"Ben Bova - Life As We Know It" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bova Ben)

Now, as the moment of truth approached, the scientists cramming mission control
were busily spinning theories about what the cameras would find in Jupiter's
global ocean. They couldn't wait for the actual pictures, they had to show how
clever they were to impress the reporters and each other. A bunch of alpha male
apes, preening and displaying their brains instead of their fangs. Competing for
primacy and the attention of the news reporters who were clustered around them,
goggle-eyed, tape recorders spinning. Even the women scientists were playing the
one-upmanship game, in the name of equality.

To her credit, Allie remained quiet. She was as clever a scientist as any of
them, but she refused to involve herself in the primate competition. She didn't
have to. Her ranking in the hierarchy was as secure as could be.

None of them paid the slightest attention to me. I was only the engineer who had
built the imaging system. I wasn't a scientist, just the guy with dirt under his
fingernails who made the machinery work. I'd be ignored unless something went
wrong.

To tell the truth, I paid damned little attention to them and their constant
gobbling. My eyes were focused on long-legged Allie, by far the most desirable
female in the pack. How could I make her notice me? How could I get her to smile
in my direction instead of clinging so close to the boss? How could I get to be
an alpha male in her lustrous eyes?

"Data coming through."

From nearly a thousand million kilometers away, my cameras were functioning. Had
already functioned, as a matter of fact, more than ten hours ago. It took that
long for the telemetry signal to travel from Jupiter to our antennas out in the
desert.

Suddenly all their jabbering stopped. Mission control fell absolutely silent.
The first images began to raster across the main display screens, line by line.
Live, from beneath the endless cloud deck of Jupiter.

Each display screen showed imagery from a different wavelength. We had blue,
green, red, infrared and even radar imaging systems. Despite all their theories,
none of the scientists had been able to tell me which wavelengths would work
best beneath Jupiter's cloud deck.

I had asked them how much sunlight filtered through the clouds. None of them
could tell me. Which wavelengths of sunlight penetrated the clouds? None of them
knew. I had to grope blindly and include as broad a spectrum of instruments as
possible.

Now I swivelled my gaze from one screen to the next. The blue system was pretty
much of a washout, nothing but a blur, as I had expected. The atmosphere must be
filled with haze, a planet-wide fog of ammonia and sulfur molecules.

"That looks like wave tops!"