"James E. Gunn - Station In Space" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

I made a hasty verbal agreement with a local paper and caught the first plane to Washington, D. C. For a
long time, I liked to think that what I wrote during the next few days had something to do with
subsequent events, for many of my articles were picked up for reprint by other newspapers.

The Washington fiasco was the responsibility of the Senate Investigating Committee. It subpoenaed
everybody in sightтАФwhich effectively removed them from the vital work they were doing. But within a
day, the Committee realized that it had bitten off a bite it could neither swallow nor spit out.
General Beauregard Finch, head of the research and development program, was the tough morsel the
Committee gagged on. Coldly, accurately, he described the development of the project, the scientific and
technical research, the tests, the building of the ship, the training of the prospective crewmen, and the
winnowing of the volunteers down to one man.

In words more eloquent because of their clipped precision, he described the takeoff of the giant
three-stage ship, shoved upward on a lengthening arm of combining hydrazine and nitric acid. Within
fifty-six minutes, the remaining third stage had reached its orbital height of 1,075 miles.

It had coasted there. In order to maintain that orbit, the motors had to flicker on for fifteen seconds.

At that moment, disaster laughed at Man's careful calculations.

Before Rev could override the automatics, the motors had flamed for almost half a minute. The fuel he
had depended upon to slow the ship so that it would drop, re-enter the atmosphere and be reclaimed by
Earth was almost gone. His efforts to counteract the excess speed resulted only in an approximation of
the original orbit.

The fact was this: Rev was up there. He would stay there until someone came and got him.

And there was no way to get there.

The Committee took that as an admission of guilt and incompetence; they tried to lever themselves free
with it, but General Finch was not to be intimidated. A manned ship had been sent up because no
mechanical or electronic computer could contain the vast possibilities for decision and action built into a
human being.

The original computer was still the best all-purpose computer.

There had been only one ship built, true. But there was good reason for that, a completely practical
reasonтАФmoney.

Leaders are, by definition, ahead of the people. But this wasn't a field in which they could show the way
and wait for the people to follow. This was no expedition in ancient ships, no light exploring party, no
pilot-plant operation. Like a parachute jump, it had to be successful the first time.

This was an enterprise into new, expensive fields. It demanded money (billions of dollars), brains (the
best available), and the hard, dedicated labor of men (thousands of them).

General Finch became a national hero that afternoon. He said, in bold words, "With the limited funds you
gave us, we have done what we set out to do. We have demonstrated that space flight is possible, that a
space platform is feasible.