CHAPTER 24

There were more than a few mission control centers at the Johnson Space Center. They were all rather busy these days. A record had been set for the number of launches in a week, a month, and a year. Jack was wondering, as he strolled between the control rooms, if anybody had even realized that. Not only were the manned flights constantly going up and coming down, but also, unmanned rockets were being fired from Vandenberg and the Cape just as soon as they could get the new boosters to the pads.

The people at the control centers were severely overworked. When Jack mentioned that somebody needed to call the record book people the suggestion did not go over all to well with the guys pulling double shifts. At best the reaction was a polite, but sarcastic, chuckle. A few of the console operators got that look of, ‘you’re kidding, right?’ One guy even developed a disgusted look and walked off without a word.

The problem was easy to see. They simply lacked the trained people required to run a program of this size. NASA had already stripped people from the Jet Propulsion Labs, pulled a few guys out of retirement, and were even bringing in OK Corps people who were, at best, semi qualified. It was amazing that some catastrophic accident had not occurred given the situation. Jack knocked on wood when that thought danced in his head.

The fact was that the deeper they got, into this mission, the more it became clear that the entire space program was going to have to be reinvented now. The facilities here at the Space Center were inadequate. The number of people they had were hard pressed to launch just a single ship. What was going to happen when America figured out it might need a fleet?

Even if the politicians hadn’t figured it out, a lot of other people were not only expecting it, but counting on it. Jack had seen signs of this from everywhere. He had heard on a television, that he passed by in one of the office break rooms, that stocks in aerospace companies were going through the roof. Private companies, that made products considered to be directly and indirectly vital to future space exploration, were popping up left and right. NASA was being flooded with letters from all kinds of people who, after watching too many movies, wanted to join the space program. None of that mail came in by the official channels and if anybody checked, and they probably did not, Jack suspected that none of those people were probably qualified anyway. The real applications, from qualified people, were flooding in too but, that was no longer NASA‘s concern.

Jack had already been approached by the engineering team, here at NASA, that was set to the task of drawing up plans for the next starship. They desperately wanted his input since they were dusting off old designs that he had drawn up. Jack had joked with the guys about his royalties and the day after that a lawyer, representing the government, had called him on the matter. They were really serious!

Those guys would have it easier than Jack had. If they went ahead with a production model starship then the plants would already be tooled up to manufacture the parts. They would have experienced launch and control crews to work with. They would not be building something theoretical and, most important of all, they’d have a bigger budget!

He told them as much. Jack also went on to reminded them that his primary responsibility was to make sure that the prototype actually worked. Everything they were doing was for nothing if he couldn’t get the Hermes out of orbit. They didn’t seem to get it. Heaven forbid that a government employee should ever think that his project wasn’t the most important thing on Earth!

Despite all of the madness going on, in Houston, Jack was seeing something here that he thought he never would. Suddenly there was optimism and hope. NASA had been an agency without direction or purpose for a very long time and that was probably something that went all the way back to the end of the Apollo Program. It drifted after the moon race ended, always trying to serve a multitude of masters, and had no center or sense of identity.

Now the people here had found that meaning. It didn’t matter how tired they were, how overworked, they all knew they were doing something truly historic. Give a man a purpose and he’ll turn cartwheels for you. That was what Jack was seeing here.

It was a particular shot in the arm when word came that Dee’s team was ready to go into production on a propulsion system. It actually surprised Jack when he got the packet she had sent him from California. He should not have been surprised and even felt guilty that he was. He pretended like he always knew that she could pull it off. Now, Jack had to find the time to actually read her stuff so he could know exactly what miracle she had performed. Then Jack planned on asking her and Vitosk if they could turn some water into wine for him.

The ship was almost completed. The revolutionary propulsion system was no longer just a theory. Everything was falling together and while they were definitely not going to make the deadline, they were going to just plain do it. There were times over the past year that Jack had seriously doubted if it would ever happen. Now he knew it, felt it, and for the first time ever he really believed that he was going to be traveling to new suns with three gorgeous virgin worlds around them. It was exciting and that was even despite the fact that these three worlds were named Curly, Larry, and Moe. That left Jack walking around with a permanent smile on his face these days.

Then he sat down at his desk. Gina was still up on the Hermes so a lot of Jack’s paperwork was being handled by some full time professional assistant type. The guy was nowhere near as good as Gina was but, Jack had to put up with it. Gina had not been picked for the mission because she was a good secretary. Unfortunately for her she just turned out to be good at the job and had been punished for it by getting stuck with it full time. Jack was now trying to correct that injustice to his crewmate, even if it was hard.

The first set of papers that Jack found were covered with an almost incomprehensible scribble. There were a couple of grease stains on the papers as well so Jack set them aside, He mumbled to himself, “Harry must have finally figured out that water thing.”

If Harry had bothered to write all of that down then Jack already knew what the deal was. Harry must have concluded that the consumption rates versus the storage capacity of their water tanks were within the acceptable safety range that Jack had specified. They only needed enough to reach the planet Moe. The OK probes had detected an abundance of liquid water there. If reports were to be believed then even the oceans of that world were fresh water and safe for human consumption.

That was good news because it meant that a major hurtle had been overcome. Water was expensive to put into orbit. You couldn’t exactly dehydrate it, now could you? It was heavy, bulky, and the rockets that were lofting it into orbit could only send up so much at a time. The operation was a major expense that was the equivalent of providing enough water, to supply a small town for a year, at the cost of the annual budget of the social security administration. It made the price tag of designer water seem cheap.

There had been other suggestions about providing water. There was ice on the moon and Jack had put forward that they mine it. Since NASA currently had no conventional rockets that could actually reach the moon, Jack had proposed that he make it his first stop. His crew would take along some specialty vehicles and a launching platform and do the work themselves. When they were done they could just leave the equipment behind since it was obvious that NASA was going to need an ice mining station there in the future.

No one liked the idea but Jack. It was pointed out that there was a certain time factor involved since the Japanese had already left orbit and were already on their way to Alpha Centauri. Nobody seemed to care that if Dee’s propulsion unit lived up to standards then that wouldn’t be a problem.

All Jack had to say about it was, “Damn public relations!” He was looking forward to hitting a few golf balls on the moon!

As Jack got further through his stack of memo’s, forms, and various other papers, he saw Dee’s report getting closer. He had deliberately put it at the bottom of the stack. It was the only way he would get the rest of his paperwork done. Then Jack reached the memo from Rockmont. Actually, it had not been the first one from the Directors office but, this one was marked in the subject line as, “Jack you had better actually read this one.”

When Jack finished with it he had forgotten all about everything under it.

Even the frog faced, attack dog, receptionist was not enough to keep Jack from barging right into to Rockmont’s office. Jack was obviously furious. Charles Rockmont, oddly enough, was not. He excused his secretary and just politely motioned to a chair, “sit down Jack. Took you long enough to get to that memo.”

“I haven’t even said what I’m mad about yet,” Jack grumbled but he sat.

Chuck laughed, “what else would you give poor Paula a heart attack over?” Rockmont leaned back in his seat, laced his fingers in front of him, and seemed to be completely at ease, “so tell me Jack. How’s it going? Need anything you don‘t already have?”

Jack winced in confusion at the attitude he was seeing here. Jack smelled a game, “you know exactly what I need. I already told you that anything like this has to clear me first.”

Rockmont shrugged it off, “I sent you the memo.”

“Disapproved,” Jack said without thinking twice. When Rockmont did not respond Jack actually rocked back in his seat. Suddenly the silence made him feel like he was on the spot. He squirmed a little and then explained himself, “I need my people working on that ship. This public relations tour you have planned is just going to have to wait. It’s not that important.”

Rockmont was not getting angry. What was going on here? Jack could usually see the veins sticking out on the guys forehead by now. Instead of turning red Chuck just shrugged, “well I have to disagree with you on that one Jack. Oh, and by the way, so does the President. The simple fact is, if we don’t do this the odds are you won’t have a crew to command, or a spaceship to put them in.”

“What?” Jack was suddenly horrified. He couldn’t be serious, could he? It was too late in the game to be worrying about things like that. The ship was almost finished! The drive system was ready to go into production! What kind of moron would kill the program at this point!

“I’ll tell you what kind of person would do it Jack,” Rockmont stated plainly, “the American people is who.”

“Huh?” Jack was thoroughly confused now, “we’re doing this for them!”

“You believe that,” Rockmont explained politely, “I even believe that. The thing about it is this Jack, whether you like it or not, everybody doesn’t believe the same thing you and I do. We live in a democracy. They have a right to believe whatever they want and they also have a right to express that opinion. We need to state our case too. I, for one, think it should be that way.”

Jack came back with, “stating your case is not the same thing as putting on a circus sideshow. Tell you what, if we have to do this, you call the leaders of all those groups, that are out there with the signs, and let me talk to them.”

Rockmont whimsically scoffed at the suggestion, “they’d eat you alive Jack. I saw your talk show interview.” He leaned forward and became a bit more serious, “there is one thing I know from all my years in public service. That is, the truth sounds pathetic on camera. Logic and reason don’t hold too much sway either. Jack, you take all of that knowledge in your head for granted. You think everybody knows what you do. I got some news for you. They don’t.”

Jack was not willing to accept that. To him things either added up or they did not. What Rockmont was talking was heresy to an engineer. Who would deliberately not want to know something? Wasn’t that the entire point of this trip? Why couldn’t people see that?

Jack rambled on about those topics for a moment and then Rockmont replied, “well there are a lot of people who don’t care, or want to know, or they even think they already have the answers. To them this trip is nothing but a monumental waste of money. There are even some of those people out there that don’t even give a rat’s ass one way or the other Jack. They’re doing it just because they like protesting stuff. Some of them are even being paid to do it. Then once you get a crowd together others are going to show up just because there’s a crowd.”

“That’s insane,” replied Jack.

“That’s the truth of the matter,” Rockmont replied bluntly. “So we have to do the same thing if we don’t want those people closing us down. Like it or not Jack, you guys are celebrities, and we have to use that. For us, it means parades, speeches, ceremonies, and lots of time in front of a camera. We have to do anything that’ll make it look like more people are on our side than theirs. Congressmen pay attention to stuff like that.”

As Jack mumbled in frustration Rockmont eased off again. Jack even detected a hint of humbleness. That was truly a rare trait for the man. Chuck was very reflective when he asked, “Jack, let me ask you something. Can you tell me the name of the guy who ran the shipyards that Columbus set sail from?”

“What?”

“I should be able too,” Rockmont said. “I don’t even know it and I got something in common with the guy. In five hundred years nobody is ever going to know who Charles Rockmont was. People will remember the name Francis John Kelly and argue about if people actually called you Frank or Jack.”

It would have sounded like a snow job under normal circumstances. This time around Jack didn’t think so. Rockmont sounded so damn sincere. He was very serious when he said, “Jack. Let me do my job. That way you can do yours.”

Jack deflated even if it was only reluctantly, “what do you want?”

“We’re going to have to go back in front of congress,” it was now as if another switch had been turned on. Rockmont sounded all business again, “this time I’m going to need you, Doctor Brewer, and Doctor Vitosk. If we don’t then you can kiss that propulsion unit goodbye.”