"Zach Hughes - Pressure Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Zach)

more than double those specifications." "No," Dom said, shaking his head. "You
quickly get into the area of diminishing returnis.5' "We're talking about
three thousand atmospheres," J.L said. "No way." "There is a way,'t J.J. said.
His eyes were serious. "Tbere is a way because there's an alien ship down
there inside Jupe's atmosphere which is withstanding the pressure." "If
Callisto Explorer's observations were accurate," Dom said, "it's faster and
bigger than anything we've got, or anything we've got on the drawing boards.
It
PRESSURE MAN
17
from outside the system. That means,it has eitraveled a long, -long time, or
they've beaten the tant. Either way that puts them far ahead of us."
if we could lift a what would be the benefit ed million people off the Earth
and establish
lanet of Centauri?" on a life-zone p If Centauri has a life-zone planet."
couple of hundred million more for each now
scovered," J.J. said. V-@ -141t!s old, old dream," Dom said. "And without a
'tubli t ive, that's all it is, a dream."
at if there's a sublight drive on that alien ship?" Dom shook his head,
thinking of the impossibility of @,.Wnstruction of a hull to resist three,
thousand atmo- @@,@pheres of pressure. ."Do you know how bad it is?" J.J.
asked. "Were
3'.", losing., Were keeping Earth alive by spending the last ,bf our resources
flying back fertilizer from Mars so,that
e can grow
just enough food to keep billions of people just above the starvation level.
You and I know that space should be more, that ies our last hope, but those
hungry people don't see it that way. They look at the space budget imd they
say that the money could be better spent on Earth researching ways to grow
more food, to farm the oceans, to develop the last of the tropical rain
forests and to irrigate the deserts. Weve been fighting the budget cutters
since before the first moon landing. They cut and they slash, and they will
.win in the end. Every second that passes sees a few more mouths to feed. The
Earthfirsters have already put China out of space, and Japan has only a token
program. The U.K. is about ready to cave - in and give them what they want.
Even Russia is having problems. We're fighting now just to hold the current
budget, and thero's not a chance that we'll win. We're outnumbered. The budget
will be cut, and that means an'end
18 Zach Hughes to exploration and development. All well be
able to do is make the fertilizer runs. ThePublicrats, have an absolute
majority in both houses, and the President is a Publicrat." "I don't _see-@'
Dom began.
X.J. waved him into silence. "The President is a good man. Secretly, he's on
our side, but he can't fight p u'blic opinion. This is an inevitable fact.
They're going to cut our budget. First we lost exploration, then development
of new-programs. The Canaveral site will be,the first to be closed, sure as
helt There will be no more building of ships. There's even a move under way to
close the Academy, to consolidate it with West Point to save money. You know
what that means. They say it's partly for the safety of the students.", "I
heard about.the last incident," Dom said. "Those kids should have stayed in