"Rocketry has followed a similar path. Do you believe that the thousands of scientists, engineers and craftsmen who labored for decades on rocket aircraft, guided missiles, and finally, on our great satellite vessels, envisaged in their loving work and ingenuity the diabolical ends to which their creations were often put? I tell you No! gentlemen. Those men were animated by secret visions of reaching into the heavens, of bringing their fellow men closer to what all our primitive ancestors felt was the outward manifestation of the Deity, and which was by them so worshipped — the stars, great and small. But the vast appropriations which were applied to the development of our presentday rocket ships could not be pried from the public purse save by the cogency of their overwhelming potency in war! During the last conflict it was quite plain that he who held control of space over the heads of his enemy held victory in his hands!
"We are today at peace, thanks be to God. Well may we apply advances in fighting aircraft to civil aviation. Well may we work frantically to convert the war-born destruction of atomic energy into a blessing for all mankind. And by all means, we should apply the billions spent on space travel and our little, war-baby satellites to actualize that most ancient of dreams, flight into and among the stars of the heavens.
"Do not think that nowadays it is but a dream, nor that military necessity is that which gives Operation Mars its main right to be considered a valuable and practical enterprise. We must, I tell you, face up to the driving forces which heretofore have goaded civilization forward.
"Why did men yearn to sail the seas, generation after generation? The answer might be that seafaring is an economic necessity, because through it alone can world trade exist.
Your real seaman, however, cares not a whit whether the cargo of his vessel upon the high seas be gold or grain. We may well doubt whether Columbus, on the quarter deck for the Santa Maria, was animated by a burning desire to reduce the freight rates on Indian tea, when he sought a new passage to Cathay and found America athwart his hawse. The great adventurers, Marco Polo, Magellan, and Henry Hudson did not sail forth upon distant and dangerous oceans on occasions of economic urgency, nor of closely reasoned logic. Theirs was the fire of genius, the divine urge, the response to the challenge of the unknown…
"Again, why has the desire to fly plagued us humans since the days of Icarus and Daedalus? The mail bags and the passengers in their pressurized cabin are of small concern to your true pilot. He took to the air because, when he was a small boy, he had seen an eagle circling in the empyrean blue, and because since that day some mystic longing constantly drew him upwards into the depths and distances of the sky.
"Explorers, seamen and flyers live their lives by certain elementary rules with which the Creator endowed them. Economic advantages to the generality of humanity come only in the train of their fundamental, basic drive.
"Gentlemen, if we really face it, we might find that it is actually unwise to inquire too stubbornly into the reasons that urge us to set afoot this expedition to Mars… You have all heard, quite clearly, that we have the necessary technical means to carry it out. Were we now to send out a call for volunteers, we should be swamped with applications from enthusiastic, enterprising youths, ready and eager to embark on the great voyage.
"When Isabella the Catholic granted Christopher Columbus' request for the ships of his westering voyage, she little knew what amazing results would follow in its wake. But there was no question in her mind that any but the Creator of all things had imbued his children with that urge into the unknown which distinguishes the pioneer. After prayerful watching, she fell in with the plan, secure in the knowledge that He knew the purpose of His endowment of Columbus with the spirit of adventure.
"Only through God has the door to our neighbors in space been opened! Shall we slam it in His face?"
Chapter 9 — Headaches of a Space Ship Designer
Holt's first task was the selection of his crews.
His old war buddy, Tom Knight, had signed up without hesitation and Holt appointed him Deputy Commander and Captain of his flagship.
John Wiegand, the man with whom Holt had spent many thirsty days in a pneumatic boat under the burning sun of the Indian Ocean, had immediately agreed to abandon his profitable automobile agency in Fort Worth as soon as the project took tangible shape.
John was an old timer in space shipping, with an engineering background. He had been through the teething troubles of the Jupiter-class and then directed the assembly of Lunetta personally and in situ. Holt knew his merciless meticulousness about the smallest detail, and for this reason had picked him out as Chief Engineer.
Since geology promised to one of the most fruitful fields for investigation on Mars, Holt had succumbed to the blandishments of a solemn, spectacle-wearing scientist by the name of Samuel Woolf. A well-known geologist of middle age, he had dreamed of the intentions of making an expedition along his professional lines, and had pestered Professor Ashley with applications to a point where he gave him a letter of recommendation to Holt. The latter interviewed him and was much impressed by the way Woolf had combined his plans for geological studies of the structure of Mars with various other objectives on the planet.
Dr. Bergmann, the light-haired astronomer, assented immediately when Professor Hansen let him know that Holt desired him to be in the party. Hansen did not tell him that he had long since guessed that his secret dream was to go along, and had spoken strongly in his behalf. Since Holt's visit to Lunetta, Bergmann had increased his efforts to the limit of human capabilities in order to squeeze every conceivable advantage form the existing opposition of Mars, when conditions favored observations and measurements.
Bergmann's equipment was kept busy to its ultimate capacity during this time. For six solid weeks he had lived in the observatory, returning only occasionally to Lunetta for sleep. He had kept the busy bees busy indeed, bringing his meals over from Lunetta to the observatory. Each returning Lunetta ferry carried a thick sheaf of data for Holt back to Kahului, as Bergmann compiled what he thought might assist the planning.
Then there was Glen Hubbard of Los Angeles. For years he had been a civilian test pilot in the service of United Spacecraft, until the flight surgeons began to hint that he would last longer and enjoy himself more in a swivel chair behind a desk. He then became technical assistant to Spencer, but his wide experience when testing the Jupiter-class, particularly because it was he who had worked out their landing procedure, had been of inestimable value to every new design put out by the company. When Operation Mars was first announced, he immersed himself immediately in study of the glide characteristics and landing procedures which would face the landing boats in Mars' peculiar atmospheric structure, and came up with many valuable design tips. This aroused in him such enthusiasm for the whole project that he asked Holt if he might have a command. He wanted to strike a final blow for the cause to which he had dedicated his life, for flight in space, in which he had often risked his neck. The trip would be a high point for him ere he must retire into innocuous inactivity.
Another captain was Charles Laroche, the French underground fighter in the last great war against the overrunning of Western Europe by Bolshevism. Unknown at first, he had finally emerged to fight the barbarians in the air, becoming the ace of the French aces who, at the peak of his powers, had joined the United States Space Forces to become one of the first great space ship masters. Since the war had ended, Laroche had found no satisfactory outlet for his boiling energy, despite his fondness for social frippery and his many feminine conquests. Visiting with some wealthy acquaintances, he had accompanied them on an African hunting safari, but when his old friend Knight hinted that there was to be an Operation Mars, his request to Holt for a part in it figuratively burned up the mails.