In the midst of all the excitement, Frank's launch of the third Buran, now named "SpaceInt One," went almost unremarked, by everyone but Frank.
The launch of Man's Dream had been an experiment. Frank needed to know if the Energia booster was truly reusable. It had returned to Earth on the end of a cluster of parachutes. A crew from Energia and one from SpaceInt were waiting for it. A careful examination revealed that the booster would need only minor maintenance before being ready to launch again.
SpaceInt One launched less than a month later. It carried the first of the crew that would be establishing the commercial side of Weatherly station. For practical as well as political reasons, it was to be located at the opposite end of the long asteroid.
Weatherly Station officially went into service four months later, with the establishment of Man's Hope International's sensor and communication systems, which had been transported to L-1 by an Energia Vulkan booster.
It was another year before Frank Weatherly and Susan Andrews arrived on Weatherly Station. The acceleration on the trip up had been rough on Frank, but upon arrival at the SpaceInt installation, he spread his arms wide and smiling broadly, said simply, "Home!"
He and Susan were married the following month in a ceremony at the Man's Hope International facility aboard Weatherly Station.
By that time, the presence of Weatherly Station had been a reminder and a motivator for the entire world. Knowing that a refueling station was available drove all the spacegoing nations to again pursue aggressive goals in space, in attempts to catch up with Space International and Man's Hope International.
Russia was preparing to test-fly the Kliper spacecraft, to be launched on a Proton M booster with Angara 5 strap-ons. If it was successful, an air launch from the AN-225 was planned.
At Energia, Anton was lobbying hard for a version of the Vulkan to be built using the completely reusable Energia II main stage. He was having some success; his involvement with Frank and Man's Hope had shot him up the ladder in the company. But he admitted to Frank that production of such a booster was still nearly a year off. In the meantime, Energia was producing their big Vulkan boosters as fast as they could. Energia was no longer threatened with a Khrunichev takeover, and in fact, Khrunichev was working with Energia on several projects.
In the US, NASA was given permission and money to evaluate a follow-on version of Shuttle that had originally been proposed some twenty years ago. NASA was frantically updating the design, and was talking to Energia about Vulkan boosters and Space-X about Falcon Heavy boosters. The new Director of the chastened agency had overseen a serious thaw in its relations with Frank and Man's Hope International. Frank was no longer a villain and a terrorist; instead, he was a respected space expert, as well as one of the world's wealthiest private citizens. Man's Hope International, the U.S. press had decided, was, in fact, an admirable organization after all, and Space International was recognized as a powerful, legitimate multinational corporation.
The National Space Institute/L5 society had inquired about chartering Man's Hope, but Frank had had to refuse. He sent them to talk to Anton about Kliper/Parom. All three Burans were very busy. They were now launching on a one-month turnaround. Public pressure had forced Frank to remove the reactor aboard Man's Hope, but it wasn't really needed in near-earth space anyway, with undiluted solar power and constantly developing progress on ion engines.
Weatherly Station was coming along nicely. Tunneling into the asteroid not only provided ores that could be processed into metals and minerals, but it also created living space inside. The Man's Hope end now boasted a crew of over fifty, and some of the most advanced computer systems Earth could produce. Frank was still being careful, though. None of them had been made in America.
The other end, owned by Space International, was humming. As quickly as tunnels could be dug, the materials extracted were sent to a solar driven, laser-powered smelter, where it was reduced to its constituent metals and minerals, and separated. Since all the processing was taking place in the vacuum of space, the metals and minerals they were producing were purer than any produced outside of laboratories on Earth. The tunnels left by the miners, of course, were immediately converted to living, office, and shop spaces, as well as laboratories. There were several hundred people aboard Weatherly Station now, and the Burans were hauling cargo and people both ways.
The inquiries by the National Space Institute/L5 Society had not been in vain. They were partners now, working on the production of Solar Power Satellites, to the spirited howling of Earth's power utilities. Frank had purchased several square miles of desert land in the southwest United States, and the National Space Institute was busily installing microwave receivers and transmitters on it. At Weatherly, solar cells were cheap and easy to produce, given the purity of the minerals available and the surrounding vacuum. A subsidiary of SpaceInt was constructing a solar array covering more than an acre in area. Together with a large microwave transmitter, it would make up a satellite to be placed in a geostationary orbit above Frank's desert land. The satellite would collect solar energy and convert it to microwaves, which it would beam down to the National Space Institute microwave receivers. If it worked as they hoped, cheap, abundant energy would soon be a reality. First, of course, they would have to fight the "environmentalists" who were already filing lawsuits to prevent SpaceInt and National Space institute from "destroying the delicate desert environment." Apparently, they considered even coal-fired and nuclear power plants preferable to Frank's microwaves. Alternate sites were being scouted in North Africa, as the U.S. continued its retreat from technological progress.
Frank looked out of the thick glass panel that was his only guilty pleasure. That window had to be thick, to stand the pressure differential between Weatherly Station and the vacuum outside. It also had to be glass, and thick glass is heavy. It had cost him over a hundred thousand dollars to buy that window and ship it to Weatherly.
He turned back as David Tarrant knocked and drifted into his office. Frank admired his easy familiarity with microgravity. "Hi, Frank," he said.
"Hi, David. What can I do for you?"
"I was just wondering how soon I can plan on going to Mars."
Frank frowned. "Mars? Why Mars?"
David shrugged. "Isn't that the natural next step? Another planet?"
Frank shook his head. "That's the media's idea of the natural first step, not mine. Actually, I've been thinking about the next step. The Space Institute people want to bring back another asteroid, to put at L-5. They even know which one they want, 243 Ida."
David frowned. "That's a big sucker!"
Frank nodded. "Yes it is, much bigger than Eros. But that's a good thing, if you want to dig out a space colony. They want to charter SpaceInt I. But all three Burans are going constantly. I hope they hold out until Anton gets Kliper/Parom flying."
"Isn't Kliper/Parom scheduled to fly next month?"
Frank tried to push himself to his feet, and found himself drifting several feet above his desk. He cursed as David laughed aloud and grabbed his foot, pulling him back down until his shoes grabbed the velcro of the carpet.
"Damn it," he said, "You'd think I'd have learned to handle microgravity by now. Anyway, about Kliper: Yeah, Anton says it'll fly next month for real. He's sent me the measurements so we can make the cargo sections. That way they won't have to be made on Earth and launched."
David nodded. "Good idea. He's planning to use Paul's 'space train' idea?"