PHASE II
1
His mouth was dry, his palms clammy. They always were at this time. It was his personal reaction to the mounting tension; the only factor he could predict with unfailing certainty. From the dais of the Project Director he watched the projected image on the big color-television screen on the far wall of the control room. The huge Titan III rocket stood poised for flight on the launching pad, wafting impatient whiffs of vapor into the morning air. He was acutely aware of the steady countdown droning from the PA system:
“—minus five — four—”
He stopped breathing.
“—three — two — one—”
His eyes were riveted on the screen. Suddenly a fist of fire slammed from the base of the giant rocket. He could feel the raw power shake his very bones.
“Ignition… Lift-off. We have lift-off… Plus two — three—”
He did not relax. Not yet. He followed the fiery flight of the rocket as it streaked toward space. It was a good launch. On the screen the rocket was slowly shrinking into a tiny point of brightness dancing in the blue sky.
The telephone on the desk next to his right arm rang. It startled him. He picked it up.
“Marcus,” he said crisply. He listened. “Thank you, General, it was a beautiful launch. All should go well.”
Again he listened. He glanced toward the large, lighted clock on the wall. “Yes, General Ryan, I can be at Edwards Air Force Base late this afternoon… Yes, your office.”
He replaced the receiver. For a moment he sat in thought. He had a good idea why the General had summoned him from Vandenberg on the Pacific to the Mojave Desert flight test center 150 miles inland. He felt a surge of excitement. At last…
He returned his attention to the activities in the huge control room spread out below him: Technicians seated at many stations before a labyrinthine array of control panels and consoles; the vastly intricate machinery of space exploration; the orderly, measured chaos of a major launch. He never tired of it.
Dr. Theodor Marcus, Project Director, sat back in his chair. For the next several minutes he could do nothing but wait. He allowed his mind to sift back. Back to another time. Another place. Peenemünde. The rocket research center of the Third Reich. He savored the remembered excitement of those days of experimentation — the Stone Age of space exploration, as it were. Those minutes of almost unbearable tension. Die Peenemünde Minuten, they'd called them. No different to him from the Vandenberg minutes now — even after all these years, he thought. Both seemed so much longer than sixty seconds.
He smiled to himself. He had been a young scientist then. Twenty-seven. Eager. Dedicated. Thrilled to be working with men such as Wernher von Braun and Walter Dornberger — pioneers in man's greatest adventure; fired with the excitement of exploring new realms of science — and pushing to the outer limits of his awareness the realization of the deadly uses to which their work would be dedicated.
His thoughts went back to that fateful launch thirty-seven years ago almost to the day. June 13, 1942. The launch that had catapulted him into his life's work…
… At noon on that bright, clear day in June — after the bitter disappointment of one unsuccessful launch attempt — von Braun, the Technical Director of the entire Peenemünde Rocket Research Center, was ready once again, pointedly aware that success had to be achieved this time. Adolf Hitler himself had ordered it.
Until a few minutes before zero hour, he, Theodor Marcus, and his friend and colleague Dr. Wilhelm Krebbs had been with the launch personnel down in the blockhouse shelter near Test Stand VII. He remembered how awed and proud he'd been as he observed the hectic countdown activities in the firing command post. At their stations throughout the room, technicians were busy taking readings from a myriad measuring instruments. Tension was mounting steadily as the seconds ticked by. He smiled to himself. It had been a child's toy in comparison with the computer-dominated miracles of today's launch taking place before him. Only the tension was the same.
Then he and Wilhelm had joined von Braun and the Center's commanding officer, Colonel Walter Dornberger, himself a top rocket research scientist, and the official military observation party assembled on the flat roof of the camouflaged Measurement House. It was an impressive gathering: the armament chiefs of the three branches of the armed forces, Field Marshal Erhard Milch of the Luftwaffe, General Friedrich Fromm of the Wehrmacht and Admiral Karl Witzell, headed by the Armament Minister of the Reich himself, Dr. Albert Speer. Standing at the protective brick parapet, each with ten-power binoculars to follow the flight of the rocket, the men were watching the launch site in the distance.
He and Wilhelm had watched, too, excited and keyed up. They could not — must not — fail! The firing table of Test Stand VII was located in a clearing surrounded by tall pines, safe from air reconnaissance except a direct overflight. The missile stood in the center and beside it a gigantic scaffolding on wheels equipped to service the rocket. It had been an A-4 rocket. Only later did it get the name V-2, when Hitler — after the proved vulnerability of the V-1, the buzz bomb, adopted the A-4 as his second Vergeltungs weapon — weapon of reprisal — against the Allies.
It was the most imposing sight he'd ever seen. Painted black and white, its fins in different colors for easy tracking, the rocket, forty-six feet tall, towered immobile on the firing table, hidden in the clearing in the dense pine forest — ready to streak seventy miles into space and reach a speed greater than sound. Never before had this been accomplished. Never…
He had watched von Braun. He knew the enormous pressures on the man. Secretly he agreed with his superior's dream of developing rockets to conquer space. But he kept it to himself. The Führer wanted weapons of destruction. And he knew of Dr. Dornberger's warning: “Don't talk of space flight! The Führer may think we are dreamers and cut off our funds.” And he knew only too well that long ears were among them, extending all the way back to Hitler himself.
He had been brought back to full alertness by the loudspeaker mounted on the observation roof:
“X minus one!”
He tensed with anticipation. Each second seemed eternal. He started involuntarily as a tracking shell whooshed into the sky, its tail of green smoke slowly spreading over Test Stand VII. He was aware of the final countdown seconds being called off over the loudspeaker, the tinny voice coming as if from miles away. And then:
“Ignition!”
Great clouds of vapor and smoke exploded from the rocket exhaust nozzle. Fire and sparks bounced off the blast deflectors and washed over the concrete launching platform in red-hued billows of turbulence. An awesome roar reached him, pressing on his eardrums with fingers of monstrous power.
“Preliminary stage!” the loudspeaker announced.
The blast of sparks and smoke fused to a livid jet of flame. Cable ends, bits of grass and dirt, pieces of wood shot through the air — and slowly, steadily gathering speed, the rocket rose from the firing table and shrieked into the sky as the loudspeaker triumphantly called:
“The rocket has lifted!”
Spellbound, he followed the flight. The jet of fiery gases spewing from the rocket's stern was clear and sharp, a column of thundering power. He was only vaguely aware of the loudspeaker monotonously counting off the seconds of flight: twelve — thirteen — fourteen—
And the rocket broke through the sonic barrier. He was wildly elated. The misgivings of many who had predicted that the missile would be torn asunder by this unknown transonic phenomenon had proved false. Jubilantly he joined the others at the observation post in their exultation. And still the rocket soared as the seconds went by: forty-two — forty-three — forty-four—