Space: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  When Mott asked if they thought they could keep the Bali Hai open, they were gloomy: ‘We have a better chance than most, our good beach, and people know us. One Apollo shot a year would keep us prosperous. But that’s all gone, and we just don’t know.’

  ‘But you are going to try?’

  ‘Resort type of business, maybe. Catch the snow-birds as they drive south for the winter.’

  ‘I wish you luck. This place is a part of American history.’ He could hear the vanished astronauts; he could see Cynthia Rhee flashing into the bar like a comet in low orbit; most of all he could see the three young men he had admired so much when he supervised their activities: Bell the proficient civilian; Jensen the dream kid who typified the perfect astronaut; Claggett the tight-jawed doer, the clown, the best young man he had ever known, flawed but magnificent. They died, and now Canaveral was dying, too. When he left the Bali Hai to drive down to Palm Beach to visit his son in jail he saw the mournful signs: HOUSE FOR SALE. ANY REASONABLE OFFER.

  It was the same wherever he went: the great, proud bases from which man had conquered space were retrenching, and some were on the verge of extinction. Personnel were being fired at an appalling rate, but it was not until he reached California on his inspection that he appreciated the real problem facing NASA and the nation, for at both Ames and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory he heard the same story: ‘We can cut back. We can fire people. But how do we maintain a basic capacity to spring back into action if we’re needed in a hurry?’

  That was the headache. How does one preserve a cadre of intelligence and skill? What manufacturing jobs do you assign them to in the downswing? And most important of all, how do you keep the infrastructure vital so that it can be quickly expanded in time of need? Automobile companies, military units, big retail stores all faced that problem, but never so acutely as NASA did in these painful years, because each man it fired carried with him some unusual and vital skill that could not easily be replaced.

  Mott listened as supervisors described the men let go at JPL: ‘Henderson knew more about computer enhancement than anyone else on the block. He could take data and make the whole thing sing. If a war came along, he’d be invaluable to the military, but what can he do working the salary list at Sears Roebuck? Ondrachuk knows more about metal stress than any of us. A very cautious man. But how can he use such knowledge teaching in junior high school, supposing he gets the job?’

  There was an even deeper problem: ‘Henderson and Ondrachuk had learned how to work together. They’d evolved a jargon which extended to fifty other experts, each with his own peculiar field. In a pinch we could probably find men as good as they are, but without the accumulated jargon. And what’s worse, keep them out of the program for three years and they’ll have lost the jargon. They won’t have kept up with their fields, no matter how much they study. Space is a hands-on experience. You have to do it to learn it.’

  Sometimes at night he trembled to think of the intellectual capacity his country was squandering … dissipating to the four winds … ignoring at a time of no-crisis and perhaps destroying against the day of great-crisis. But a democracy worked that way, by fits and starts, by dynamic response to felt emergencies, then slothful indifference when the emergency dissolved. However, when he reached the Lewis base near Cleveland and found that the creative engineer Levi Letterkill had been let go, he perceived the problem not in the abstract but in fiercely human terms.

  ‘You can’t fire Letterkill. Call him right now and get him back on the job.’

  ‘We had to let him go. Quotas.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn about quotas. Letterkill is twice as bright as I am, and this country needs him.’

  ‘We don’t. Not in this shop.’

  ‘You think you don’t. But let me tell you about this man. In 1957, well before Russia put Sputnik up, he devised a way for the gang at Wallops Island to put one of our little machines into orbit. You know what he came up with last year? A radio telescope with a base line ten A.U.’s long. We need this man.’

  ‘Not here, we don’t.’

  ‘If he goes, I go.’ He had thrown out a challenge which the Lewis people jumped to accept. They called Washington and said that they refused to be overridden by some headquarters has-been; then Mott took the phone and said calmly, ‘If Letterkill is fired, I have to be fired, too.’ There was a long silence, then a conciliatory voice: ‘Is this a conference call? Are you both listening? Mott, why don’t you see if Huntsville could find Letterkill a place?’

  When he reached Huntsville he found them in a frenzy of retrenchment, too, but with urging from Washington he persuaded them to take Letterkill into their think tank, where bold ideas were generated, and Mott thanked the administrators profusely.

  That evening he dined with the Kolffs up on Monte Sano, and after supper, as he and Dieter and Liesl sat on the front patio overlooking the city, they told him the wonderful news: ‘Always when I was working at Peenemünde I loved to borrow classical records from Von Braun. He loved music. The records were Polydor, the best ever made, no scratch. And I used to dream that the day was coming when I would be a big manager like Von Braun and I, too, would be able to afford Polydor records. Beethoven, Brahms, Wagner. Now look!’

  He returned to the living room and turned on his record player; soon sounds of heavenly clarity filled the night with music Mott could not identify, but quite soon Dieter was back with one of those handsome album jackets of Deutsche Grammophon with the golden-yellow cartouche across the top: VIVALDI. CONCERTO IN A FOR TRUMPET AND ORCHESTRA. Magnus Kolff with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. Holding the jacket on his knees, Mott listened to the brilliant trumpet sounds as they filled the room behind him, making it a noble symphony hall.

  ‘Is it too loud?’ Dieter asked.

  ‘No. I like the reverberations.’ After a while he said, ‘You must be very proud, Dieter.’

  ‘I am. It’s better to me than all of Von Braun’s Polydors.’ Then he explained: ‘You understand, of course, that Polydor merged with Deutsche Grammophon. It’s the same company, really.’ When Mott turned the jacket over he found a photograph of young Kolff, twenty-nine years old, his German-American face smiling, his left hand clasping his trumpet.

  ‘How do we keep the team together?’ Mott asked.

  ‘We had the same problem at Peenemünde. Hitler blows hot, lots of work. He has a negative dream, fire everybody. He has a positive dream, the A-4 will win the war, our staff triples. Vietnam and Watergate, America has a bad dream.’

  ‘How did Von Braun handle it?’

  ‘When General Funkhauser came along to find volunteers for the front, he hid people in barns.’

  ‘Did you hear that Congress gave Funkhauser a medal last month?’

  ‘I saw the papers. He deserved it, Stanley. He did one hell of a job in this country.’

  ‘He got me my job with NASA. It was NACA then. I wonder where I’d be if he hadn’t intervened?’

  Kolff laughed. ‘I know where I’d be if Liesl hadn’t stopped him from intervening. I’d be six feet under in some German potato field.’

  ‘What should NASA do now?’

  ‘Hide its best men in a barn. Wait for Hitler or whoever to have a better dream.’

  Mott received advice that was more specific from Senator Grant when he visited him in the Senate Office Building: ‘I’ve resigned from the Space Committee, Mott. Made my small contribution and turned the job over to younger men. When we had astronauts up there—Glenn, Armstrong, Claggett—the whole nation throbbed with excitement. Today, what? Total indifference. This Mars thing you’re about to do. What’s it really mean to the man in the street?’

  ‘It could be our most significant accomplishment in space.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. If no men are involved, it’s merely an exercise.’

  ‘But men are involved, sir. The comprehension of the entire world …’

  ‘That comes later. Much later. In books that men like you r
ead. Not in real life.’

  ‘What would you advise NASA to do?’

  ‘Cut back to the bone. Close down three-fourths of your installations. Go ahead with your inexpensive shots that explore the planets. Keep the scientists happy, but don’t try to occupy center stage.’

  ‘What about preserving our cadre? In case of a national emergency down the line?’

  ‘That’s the military’s problem. I’ve done some studying of my own. Every really competent man NASA’s fired has gone either to the Pentagon or to the air-space industry and got a better job. The capacity is kept alive, but in a different set of buildings.’ When Mott tried to counter this argument, citing the preeminence of civilian control, Grant cut him short: ‘Why do you suppose I quit the Space Committee? To take a more important job on military affairs. That’s where the action’s going to be.’

  Again Mott tried to interrupt, and again Grant forestalled him: ‘Look at your own group of astronauts—the ones you brought in and coddled. Three dead. That fine man Cater back in civilian life. John Pope from my hometown about to resign. Only that chap from Tennessee … what’s his name?’

  ‘Hickory Lee.’

  ‘Only one left. Too limited in outside experience to land a good civilian job. Well, we need caretakers.’

  ‘How far should we cut back, Senator?’

  ‘I was rather startled the other day when our committee counsel, Mrs. Pope—you know her—told me how many satellites we already have in the air, and the good purposes they serve. Keep them up there. Add to them. Improve the new models and be sure they function. Work hand in hand with the military and you’ll find enough to do. But drop the idea that you’re some superagency, some Manhattan Project inventing the atomic bomb. You’re the Department of Agriculture now, a service agency with a limited budget. Learn to live with it.’

  ‘Did you say that John Pope was leaving the program?’

  ‘He’s bright. He can see we’re at the end of an epoch.’

  ‘What’s he going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. He has an able wife with a good job to tide him over till he makes up his mind.’ Grant grew hesitant. ‘You know, I suppose, that the high brass at your shop is displeased with Pope. His arrogance when we talked Claggett into postponing his divorce … the bit about that Japanese newspaperwoman at Claggett’s funeral. And I don’t need to specify the Australian foul-up … the high brass …’

  ‘I’m fairly high brass,’ Mott said coldly, ‘and I find no fault with Pope.’

  ‘Neither do I! Look, he’s from my hometown. I’m indebted to him. He campaigned for me. But …’

  He walked Mott to the door. ‘The days of wild blue yonder, the science-fiction bit—that’s all finished, Mott. Now we address ourselves to practical matters.’

  Senator Grant was correct; John Pope had concluded that he would do better if he resigned from NASA. ‘It’s this way, Penny, I’m forty-nine. They’re not ever going to send me up again. Nothing to send me in.’

  ‘They surely have some kind of job for you, an outfit that big.’

  ‘Sure, pencil-pushing in some third-floor office. I’m not the type.’

  ‘You can do anything you put your mind to, John. I’ve watched you.’

  ‘That’s true, but it has to be something of significance. Now, if they wanted me to study a completely new field—for a new kind of flight, that is—I’m their boy. But that’s passed. The whole establishment is chairborne now, and there’s really no place for me.’

  ‘John, I see the budget. It’s enormous even now. A lot of work to be done …’

  ‘I’ve been in space. I’ve been to the Moon. If the flight program has ended, I can’t spend the rest of my life at a desk.’

  ‘What will you do?’ They were in her apartment in Washington, where the activity of a great nation throbbed with vitality, and to hear him talking as if life had somehow ended was distasteful, an evaluation she allowed to creep into her voice.

  ‘I’m still a Navy captain. I can always go back.’

  ‘John, the best you could do in the Navy is more pencil-pushing. They don’t want an old-timer like you, respected though your record would make you.’

  ‘Look, I’m still one of the real pilots around.’

  She burst into laughter as she poured him a ginger ale. ‘John, those young tigers at Pax River wouldn’t know what to do with you … or me.’

  They thought about this for some time and after a while John turned on the television, but Penny immediately turned it off. ‘We must talk about this, John. The Navy’s no solution. It’s trading a NASA desk job for a Navy desk job, so who’s ahead?’

  ‘Who has to be ahead? I could teach astronomy at Annapolis, maybe.’

  ‘No, if you’re going to make a break, make a big one.’

  ‘Like what?’

  In their dilemma the Popes became just another NASA family faced by unemployment because a great program was winding down, and like the other perplexed experts, they wandered off into many different possibilities.

  ‘John, have you ever considered us both moving back to Clay? We’d have a decent pension. We could—’

  ‘We could what?’

  ‘You could go into politics, maybe.’

  ‘I’d never touch it.’

  ‘You could get elected, you know.’

  ‘I am not a politician.’

  He refused to discuss that possibility any further, turned on the television and watched a football game, but next day when he went to Navy headquarters in the Pentagon he received a jolt: ‘John, the Navy would always find a place for you, but you’ve been away so long. You’re definitely age in grade.’ This meant that in the normal flow of a Navy man’s career, someone like John Pope ought statistically to be much further advanced than he was; his lagging on the promotion ladder meant simply that the Navy no longer expected him to become one of its senior admirals. He was tagged, indelibly, as a loser.

  ‘But in aviation …’

  ‘You’re a champion, John. No doubt about it. But you’ve converted yourself into a civilian.’

  ‘Sir, I could certainly …’

  ‘I can’t think of a commander who would feel easy having a national hero your age, your reputation, under him. It would be quite out of balance.’

  ‘They tell me Yeager’s being promoted to general. I’m due for admiral.’

  ‘Yeager stayed in the chain of command. You didn’t.’

  ‘How about Patuxent River?’ Before the admiral could respond, Pope added with obvious enthusiasm, ‘I sometimes think they were the best days I ever had. Did you know that Claggett was there with me? Hickory Lee did a stint there, too, while he was in the Army.’ The admiral listened with respect, tapping his fingers, as Pope recalled the glory days when he was a hotshot lieutenant commander, probably, and gradually the fire subsided. ‘I suppose I would be overage for Pax River. But those were damned good days.’

  ‘Believe me, John, you’d make a terrible mistake trying to come back in.’

  He was not wanted. There was no way that the Navy could feel comfortable with a front-line civilian hero like John Pope on its administrative hands, and when he left the Pentagon it was with the solid knowledge that retreating to the blue uniform was not a possibility. Penny had been right, and when he reported to her apartment this time he was prepared to listen.

  ‘You feel it’s the end of the line at NASA?’ she asked.

  ‘Definitely. I’m through there, whether I want to admit it or not.’

  ‘And you’re through at the Navy?’

  ‘I’m sure that’s what they were trying to tell me.’

  ‘How about business? Claggett told me that six different firms wanted to lure him away from NASA.’

  ‘That was Claggett. He could sell anybody anything.’

  ‘Well then, I have a surprise for you. Behind your back Senator Grant and I have been doing some logrolling. The State University of Fremont invites you to join its faculty.’


  ‘As what?’

  ‘Professor of Applied Astronomy.’

  John leaned back in his chair, hands to lips, and tried to visualize the job, and gradually a big, relaxed smile came over his lean, tough face. ‘That I would like.’ Then he asked, ‘You coming, too?’

  ‘Much of the year. Yes, I know just the house we must buy.’

  ‘What do you mean by much?’

  ‘I have work here I want to finish up. At the committee. What with Glancey gone and Grant out, I’m needed.’ She moved about the apartment, straightening chairs, something she did only when inwardly confused. ‘And there’s been some loose talk about appointing me to one of the federal agencies … maybe even a judgeship.’

  ‘You’d be damned good, Penny. If they make a solid offer, grab it.’

  ‘I’d have vacations. You’d have vacations. I’m sure it would work, John, but on the other hand, if you wanted to find something here in Washington …’

  ‘I think I’ve had Washington.’

  ‘I think you’re right. I have this strong feeling that you ought to get back to your home soil. Dig in for the hard work that lies ahead.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Who knows? You’re not fifty yet. You have twenty-five good years ahead.’

  ‘Penny, the most important aspect of this making decisions … it’s difficult to say.’ He seemed to choke on his words, then blurted out: ‘You know I love you—more than flights, more than anything else.’