Space: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  ‘I didn’t say that, but as a matter of fact, in this situation I don’t.’

  ‘What do you propose?’

  ‘Slip the landing a few days. Look around for a better site.’

  ‘Slip? Dammit, you can’t slip!’

  ‘I just did. Landing tomorrow is absolutely impossible. We must find a safer site.’

  A sickening pall settled over the room, for these men knew the disappointment such an announcement must entail. They appreciated the abuse NASA would receive for having botched a mission of such importance, with the whole world watching. There was brief discussion as to who would announce the postponement, and a committee of three was chosen: two project scientists and Dr. Mott from headquarters. The grieving men took deep breaths, after which the one who had made the decision said, ‘Well, let’s get on with it.’

  The formal announcement caused a dull mutter of resentment through the briefing hall, for these hundreds of reporters and television crewmen had traveled long distances to participate in this triumphant moment, and they were not pleased with the three men who gave them the bad news.

  ‘So your whole delicate schedule is shot to hell?’ one belligerent asked.

  ‘It is,’ the leading scientists admitted, but when the questioners reached Dr. Mott, they found him unwilling to concede a single point. Sitting primly and wearing a formal jacket while the others were in shirt sleeves, he parried all the castigations:

  ‘We cannot land on July 4, which is a deep disappointment. But I feel confident from the new photographs that we will land on a better and safer spot on July 21 or even 20. That’s a delay of sixteen or seventeen days, and in the long history of man’s exploration, what did it really matter whether Christopher Columbus sighted his New World on October 12 or two weeks later?’

  ‘If he’d delayed two more weeks,’ a newsman growled, ‘his crew might’ve lynched him.’

  ‘We’ve spent years of effort and millions of dollars to bring this effort to the verge of success. An adventure like this has never before in the history of the world been attempted, and we must not endanger it at the last minute by trying to land in the middle of a plain of rocks.’

  ‘Will your next site be any better?’ a science writer asked.

  ‘We’re not guaranteeing anything, but this mission is so difficult, we’ve got to have as many factors as possible in our favor. We know that the July 4 site is no good. We hope the next one we select will be.’

  ‘Why didn’t you see that the present site was no good three weeks ago? Save us hauling out here on a no-go mission.’

  ‘Three weeks ago we had to rely on photographs taken from a distance of several thousand miles. Now we have close-ups and radar probes, and I can tell you, that makes a difference. But if at the last minute on July 21 real close-ups show that site to be a bummer, we’ll back away from it, too. Gentlemen, scientists grope for information, and when we get it we must obey its dictates. That’s what science is.’

  So this big day, the day of national celebration, passed ignominiously. President Ford filed his notes. The television crews went home, and second-guessers around the world explained how the affair should have been handled. But at the end of two weeks the NASA scientists concluded that everything was in their favor, so on 20 July men like Cornell’s Carl Sagan and Hal Mazursky, the superbrain, bit their lips, and white-haired Jim Martin crossed his fingers and gave the signal to detach the small lander from the bigger orbiter which had brought it safely across so many millions of miles.

  One of the young scientists gripped Mott’s arm and whispered, ‘It’s got to work.’ And when the signal reached Earth confirming that the lander had broken away neatly, the young man sighed and whispered again, ‘I knew it would work.’

  For two painful hours the NASA men checked indicators as the frail lander drifted down through Martian space, and then, when it began to descend precipitously, tension rose and in the disciplined silence excitement multiplied: ‘Viking is 300,000 feet aloft … Viking is 74,000 feet from landing … Viking is at 2,600 feet … Viking is approaching Chryse in perfect attitude …’

  The room fell silent; men could hear each other breathing. Then across 199,000,000 miles came the steady, unemotional signal: ‘Viking has landed. All systems go.’

  Men leaped into the air. Some wept. Jerry Soffen, project scientist for the adventure since its inception, shouted, ‘After fifteen years … Mars!’ Mott, overcome with emotion after having just witnessed the defeat of science in the Fremont plebiscite, danced with Carl Sagan in celebration of this tremendous victory.

  Man had reached the planets. He stood challenging the entire solar system to reveal its secrets. Even the ramparts of the Galaxy were now approachable, and where this vast adventure into space would end, no man could predict. The landing on the nearby Moon had carried trivial significance compared to this, for the Moon was a dead appendage to planet Earth; Mars was a planet in its own right, and now it was being revealed as scarred, arid and lifeless.

  The young fellow who had whispered at the moment of maximum tension now studied the first incoming photographs and again gripped Mott’s arm. ‘Damn it. Damn it to hell! A barren waste. If only it had shown a palm tree, we’d start planning a manned flight tomorrow. This way, we’ll forget it by September.’

  Mott, hearing this gloomy prediction, knew it to be true, but only insofar as the immediate future was concerned. And he felt he must correct the young scientist: ‘In this work we build slowly. That photograph which is so disappointing to you … it could set the mind of some young Japanese ablaze. Or some schoolboy in Massachusetts.’

  He stood apart, trying to recall the days when he had been such a schoolboy: ‘Maybe the most important book I ever read was that ridiculous affair by Percival Lowell. It was totally wrong, but it set my mind working. Look! Seventy short years after he published it, here we are on Mars. And if I helped get us here, he helped get me started.’ He moved in close to study the new photographs as they evolved in real time, and they showed no canals.

  Stanley Mott was irritated by training and predisposition he should have been concentrating on the farthest edges of space, but because of the various scandals in which his sons were involved he was prevented from attaining any of the major positions in NASA management. However, his unusual combination of skills—practical engineer plus visionary astrophysicist—made him respected as a counselor in the varied activities of the agency.

  Recently he had been assigned to analytical work in land-based aviation, a task which might occupy him for many months. ‘A terrible waste of talent,’ he grumbled to Rachel when the decision was announced. ‘I’ve always been the one who pushed for daring new explorations. Now I’ll be wasting my time at places like Boeing or Lockheed, and it hurts.’ He glared at his photograph of NCG-4565 and longed to be back in space.

  But Mott had always been a devoted workman, and after he had spent three weeks researching America’s efforts in aviation, he became obsessed with a desire to do a first-class job; his friends had to listen as he explained his new enthusiasms: ‘You forget that the first A in NASA stands for aeronautics. In the past our agency made sensational contributions to flight, and now that our space effort is in eclipse, it’s only natural that men like me should be reassigned.’

  He pointed out that the country was in grave danger, again: ‘You forget that at three critical periods of our history America lagged far behind Europe. In 1915, when the old NACA was established. During the period after World War I. And in the closing years of World War II when the English and the Germans were experimenting with new designs and new engines. You know what I think? I think we’re behind again.’

  He startled listeners by arguing: ‘Our aviation industry seems determined to repeat all the errors our automobile makers made. Lagging in inventiveness. Not enough emphasis on research. Making no effort to build the small aircraft the world needs. Resting on our duffs because we have our marvelous Boeing 747.’ But he attracted seriou
s attention only when he revealed that the world’s best small commercial carrier was now made in Brazil; the best medium-range, in Europe. ‘NASA should do everything possible to excite advanced thinking—a helicopter that could fly forward at three hundred miles an hour, a plane that could take off and land in very short space, better jet engines, better everything.’

  He was opposed in such a program by men in Congress and NASA who preached the doctrine that ‘if an idea is commercially profitable, commerce should pay for its development and not the federal government.’ It was the intention of these men that all of NASA’s great aeronautics centers with their wind tunnels be sold to the big aviation companies so that they, and not NASA, could take charge of experimentation and the creation of new ideas for flight.

  They had a certain logic in what they said, Mott had to concede. If a commercial company made a lot of money through adapting a NASA discovery, then that company should pay the freight; but even so he found himself arguing strenuously against these men:

  ‘It seems to me that four of the wisest laws ever passed by the United States Congress were these: The Homestead Act of 1862, which gave away Western lands in order to settle the area and build a great free nation; the Morrill Act of the same year, which gave away lands so that each state could have its own agricultural college, producing excellent universities like Texas A and M and Oklahoma State; the GI Bill after World War II, providing free education for men who served their nation; and the act which gave free land to the railroads so we could build a vast transportation network to bind the country together and free land to build airports so that we could fly into a new age.

  ‘There are certain fundamental things a nation should do to keep the creative pot stirring, and the energetic sponsorship of new technical ideas, advanced education and the creation of better modes is one of them. If the nation does not continue to sponsor experimentation in aviation, I fear it will not be done, and our marvelous industry, which earns us so much money, will languish as our automotive industry has.’

  In vocal defense of this idea, he lectured at industry centers throughout the nation, and one day in January 1979, after a visit to NASA contractors in Denver, he hopped aboard the incredible commuter plane that flew in and out of the highest Rockies—’mountain goat with wings’—and landed at Skycrest, where the taxi driver delivered him at the shop run by Millard Mott: ‘You’ll find it’s the center for the in-crowd. President Ford and his gang haunt the place when they drive over from Vail.’

  Mott entered unannounced, and stood by the doorway for some moments appraising the store and liking what he saw. It was clearly a ski shop featuring the most expensive gear from Austria and a cadre of attractive young clerks who doubled as instructors for Easterners who wanted to try the slopes. Finally a brash young woman who should have been in school spotted him, hurried over, thrust her lovely face toward his, and asked brightly, ‘Buster, can I sell you a pair of super skis? Only four hundred and fifty dollars?’

  ‘You’re confusing the men and the boys,’ he said.

  ‘Can you even ski?’ she asked.

  ‘I came in here to escape the snow. I hate it.’

  ‘Have a beer,’ and with that she went to a small refrigerator, produced a can of Coors, and knocked back the aluminum cap. ‘What’s your racket, buster?’

  ‘I’m Millard’s father.’

  ‘Oh, wow!’ she yelled, leaping up and giving him a kiss. ‘You’re the man who sends boys to the Moon when they’ve been bad!’

  ‘When they’ve been good.’

  ‘Millard,’ she shouted. ‘Your old man’s here!’

  Millard appeared from an inner office, a handsome young man of thirty-six who looked to be in his middle twenties—no fat, blond wavy hair. He was dressed in a Tyrolean sweater which looked as if it had been extremely expensive and a pair of pale blue après-ski lounging pants. He paused for a moment, recognized his father, and hurried over, extending his right hand, which Stanley grasped enthusiastically.

  ‘You have some installation here. Is it paid for?’

  ‘You know what you taught us. “The only thing to buy on credit is your casket.” ’ Millard laughed, led his father to the inner office, and confided: ‘I borrowed like hell. Paid interest like you never saw. And the place caught on. I’m hiring another girl next week.’

  ‘The two you have out there don’t hurt business, I’ll bet.’

  ‘They’re a rascally pair.’ He leaned back in his chair and said, ‘Dad, you never seem to get any older. How do you do it?’

  ‘Your mother’s a fabulous cook. A health nut. I see you’re not gross.’

  ‘How’s Chris?’ The question came much earlier than Stanley had intended, but he had to answer.

  ‘He survives. Not even the jailers have much influence on him. He lives behind a wall, impenetrable.’

  ‘When he gets out, could I offer him a job? Skycrest’s a curious place. You find your own level. The mountain air clears things for some people. The saloons mark the end for others.’

  ‘Chris would incline toward the saloons, I fear.’

  ‘How dreadful. You see him, I suppose?’

  ‘Whenever I go to Canaveral.’

  Stanley found that what the taxi driver had said was correct: Millard’s was the center for the in-crowd, for in the course of the morning he met three leading Republican politicians who had followed President Ford to nearby Vail and the presidents of two major corporations. The girl clerks treated them all with rowdy disrespect and the men responded. It was a lively scene, but Stanley noticed that one young clerk, a man from the Air Force Academy, quietly pushed merchandise on everyone who entered the shop. ‘You ought to make him your partner,’ he said to Millard.

  ‘I have a partner. He’ll join us for lunch, and I assure you, he’ll be a surprise.’

  Millard took his father to a chalet where nine of the prettiest girls Stanley had seen for some time, dressed in abbreviated winter costumes, served a severely limited menu: ‘I’m Cheryl, from Montana. You can have shirred eggs with chicken livers, or a beef bourguignon at an outrageous price, or a very fine bacon-and-spinach quiche. Believe me, take the quiche.’

  ‘There’ll be three of us.’

  ‘Three quiches?’

  ‘I think we better wait for my partner.’

  ‘Okay. Two beers?’

  Stanley concluded that in Skycrest, one bought something, and quickly, or one was tossed out of town.

  ‘The girls are all drop-outs from college. Vassar, Texas, Berkeley. You can staff a restaurant here in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘What happens to them?’

  ‘Some of them—Oh, here he is,’ and Stanley looked up to see a handsome young man approaching, deep-set crevices in his cheeks, a touch of gray at his temples, and he thought he had met him before.

  ‘I’m Roger, Mr. Mott. We met in California some years ago.’

  ‘Roger from Indiana!’ Mott remembered him well: the rejecter of amnesty.

  ‘He served three years in Leavenworth for refusing the draft,’ Millard said, almost proudly, ‘and now he’s back. Thank God, he’s back.’

  On the plane from Denver to Los Angeles, Mott wrote to his wife:

  I left in confusion, Rachel, but also with a sense of profound happiness. Roger is out of jail, bearing the marks of his confinement with dignity, and Millard has given him half-ownership of the shop on the grounds that Roger had served his sentence for both of them. They’ve built themselves a fine small house in Skycrest, where I met many of the leaders of this nation, for our son is a respected member of the mountain community. Once, after a visit with Millard and one of his friends, you said it was like having a daughter who had left her banker husband and was living with an architect. Well, the daughter is back with her husband and I simply did not have the courage to ask what had happened to Victor, the architect. But I would be a liar if I refrained from saying that one sensed in the house and in the shop a presence of love.

  The
reason that drew Stanley to Los Angeles this time was not aviation, but a disruptive crisis in space. A decade ago, when he was occupied with other matters, the NASA high command had spent a great deal of time and intelligence trying to devise some major operation which would replace the Apollo program, and belatedly they recognized the validity of Dieter Kolff’s persistent argument that what America needed was not something on the Moon but a floating platform in Earth orbit from which other vehicles could be launched for high-orbit work.

  But NASA went one step beyond Kolff’s prescription. Its spacecraft would be manned by astronauts who would bring it back to Earth for repeated re-uses. America would thus have a kind of inexpensive flying bus that could shuttle back and forth between Cape Canaveral and outer space.

  As soon as Mott heard of this decision, “he put his finger on the real problem: ‘We’ve proved we can take off, maneuver and land. But what did we land? Only a minute percentage of what we took up. And it was wrapped in protective material which ablated away as it came through the fires of the upper atmosphere. No way we can ablate a whole aircraft and then use it again.’

  When he heard the proposed solution—to glue onto the leading edges of this Shuttle small, individual tiles of a new material which would withstand the heat of reentry and could be used again—he was aghast: ‘How many different tiles will you require?’

  The answer was 31,689, and no two would match. As a scientist he was satisfied that such tiles could be manufactured and that a glue could be fabricated which would hold them in place, but as an engineer he could not believe that anyone in his right mind would come up with such a complicated procedure; however, those who made the decision defended it: ‘Mott, we can’t use an ablating material. You pointed that out. We’ve got to have something that stays put and can be reused. So what can we use? A special copper alloy would be great, but if you covered the Shuttle with three inches of copper, there isn’t a rocket in the world that would lift it off the pad or brakes strong enough to stop it rolling when it landed. So what are you left with? We invent some new material, a new adhesive …’