"Robert Tine - The Astronaut's Wife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tine Robert)

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THE ASTRONAUTтАЩS WIFE




ROBERT TINE
THE ASTRONAUTтАЩS WIFE



Copyright ┬й 1999 by New Line Productions, Inc.
Cover artwork copyright ┬й 1999 by New Line Productions, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except
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Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

ISBN: 0-312-97018-8
Printed in the United States of America

St. MartinтАЩs Paperbacks edition I August 1999

St. MartinтАЩs Paperbacks are published by St. MartinтАЩs Press,

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Prologue
There were times when Jillian Armacost felt as if she didnтАЩt have a lifeтАФnot a real one. It was
more that she and her husband were controlled by, and were wholly owned subsidiaries of, a
government agency. In this case it was the one that one Americans seemed to love and trust
above all others: the National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationтАФ NASAтАФthat crew-cut,
square-jawed, can-do, Houston-we-have-a-problem organization. Of all the government
offspring that Americans mistrusted, they mistrusted NASA the least.
And it took a lot of work to win that trust. If NASA was an old-fashioned movie studio, then
the astronauts were the stars, their wives the contract players. Each of them was bound by
ironclad contractsтАФcontracts that put the interest of NASA ahead of anything else. On the face
of things, this was the caseтАФat least, it was certainly the case with the astronauts themselves.
They had worked hard to get to where they were, climbing the steep and
slippery military ladder as fliers for the Marine Corps, the United States Navy, and the U.S. Air
Force. To have achieved flight status for NASA put you at the top of the heap; it marked you as
the best, not just in the armed forces of the United States of America, but as the best in the
world. And this crop of fliers was said to be the best ever.
Spencer Armacost was part of this and, on the face of things, his wife Jillian imagined that he
gave himself over to the spirit of NASA completely. But sometimes she caught a look in his