"James P. Hogan - Craddle of Saturn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

Almost twenty years before, as a nineteen-year-old engineering student at college, Landen Keene
had astounded drivers on the interstate near the campus by overtaking them with ease in a 1959
Nash Rambler body fixed to a reinforced chassis on racing suspension, mounting an L88 Corvette
engine. He had also more than impressed the two state troopers who handed him a ticket, but they
were unable to cite his handiwork on a single safety violation. One of them had even indicated
interest if Keene ever found himself of a mind to sell. "Keep at it, kid," he had told Keene. "One
day you'll make a damned good engineerтАФsupposin' you live long enough, of course, that is."

These days, it seemed, things worked the other way around. Outdated engineering camouflaged in
futuristic-looking shells was hyped as a wonder of the age, the best that taxpayers' money could
buy. Keene sat in the cramped crew compartment of the NIFTVтАФpronounced "Nifteev," standing for
Nuclear Indigenously Fueled Test VehicleтАФwedged comfortably into the seat at the Engineer's
station by the mild quarter-g of sustained thrust cutting the craft across freefall orbits, and
stared at the image on the main screen. It showed the elongated body, flaring into a delta tail-
wing with tip-fins, of the spaceplane riding twenty-five miles ahead off the port lower bow,
closing slowly as the NIFTV overhauled it. Officially, it was designated an "Advanced Propulsion
Unit." Its white lines were illuminated in direct light from the Sun showing above the silhouette
of Earth, revealing the insignia of both the U.S. Air Force Space Command and United Nations
Global Defense Force. (Exactly what the entire globe was to be defended from had never been
spelled out.) The NIFTV, by contrast, with its framework of struts and ties holding together an
assemblage of test engine and auxiliary motors, external tanks, and crew module, was ungainly and
ugly. The APU looked sleek on the covers of glossy promotional government brochures and was
pleasing to bureaucrats. The NIFTV was a creature of engineersтАФa space workhorse, born of
pragmatism and utility.

Ricardo's voice came over the circuit from the Ccom stationтАФCommunications and Computing. "We've
got a beam from them now. I'm windowing onto the main screen, copying you, Warren."

"Gotcha." Warren Fassner, research project leader at Amspace Corporation's Propulsion Division and
coordinator of the current mission, acknowledged from the control room at Space Dock, at that
moment orbiting twelve thousand miles away above the far side of Earth. "It looks like you guys
are on stage. Make it a good one. We're getting the hookups." To avoid giving somebody officious
somewhere an opportunity to interfere, Keene had persuaded the public relations people at Amspace


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to hold until the last moment before slipping word of the mission to the networks. Since it was
something new and sounded exciting, the networks were interested.

A helmeted head and shoulders showing a gray flight suit with Space Command insignia appeared in a
one-eighth window at the top right of the screen. "This is Commander Voaks from USAFSC APU to
approaching craft U-ASC-16R. You are entering a restricted zone posted as reserved for official
Space Command operations. Identify yourself and announce your intentions."

Joe answered from the Pilot station, squeezed centrally behind the other two, which were angled
inward to face the bulkhead carrying the screens. "Captain Elms from U-ASC-16R acknowledging APU.
We are a private research vehicle owned and operated by the Amspace Corporation."