"Michael Flynn - Falling Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flynn Michael)

ziggy was tried on STS-95 (while all the cameras were pointed at John Glenn). Digital cameras were
coming onto the market whileRogue Star with its тАЬdigital optical input devicesтАЭ was in first draft. And
private companies were being contracted to manage public schools even asFirestar was in production.
тАЬNeo-encephalitisтАЭ was named тАЬWest Nile,тАЭ instead.
As for privately built SSTOs тАж Gary Hudson (Rotary Rocket), Michael Kelly (Kelly Aerospace), Buzz
Aldrin (Starcraft Boosters), and others are currently vying to be the first civilian company to reach orbit and
The Artemis Project (a registered trademark of the Lunar Resources Company) plans a lunar mine.
тАЬArtemis MinesтАЭ is mentioned in the text with their approval.
The world may not be quite ready for nanotechnology, but microtechnology is rolling along very well, thank
you. Dr. Stephen OтАЩNeil, vice president of research at Micromotion, Inc., was kind enough to explain some
of the near-future potentials for micro-electromechanical devices (MEMS), such as the surgical
procedures andin vivo monitoring devices mentioned in this novel (and which, naturally, appeared on the
evening news before I got the copyedited manuscript back!). Craig Purdy, of NASAтАЩs Goddard Space
Flight Center/Wallops Island, provided information and background on material extraction and microgravity
manufacturing, including on-site oxygen production from ilmenite. Dr. Robert Zubrin, of Mars Direct,
described the construction and operation of magnetic sails. My apologies to him for not going directly to
Mars.
Others helped out with various details. Stan Schmidt graciously determined the apparent size of Earth as
seen from the Bean: Kathleen Wong, Abdou Noor, and others provided bits of translation. David Hartwell,
editor of this series, gave helpful advice on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Most of all, to Marge Flynn,
who didnтАЩt have to do anything to earn my eternal gratitude, but did anyway.

тАЬIt is by incremental steps that we enter into strangeness. We plant each stride on familiar ground little
different from yesterday. Only years later, looking back, do we see what a long way we have come.тАЭ
тАФ Tanuja Pandya,Taj Mahal

FALLING STARS
2017-2023


PROLOGUE: Black Winter, 2017-2018

Musconetcong Mountain had barely abandoned its cloak of rust and orange when harsh, icy, northeast
winds ushered in a winter of unusual brutality. Sullen, black clouds rolled down again and again from the
northlands and the wind howled sleet and ice. The sky grew a perpetual, sullen slate and gave everything
a close, hemmed-in feel, as if a lid had been pressed over all the world. The Interstate vanished under a
shroud of snow and ice. It was not a gentle snow тАФ not the hummocky, fluffy sort that filled with
sleighbells and roasting chestnuts and laughing children тАФ but a gritty, ice-filled abrasive that stung
exposed cheeks and blasted them raw. You could cut your hands building snowmen.
All summer long and into the fall, Mariesa van Huyten had watched the dominoes topple with fascinated
horror. The economy dried and curled with the leaves; and fell with them, too, in the first, harsh knife
winds. Investors dropped Orbital Management and Klon-Am Holdings following revelations that OMC had
deceived telepresent operators and researchers with a virtual reality simulation and leased the same
volume several times over on Leo Station. They began dumping Pegasus when word leaked of CEO
Dolores PitchlynnтАЩs collusion with Klon-Am in fraudulent stock transactions. Then, as if fearing contagion,
they began selling Boeing and Matsushita, and other partners in the LEO Consortium. Bids on volume in
Leo Station dropped, sucking prices down all across Low Earth Orbit. Goddard, Tsiolkovsky, and the other
stations began cutting back. By October, Earthside toolmakers were hurting for directionally solidified
metals and chip-makers for gallium bismide. Supplies of Permovium began to dry up, leading to an
upsurge in neo-encephalitis.