[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Again, the problem is the crew size.I meverybody s favorite second banana, but with a crew of only ten there s just no room for any secondbananas.If the Nike were twice the size. She shrugged. But it isn t.So all I can do is hope. Well, said A.J.brightly, if both of you stay back, you can at least keep busy cheering me on. It was Joe s turn to roll his eyes. A.J., sometimes you are really a. Self-centered jerk? I wasn t going to say it, Joe muttered, still staring at the ceiling. I was, Jackie hissed.Joe brought his eyes back down and changed the subject. So, Jackie, today s test any hitches at all? Not a one, so far.We may wonder of wonders actually finish a project ahead of time. Isn t that, like, completely against government regulations? Normally, sure.But as we are currently under what amounts to order to kick your sorry civilian asses,we ve actually got permission to do things at real speed. The ass-kicking is going to happen in the other direction, A.J.jeered.Jackie just smiled. Possibly.But we ve got a big fat government butt to absorb the punishment, whereall you ve got is skin and bones.Besides, if we can actually get close enough to launch this mission, Idon t think it will matter.Especially if we can get everything done we ve got projected. Well, I ll do my best to make it easy, A.J.said. I m really looking forward to doing this one.I llactually get to play in both sandboxes at once.I stay on Ares payroll and get to design all their coolstuff, but when the Faeries actually get down to business, since that data s going to belong to NASA, I llbe working in Mission Control with the big boys.Does it get any better than this? Joe laughed. Probably not.I suppose I m a little jealous, but hell, if it s adding that much to thedepartment budget I can t really complain. He looked back at Jackie. So how s the Nike designgoing? Mostly hush-hush, but I can tell you she s going to be really big.More than one main engine to shovethis lady along. I ll admit NASA did one thing right, said A.J. At least they gave her the right name for the job. He raised his glass over the arriving appetizers. It may be disloyal, but here s to the winged Goddess ofVictory, Nike! The others clinked their glasses with his, Jackie managing to control her irritation.Jackie had plenty ofcriticisms of NASA herself, but as time went on, she found A.J. s incessant jibes were getting more andmore annoying.As she d often found with hardcore libertarians like A.J., if not with someone like Joe,the man could be insufferably smug and amazingly blind to the contradictions in his own attitudes.In this instance, she d admit, Jackie happened to agree with A.J.She wasn t sure who, in the vastbureaucracy of NASA, had first come up with the name, but it was appropriate in so many ways.TheGreek/Roman pantheon had, of course, been the source of the planetary names, and Mars Ares to theGreeks was the God of War.However, the Greek pantheon had another deity of war: Athena,goddess of Wisdom and Warfare.Athena was symbolic of the necessity of war waged with rationalityand control, while Mars/Ares was the symbol of its destructive savagery.NASA s first goal, however,was Phobos, one of the two moons of Mars, named after Ares companions Phobos and Deimos: Fearand Terror.But Athena had her own companion, Nike.Thus the ship was named, and the motto of thePhobos Expedition was born.She raised her glass and repeated it. Conquer Fear. They drank again.When she lowered her glass, Jackie found that she was still irritated enough to do alittle needling of her own. A.J., explain to me again exactly how you guys are proposing to finance your junket besides beggingmoney from NASA? I ve never been able to figure out how the abracadabra works. Oh, you mean instead of mugging the taxpayers and blowing their dough on expensive boondoggles? A.J.grinned. Well, you know about the prizes. Right.That s some money, and I suppose if you guys manage to have everything work right, that dfinance a good chunk of things. So far it s done real well for us.But it only pays for you being first, don t forget.If you have a reason todo things more than once and we have a number of reasons we have to do multiple launches andlandings you ll start burning through whatever small profit you might make on the prize money afterdevelopment.So as you imply, we need other sources. So first we got people who believed in it enough to be willing to donate money to the cause, work forcheap, and so on, to keep costs down.Then we started looking for angels investors who wanted to be in on private space ventures. A.J.leaned back, stretched, and then attacked his calamari for a moment. Of course, the problem thereis that even though a few ventures like Rutan s managed to make space before, they never got a chanceto do much with it except some touristy stuff, so there weren t too many angels left.That meant we hadto actually promise something. You started selling Mars, right? But you don t own the planet, so how can you sell it? That s what Idon t get. Joe held up an admonishing finger. My dear girl, he said in a pompous tone, we aren t selling Mars
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]