Now you want to go to orbit?" Neville was a member of a local high power model rocketry club, which he often thought of as his own personal NASA.
"Always have, honey. You know that." She ought to anyway, he'd tried investing enough in startup access companies over the years. Or maybe not enough, since none of them had paid off.
"Well, try not to get taken in by some high tech startup looking for venture capital." Again, she meant. Neville usually had a damned pragmatic eye for profit, the basis his considerable retirement fortune, but his dreams tended to get bigger than his wallet when it came to space.
Neville pursed his lips and frowned slightly. "That's part of the hell of it, Amy. There ain't any company. Some guys are just floatin' a concept around the 'Net; idea's to invent a launch system so cheap and effective that it doesn't need government or major corporate support."
"Now I'm confused all over again, Billy." Amy clicked the TV off completely and rose to prop herself against the arm of the sofa closest to her husband. Her fundament sank nearly as far into the leather-clad padding as into the seat cushions. Several cows had died to provide her with a cushy place to rest her butt. "Explain, please." This was different; someone who wasn't asking for a few million up front.
Neville rotated his chair, shrugged, and taped a switch. He went limp as a faint hum announced shiatsu. What's the point of retiring rich if you don't enjoy it? "Not real sure where it started, but some guy's been complainin' 'bout NASA; how they can't ever get manned space travel right. Hell," he parenthesized, "lookit Hubble, the Mars probes, they just plain got lucky with DS1... They can't even get _unmanned_ travel right. But anyway, he's suggestin' that we abandon the whole conventional idea of space access by megacorp and government. Kinda like Crazy Horse Mountain..."
His wife interrupted. "Is that the one up north somewhere that they're carving into a gigantic statue?"
"Yep. Up in the Black Hills. They been at it for more'n half a century. They might not ever get the thing finished, but even as is, it beats hell outa that piddlin' Mount Rushmore." He'd meant to take his wife out there someday, but someday never seemed to make it onto his desk scheduler. Now that he was retired, he should make sure that it did. He snorted, then added, "But the point is that they've done it all on donations; they don't take government funds for it. This Hanners guy is talkin' somethin' similar for buildin' an orbiter and booster. He figures to sell bonds, maybe pre-sell tickets for rides to orbit, at conventions and such."
"Ah. So someone is trying to get money out of you."
"Nope. So far, there's just a buncha folks talking ideas. I think a few pros and semi-pros might even be doin' a little computer modeling. But no one's formed a company to actually do it." Neville paused and got thoughtful. "You know, Hanners pointed out that people have claimed all sorts of space-related technical expertise on the Web; but one area I haven't seen anyone stake a claim to is money handling and management. I guess maybe they need a volunteer for that before this ever gets off paper." He rose, and carried his tumbler of scotch over to a large picture window. He looked out onto his own personal piece of heaven, a semi-working ranch in west Texas. "Real estate would help too, I imagine."
His wife stood up and planted her hands on her hips. "William Neville! Just what are you thinking about? Getting tired of retirement already?"
Neville glanced back to the colorful shuttle launch computer imagery, then turned his gaze back to the prairie. "Mebbe so, honey. Mebbe so." With his back to the room, Neville didn't see the smile spreading across his wife's face. She didn't think retirement boredom had been good for her mate.
Just past dusk that evening, Neville sat out on the front porch of his ranch house with a couple of friends and neighbors, enjoying a cricket serenade, with occasional accompaniment from the coyotes that no one ever managed to eliminate. Neville figured it was a tossup as to which species would finally inherit the earth- the wild canines or cockroaches. Or maybe prairie dogs.
Neville's guests also happened to be members of his high power rocketry club. Cathy Peters was a thin, pretty strawberry blonde who looked as though she ought to be wired and intense; yet Neville could never recall seeing her anything but calm and collected, except maybe at some celebration. Such as the occasion of setting an altitude record, or watching her little girl win another skating medal. She finished reading the last of a stack of print outs which Neville had provided and passed it in turn to John Vasquez, as she had done with a couple dozen more pages. "Okay, Bill. Give," she directed. "You aren't really thinking of backing this hovercraft contraption, are you?" She smiled mischievously. "But I must admit, the idea of getting to orbit with a supersonic hovercraft does appeal to my sense of the absurd."
"Have another beer, Cathy, and it'll really begin to tickle ya." Neville popped the cap off of a Coors and handed it over. "'Cause even better; I'm invitin' ya'll to back the contraption, too." He grinned as he opened a another beer for himself. "You want somethin' to drink, John?" Vasquez, stocky, middle-aged, and not particularly Hispanic in appearance, surname notwithstanding, declined absently with a shake of his head and continued reading.
"Shit," Cathy said flatly. "You're serious, aren't you?" She eyed her neighbor's bottle critically.
"Yep."
"What's Amy think of this? I notice she isn't out here."
"Naw, she had to go inta town for some meetin'. She figures I'm crazy. But she also figures that anythin' that keeps me from drivin' her crazy can't be all bad." The older man shrugged sheepishly. "My retirement hasn't exactly been easy on her."
"No shit?" Vasquez interjected, finally pulling his attention away from Neville's documents. "Mr. Type-A-Gotta-be-busy, just piddling around the house for the last few months? I can imagine." In fact, when Neville had announced his retirement the previous September, several acquaintances had started making odds on how soon he'd come out of retirement. Or when Amy killed him out of sheer exasperation. Vasquez wished he'd taken at least one of those bets now.
"Thanks for that vote of confidence, John." Neville flipped him off with a grin. "But I gotta admit that retirement has been borin' the livin' hell outa me."
Cathy again. "So from plain ol' boredom, you want to out-do NASA in the space business?" She was definitely dubious about the idea. "And you want to drag us down with you?"
"Sounds as good a reason as any," the older man answered laconically. "And the chance to make another buck or two ain't half bad either." Neville stepped to the edge of the porch and looked up into the sky. The really _big_ sky. "But, no. Not just boredom." I also want to do it because I think people _need_ to get out there, and no one else is going to let us. And because _I_ want to be out there." He turned to meet his guests' scrutiny again. "And yeah, I do think we can make money doing it."
"Well, you finally got my attention," Vasquez joked. The man probably needed money no more than did Neville. Or Peters. But blatant avarice was one of his running gags. It might be a gag.
"Yeah, go ahead. I've got to hear this," Cathy added. There might be someone in high power rocketry who wasn't seriously fascinated by space access, but Cathy Peters wasn't one of them.
"The fact is, crazy as it sounds right off, it's startin' to look like this hovercraft concept is actually workable. It was mentioned in those papers I gave ya'll, but I can getcha copies of the reports themselves. Seems some folks ran some computer models on the thing, and it tests out positive. More than that..." He paused to order his thought for the pitch.
"Well, this seems ta've started some months back on this guy Hanners' private website. It caught some college professor's interest, and he assigned it to a buncha his engineerin' students as a class project. They not only did computer work-ups, but they even made some scale models of several designs and did wind tunnel tests. It worked."
Cathy whistled. "Cool. But how did you learn about this?"
"Easy 'nough. Spent most of today doing 'Net searches on the subject. Found a buncha papers posted on the Web for review." He sucked down beer. " 'Course, mosta the technical details in the reports were over my head; I just read summaries and abstracts."
"I'll be damned," was Vasquez's response. "But I still don't quite see what you've got in mind. None of us are exactly poor; but unless you're a heck of a lot richer than I thought, we can't fund our own private space program." Cathy nodded agreement.
" 'Course not," Neville conceded. "But we do own a helluva lot of land; I think enough for a launch strip. And we've got enough cash to hire some tech-types to make a start at R&D, some office people... We can't fund the thing alone, but we can get the ball rolling."
Cathy was interested now. Eyes narrowed, she began, "So we.... What? Start a corporation and sell stock?"
"No. Or not yet, anyway. I want to start by setting up a private partnership; just us to start. We put up land and earnest money to prove we're serious. Once we're a going concern, we sell bonds..."
"Why not stock?" Cathy wondered.
Neville blushed slightly, not easy to see in the growing dusk. " 'Cuz after forty-some years of corporate BS, and the government entanglements that go with incorporation, I just don't want to. For one thing, incorporation buffers the owners, the stockholders from responsibility. Dilutes it. Maybe it's ol' fashioned, but I don't think we're going to get to the stars by duckin' responsibility. And it makes a good filter; the personal financial risk will scare off the folks who aren't serious, or who only like t'play money games." He glared at his hoped for partners. "Remember all those start-up dotcoms and hi-techs that made millions on paper in the stock market? And remember what happened when it finally occurred to investors that they weren't ever seeing any real product?"
"Thirty-five hundred points in one day," Vasquez supplied. "Not quite a crash, but a pretty good fenderbender. You'd think the market bobbles in '01 would've clued them in, but noooo." He harrumphed; the only person Neville knew who actually did that.
"Yeah, and a lot of companies died before they ever did what their founders wanted to do. I don't want that to happen to us."
"Good point," Vasquez agreed.
"So," Cathy spoke up again. "Are you making this a formal proposal now?"
"Heck no. I'm just feelin' ya'll out on the basic idea. Think about it, do your own research. Then if ya think it's got potential, we can grab some lawyers and put together a real business plan an' all the rest."
Vasquez laughed. "Shee-it! You still got a lawyer that'll get within a hundred yards of you?"
"Just one now. Mosta them wanna use scopes." They all laughed.
FROM: wdneville@the_launcher.co.us
TO: Hank@hannersspace.hob
SUBJECT: Business Proposal
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Dear Mr. Hanners,
Please allow me to introduce myself. I am William Neville, a retired west Texas rancher. I'm also something of a space enthusiast. So your persistence over the past several months in encouraging people to take an active part in developing a new space program caught my notice. My associates and I are particularly interested in the ground effect launcher concept which you originated.
We have pooled certain resources and formed a company to build your launcher. Our starting support for this venture includes 20 linear miles of mostly flat, very empty land, and a grubstake meant to be used to hire engineers and technicians, and a supporting administrative staff.
Want in?
You may reach me via email at any time, or hopefully by telephone at 915-658-4787. Feel free to call collect. I would very much like to discuss employment options.
Sincerely,
William D. Neville
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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"What the bloody... ?" Some days Hank figured it just didn't pay to check his email. Then again, maybe someone was serious.
Kristi Hanners glanced up from her magazine at Hank's exclamation. Did he have to vocalize over everything he read on his Internet? She stood to leave the study and find somewhere quiet to read. But remnants of curiosity made her pause. What now? "Yes, dear?"
"Sorry, honey. Just got the screwiest letter. A joke probably; but how would you like to move to Texas?" Right. She'd barely moved off the sofa in the last week.
"Texas?" She made a face of near-disgust. "Don't be ridiculous." The very idea was plainly out of the question. She head for the door with her magazine, footsteps barely muffled by the industrial grade carpet.
"Whatever." Curious now, Hank turned his attention back to the computer and did a little checking. He dissected the sender's email address and ran a whois on launcher.co.us:
"Hmm." He typed www.launcher.co.us into his browser and was rewarded with a great rendition of a shuttle piggybacked on a futuristic ground effect vehicle screaming across a prairie, with the caption, Real, Affordable Space Access. "Sonuvabitch. Are these guys for real?" Sleep came hard that night.
By the firelight I see your tattoo.
Hank shifted uncomfortably in his chair, which was silly; comfort should not have been an issue. The chair was senior-VP grade, cushioned to hell-and-gone and covered with supple leather; it even had a built-in shiatsu massager. But such luxury is hardly a usual thing for cannonfodder-level engineers. And the interview was somewhat out of the ordinary. And interviewer himself was... different. He examined the conference room to which he'd been escorted by a pleasant-faced, sixtyish woman while he awaited the return of his host. It was a study in contrasts. The company office itself was located in a new strip mall; the sort favored by startups on a budget- affordable, but nice enough to make you look "for real."
The conference room was more of the same until you looked at the furnishings. Hank's chair, and that of his absent interviewer, looked expensive; the kind of thing you'd expect to find in the top offices at a well-established, and very profitable, concern. And they lacked the sheen of newness presented by the room itself; as if they'd been brought in from somewhere else. But the conference table could've come directly from any of a hundred corporate furnishing outfits; bland and anonymous. Contrasts again: What the room lacked in leased potted plants - something Hank always found outrageously ridiculous - it made up in artwork. There were very nice space-themed paintings hung everywhere. Not prints. Hank thought he recognized a McCall or two. What the hell?
And then there were the bottles of beer sitting on the table, sans coasters.
Neville swaggered through the doorway. "Sorry 'bout that," he offered apologetically as he eased himself back down into his own seat of affluence. He'd brought the chairs in from his own den, knowing that he would be spending far too much time in the office to subject his rear to the indignities of leased furniture. "You can never really buy a beer, just rent it." He gestured towards Hank's untouched bottle of Lone Star. "Drink up, son. Ain't the best stuff in he world, but it cuts a thirst." He settled deeper into his seat and propped his feet up on the table.
Hank stared. The man was actually wearing cowboy boots; old worn footgear, not urban cowboy costume crap. Well, they certainly went along with the faded Levis, work shirt and turquoise-encrusted string tie. No doubt there was a Stetson sitting around somewhere too. Hank started to tug at his own conventional tie... Well, as conventional as the Tasmanian Devil ever got ...then forced himself to stop fidgeting.
"Well, we've chatted a bit," Neville began again. "What say we get to business?" He reached over and manipulated a mouse attached to a notebook computer. "Gotcher resumé here; looks pretty good for a young guy." Young was relative; Hank was 37; but Neville may have been at least twice that; hard to say for sure, once the face got that leathery.
"Thank you, sir. I have made a point of continuing my education, and obtaining additional industry certifications..." Despite Neville's show of informality, Hank determined to play it straight.
The older man was having none of that. He cut, "So I noticed. Doesn't always mean much, but I happen to know that your company doesn't do tuition assistance worth a damn these days, so you were motivated enough to do it at your own expense. I like that." Neville feigned slight confusion. "But it beats the heck outa me why you've stuck with an outfit with such crappy benefits."
The engineer shrugged. "I have a wife, daughter, and a mortgage. I didn't want to jeopardize them by taking a chance on a job change."
"Sounds reasonable. Maybe." Neville brought his head forward and peered into Hank's eyes. "But what makes this time different? Why are you willin' to consider a change now?" He lowered his eyebrows. "It ain't the money or bennies, 'cause we haven't talked money yet. Got probs with your current employer?"
Hank was damned if he'd let this rodeo clown put him on the defensive. He stared defiantly into the man's blue eyes. "No, sir, I don't. If you'll recall, Launcher contacted me, not the other way around. You're the one asking me to come to you. _I_ have a job." He grabbed his bottle and gulped carefully. "Why should I risk my family for you?"
"Good point," Neville conceded with a smile. He nodded to himself and tapped a few keystrokes into his notebook. "But the first question remains."
Hank took a deep breath and decided that if this was going to be a strange interview, he might as well go all out. "No, that's the wrong question. The right question is the one I asked. Why _you_ want me to take the chance with my family." He sneered at the beer bottle, and set it down firmly, then pushed it away. He waited for Neville's reaction.
Neville cackled. "I like you, boy. Kinda figured I would, and I do." He got up and stepped around the table which he then leaned against. Intentional or not, it forced Hank to crane his neck to see the guy's face. "Let's not bullshit each other. We've seen your resumé. We've checked your references. We even talked to people at your company thatcha might not want us t' talk to. So I already know that technically you can do the work we got in mind." He picked up Hank's neglected beer and handed it to him. "Drink the damn thing before it goes warm and flat. It ain't a test; we really are casual here."
"No shit," Hank noted, then blushed. He drank, sipping moderately this time. It really was an acceptable brew.
Neville tried for control of the conversation once more. "Son, if you hadn't already answered the question of why you'd move for yourself, I doubt you'd be here today."
Hank nodded agreeably. "I have done a bit of checking on the company, of course. And it would ridiculous to try to pretend that the GEM launcher concept doesn't appeal to me."
"I sorta thought so," Neville chuckled cynically. "Seein' as you were the one to dream it up. Which is why we want you, naturally."
Hank blinked in surprise. "Huh? I didn't come up with the original idea. That was Bob Anderson, in a BS session one day. I did polish it up a little. But so did other folks."
Neville frowned. "Maybe we should get this Anderson fella too." He reached to his computer and made another note. Then to Hank again, "BS session, eh? Everybody bouncing ideas off each other? How'd it happen that you posted the idea on your site instead of this other guy?"
"Well, I'm the one with the site after all. And Bob didn't really think the idea was all that practical..."
"So you were the one willing to take a chance 'a lookin' like an idiot by floating the idea?"
"Well... Yeah. More or less."
"Space travel is a strong interest of yours?" Neville shifted the discussion vector abruptly.
Hank blinked and replied, "Of course; which I guess you know, if you already know about my website."
"If you're into space travel, why didn't you get a job with NASA?" The executive crossed his arms and watched the younger man's face expectantly. Obviously a test of a sort.
For Hank, an easy one. He sneered, and said, "Because I'm into _space_, not office politics, government contracts, covering my ass, and making excuses for still using the single least efficient launch system possible."
The semi-executive smiled. "That, Mr. Hanners, is why we want you. You're a competent aeronautical engineer, but there are better ones. We already hired a couple." He held up a hand at Hank's mildly offended expression. "Shit, son, don't getcher panties in a wad; there's always someone better eventually. But these guys... Technically, they're good. They even got imagination, and they want to see somethin' like this fly. But I think they need a real dreamer, a hardcore space enthusiast, and one who won't fall into the trap of doin' things NASA's way. As a boss. But he does have to be a competent engineer, so he can understand what he's asking 'em to do and what they're actually doing."
Hank was taken aback; his confusion was definitely not faked. "Excuse me, but run that by me again. You're wanting me to do what?" Surely he hadn't heard that right.
"I wantcha t' run our R&D section. Somebody's gotta design the damned thing." Lessee how he takes t' that.
"But..." Hank himself wasn't too sure how he ought to respond. From junior engineer on the totem pole to R&D chief?
Neville held up his hand again. "But me no buts, Hanners. Not just yet. Just keep that in mind. For now, I wanna take you out t' our facilities outside'a town. Not much but some shacks and sagebrush yet, but it's where we plan to build a launcher."
"But..."
"I wantcha t' get the nickel tour, see what we're doin'. I figure we can talk you inta joinin' us once you see we're serious."
By the time Hank's flight reached the Lambert Field jetway in Saint Louis that evening, he was fairly sure. For that matter, he'd obviously been sorely tempted from the start, to risk the perils of airport security. But he took two more days to thoroughly consider the deal. And how to talk his wife and daughter into it.
"No. Don't be ridiculous." Kristi dismissed the notion with a haughty sneer. "I am _not_ moving to... to.. some bumpkin town in the Texas desert." She shuddered. She gestured dismissively with her vodka and tonic, slopping some of the fluid over the rim and onto paperwork which Hank had spread across the kitchen table to support his position- San Angelo tourist and business brochures, lists of schools, and a cost of living analysis. The wasted liquor was largely the limit of Kristi's attention to the documents. "Dust, horses, drafty cabins..."
More than a little frustrated, and definitely confused by the apparent non sequitor, Hank blinked. "What the hell are you talking about?"
She set her glass down on a Launcher Company benefits package. "I am _not_ moving to some backwards town out in the boonies. I like Saint Louis. And where would Erin go to school?" the frumpy woman demanded.
Hank stared helplessly at the school pamphlets and folders sitting on the glass tabletop before his wife, then at her flushed face. "Backwar... Kristi, we're talking San Angelo in the twenty-first century, not some cattle town in the nineteenth." Gods, if she'd just turn off the soap operas on occasion and check out the real world...
"Right," she countered. "And how many TV stations does it even have?" By way of example, she pointed to her portable television - the four-inch LCD unit ensured she maintained her fix while away from the main unit in the living room - where the ex-mayor of a Midwestern city was once again reveling the nation with tackiness, assisted by the usual collection of tawdry morons.
Hank glanced at the tiny figures posturing on-screen. Inbreeding will tell, he figured. "Gods, Kristi; like you couldn't do without that crap?" He sighed with frustrated disbelief. "But I promise, San Angelo has TV, it has cable service. And stores, libraries, theaters... It's a city, honey. It even has schools for Erin." He tapped colorful papers. "Good schools." He propped his elbows on the kitchen table and rubbed his temples, a headache in full bloom. "Kristi, about the only things San Angelo doesn't have that Saint Louis does is too damned many people, the noise" - as if to make his point, the roar of traffic westbound on I-70 seemed to reach a crescendo - "and one of the most corrupt city governments in the country; I think Chicago sends its aldermen here for advanced training." Hank wondered cynically if that might even be true.
"But I like it here!" Kristi slurred. She sniffed dismissively.
Hank stared at his dumpy wife, still in a housecoat well into the evening. "Hell, how would you know? You never even leave the house anymore!" Except to go to the liquor store. Hank had started 'forgetting' to pick up her ration of booze lately. Thank the gods Erin wasn't old enough to buy, or Kristi would have her daughter making vodka runs.
"I do too!"
He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. A screaming match would be worse than useless. He propped his forearms on the table. "Look, honey, let me give you a few basic facts. First, " he stuck out a thumb, "I can stay here at the plant, sit in a cubicle with another guy, and figure out how to cram more people into aircraft designed 20-plus years ago by someone else who sat in a little cubical. _If_ I'm lucky, and boredom doesn't kill me, I might get my own office in another twenty or thirty years. And I'd still be working with someone else's decades old designs." His index finger went out. "_Or_ I can quit and go to work for Launcher, where they want to make me chief of R&D at a hell of a lot more money right off. We'll be the ones designing a brand new spacecraft, probably several craft. I'll be getting paid to _create_ something I've dreamed of most of my life." Middle finger. "Now, if I take the new job, you can stay here and I'll send you an allowance. Or you can get a job of your own." Which possibility he classed right up there with a sudden reversal of continental drift; Kristi's last go at gainful employment was burgerflipper back in high school. "Or you and Erin can come out to Texas with me and we can be a family and have a much larger disposable income." He saw that struck a nerve with her.
"Is the pay really that much better?" she asked avariciously, visions of widescreen, surround-sound HDTV dancing in her head.
"Yes, it is." And if I set up an allotment to Erin's college fund right out of the check, Kristi won't know exactly how much more. For all that he was a gadget-happy engineer, he'd rather see Erin in a good college than a living room stuffed full of the techno-frippery that appealed to his wife. Especially since their daughter seemed to have inherited his distaste for most televised twaddle.
"And you really want to do this?" Now that the money had convinced her, Kristi was prepared to look as though she was graciously acceding to his wants.
Something deep inside clicked, and he realized he had already decided, and he wasn't going to let her off so easily. "No. I _am_ going to do this. With or without you. If you choose to stay, I'll ask Erin to come along at least. But I'm going." He got up, nothing left to say. He pried open the refrigerator door and searched for a soda. He found something that Kristi hadn't yet mixed with alcohol and popped the top. And headed for his study.
Kristi sat stunned, mouth working like a gasping fish. But she'd been about to agree. Right?
As Hank sailed through the kitchen doorway, his face a study in controlled fury, he caught sight of Erin. She'd obviously been listening in, but... Hell, she needed to know about the job offer anyway. This didn't count as snooping. He began to calm down.
"Hi, Daddy." she began tentatively.
Definitely daddy's girl. Hank's heart began melting already. "Hi, hon. I guess you heard all that?" He tipped his head back toward the kitchen, then led the girl towards his study.
"Yeah." She stopped short of entering the room, and leaned against the wooden door frame. "After you went down to the interview, I did some checks at the library and on the 'Net. I think it sounds pretty neat." Hank knew his daughter also shared some of his own space fanaticism. Maybe it was just to keep him buttered up, but it worked. "I think San Angelo sounds okay, too. I guess... If this is what you want to do..." Her voice faded as she looked into the kitchen where her mother was doling herself out another vodka sans tonic. Hank followed her gaze as the young lady spoke again. "Do you think I'll make new friends there okay?"
Hank considered the question as Kristi watched trash TV on her microscreen. Few of Erin's current batch of friends cared to come by the house anymore, to have an inebriated Mrs. Hanners inflicted upon them. He shifted his gaze back to his daughter. Tall - she must be up to five-nine now - slender, fine chestnut hair hanging down straight. With those eyes and cheekbones... Even allowing for a papa's bias, quite pretty. Also quite intelligent and personable, if a touch too shy. Somehow... "I don't think that's going to be a problem for you," he finished aloud. He added a smile and brushed her forehead with a kiss.
She blushed and wiped at her brow. "Daddy," she pretended embarrassment, then looked up and returned his smile. "I'll go to Texas if you want."
"Thanks, honey." He sighed happily and dropped himself into his chair at the desk.
But Erin frowned and added, "What about Mom?" She flipped a guilty look back down the short hallway behind her.
Hank's cheer faded abruptly. "I think she'll come," he said with cynical certainty.
The teenager caught his tone. With a worried look on her face, she asked quietly, "Are you still in love?"
Poppa's guts curdled. This was hardly something a parent really wanted to discuss with his child. But Erin wasn't really just a child anymore, and he wasn't going to fob her off with comfortable inanities. He sucked air, and answered, "Yeah, I guess we are." He paused, and his eyes seemed to turn inward. "But we aren't the same people we once were. We both changed, and we don't always have the same things in common." He stared into Erin's green eyes. "So sometimes we just have to work harder at it."
Erin bit her lip, and tried to smile. "I guess maybe we all do, huh?"
Old man, take a look at my life. I'm a lot like you were.
The Internet being what is - bored surfers, USENET, listservers, search engines, IRC, web forums, opinionated homepages, et al - it didn't take long for the online world to notice that someone had accepted Hanners' challenge. People worldwide debated the legitimacy and resources of the Launcher Company. Hank became a temporary celebrity, gaining the clichéd fifteen minutes of fame, when they realized that he had called his own bluff, quit his job, and gone to work for the space outfit.
That decision seemed to be a catalyst for other people; as if Hanner's commitment to the cause proved that Launcher was serious. Investors began to appear. And the idea that there were people out there who were willing to invest money in something so seemingly ludicrous as a ground-effect spaceship spurred a lot of more interest in other quarters. _Discover_ magazine ran a series of articles on access techniques, beginning with the Launcher concept and outlining other alternative launch systems that had been suggested over the decades. Ground Effect linear accelerators looked downright sensible compared to orbital helicopters.
_Scientific American_ was rather less complimentary, with a lengthy article strangely devoid of any supporting math which asserted that the launcher was an unworkable fraud. Neville wasn't thrilled by that one, but the magazine had lost so many readers after its turn of the century attacks on the American 2nd Amendment that it probably didn't matter much. _SA_ hadn't much liked cold fusion either, but General Electric was releasing an interesting trickle of results from their joint research program with Japan under Pons and Fleishmann. Go figure. Well, someone had to be the voice of mediocrity.
On the other hand, since the twentieth century, Wall Street has been in love with hi-techs; even after the "fenderbender" of the stock market's 'Dotcom Death.' Which itself was a monument of the ability of investors to refuse to learn from the past, specifically the earlier, turn-of-the-century, market adjustment caused by an Internet techno-flop. The favorable article in the Journal reflected this techno-infatuation. The more conservative money people were impressed by Launcher's insistence on building a solid financial base (not to mention some actual infrastructure) by selling ordinary bonds and through personal investments by the founding partners before making an initial stock offering. Some people, Neville among them, remembered techno-startups that appeared around breakfast, IPO'd just after lunch, and evaporated by supper, damned near taking the rest of the market with them. Just when Launcher would IPO was the immediate item of speculation.
Neville punched the speaker button on his phone and leaned back in his chair. Yet another such speculator to handle. "Go ahead." He gazed down at his suit, missing the more comfortable jeans of his defunct retirement. Perpetual casual day had been fun while it lasted, but it was time to get serious with all the outsiders that were coming around these days. Big Money always looked askance at a lack of formal pantomime, not to mention pants. C'est la vie. Well, when we're up and runnin'...
A tinny (_when_ would the consumer electronics industry realize that decent quality speakers really wouldn't noticeably add to their expense?) voice replied to Neville's prompt. "I do thank you for taking the time to give me this interview, Mr. Neville."
Ah, reporters. At least this one's polite. So far. "Not at all, Mr. Naismith. 'Course, I do have an ulterior motive, my own agenda." He laughed a little.
"Everyone I interview has their own agenda, sir," Naismith chuckled right back at him. "The trick is make sure that it's my agenda that controls the interview."
Neville smirked at the phone, unseen. Uh huh, right. "Do tell. Neat trick if you can manage it," he challenged playfully. "Well, in that case, why dontcha get us started. I'm bettin' I can guess your first question."
Naismith was happy to oblige. Not too surprising, since that was the point of the whole exercise in public relations. "I suppose all the market speculation does make the question fairly obvious." Then, as if reading from a cue card, "Mr. Neville, how soon will Launcher Company make an initial public offering?"
"Well, thank you for gettin' right t' my agenda," Neville laughed. Gotcha. Unseen by the journalist, he made a mark on an invisible chalkboard. "Me an' my people been gettin' calls about that damned near since our website first went active. Drivin' us nuts. So I wanted to settle it once and for all."
"Yes?" The voice didn't quiver with expectation, but it should have. This was the first official announcement from Launcher on the subject.
"We won't."
The line was silent while Naismith apparently waited for Neville to elaborate. The Texan out-stubborned him though, and the reporter prompted, "You mean there's no specific time frame for the offering?"
"Nope. I mean we aren't going IPO at all." If Neville smoked, he'd have been kicking back, blowing smoke rings. He did sip beer; one of the last bottles in the office, since Amy had reminded him that beer bottles in the waste baskets were another thing that made conservative investors nervous.
Naismith laughed. "That's certainly likely to drive trading when you do announce. The sheer suspense. How about if we agree not to release the information too far in advance if you'll just give us the exclusive?"
"Hell, Naismith, I thought you said you did your homework on me." This time Neville scowled at the contraption at the center of his desk, visualizing barbecued reporter. "With any of the other companies I ran in the past, did I ever knowin'ly give out incorrect data?"
"Errr..." Then silence.
Damned right. "Son, I said we aren't makin' a public offering because we _aren't_, not to play stupid market games. Launcher is stayin' a closed company, a partnership." He leaned into the phone, and fought an urge to drum his finger on the hard wood table top; it would only distort his words. "We'll sell all the bonds we can eventually redeem, that people wanna buy. We might even occasionally let a new partner opt in." He frowned, then picked up the handset again, not wanting to be misunderstood. "But we will _not_... and you better quote me on this... we will not form a traditional corporation, thus turnin' ourselves inta a quasi-governmental agency subject to its bumbling bureaucratic interference, nor will we open the company up to inept control by sellin' votin' stock to sheeple who probably think a launch is a boat."
"Umm. Well. I see..." Naismith stammered. This was not expected.
"Besides which," the exec interrupted, "I personally disapprove of how the stock market is used, make that _misused_, today. The market was supposed to be a way to float loans to new outfits and companies wantin' t' expand. I can do that with bonds. But nowadays people expect to make instant money; they think that lotsa folks investin' inna company somehow increases its real worth, so its stock is magically worth more, so they can then sell it off an' turn a quick profit.
"That only works at all when the the company is actually makin' some product, be it physical or mebbe a service; that is, the apparent increase in the net worth has t' be backed up by something besides stockholders' wishful thinkin'. When it isn't, whatcha really got is inflation, stock that ain't backed up by product. And when it happens to enough outfits at once, you got inflation and even Dotcom Deaths come Monday morning." He paused for breath and to gather his thoughts.
"On really good days, you get stockbrokers tryin' t' learn t' fly. Not necessarily a bad thing, in my book." The basic message sent, and the reporter in possession of a colorful quote (which the paper was quite pleased to run bold-face in a sidebar), the real interview was over. The two exchanged inanities for a several more minutes, then each broke off to get some real work done.
Of course, daytraders and stockbrokers, not being emotionally capable of grasping the point, faithfully waited for the IPO that never was. In the meantime, more savvy investors snapped up bonds.
A hell of a lot of 'mini-bonds' got bought at WorldCon that year.
Some folks found other ways to 'buy' their bonds. As Hank Hanners had once pointed out, there are a _lot_ of skills represented amongst Internet users. Launcher meant to take advantage of the fact. Compared to NASA, which had the seemingly bottomless pockets of complacent taxpayers to pilfer, Launcher was on a tight budget. Neville and his compadres were quite willing to deal with skilled technicians and not-so-skilled but absolutely necessary rough laborers willing to take their pay, at least in part, in trade. A great deal of people thought it was... a great deal. A basic wage, with accrued bond interest; and in the case of many construction workers, room and board in the form of dormitories and chow halls, brought in most of the people Launcher needed.
Some didn't even bother with traditional housing. A tent and RV 'city' of rather fluid proportions sprung up on company grounds; mostly consisting of day laborers and the folks truly serious about conserving funds. It also attracted more than a few tourists - space fanatics, science fiction fen, the merely curious. One late-night wag referred to the operation as the world's largest science fiction convention.
The young man ran a last bit of water into the cement mixer and set it to turning to rinse out. Then he returned to smoothing the pad he had just poured. He sprayed water over the plastic mass to leave a fluid film, and ran his oversized trowel across the cement. The morning was already plenty warm, and this part of Wyoming wasn't noted for shade trees; he'd chucked his shirt early on. His short, but vigorous life of labor showed in the play of muscles on his back. The Wyoming sun showed in the half tan/half burn of his fair complexion. Sweat glistened in the sunlight.
Some yards away, an older man watched the work. He shared the younger man's six feet of altitude and sunburn-prone coloring. His lean torso was a good twenty years behind him though. He sighed, squared his shoulders, and walked over, scuffing up dirt where constant traffic kept grass from growing. "Hey, Cal."
The worker started at the interruption, and looked quickly at his father. "Yeah, Dad?" He continued working. It wouldn't do to let the concrete set unsmoothed. A rough surface would only make that much tougher to clean up after the chickens to be tenanted here.
"Got a few minutes to talk?"
"I guess so; if I can finish this foundation." Cal Schmidt gestured to the base for the farm's planned chicken coop.
"You can keep workin' if you want. Just want to talk." Schmidt-elder smiled. Damned if that boy hadn't developed one hell of a work ethic. He considered his own tendency towards laziness, and figured the boy got it from his mother.
"Okay." Cal continued his broad, smooth strokes. "What's up?"
"I was kinda hopin' you'd tell me." Cal's father shrugged. "You've been pretty distracted ever since you got the acceptance letter from MIT the other day. Like somethin's botherin' you. Thought it might help to talk it over." An apprehensive expression flitted over Cal's face, but he said nothing. His father continued, "If you're worried about the tuition..."
Cal straightened, and propped his tool against the frame of the mixer. He ambled over to a large plastic drop cloth near the fresh foundation. He picked it up and shook it open. "Hey, Dad; how 'bout helping me pull this over the concrete so the water won't evaporate before the stuff sets?"
His father nodded and took one end. As they maneuvered the sheet into place, he steered the discussion back into place as well. "If you're worried about affordin' MIT..."
"No. It's not that..." That would be too easy. Cal stalled a little longer by weighting down the edges of the plastic with broken bricks and rocks brought over for the purpose.
"I think we can handle it okay," the elder Schmidt persisted. "That partial scholarship ain't half bad, and we have a little more cash stashed than you might think." He set a few stones into place while he spoke. Work's gotta get done.
Cal looked troubled, and gave the polymer film a half-hearted tug or two before answering. Finally, "Dad..." He sighed. "I was thinking of.... maybe putting college off a little longer." Okay, that gets the balling rolling. Of course, it might be _my_ balls rolling in a minute.
Mr. Schmidt raised his eyebrows. "Well, you've gotta do what you think is right. But that scholarship won't wait forever, you know."
"I know, Dad. But... " Cal turned to face his father, guilt evident on his face."I'm not sure more school is what I what right now. I want to do things." He hesitated again, and his father waited with more patience than Cal figured he had a right to expect. "I've been looking into the Launcher Company," he added, meaning to clarify his position. He watched his leather shod feet as he kicked dirt.
Mr. Schmidt made a small smile. "Launcher? The space folks down in Texas?"
"Yeah." Cal's face became more animated. "They'll piss off the government, but they're going to build the first really affordable space access system. It'll make NASA look like the putzes they really are." He added a happy grin. "I've been thinking about going down there to work." Whoops. Maybe just a little too abrupt there, Cal-boy.
Mr. Schmidt rewarded the revelation with a hard stare. "If work is what you want, dontcha think we have enough here on the farm?" Cal looked crestfallen, and his father grinned. "Just kidding. Ain't like we weren't expectin' to do without you when you went to college anyway." He eyed his son carefully. "Can't say I'm surprised, what with all the launcher and space bookmarks you've left on the computer in the den."
Cal frowned. "Dad..."
"Take it easy, boy. Wasn't spyin' on you." He smiled sheepishly. "I've been readin' the stuff myself. Gotta admit; 15, 20 years ago, I'd be down there myself. If anybody had the balls to try it then. Glad to see that you've got the requisite cojones." The elder Schmidt hooked his thumbs in belt loops and let his approval show.
Looking mildly confused, Cal said, "You're okay with this? I mean, I know you were really counting on me going to MIT." What the hell?
Schmidt shuffled his own feet in the Wyoming dirt. "Hell, son. I guess we shoulda had this talk a good many years ago. I ain't made myself clear enough." He stared Cal right in the eyes. "In itself, I don't give a shit if you graduate MIT magna cum laude or dress up in a yellow dress and hand out flowers at airports. If it's what you gotta do." With a dubious look he added, " 'Though the later option might disappoint me just a tad bit. 'Course, even MIT ain't what it used to be," he parenthesized. His foot did a little more micro-landscaping before he said, "Let's move into the shade on the porch." He nodded toward the family's farmhouse.
Cal's father was considered something of an eccentric by his neighbors, and the house was a major reason. It was not a stereotypical Old West domicile. A couple of decades earlier, Schmidt had bought some land and a geodesic domehome kit. To the basic kit, he'd later added a wide porch completely encircling the dome home. Cal - and the neighbors - thought it looked more like a flying saucer than a house. Schmidt was unconventional, and had tried to pass that on to his son. The call on college indicated he might've succeeded.
The pair wandered over to the 'back' porch, near the kitchen door, and settled onto a couple of well worn wicker chairs. The sun was just high enough for the overhang to grant some cool shade, although a suncatcher fabricated from old AOL CDROMs glittered brightly near the edge of the overhang. Cal broke the brief silence. "You're making this 'way too easy, Dad. What's the catch?"
"Ain't no catch, boy. Not on my end anyway. But that don't mean it'll be easy." He smiled to himself. "Think you can stand a lecture? A beer might help." He turned, wicker chair creaking, and called into the house, "Shelby! You got time to get me an' Cal a couple of beers? I'm tryin' to loosen him up."
Laughter followed by a woman's voice came from inside. "Damned well about time, old man!" After a short wait, which Cal spent wondering and which the senior Schmidt spent smirking, Mrs. Schmidt came out with three pale ales. Two brews went to her male charges, while she kept the third for herself. She settled into the porch swing where she had a good view of the men. "Don't mind me; I'm just watching. This is bound to beat anything on that damned TV." She winked playfully at her husband. She pulled a bandanna from the rear pocket of her jeans and used it as an improvised table cloth, draped over a book or something she'd brought out with the brews and set on the swing seat beside her. She was about as typical a farmwife as her husband was a farmer; the suncatcher was her handiwork. She took a swig of beer, set the bottle down on her miniature table, and raised her eyebrows at her husband. "Well?"
"Why do I get the feeling that I've been set up?" Cal wondered aloud.
"Probably got something to do with the fact that you've been set up," his mother replied cheerfully. She had never been one to ignore a rhetorical question.
Mr. Schmidt chuckled. "You ready to put up with a little pontificating now, Cal?"
"Pontificating?" The younger man fortified himself with a sizable gulp of beer. With the apprehensive look of a less than enthusiastic martyr, he said, "Shoot."
Still grinning, Schmidt replied, "I'll try not take ya literally." Another sip of beer, and he went on in a somewhat more serious tone."You know, most of our neighbors take me for a regular hick, if a little nuts. Small family farm an' ranch, peddling veggies an' sheep an' wool, favorite hobby's popping prairie dogs at a few hundred yards. Likely you think the same a lot of the time. But they're only half right. I'm a hick by choice. Don't suppose I ever got around to tellin' you what I'm doin' out here; now I'm makin' sure you know."
Schmidt looked out past his boy at the surrounding land. Green and brown, and topped with a huge, clear, blue sky; beautiful. Hard as the living got on occasion, he had never regretted coming here. He meant to make Cal understand why. "It may have occurred to you that I didn't exactly grow up on this dinky farm. In fact, I came from back east. Used to be a telecommunications technician. And the only reason I never finished my engineering degree was fear of being classed as one of the semi-educated, degreed morons around me passin' themselves off as engineers." Cal grinned at this, remembering some of his father's less polite references to _engineers_ over the years. "Besides which, once I got established in the field, I was making more than some of those so-called engineers anyway." The elder Schmidt grinned again.
Cal recalled tales of telecomm 'engineers' who didn't know the difference between a T1 and a T3, who routinely killed Internet backbones, and wondered if that was really much of a brag on his dad's part. Probably was, at that.
"Problem with telecomm," the elder spoke on, "is that most of the jobs are where most of the people are. Cities." He shuddered. "I _hate_ cities; full of busybodies packed 'way too close. But it pays pretty good. Anyway..." He paused to recall something. "I read a friend's manuscript once; don't know if she ever got it published. But the title was _I Just Want to be Left Alone_. That's me. I just wanted to mind my own business, and have everyone else mind theirs; I wanted everyone to leave me be as long as I didn't bother anyone else. And being the semi-anarchistic sort, that went double for the government.
" 'Round about that time, it occurred to me that I had a good bit of change socked away; enough to buy just enough land for privacy and to be more or less self-sufficient. Which was about as close to old style homesteading as I could get." With that, he eyed his son appraisingly. "So I surprised the hell out of most folks that knew me. Chucked my job as a switch supervisor, loaded up the truck, and headed west." More beer, and, "Wasn't the first time I'd done something like that, though. Lotta people thought I was nuts to quit the Air Farce when I was more'n halfway to retirement. 'Course, I figured I was halfway to going nuts, and retirement in the loony bin didn't much appeal to me.
"Anyway, I ended up here. Dinky, pissant ranch and a few investments that pay our bills, neighbors that don't meddle and are willin' to help each other out when it's called for. And the government ignores me as long as I pay 'em their damned rent every year. And I even lucked into a gorgeous lady willin' to put up with my particular brand of insanity."
Shelby Schmidt chirped up, "Aw, you're just saying that because you want to get some tonight!" She raised her bottle in a toast to lust.
Cal blushed and his father leered. "Damned right, babe." Then back to Cal, "Anyway, you catching my drift, or am I rambling too much again?"
Doubtful, Cal began, "Well...?"
"Shit. Short form: Screw 'conventional wisdom' , what the damned herd thinks. Hell, screw what _I_ think. Don't ever sweat what other people think you should do, how you should live. You do what you gotta do. It worked for me. Oughta work for you."
"Still, that MIT scholarship is nothing to blow off lightly..." Cal knew damned well what he wanted, but his dad's speech aside, he was far from sure that it was the right thing.
"Lightly, heavily, whatever. If it isn't what you want, blow it, fuck it, whatever!"
Profane, but to the point. That's my Dad. Hope past dawning and well into daybreak, Cal asked, "So you really won't get mad if I don't go to MIT?" If Dad was so sure...
"Son, if what I think matters..." His eyes glinted, and he viewed the boy appraisingly. Then he took another sip to cut the dust. Made for an excuse anyway. "If the Launcher Company comes close to doing what they say they mean, they're opening up a new frontier for pioneers, not just NASA prima donna space cadets. Somewhere for people to go live the way they want to, not like some gov snoop thinks they oughta. Wyoming was as close as I could get. You may have a chance to do a hell of a lot better."
"So..."
"So," Cal's mother jumped in, "we thought you might want this." She magicked her 'book' out from under her improvised table cloth and passed it over to her son.
"What the...?" Cal examined the object. Not a book. A reasonably recent model palmtop computer.
"Not very latest." His mother made excuses. "But then, it has left the store already. 128 Meg of RAM, 30 gig solid state hard drive. Best of all, it's got a wireless modem and a pre-paid account. With full Texas coverage on the network." She smiled at Cal's befuddled expression. "We're old, but not senile. It wasn't so difficult to guess at what's been on your mind, what with your browser bookmarks, the flyers you've gotten in the mail, and the library books."
Mr. Schmidt was not to be outdone in going away presents. He chimed in again. "And I expect you should be taking my old Glock, too; the 21. Never liked that little .25 you've been tuckin' into your pocket all these years; cheap, and a lousy defensive round. 'Bout time you got a little quality." He smiled. "Kinda hope it isn't so practical as wireless mail, but you never know."
Cal was astounded. "Dad? Your .45? You've had that since... Hell, you've _always_ had it. I mean, well... I don't know what to say..." He blinked back tears.
"Heck, don't sweat it. Gives me an excuse to start wearing the Grizzly now." Cal's father had a weakness for .45 calibers, ACP and Win Mag alike. The neighbors who thought the Glock was interesting were going to freak when they saw the massive LAR Grizzly autopistol hanging on the man's belt. He grinned. "Just get going, and get to that new frontier before you get too old like me."
"Too old, my ass," Shelby interjected. "You're still in your fifties. Once Cal gets that booster built, I may haul your butt into space. I hear freefall may make you good for a few more decades." She leered at her hubbie. "And just think of the privacy." Then facing Cal again, "I'm reasonably sure you can do nearly anything you put your mind to, but where do you plan to start in Texas? Seems like your math and programming skills should be useful."
"I doubt it," Cal responded modestly. "Without any sort of degree or extensive experience to show off, I expect to settle for manual labor. Anything for room, board, and Launcher shares."
"Anything?" Mr. Schmidt wondered.
Cal laughed. "Sure. Hey, they're building a port for aircraft and spacecraft." He nodded toward the cement pad curing in the sun. "I imagine they'll need a bit of concrete poured."
"I expect so. When do you want to get your truck loaded up?"
Happily for Hank Hanners, if not the remainder of his family, loading up was somewhat less personal. They left the major operation to professional movers, with considerable oversight from Kristi Hanners and Erin. Said supervision was more rational than the moving crew had a right to expect, although they failed to appreciate the fact, since Erin had taken a hint from her father and had her mother's wet bar packed first. The ordeal would a sober - indeed, sobering - one for all concerned.
Safely distant in San Angelo, Hank thanked what gods might be that the school year was over, freeing up his daughter to help Kristi. Better yet, they'd both had time to join him here for the house hunting phase of the move. Even Kristi had been pleased with the place they'd decided on. It was larger and in a quieter neighborhood than they'd enjoyed in Missouri. Although Hank was damned if he was going to mention to his easily annoyed spouse that quiet was likely to be in short stock if Launcher managed to get a supersonic booster operating in the area. The place had enough modern amenities to satisfy even her that rustic cabins were not in their immediate future.
Of course, it helped that his new boss, as a fine financially upstanding citizen of the community, seemed to know everybody. He'd had his choice of real estate agents already prepped with Hanners-specific portfolios. Even the least desirable houses on the lists were pretty nice. Nothing had been said, but Hank suspected the company was paying an extra commission to guarantee such service.
Real estate agents weren't Neville's only contacts, as his current visitor demonstrated. With closing completed, he'd gone out front to uproot the obsolete 'for sale' sign just as a Sheriff's patrol car pulled up. A large, brown-shirted deputy, whose coppery complexion, axe-blade nose, and black hair marked him as Amerind - Hank reined in his usual peculiar version of humor; the guy probably wouldn't appreciate being called Tonto - levered himself out of the the four wheel drive vehicle that passed for a cruiser in these parts, greeted the proud new homeowner, and introduced himself as Dwayne... Hank eyed the man's name tag again. Simmons.
"No, sir," Simmons had explained. "I don't come check out every new resident." He smiled amiably. "I imagine most folks would prefer not to deal with me at all; downside to wearin' a badge." He shrugged eloquently, and Hank tactfully didn't agree. Although it was true enough; his own experiences as a law-abiding citizen encountering Saint Louis police had ensured that. "But you're workin' for William Neville, and he's an ol' friend of the Sheriff's. When the boss says to make the new folk feel welcome... We try."
"I do appreciate that, Deputy..." Politeness couldn't hurt. And this isn't Saint Louis after all; this department probably has hiring standards. Saint Louis advertised for new officers on late night TV, along with the psychic networks and get-rich-quick real estate schemers.
The big man cut in again. "Oh, just call me Dwayne, Mr. Hanners."
"Okay, Dwayne. And I'm Hank." A definite change for the better compared to Saint Louis, where the police often neglected to wear name tags, and covered badge numbers with electrician's tape. "Anyway, thanks for the welcome. I'll pass it along to my wife and daughter when they get down here."
"Closin' up the old house are they?" the deputy guessed.
"Yep, since I had to start work here already, I got the easy part of moving," Hank joked as he glanced down at the sign in his left hand.
"Good plan," Simmons approved, with a twinkle in his eye. "I'll have to remember that one." He shot a quick look at the slowly descending sun and sighed. "Well, I'd better head out of here. Still have a few things to do before shift change."
"Sure," Hank allowed. As the big man strode back to his car, he added. "Thanks for dropping by. Let me know if there's anything I can do for you." A polite fiction; but it couldn't hurt to stay on good terms with the local fuzz.
The cop paused as he open the car door, and sized up Hank all over again, and decided to call his bluff. "Well, there might be, sir. From what I hear about Launcher, that's goin' to be a pretty fair sized operation ya'll have out there. I expect ya'll be needing some experienced security men. Maybe you could put in a good word for me when the hirin' starts."
Hiring security guards was considerably outside Hank's R&D bailiwick, and he readily admitted it. "But I'll keep that in mind. I guess you could put me down as a reference on the application."
"I may do that, sir. Thanks. You have a nice day." He gave Hank a little bow of the head and crammed himself back into his vehicle. Hank sympathized with him silently, knowing the woes of an above-average sized man in the modern efficiency-sized world. Of course, where Hank's bulk ran to flab, the deputy looked to be pure bone and muscle. The peace officer hissed slightly as his butt kissed the solar heated vinyl seat, then started the car and put it in gear. He waved as he pulled away.
Hank watched the guy drive off - into the sunset, just like a Western cliché, damn it - and shrugged. Brand new here, and the locals are asking _me_ for references? Launcher must be a bigger deal for the local economy than I realized.
You are finite. Zathras is finite. This... is wrong tool.
Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug. Which is more or less how the computer-modeled launcher looked on the workstation screen. Hank shook his head in disgust and said, "Okay." He leaned closer to the computer screen. And closer to his employee. He tried to ignore the man's ashy breath. Smokers. "Run that again," he directed the thin man sitting beside him.
Abdul Gonzales - and the younger engineer wasn't answering any questions about how he'd gotten saddled with that combination of names - tapped buttons on his touchscreen. The computer simulation of a ground-effect launcher run started again. This time Hank ignored the animated display and watched the numerical data whizzing by in a second window. "See. Right there." Abdul pointed to a set of numbers and froze the run. "As soon as we start crowding Mach, the pressure wave buildup disrupts the ground effect cushion under the plenum."
Less than two months into his tenure as top engineer for Launcher, and Hank already had a serious problem. Joy. He supposed he should be glad it had popped up so soon; in most startups, an engineering staff wouldn't be in place yet, much running and debugging sims. Neville and his partners had sure done an outstanding job of picking out go-getters. Hank worried about keeping up with them.
So, back to the problem at hand. The engineers were holed up in Gonzales' office - another change from Hank's previous employer; everyone but the lowliest technical workers seemed to have their own private space - where they were reviewing the latest design failure. Hank had noticed that despite the private quarters, a lot of brainstorming and productive work managed to occur in common areas. But for this... disappointment he was glad for the chance to view the destruction in near-solitude. "Damn." Abdul was right. Every time they tried to get the 'hypersonic hovercraft' to go supersonic, the computer model shredded itself into random bits and bytes. A beautiful idea, but it just didn't work.
The lower echelon troubleshooter unpaused the sim and they watched the virtual booster start dragging its tail section on the ground at several hundred miles per hour. Total destruction was _fast_, even in slow-mo. The columns of numbers in the secondary window turned to gibberish as the poor overstressed comp processor attempted to model the independent trajectories of the simulated rubble and shrapnel, remnants of what had been a hi-tech super vehicle. "Hokay, boss," Abdul sighed as he leaned back dejectedly. "Now what?" He stared idly at a blank wall - offices might be a dime a dozen, but windows were still in short supply - and thought that he really needed something to dress the place up. Something to take his mind off fubars like this.
Hank was not a happy camper either. He'd felt a strong proprietary interest in the hovercraft concept, and really wanted it to work. "Damn, damn, damn..." he muttered softly as he mentally reviewed data. He sat down on a short filing cabinet near the door. "What about those sims they ran at Berkley? And the wind tunnel tests on the models? What did they do differently from us?" They must have done something right; since they managed to avoid crashing long enough to have convinced Neville to back the concept.
"Speed, mainly," Hank's subordinate answered. "They never seriously considered a supersonic model, and designed for 650 MPH. You told us to shoot for at least Mach 1.5. We're into an entirely different regime and seeing wavefront effects that Berkley never did."
"Umm." Hank closed his eyes to think. While he did, Abdul settled back in his own chair and watched his boss in sympathy. And wished he dared fire up a cigarette; but he wasn't going to push his luck with a new boss, even one that seemed as decent as Hanners. He'd rather liked the idea of a supersonic hovercraft as well. Hank spoke again. "Okay, try this. Shrink the damned plenum and stick a jet turbine in the sucker's nose to run plenum pressure up so high the cushion looks structural to the Mach wave..."
"Been there, done that." Abdul countered negatively. "If you run plenum pressure up high enough to beat the wave pressure, you get excessive lift and the damn craft lifts off the ground. When the nose went up first, the bitch does somersaults over the desert. When the tail lifts, it doesn't flip but starts oscillating. Up 'til pressure drops, then down again. Shakes herself to pieces on the Mach wave. Not pretty. Very messy." The results had put him in mind of the lifting body crash that started every episode of a classic SF series that still syndicated on cable occasionally.
"Can we add more aerodynamic control surfaces to keep that under control?" Hank knew that he was grasping at straws, but...
"Maybe. We tried some stuff, but it only worked up to around 1.06. And it did nasty things to the drag coefficient. Energy curve sucked. And that was without even figuring in estimated drag effects from an attached shuttle." Yet another brilliant idea foundering in the toilet.
"Shit."
"Uh huh. So now what?" Abdul repeated.
Hank sighed. "Well, for starters, I think I'll send you to tell Mr. Neville with the bad news. Given the traditional rewards for messengers..."
Abdul laughed bitterly. "In your dreams, buddy; you tell him. That's why you get the big bucks, Mr. Management."
"Oh, joy." Hank stood up turned to the door. He paused and raised one arm into the air. "Ave Caeser Imperatur! Morituri te salutant!" The two laughed, and Hank thought of something else. "Okay, I'll handle the bad news part. You get this data to Web Services."
Abdul was caught up short by the apparent shift in conversational direction. "IT? Why so, Oh Great and Powerful Oz?" Abdul was nothing, if not a smartass.
Which let him mesh well with Hank. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," he orated. "Neville's got the idea that this started on the 'Net, and oughta stay there. Wants us to.... open-source everything we do, put it on the Internet for continuous peer review, as it were. Idea's that with millions of people all over the world looking over our shoulders and making suggestions, we're bound to pick up sporadic good ideas. And it's bound to be cheaper than putting several hundred more engineers and techs on the payroll," he finished cynically. If he'd been prone to empire-building anyway, he should have gone into public service. Launcher sure didn't work that way. He eased his girth back down onto the files and felt about blindly for his ever-present coffee mug. He had a tendency to leave it laying around when he left rooms. These days he carried a plastic travel mug from a telecommunications outfit noted for bureaucratic bulk and several straight years of leading the industry in customer complaints. The one time Neville had seen it, he'd simply grinned an evil grin and said nothing. Hank guessed that the subtle warning had gotten across. His fingers encountered something and he clutched at... Ashes. Hank winced as he realized that he'd found Abdul's ashtray.
The younger man saw it too. "Umm..." he offered sheepishly, if unhelpfully. Then he ripped a tissue from a box by the computer and passed it to his boss.
The chief wiped his fingers clean and glared at the miscreant. "Seems I recall some rule about no smoking except in designated areas..."
Abdul made a feeble effort to defend himself. "Rules? Isn't that a downright statist attitude from someone who says he's a libertarian?"
"Anarchocapitalist, to be specific," the engineer corrected. "And bear in mind that I'm your libertarian _boss_. If you don't like our rules, you can always haul ash... tray to some less politically correct outfit." He smiled to take the sting out of the scolding. "If you can find one less PC than us."
"Good point." Abdul scooted his chair over to retrieve the ashtray, which he stashed in a desk drawer. No doubt it would come right back out as soon as the Boss departed. Good enough.
The Boss found his coffee, and thus placated, went on with the original discussion. " Anyway, Neville wants us to open-source everything we do, so let's tell the world about this snag. Maybe someone'll have a better idea." He sighed again. "I think I'm just a little too close to the problem; there's bound to be something I'm just not seeing."
Abdul face brightened. "Cool. The webster just hired the hottest new babe for page development. I think I'll volunteer to work with her to get the data up." Sly grin.
"Just keep thinking with the right part of your anatomy. Fun's fun, but it's _engineering_ we're paying you for."
"Spoilsport." And in playful retaliation, "Don't you have somewhere to be? Like telling the Big Boss about this little problem?" If I can't have fun, no one does.
"Bleah," Hank sighed bleakly. " Tell you what- You take over as boss engineer, and _I'll_ go play with the new IT intern."
"No way. Now go take it like a man. I'm going to." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
"Easy for you to say." Oh well, time to face reality, and the chance for a slow and painful death at Neville's hands. Then again... It was close enough to noon that Hank chose to employ lunch as a delaying tactic. He didn't look forward to sharing the current woes with his boss. He stopped at his own office long enough to check messages and grab a hat. Neville's western influence was beginning to affect the R&D boss; besides, in the hot Texas sun, the shade from a wicker cowboy hat was downright practical. From the office he headed to the parking lot, intending to refuel his stomach at a small bar and grill which Launcher employees were discovering.
Fate wasn't smiling on him. He encountered Bill Neville at the front doors, also heading out. "Mornin', Hank," the Texan greeted him. "Goin' t' lunch?" Dismayed, but hiding it well, Hank confirmed the guess. "Great. Got plans, or would you care to join me?" Neville asked.
"I could do that. I was headed to The Grill, but..."
"Sounds good. I hear they keep the beer plenty cold. Let's take my car."
Hank shrugged in resignation. Some days you just can't win. "Lead on." Neville held the door for the engineer as they left the building. Outside, a short expanse of dead grass gave way to a middling large parking lot surrounded by cyclone fence. The company had relocated their main offices to the facilities outside of town, and were maintaining the strip mall location as a mail drop until all their changes of address notifiers made the rounds. Hank began baking in the summer heat; Texas in July closely resembles the interior of an enormous solar oven. He could feel his shoes sinking into the fresh asphalt of the parking lot. The stench of hot tar was killing what appetite the merciless heat hadn't already done in. A cold beer started to sound very, very good. So did losing a few of his insulating pounds of fat.
Neville appeared immune to the heat; or maybe his lean hide just didn't have anything left to sweat off. As the pair walked over to Neville's vehicle, a well-kept '01 Ford Expedition, he cast a sidewise glance at Hanners and inquired about the launcher simulation progress.
Hank grimaced. "You would ask." So much for appetite.
"Eh?" The grizzled exec cocked an eye at the engineer.
"I was going to brief you after lunch, but..."
Neville frowned. "I take it you've got bad news." He punched a keyfob button as they approached his car. The car beeped and popped the locks. The men climbed in. The engineer paused to wipe dust from his seat. Okay, well-maintained, but dusty. Doesn't the man ever use his air conditioning? "Yeah, kinda," he finally answered. He sat and winced. Not as bad as vinyl, but the cloth seats still conducted far too much heat into Hank's posterior.
"Somethin' don't work as planned, I assume." Neville stuck a key in the ignition and twisted. The engine caught with a muffled rumble. He had pity on the other man and turned on the A/C. "Roll up your window when it starts blowin' cool." So why lock it up if he didn't bother closing the windows?
Even after weeks of associating with the executive, Hank found Neville's 'hick' accent and speech mode peculiar in a successful corporate exec-type. Maybe that was the idea; keep the opposition off balance. He turned his thoughts back to the question at hand. "Yeah. Problems." Then he sighed as cold air slapped him in the face. Little used maybe, but that A/C must be turbocharged. Hank thumbed a button and his window rose with a quiet hum. He let sweat evaporate while Neville wrangled the SUV through the front gate and onto the road. Hank watched lines converge in the distance while the low rumbling whine of truck tires on asphalt relaxed him. Once composed and cool, he explained the stability issues encountered in the computer model while Neville drove. "But on the bright side, the aerospike team is making great progress on the shuttle motor. Of course, that could put us in the position of having a perfect orbiter that can't orbit."
Quite unexpectedly, Neville laughed. "Heck, son, if that mini-shuttle works half as well as advertised, we could make money sellin' 'em t' other private access programs and forget the launcher!" He snuck a peek at the engineer's expression.
"I don't want to forget the launcher! As you may recall, I'm in this for something more than just designing cute space toys." Then he did a mental double take. "_What_ other access programs?"
"You ain't keepin' up with all the literature, Hank." Eyes back on the road, Neville pointed to a folded newspaper laying on the console between them. "Looks like we gave some folks ideas. Bit players yet, but one group is reviving the ol' Boeing-Russki Sea Launch ballistic system. Somebody else is tryin' t' do something like our hovercraft system, but with a seaplane."
"I'll be damned." Once the older man had mentioned it, Hank did recall something about a seaplane launcher, but from long before Launcher was even a gleam in anyone's eye, around 2000 maybe. He felt a mental tickle at the back of his brain, as if an idea was wildly waving its arms for attention. It wasn't quite there yet, so he shelved it for the time being. "Is the competition going to be a problem for us?"
Neville jockeyed his vehicle around a slow moving stake-bed truck overloaded with used tires. From there the road was clear, and he floored the accelerator. When the Sheriff is a drinking buddy, speeding tickets aren't a major concern. "Naw. Might even work to our advantage. More folks gettin' inta the business, the more other folks may take the idea of private access seriously. Not," he added, "that we've had too much trouble with that yet." Neville turned the topic back to their own booster stumbling block. "So, you got any ideas on where to go with this now?"
Hank eyed the white dividers painted down the middle of the road; they blurred into a solid line. He snugged his seatbelt before replying. Neville grinned. "I wish. I'm sure I'm missing something, but I'm too close to it right now. The basic horizontal launch concept is still valid. But maybe we'll end up having operate the booster strictly subsonic. The overall launch efficiency drops, but it's still better than vertical..." Something still niggled at his subconcious.
"Glad t' hear it, since we've already got road crews building the launch and landin' strips. Be downright embarrassin' to drop the horizontal idea now." He grinned, and moved on. "Well, I pulled your idea off the 'Net in the first place. Maybe you can get some more ideas thataway."
"I'm ahead of you, Bill. I already put Abdul on it. Seemed worthwhile." He shrugged. "We've been getting modeling assistance that way. Most of our tech hires have been via the Web, too."
"Clerical and blue collar, too," Neville mentioned. "And advertisin', bond sales... Which we had t' pretty much stop for now; too much demand for 'em, believe it or not. And didn't you start a discussion forum cum suggestion box on the company site?"
"Yep; about like my old website. Too much good info to pass up on out there. You wouldn't believe the data we're getting on pressure suit design, life support systems... I even got the weirdest proposal for an inflatable spaceship."
Neville blinked in surprise. "An inflatable what? You're kiddin'. "
"Nope. It might even work, if we can match it up with some of the other ideas coming in." He decided to brace his boss with a new proposal. "Bill, this is all stuff we need to look at. Assuming we get the launcher straightened out, we need suits and ships and all the rest. It won't do our customers much good to buy tickets to orbit and just float in the cargo hold waiting for reentry."
"Well, it'd be fine for the straight tourist trade..."
"NASA can play tour guide with schoolteachers and senators. I want colonists."
"Me too, son. But your point now is?" He saw the sun-baked sign of their destination coming up and began slowing the big car. Road noise decreased in proportion to his speed, signaling the end of the trip.
"Once I get the launcher on track, I want to start a new section to sort out these ancillary concepts and develop them."
"Hire a few more people, huh?"
Hank nodded as Neville slowed his vehicle to pull into a small gravel parking lot. Rocks crunched under rolling rubber. "Yes. We need to do this, Bill."
Neville guided his Expedition in between two old pickups and shut down the engine. With the A/C shut down, the sun through the glass began raising the temperature to oven levels almost instantly. Neville pushed his door open with a creak, and his passenger followed suit. Hot air blasted them, the contrast with the air conditioned temperatures almost painful. "I know. You're right. We've gotten too much from the 'Net to stop now; ideas, people, money." Before he stepped out, he finished with, "More than our buildings, or even the money we've already already gotten in investments, I figure the Internet to be our biggest asset." The two dreamers slammed their doors shut and hurried across sun-baked pea gravel to the anticipated coolness of the diner's interior. "Let's get something to eat," Neville said, his shoes kicking up dust and small rocks as he picked up the pace.
That evening, Hank strutted into his living room toting a brown sack and whistling the tune to the Air Force song. Damn the techno-bugs at work, this was still a day for celebration.
At least Erin thought that's what her father was whistling; he was the next best thing to tone deaf, although he denied it. Maybe that's what the bag was for; to carry the tune. "Hi, Daddy. What's up?" She stuck a reply mail card in between pages of the magazine she was reading and set it aside.
"You're late," was her mother's only comment. She didn't even look away from the television. The older Hanners female shakily set a tumbler down on a coaster and fiddled with the TV remote, surfing away. Hang ten, Ma.
"Yes, I'm late," Hank confessed. "I had to stop for party favors." he dropped his sack on the sofa and extracted a bundle of skyrockets." "Whee!"
"Mucho awesome, Daddy!" The girl bounded over to the bag, leaving a trail of discarded teen scene magazines in her wake. "What's up?" she demanded.
Kristi caught sight of the pyrotechnics from the corner of her eye and scowled. "Hank Hanners, are those things even legal?" she scolded, not bothering to get up.
"Who cares?" He scoffed. "We're county, not city. And the store was quite willing to sell them. Glad to get rid of the Fourth of July leftovers, I should guess." He swapped mischievous grins with Erin. "We'll start blowing them off come dark."
"Aces!" the teenager exclaimed. "But what's up? Something at work?" She rummaged through the goodies, an assortment guaranteed to delight any pyromaniac, without waiting for her father's reply.
Trust someone here to bust my bubble. "Urk. Nope. Not at work." But you can't keep a good pyro down; he brightened again almost instantly. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Don't you know what day this is?" He looked at Erin, then Kristi. Who had already tuned out the two fireworks fanatics. He was disappointed at the lack of response.
Then it suddenly hit the younger lady, an act echoed by her palm against her forehead. "Eep! July 20th! Of course!"
"Damned right," Hank stated assertively. "In this household, we will celebrate the moon landing. Even if it was NASA that did it."
"Yes!" At least Erin was excited. Kristi kept clicking buttons.
"You have mail!" Abdul had been in a retro mood the day he replaced his usual mail notification chime with the old voice notifier. He'd come to realize that it was an unfortunate choice since being stuck with the job of screening feedback on the launcher stability problem. The mail content was annoyingly uniform, with most comments falling into one of three areas. The first, and most common, was to simply run the booster at subsonic velocities; not very helpful. In a close second were the ones who were sure that one more air dam or canard would stabilize the wallowing pig; these people seemed to have difficulty with the idea of energy bleed-off. In a distant third place were the folks who had never, ever given up on the track idea; they saw the current problems as vindication of their position. They were the most annoying because Abdul was beginning to think they were right, damn them.
Those were the majority opinions, but he was also getting crackpot stuff ranging from gyroscopic antigravity to warnings that space travel violated god's - Abdul wondered which one - will, and on to claims that orbit was impossible because you can't freefall around a flat earth. He saved that one in his humor file to forward to some friends. He opened the new message. "And the next contestant is... !"
Big. Well, the message was short enough, but the attachment...
From: Mitchell McDermott
First, the usual disclaimer: I'm not really an engineer of course, just a student. But it seems to me that a ducted plenum type of static hovercraft is hardly the best form of ground-effect to use for transonic applications. A hovercraft is fine for slow stuff because you don't get noticeable pressure front interactions. But at higher speeds the moving air screws up the cushion.
But old WWII bombers used to _use_ their velocity at near ground (or sea) level to provide the cushion. I thought that would work, and fudged up some models. I may have missed something, but it looks like that style of GE works if you use variable geometry wings and some additional exotic control surfaces. Maybe you can try some physical models in your wind tunnel.
Anyway, I included a sim I ran.
Mitch
i
ATCH: SS GEM.SIM.MOD
Abdul felt a little idea screaming for attention. If he had compared notes with his R&D chief, they would have noted similarities with the tingle Hank had felt just days before. He examined the attachment, which his security system had autoscanned for viruses and other attacks. It was a couple of hundred megabytes in size, a bit large for a mail attachment from a stranger even these days. And it appeared to be in a file format supported by Launcher's off-the-shelf modeling software. Being the paranoid sort, Abdul ran a manual attack scan and file check while he wondered what he had. At least it wasn't another religious rant.
"Shit." The file was clean. And it was a sim file. But the headers said it had been generated by a newer revision of the software than Launcher was using. "Lucky guy." He made a note on the desktop to mention the update to Hanners, after which he read the rest of the header. "The software's registered to a high school?" He double clicked the file.
The graphic was primitive; obviously built up quickly by a comparative amateur in a hurry, just a wireframe. The airflow quanta were low-res, which denied the model really accurate info on flow and pressures. But the data that was there... Abdul ran through the entire sim three times while he thought.
"A genius?" Hank replied to Neville's rhetorical question. "Damned if I know. Define 'genius.' " He leaned forward and set his beer down on Neville's mahogany desk. It wasn't exactly lonely there, accompanied as it was by Neville's own, and another for Abdul. Three days of fighting the computer alongside Abdul and other R&D folks had left him thirsty. Now that he was explaining the results of those days to Neville, he'd been doing something about the spiritual dehydration. "What the kid did was remember something I should have remembered about World War Two bombers using ground effect to extend their fuel, and combined it with our own aerodynamic models of airfoils, canards, dams, et cetera." He laughed ruefully. "Well, I've heard it said that genius lays in the ability to manipulate and associate data from different sources. The kid did that."
For a moment Neville was at a loss for words, then, "So a high school senior suddenly solved all our problems?"
"No, sir," Abdul began. "I won't minimize what McDermott did, but don't read too much into it either. His concept is correct, but there were definite probs with his model -- lack of resolution caused him to miss some stability problems, some of his math had errors." He smiled hugely. "But he got us started in the right direction. We refined his sim, added some data the boy apparently didn't know about, and did a lot more intensive testing. I think it can work. We owe the kid big time."
Neville nodded. "Sounds like it. What's he want?"
The junior tech shrugged expressively. "He didn't ask for a damn thing in his message."
"Well, find out," the boss directed. "I wanna play fair here. If nothin' else, it saves us gettin' sued later." He considered the boy's position. "See if he can use a college scholarship, and offer him a couple K in bond shares."
Hank grinned. "Why don't you and your business folks do that?" he countered. "My guys are going to be too busy working up physical models for real testing to do your negotiating."
"Yeah. Right, good point," Neville admitted. "Are you really ready to do wind tunnel testin' already though?"
"Sure. Computer modeling is a heck of a lot better than it was just a couple years ago. Amazing what you can do with a few paralleled 4GHz CPU's. And once folks on the 'net started downloading our distributed processing screensaver... Basically, we've got one serious virtual supercomputer running twenty-four hours a day." He gave Neville a smug look. "And my people aren't bad either." Abdul smiled proudly, blew on his fingernails, and polished them on his shirt front. "I've already got the CAD/CAM carving an eighth-scale airframe out of a chunk of styrofoam. We ought to have it properly finished and fitted with control surface servos in a week."
Neville whistled. "Product development just ain't what it was when I was a kid."
"No kidding," Hank replied. "Unless something backfires in our faces, I'll bet we can start drawing up working prints in a couple of weeks."
"Great. Sounds like I better start hunting up some folks who can build us an airframe. Metalworkers, avionics, electricians..."
Hank swapped amused looks with Abdul. Optimism, thy name is Neville. But hell, it had gotten them all this far. He raised his brew in silent toast, and the other followed suit.
Any device is a tool of liberty to the extent it's available to all, and a tool of oppression to the extent it's regulated.
Hank strode into the R&D outer office, lighter on his feet than three months ago; both emotionally and physically. Texas has been very, very good to me. He stopped to wish Leesa, the engineering staff's common secretary, a good morning. He'd been told that as chief of engineering he rated his own private secretary, and that the position had been budgeted by Human Resources. He hated that term, but seemed to be alone in his sentiment. I am a man, not a resource! - he'd taken to wearing a small badge numbered '6' any time he dealt with the HR dweebs. He just couldn't wrap his head around the unfamiliar idea of having his own private secretary. Heck, he was still getting used to not being trapped in a corporate cube. "Hi, Leesa! How you doing today?"
"Just peachy, Mr. Hanners!" Leesa piped up perkily. She did everything perkily. Hank meant to check her job description to see if someone had actually written that in. He'd have to kill someone if it was there; probably himself. But perky or not, she was darned efficient, even if she was the only person in the entire company who routinely used honorifics and surnames. "I thought I should remind you that you have an appointment first thing this morning." She made a hinting gesture to one side with her eyes, but it didn't register with him.
Hank took his PDA from its belt holster and keyed up the calendar. "Right. That's the guy who wants to talk life support systems?" He scratched at the touch pad and frowned. "Here, Leesa." He handed her the gadget. "I don't think I'm caught up with everything. See if you can get me synchronized with the office calendar."
"Sure thing, Mr. Hanners." She accepted the electronic aid and placed it in front of an IR port on her desktop. As she moused commands, "I just wanted to be sure you hadn't forgotten your morning appointment." Another glance to the side. No reaction, and Leesa decided that Mr. Hanners really needed a second cup of coffee before he left the house in the morning.
"Okay, Leesa. Just give me a heads up when he gets here so I can review his file before I see him."
"Sir, he _is_ here." This time she pointed. Leesa decided to make sure the coffee maker in Mr. Hanners' office was stocked. With hi-test.
Hank turned to see the object of Leesa's designator digit. An older man, of Bill Neville's approximate generation, maybe older, sat in a chair in the corner. He raised his bushy eyebrows, smiled, and waved. "Oops. Good morning," Hank addressed the visitor. "Am I late or are you early?" He tried to check his watch surreptitiously. Maybe it was slow.
"I am early, I assure you," the visitor replied. "I found myself a bit overeager this morning and arrived sooner than I intended; perhaps I overestimated traffic jams in San Angelo. I meant to wait in my car, but the security guard was quite insistent that I would be more comfortable waiting in here with coffee." He gestured to the foam cup on the table at his side.
"Well, since you're here, why don't we get started? Got to admit, the data you sent me was pretty damned interesting."
"I would be most pleased, Mr. Hanners. It is refreshing to finally speak to someone who is interested after all these years, someone in a position to use my research." He rose from his seat, and approached Hank with one hand outstretched. The other was wrapped around the grip of a rather large briefcase; more like a salesman's sample case, really. But shabby, hard used.
Hank met him halfway and shook hands. "Call me Hank," he asked. "I'm only mister to Leesa, and we're trying to break her of the habit." The secretary looked up at the mention of her name and smiled. Perkily, of course, damn it.. "And you would be Doctor Waldo Rubenstein, I guess."
"Since your company appears to be delightfully informal, please call me Wally," the man requested. "I'm doctor only to the hellions and their evil spawn at the clinic, and only my mother ever called me Waldo more than once." He smiled genially.
"Wally and Hank it is then. Let's go into my office and see exactly what you have."
"Certainly."
Hank began backstepping towards one of the several office doors facing onto the engineering reception area. "Right over here, Wally."
"Excuse me, Mr. Hanners," Leesa perked. "You forgot your PDA." She held up his now-updated data cache. "And here's some mail that came in yesterday afternoon." She passed over a short stack of trade journals and colorful envelopes. The latter was probably all junk, but Leesa left that call to the boss.
"Oops. Danke, Leesa." He retrieved the unit and clumsily reholstered it, while trying to keep the postal droppings secured under his arm. Finally, he led Wally Rubenstein to his office where he offloaded his burden onto his desk. While the guest got settled into a chair and Hank booted his desktop, Leesa came into start the engineer's coffee maker. She gave Hank a wise look and tossed a couple of extra scoops of grounds into the basket. When the pot was trickling, Leesa departed and Hank started into the real conversation with Rubenstein. "So, I understand that you want to peddle some life support systems to us."
"Correct. They are related but separate." Rubenstein dug into his oversized case and fished out some papers and a CD. He passed them to Hank with an explanation. "This first is a personal life support system intended to mate with the partial pressure suits of which your web site speaks."
"Well, we've got something lined up for that already, but I'm always interested in new ideas." He looked at the cased disk. "This has specs?"
"Yes. It's PDF, I'm afraid. I find the format annoying, but so many people seem to be using it still that is useful for the sake of compatibility."
"I'm not too thrilled with the bloated format myself, but I can read it." He popped the disk into a drive slot and watched the machine suck it in. He heard the drive spin up as the virus autoscanner kicked in. "Tell me what you've got."
Rubenstein took a deep breath and launched his pitch. "As your company appears to be emphasizing simplicity of design, and brute force effectiveness above over-priced elegance, I believe you will like this. It is, essentially, an open cycle rebreather system of the sort commonly used by divers."
PLSS wasn't Hank's area of expertise, but he'd picked up the basics during the course of the p-p suit design effort. "Open cycle? Wouldn't it be more efficient to completely recycle the air mix?"
"That would depend on your definition of efficiency, Hank." Rubenstein leaned forward. "As oxygen is added to the mix, air volume gradually increases and must be bled off somehow. My design simply vents the excess prior to the lithium dioxide CO2 scrubber and desiccator, assuring that what gets wasted contains the highest partial pressure of the useless gas. A closed cycle system either requires much more desiccant and CO2 absorber, and a much larger counter-lung to allow expansion of the total volume. Alternatively, instead of venting, one might install a compressor and storage tank.
"I am not necessarily totally opposed to the closed option, and indeed, have included such a design in the documents you now have." He stopped and dug into the voluminous briefcase, and came up with a handful of stapled pages. "Here's is a hardcopy of that design, as well as the first." He handed the graphics to Hank, who examined them as Wally went on. "The closed cycle is, however, more expensive and much larger than my preferred open cycle system, although not quite on the order of a... " A scowl flashed across his features. "...NASA-style PLSS backpack. The compressor system is not only somewhat larger and more expensive, but also consumes far more power than the open cycle, which is essentially lung powered."
Hank nodded affirmation. "Sounds right to me. Until someone comes up with man-portable nuke plants, power is always going to be an issue with suits."
Wally smiled happily, pleased to find a rational man. "Indeed. My primary design uses a flap-valved helmet connection with input and output lines sharing a common port. The output is valved back to the the enclosure, where the exhaled air is first run through a canister of silica desiccant to extract excess moisture. The material is arranged to maximize surface area. From there, the now dry air is conducted to a similar canister of lithium hydroxide CO2 scrubber, with surface area similarly optimized. Between the canisters is the counter-lung." He pointed to details on the sheets spread across Hank's Formica desktop.
"The counter-lung is of my own design, double-walled so that the lung proper is maintained within a compressible atmosphere. Otherwise, vacuum would prevent the correct operation of collapse and expansion counter to the wearer's breathing, maintaining a relatively constant air volume." Rubenstein held up a cutaway picture of his system. "And at the scrubber outlet, I have an O2 sensor which monitors the amount of oxygen available with the mix. That controls a valve on a small oxy cylinder which carefully bleeds oxygen into the mix as it is used up. Quite a simple system, really. And constructed from off the shelf components. Even the oxygen sensor, which I purchased from an auto parts store. It is intended as part of a vehicle emissions control package." He smiled at that.
Hank laughed as well. "I think I'm going to like you. Why re-invent the wheel, as they say." He blinked. "Who the heck is 'they' anyway?"
Rubenstein chose to ignore the non sequitor. "Why, thank you, Hank," he replied modestly. "I do hope that means we shall be able to work together on these projects. I will be quite happy to leave these documents with you for review; and you may contact me if you have any additional questions."
"Seems straightforward enough." Hank abandoned the printed presentation material and began a critical review of the more detailed CD data. He clicked through an assortment of images and tables on screen, nodding. He ejected the CD and handed it back to the inventor. "I'm not going to mislead you. Launcher already bought the rights to a closed cycle rebreather very similar, though not identical, to your secondary design."
Rubenstein fought unsuccessfully to hide his disappointment. "I... see." He began gathering his material back into his briefcase.
"Or maybe you don't, Wally." Hank folded his hands and propped his chin atop his fingers as he stared at Rubenstein. "Unlike NASA, Launcher is on a budget. Much as we'd like to, we can't fund the development."
"My rebreather is fully developed and tested. I only wish to market the unit." Frustration and exasperation contested for dominance in Rubenstein's voice.
"I do understand, Wally. And even without getting into the guts, I suspect your rebreather is all you say. Unfortunately, Launcher isn't in the business of general PLSS manufacture." Rubenstein opened his mouth to voice another objection. "But," Hank pressed on then halted.
"Yes?" One must always hold out hope.
"Look, Launcher doesn't build anything but the actual launch hardware. But so we'll have a market for tickets, we do encourage other outfits to construct things like suits, orbit to orbit space craft, et cetera. In the case of rebreathers, we already bought one design and took bids from companies that wanted to license the design. That's already been awarded, so we can't help you there." Rubenstein was crestfallen. "But." Hank grinned. "Competition was pretty fierce. I imagine that if I gave you a list of the outfits that were bidding, one of them would jump at the chance to market their own competitive version." Hank leaned back and smiled broadly. "Launcher would welcome that, too, since the competition would tend to drive down prices for us and for our prospective customers." Hank leaned back in his chair, not so fancy as one of Neville's, but it would do. From the inventor's perspective his head was framed by the open sky visible through the window behind him.
Rubenstein blinked. "You would help me market this to your competitors?" Hank's rationale made sense, but it ran counter to the way of doing things that he usually encountered. He examined the proposition for hidden catches.
"Sure. Not that we're into competition; our license fee is pretty nominal; just enough to assure bondholders that they'll see a return on their investment. We're just trying to encourage the market to make space travel affordable, something NASA was never into. If helping you get one more design on the market does that, so much the better... for us. Call it enlightened self-interest. We're as greedy as the next bunch, but opening the market up means there's more opportunity for us to satiate that greed." Hank offered a sardonic smile, and lifted an eyebrow. "That work for you?"
Rubenstein was pleasantly surprised. Why, yes. I do believe so."
"Great!" Tell you what, I'll get the list from our contracting office and forward it... " Hank began clicking through docs on-screen. "I've got your email address in here... Damn, haven't saved it to my book; have to dig out your messages." He looked up again and said, "Give me your address one more time, please."
"Wally at rubenstein underscore clinic dot co dot us," he recited the address phonetically, sort of. But he still looked mildly puzzled. "But will these companies also be interested in my other system?"
Now it was Hank's turn to be confused. "Other system? I thought you only had the two, the rebreathers."
"Oh, no. I counted that as one. I also have the atmospheric recycler."
"The what?"
"Recycler." Wally elaborated. "A rebreather is only good for comparatively short term, temporary applications like a personal suit. After some hours of use, the desiccant and scrubber cartridges must be exchanged and the used items regenerated. That may be acceptable for NASA..." He exhibited irritation again. "But it is totally useless for anyone planning a permanent presence in space. The CO2 must go somewhere, and we can hardly be perpetually shipping oxygen cylinders into orbit." He pulled another disk from the not-so-confines of his huge briefcase. "What I propose is a spirulina-based photosynthetic CO2-O2 regeneration system."
Hank blinked. Twice. "Run that by me again."
Rubenstein passed the CD back to the engineer again. "Something a bit less conventional than rebreathers, which of course, have been known for decades. Yet this has been known for far longer... In a manner of speaking." He waited to let the engineer read CD docs.
Hank jammed the disk into his drive. When he began looking the diagrams, they made considerably less immediate sense than had the rebreather graphics. "Maybe you'd better start fresh here, Wally. I don't think..."
"It is actually quite simple, really," Wally assured him. "Stripped to its basics, I have constructed a device that utilizes the photosynthetic action of blue-green algae to reduce exhaled carbon dioxide to oxygen. Quite natural in principle, though somewhat enhanced in my system."
"What? You're talking aquariums in space? Sounds messy." He looked at a schematic on screen. Was that plumbing running into an oven?
"Nothing so crude," Rubenstein corrected proudly. "First, of course is a simple culture of a blue green algae, specifically the same sort sold by health food stores as spirulina. It's commonly used as a very nutritious, high protein food supplement, and occasionally as a compact emergency foodstuff."
"Right. I do know the stuff; my wife bought some after some dipstick told her we lived in an earthquake-prone area... Saint Louis," he added in explanation, "but never did anything with it. You use this to recycle air?"
"Yes. I culture the algae in a vessel constructed of a semi-permeable membrane; one with which I suspect you are also familiar. It is a regular component of outdoor clothing, allowing air to circulate, while repelling water." He smiled.
"I think I see where this is going. The Goretex - registered t-m -," he quipped, "contains the fluid culture while allowing the air to circulate, CO2 in, oxy out."
"Precisely. In fact, the culture is circulated through a collection of tubes, rather than sitting in a single tank, the intent being to once again maximize the surface area for air exchange.
"The culture becomes almost a thick slurry as the spirulina grows very quickly, so I use an ordinary trash pump to move the stuff through the tubes, though slowly. Also while moving through the tubes, the slurry is illuminated with the same sort of plant growth lamps which gardeners utilize to start spring plants early." He sighed sadly. "Periodically, I have to assure irrational police officers equipped with infra-red scanners that I am not cultivating the illicit weed. I receive regular inquiries from the DEA." He braced himself and pushed on to the climax. "As the spirulina reproduces, excess is collected in a separate tank from which one may skim off the algae for other uses."
"I'll be damned." Hank was very intrigued. "So you've not only got a way of producing air indefinitely, but it's an emergency food source as well?"
"Quite so," Rubenstein confirmed. "My wife and I have even attempted to work up recipes for the stuff." His face screwed up. "It may never become a gourmet delicacy, but it is edible. Added to spicy dishes such as chilli, it is palatable, quite acceptable. A mix of ordinary flour and dried spirulina yields an acceptable bread." He made a small smile. "I should think that spirulina as a regular item on one's menu would be a small enough price to pay for the chance to move farther into space." He looked wistful. "I sometimes think such a system could make asteroid colonization achievable."
"Asteroids, eh?" Hank smiled a little, too.
Rubenstein's face animated again. "Oh, yes! Spectrographic analyses, and even NASA's sampling probes, show that the asteroids hold virtually everything needed for life. Water will be extractable from carbonaceous chondrite asteroids, or if that proves too costly, there are nearly dead cometary nuclei and some asteroids should prove to be ice balls, probably cast loose from Saturn's rings. All the elements of life are there! As are the valuable metals that make it worthwhile. Why go into the gravity well of a planet just to obtain what is already floating readily accessible in space?" As were so many who had come to support Launcher, or to ask for Launcher's support, Rubenstein was a closet space enthusiast. Hank marveled endlessly that NASA and the other national space programs had refused to tap this resource. The waste was criminal.
"Wally," Hank said, returning to the business at hand "this sounds interesting as all hell. But what about nutrients for the stuff? Surely it doesn't grow from nothing in distilled water."
"Certainly not. I am a scientist, not a perpetual motion crackpot. There is a source of growth nutrients for the spirulina." He smiled craftily. "But you might not like it..."
"I'll like anything that can keep me breathing in deep space." He shrugged and decided to explain. "I'm not just working for Launcher for the money. I want Out myself," he confessed . He looked into Rubenstein's eyes and saw a kindred spirit looking right back. They exchanged knowing smiles.
Rubenstein nodded. "Then if you are not too squeamish, I shall tell you." He winked. "I use human excrement."
"Ick." But it was inevitable.
"Definitely. But there is some treatment. In my home, I recover the waste..."
"In your home?"
Rubenstein made a show of mock offense. "But of course. You do not think that I would come... pitch some system I had not tested extensively? From where did you think I obtained the spirulina for the culinary experiments?"
"Sheesh, talk about dedication," Hank muttered. "So you get the... stuff from your toilet?"
"Yes. My home is equipped with a composting toilet, another commonly available technology that is readily adaptable to space living," he added parenthetically. "I recover the waste from the toilet, macerate it mechanically, and sterilize the mass by running it through a modified microwave oven. Once biologically dead, the fertilizer can be mixed directly into the spirulina holding tank and through the growth tubes. Or it may be dried and stored for future use. In all, it is a closed system save for the electrical input."
"What's that look like?" Hank asked thoughtfully. Power would be a major concern in all aspects of space life.
"For the unit in my home, which should comparable to that needed for a spacecraft or outpost with a staff of up to ten, the daily power requirements are approximately two kilowatt hours for the microwave, one kilowatt hour for the slurry pumps, twelve kilowatt hours for the illumination, and maybe five kilowatt hours every other day for waste desiccation. And perhaps one half kilowatt hour for parasitic and ancillary applications such monitoring of CO2 and oxygen levels. Ah, and four kilowatt hours for blowers for air circulation."
Hank ran a mental total. "Some twenty-five kilowatt hours a day... A bit of a power pig."
"Yes, but is it too much for the chance to breathe - and eat - in space?"
"I'd think not. Hell, just the air conditioner share of my electric bill... " Hank grinned. "Not too mention the phone bill; I've got a teenage daughter." Who still has 'way too many friends out-of-state. "Anyway, viewed in those terms, I'd think twenty-five KW would be reasonable. Without atmospheric light losses, photovoltaic cells generate a heck of a lot more power in space. Just add more, 'til the supply can handle the load of an air plant."
"Such was my thought as well." Rubenstein agreed. "Or one might even pipe in raw sunlight and skip the artificial illumination." He rested his case and requested summary judgment. "So, what does the Launcher Company think of this idea?" His fingers rapped a staccato pattern on his knee as he nervously awaited a verdict.
Hank was nodding and staring into space. "Offhand..." His voice trailed off. After a few more moments he said, "Okay, I like the sound of it. But I'm aeronautics, not life support; wrong specialty. What we can do is pay you a... not retainer... earnest money, I guess the term is." After bringing up the subject of mining the Internet for more ideas, Hank, Neville, and some lawyers had worked up a basic procedure to handle the gems gleaned from the 'Net trash; it was a boilerplate agreement, and Hank had been granted the authority to commit the company to this extent. "That gives us first dibs on your idea, but doesn't permanently commit either of us. We'll want to post your doc on the company's website for peer and public review. If it passes that, we'll get serious."
Rubenstein indicated satisfaction with a quiet nod.
"No promises, but the idea is that if it works, we buy the gadget from you. I don't get into those negotiations, but I don't think anyone has left unhappy with his settlement yet. From there, it's ours, and we'll license it out to some manufacturing outfit like we did those rebreather PLSS's. " He saw Rubenstein's expression change at that mention. "Nope, I haven't forgotten. I'll get those contacts for you. Remember, this is something that benefits _us_ too, if you can make some money selling your design."
"Quite acceptable, in principle. What level of... earnest money do you have in mind?"
"Hang on a sec, and let me check something." Hank played games with his mouse and keyboard. He decided to get a touchscreen monitor like Abdul's even if he had to buy it on his own and bring it to work. He paged through directories and pulled a couple of files. A quick look at a table gave him an answer. "I can have a check for five grand cut in an hour if you'll give us dibs on your recycler for six weeks. How's that grab you?"
"It grabs me just fine," Rubenstein answered very happily. "I spent years attempting to interest NASA in this system, and now you offer me money after just one morning's meeting. Mr. Hanners... Hank, I am astounded. And very pleased." He rose to offer Hank his hand.
Hank accepted the proffered extremity in a firm, warm grasp. "Excellent!" He began the computer input gymnastics again. "If you'll give me a few minutes to fill in some blanks here, I'll get the basic agreement churned out by Legal and we can get going." He busied himself clicking electronic boxes and typing technicalese. Occasionally he asked Rubenstein for additional information and elaborations. He completed the ritual by sending a priority email to the legal department, which he followed up with a voice call so the matter would get immediate attention. Hank was still tickled by the idea that he was so high up the company ladder that he could exert such influence.
He hung up the phone and turned back to his guest. "Well, Wally, unless they're pulling my leg, I should have a check and contract here in maybe half an hour." He explained the boilerplate nature of the process which allowed the speedy service. "You mind if I ask a personal question?"
"If it is too personal, I will just ignore it," Rubenstein replied with a smile. "I am willing to put up with much from someone about to make an old dream come true. Ask away."
"Well, what's a doctor... That's doctor of medicine, right? ...what's a doctor doing designing space life support hardware in his spare time?"
Rubenstein's face clouded over, and Hank wondered if he had overdone it despite the doctor's assurance. "Hank, many years ago, a very idealistic young man fresh from internship decided to specialize in space medicine. He believed the government's tales of life in space, colonization. That young doctor went to work for NASA. He was sure that his work would make life in space possible for thousands of people who shared his dream." He snorted bitterly.
Hank shook his head sadly. Gods knew he felt disappointed and betrayed by NASA, and he had never worked for the agency.
"It was a crock," Wally said flatly. "I spent my days watching men puke in various simulators. Over and over again. And that was the bright spot, since we actually worked on anti-nausea drugs which would, and do, help people. But I watched NASA largely ignore effective partial pressure suits for real EVA work. I watched them reject proper recycling systems and stress the use of large stores and scrubbers which automatically limited man's time in space to short duration missions. I thought it was a matter of cost, so I conceived of these cheaper alternatives. And then I saw them rejected out of hand. Perhaps my design didn't require expensive construction in the right congressman's district.
"Eventually I was 'promoted' to a level in which I, a doctor of medicine, no longer did medicine. I monitored spacesuit telemetry. I hate telemetry. Beyond a certain point, such monitoring and ground-based command and control simply assume that the men in orbit doing the work are nothing more than expensive puppets. Stupid, expensive puppets.
"And perhaps they are, some of them. Or perhaps they are so desperate for the chance to be in space, even for a little while, that they will put up with nearly anything." Rubenstein grinned conspiratorially. "I always admired the Skylab crew who demonstrated their possession of true genitalia by going on strike against the sub-moronic demands of ground control."
"Truth to tell, so did I," Hank shared. "Although I'm crude enough to phrase it differently." The men smiled, having established a bond. A dislike of NASA and its methods was endemic among those doing business with Launcher. "You mentioned a clinic, so I assume you aren't with NASA these days."
Rubenstein harrumphed. "Hardly. I stuck it out for some years, but was finally so disillusioned by the reality of NASA's commitment to keeping man out of space that I quit.
"I quit NASA. I quit space medicine. I nearly quit medicine altogether, but not quite. I went into sports medicine, which is the next best thing. I now have a very lucrative practice giving little league thugs annual physicals, treating shin splints and bruises, and prescribing exercise and diets for fat kids who expect to be turned into sports giants in a month after years of stuffing their faces while watching television and playing video games. I don't know which is worse; the hellspawn themselves, or the mentally defective parents who pamper such hooligans." He sneered.
"But through it all, I found that I was still fascinated by alternative methods of life support. It was a hobby, an avocation, then something bordering on obsession, although I've known model railroaders who are far worse than I." He smiled in recollection. "But it was useless tinkering until I encountered the Launcher Company on the Internet one fine evening."
Bill Neville and Hank reveled in having put together the kind of competent staffs which they could trust to handle the endless string of micro-decisions generated by a burgeoning space program. It freed them to concentrate on the big picture and big problems. It also gave them an amount of time for sharing insights that would be inordinate in most companies. This morning, Hank was filling the exec in on the mutually profitable Rubenstein interview. "Bill, every time I think I understood NASA, I get something like this. The guy was... is a professional. He was even one of their own, an insider. And still they blew him off."
"And this surprises you?" Neville was enjoying a drink while listening to Hank's informal departmental report; coffee for once. He figured Amy would be proud.
"It shows that not everyone is just a bureaucratic paper shuffler over there. People care about space. You'd think that after a few decades the doers would have over-ridden the nay-sayers by now."
"Only if access were really what NASA wanted." He frowned at his coffee, then went to Hank's coffee station for more sugar. Seemed like Hank was drinking the stuff stronger than he used to. While he stirred, he spoke. "I've harped on it enough; so have you yerself. NASA was established to show up the Russkis. Once that goal was met, the pols in DC tasked them with something else - keepin' ordinary folk outa space." He stared over Hank's shoulder at an old McCall print framed over the engineer's desk. It showed a space-suited figure standing on a crater rim, looking down at an outpost partially buried in lunar regolith. "You know the old sayin' about frontiers givin' folks a chance t' 'vote with their feet', to go somewhere they don't hafta deal with stupid rules an' policies an' such shit?"
"Yeah."
"Maybe I'm gettin' paranoid in my old age, but sometimes I think that NASA is makin' a business of makin' life in space look a lot harder'n it needs t' be. To keep folks like us from votin' with our feet."
Hank stared through a wall wistfully, momentarily lost in thought. "Is it paranoia? Look at us; we're finding so many ways of doing it that we can't even use them all. I just sent Wally Rubenstein off to compete with us because his idea was too good not to develop. And it's a thirty-something year old idea that NASA refused to look at.
"We are doing space, and it's turning out to be easier and cheaper than even I thought it would be. And so many people are willing to support the access effort that we stopped selling bonds on the open market because we risked taking in more revenue than we felt comfortable with, until we can show actual operations revenue.
"And the government's reaction to easy access is to try regulating private access out of business." Hank smiled sadly. "Which is worse? To be so successful twenty or thirty years later than it should have been, or so successful that the feds see us as a threat?" His gaze turned down to the Formica surface of his desk. "I don't like what it says about Americans, either way."
"Not Americans, Hank," Neville corrected. "American government."
Hank lifted his head and smiled at the amendment. "Hey, Mr. Ultra-Conservative-Republican; you turning anarchist on us?"
"Damfino, Hank." He made a face at his coffee. "What the hell you doin' t' this stuff lately, man?"
The engineer laughed. "Leesa took it upon herself to up my blood caffeine content. Says I'm a bit less-than-alert in the morning."
"So who wants t' be a Lert?" Neville smiled impishly. "Mebbe we oughta set up your Leesa and Tom Zelaski. Give 'em somethin' t' do with their spare time."
"How about we direct their energy somewhere more productive and less reproductive? The one damn thing we aren't seeing much of on the 'Net forums is power sources." Hank relayed his concerns about electrical requirements for Rubenstein's air recycler. "The guy was talking up asteroid-based operations, but I have doubts about solar for that. Not that it wouldn't work. But the PVC arrays would be big bitches. Gotta be something better out there."
Neville face went blank. "Don't put too much energy inta that, Hank," the older man punned. "I don't think it's gonna be a problem for long."
"You have a line on something, boss?" Hank looked like he wanted to be irritated with being left out of an engineering loop, but thought better of taking the company prez to task.
Neville, no fool, saw the reaction. "Take it easy, Hank. This wasn't one'a the projects we're sponsorin', so it wasn't an issue for your department." He peered at the department chief over his mug of industrial solvent, and thought for a moment. "Okay, shouldn't have left you outa the loop anyway, you bein' a junior partner in this here madhouse. Partly didn't wanna bother you 'cause you're workin' your ass off doin' a great job, and partly because the client wants _lots_'a confidentiality."
"Well, if you wanted me curious, you got it."
Neville cackled. "And I oughta leave you hangin' now." He relented. "But here's the deal; don't spread it around. If you think we got feddie trouble, you wouldn't _believe_ what the 'crats would do to these guys." A dramatic pause. "Nukes."
Blink. "Say what?" Hank was pretty sure he'd heard correctly, but...
"Yep, nukes. I don't think you need t' worry 'bout usin' solar in the asteroids."
"You're kidding."
"Nope." Neville explained. "Got this outfit called NRU. They haven't said so, but the head honcho sounds like he has a sense of humor; I think that stands for 'Nukes R Us." The men laughed together. "Apparently they cut a deal for reactor grade uranium, plutonium, and other fissionables with one of the old Sov republics in need'a some hard currency. They mean t' assemble thermoelectric isotopic reactors, based on the old soviet space reactor design, but simplified even more. Lotsa kilowatts, essentially no movin' parts. Perfect for space operations by folks who ain't nuclear physicists." He watched Hank expectantly.
Hank whistled in amazement, then exclaimed, "Wow! That ought to get some hackles up in Washington; plutonium being sold to a private outfit."
"That's part of why you need t' keep it under yer hat," the bossman cautioned. "I kinda expect that this deal violates one or two international treaties."
"So how do we come into this? Are we buying reactors?" Hank's internal processor started clicking through uses to which he could put a small nuke. Hell, he'd like one in his backyard; shielded right, it wouldn't be anymore hazardous than that wannabe-fuel-air-explosive propane tank that fed the house.
"Wouldn't be at all surprised, down the road. But the first thing is that we boost the things inta orbit, so NRU can sell 'em to folks wantin' t' build spaceships, stations, an' colonies. Already put 'em in touch with Pedersen Polymers; they wanna fit their ships with the generators." Pedersen had bought the license for inflatable spacecraft and station modules: Inflate a kevlar sphere with rigid-setting insulating foam, carve out the middle for living space, apply an inner airtight coating for a heavily insulated, double-hulled bubble, and fit it with an airlock. Install life support gear - Rubenstein's recycler would probably do nicely - and you have a space station. Add more bubbles as your living area requirements increase. Stick a motor on one end, and you've got a spaceship. It's strictly orbit to orbit, no planetary landings; but if you're colonizing space, who cares? Equipped with one of these NRU reactors, the contraption would make a dandy deep-space vessel.
"I will be damned." Hank thought about the future. "How much do you think they'll be asking for one of these things?"
"Don't rightly know. You'll have to take it up with them. After they announce publicly," Neville cautioned. Then he grinned once more, a fairly common occurrence for the busy executive. "But they suggested a cut rate version for tight budgets."
"Yeah?" Now this really interested Hank.
"Guy said they're eventually gonna try a deal for the radioactive waste the feds are still pilin' up at Hanford up north. Seems the stuff is so hot, it'll boil water. And NRU figures that's hot enough that their new-generation thermocouples can suck some electricity outa the stuff."
"That I've got to see; Uncle Sugar," an old bit of slang for the U.S. government that Hank had picked up somewhere, "selling off radioactive waste to be shot off into orbit." Dubious didn't come close to describing the engineer's reaction to the idea. As for government bureaucrats' reaction... Hank chuckled.
"Maybe not our government," Neville allowed. "But I could see other countries doin' it. Sure would solve their waste disposal problems once and for all."
"You think?" Hank challenged. He knew more nuke power history than Neville. "Did you ever hear of an isotopic transmutation reactor Lawrence Livermore Labs wanted to play with... maybe fifteen years ago? It was supposed to test out a system of neutron bombardment to turn radiowaste into something safe."
"Doesn't ring any bells."
"I'm not surprised. It got canned quick. See, the punch line was that not only would it eliminate nuclear waste, but the reaction produced enough heat to turn a fair steam turbine." He elaborated for the blank-faced president. "It fissioned nuclear waste to produce electricity. Economically."
Neville's jaw dropped. "So why do we still have a storage problem? Sounds like the alchemists' Philosopher's Stone."
"Idea was shelved. Politically Incorrect. The anti-nuke gang hated the thing; it would have made nuclear power safe, nonpolluting, and economical in all phases of operation. They figured that if these things got built and eliminated the problems accompanying the use of nuclear power, they could never convince people to give up those nasty ol' nukes." He looked disgusted. "I always thought that showed up the anti's for the people-hating, latter-day-Luddites they really are. If safety was the real issue, they'd have jumped at this chance. We'd not only have clean, safe power; but we'd have a way to get rid of the waste we already have problems with." Hank was angry all over again just remembering it.
"Those sick bastards would rather see people freeze in the dark, babies starve for lack of food that needs power to produce and ship, and watch radioactive waste leach into groundwater than give up their psychotically irrational fear of nuclear power." He glared across the desk at his boss. "If NRU wants to put a nuke in every kitchen, I'm all for it."
"Well, if you liked that, wait'll you hear about GE and their cold fusion research ideas."
That derailed Hank's tirade. He looked disgusted. "Gack. Not cold fusion again." He set his coffee mug - Star Drek this time; and where did he find that parody mug, Neville wondered - down on a half read stack of mail.
"They've got a real effect there," Neville reminded the engineer. "That's about as well established as anything ever gets."
"Yeah, sure," Hank drawled. "But no one's been able to do anything practical with it so far. Alloy, crystal size, alignment... Everything has to be just right, or it doesn't work at all. The boys in Utah had a bit of dumb luck that they saw anything. It's no surprise that verification of their results was so inconsistent; so were the materials everyone else used." He shook his head. "Nah. Anything that persnickety in production will never be commercially viable," he opined.
"Wanna bet?" Then Neville shifted the subject by pointing to a red, white and blue envelope pinned down by Hank's mug. "I see you got one'a those things, too."
Hank's gaze followed his boss's finger. "Oh, yeah. 'A New Texas Constitution for the Twenty-first Century.' I love it," he chortled. "These guys really do want to petition the state legislature to pull out of the United States?"
"Don't laugh too loud, boy," Neville cautioned. "A damned silly idea, I'll admit; but a fairly popular one with us 'ornery Texans'." He smiled wistfully. "Some days, I'm tempted to signed the blamed petition myself."
"Go for it," Hank urged. "I did. Heck, take a poll of the company; I'll bet a majority of us NASA-baiting, feddie-distrusting scalawags would support it in principle." He pushed his mug off the envelope of discussion, leaving a brown semi-circular stain on the line drawing of the Alamo which adorned the wrapper. "Of course, signing a petition's as far as most would be willing to go."
"Guess ya gotta start somewhere, and work your way, and nerve, up from there," Neville observed. He sipped at his hypertrophied coffee and shuddered.
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Launcher Company
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Chapter 3
Year One, May 20th
Mi vido loco. So you're crazy too.
- Pam Tillis
Chapter 4
Year One, June 28th
- Neil Young
Chapter 5
Year One, July 20th
- Zathras
To: TechForum@the_launcher.co.us
Subject: GEM Stability at High Velocities
Hi,
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Chapter 6
Year One, August 19th
- Don Riggs