"Paul J. McAuley - How we Lost the Moon - A True Story by Frank W. Allen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

ten to the power twenty-three kilograms. Something like, letтАЩs see тАФ тАЬ

тАЬOkay,тАЭ I said quickly, before Mike lost himself in esoteric
calculations. тАЬBut where is it now?тАЭ

тАЬWell, it went all the way through,тАЭ Mike said.

тАЬThrough the Moon? Then it came out, letтАЩs seeтАЭ тАФI tried to visualize
the MoonтАЩs globe тАФтАЭsomewhere in Mare Fecunditas.тАЭ

тАЬNot exactly. It accelerated in free fall toward the core, went past, and
started to fall back again. ItтАЩs sweeping back and forth, gaining mass and
losing amplitude with each pass. ThatтАЩs what the president is going to tell
everyone.тАЭ

I thought about it. Something just bigger than an atom but massing as
much as a mountain, plunging through the twenty-five-kilometer-thick outer
layer of gardened regolith, smashing a centimeter-wide tunnel through the
basalt crust and the mantle, passing through the tiny iron core, gathering
mass and slowing, so that it did not quite emerge at the far side before
falling back.

тАЬYou were lucky it didnтАЩt come right back at you,тАЭ I said.

тАЬThe amplitude diminishes with each pass. Eventually itтАЩll settle at the
MoonтАЩs gravitational center. And thatтАЩs why I didnтАЩt want to sign the contract.
After the president tells everyone what IтАЩve just told you, all the construction
contracts will be put on hold. What you should do is make sure weтАЩre first
on the list for evacuation work.тАЭ

тАЬEvacuation?тАЭ

тАЬThereтАЩs no way to capture the black hole. The Moon, Frank, is
fucked. But weтАЩll get plenty of work before itтАЩs over.тАЭ

He was half right, because the next day, after the president had
admitted that an experiment had somehow dropped a black hole inside the
Moon, a serious problem that would require an international team to
monitor, we were both issued with summonses to appear at the hastily set
up congressional inquiry.
 ****

It was a bunch of bullshit, of course. We went down to Washington, D.C,
and spent a week locked up in the Watergate hotel watching bad cable
movies and endless talk shows, with NASA lawyers showing up every now
and then to rehearse our Q&As, and in the end we had no more than half an
hour of easy questions before the committee let us go. Our lawyers shook
our hands on the steps of the Congress building, in front of a bored video
crew, and we went back to Canaveral and then to the Moon. Why not? By
then Mike had convinced me about what was going to happen. There would