"Cassutt, Michael - More Adventures On Other Planets" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cassutt Michael)

"Cologne?" she said, then realizes where. She blushes. "Oh! Hoppa Station." Operators like Earl and Rebecca are often brought into the program without prior introductions. After all, they are usually mature professionals.

"Actually, about twelve klicks away," Earl says, wondering why he feels the need to be so precise.




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You have to forget everything you think you know about space flight. The SLIPPER operators aren't astronauts. In fact, there are damned few astronauts here in 2026, just a few poor souls stuck going round and round the earth for months at a time in the crumbling EarthStar space station, hoping their work will somehow overcome the bone loss or radiation exposure or even psychological barriers that prevented a manned mission to Mars, not to mention even more distance locales such as Europa.
But exploration of the solar system continues, using unmanned vehicles which can be controlled from distances of tens of millions of miles, more or less in real-time, by human beings. The advantages are many: the vehicles can be smaller, they need only be built for a one-way trip, and using SLIPPER-linked human operators allows spacecraft builders to skip the lengthy and unpredictable development of artifical intelligence systems.

J2E2's mission control in La Jolla, then, is more like a virtual reality game den than a Shuttle-era firing room. Yes, there are the basic trajectory and electrical support stations, complete with consoles, and there is a big screen that displays telemetry from all of the many separate elements, along with selected camera views.

But the real work is done in the eight booths at the back of the control room, where each operator strips naked and dons a skintight SLIPPER suit and helmet not awfully different from scuba gear, allowing her to link up in real-time with her avatar on Europa.

To see Jupiter looming permanently on the horizon.

To feel the shudders of the hourly quakes.

To hear the crunch of treads on ice.

To smell metal and composite baked by radiation.

You can even taste the surge of energy when linked to the generator for recharging.

It's all faux reality, of course, the work of clever programmers who have created a system which translates digital data from the elements themselves into simulated "feelings," then reverses the process, translating an operator's muscular impulse to reach, for example, into a command to rotate an antenna.

The best operators are those who know spacecraft and their limitations, who have proven that they can commit to a mission plan. People who simply like machines also make good operators. For J2E2, AGC tries to find those who can fit both matrixes.

And who are willing to take the risk of permanent nerve damage caused by the interface.




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Rebecca operates Earl's truck as he rocks the Volvo. He has chained the two vehicles together, and is learning that undoing his prank is easier than doing it, since the tightness of the driveway is forcing Rebecca and the truck to pull the Volvo at an angle.
But she expertly guns the motor just as Earl gets the Volvo's front wheels on the pavement. With a hump! and a whoof! and a reasonable amount of scraping, the Volvo shoots free. "That was suspiciously close to good sex," Rebecca says, delicately wiping sweat from her eyes.

Now it is Earl's turn to blush, something he can't remember happening in years. (He is old enough to know better about this, too.) He had been thinking the same thing. "You like cars," he says, lamely, fitting her neatly into that subset of the operator personality matrix, something the operators do both consciously and instinctively, like long-lost tribesmen smelling each other.

"Guilty, officer," she says, and looks at the truck, with its complement of nautical equipment. "And for you it must be boats."

"Two of them. A runabout and a forty-five-footer." The tribal recognition isn't strong enough to overcome their mutual antagonism. Note that there is no invitation to take a sail.

"See you on Europa."