“A sideshow.”
“Genau.”
“USAF wants to make the moon itself into a permanent base.”
“That’s what the Russians are shooting for,” adds Vic. “That’s why they’re ahead.”
“But we’re not in it for the same reasons,” says Jack. “NASA is a civilian agency. Pure research.”
“If pure research is the point,” counters Steve, “why don’t they just make a space station for experiments, why bother going to the moon?”
“Because the moon is something we all understand,” says Jack. “Even a tribesman in darkest Africa can look up and marvel at what a feat that would be, and that’s real power, when you capture the world’s imagination. The U.S. needs to demonstrate its superiority to the world, and not just for show, for very practical reasons. You can’t have the Third World looking to the Soviet Union for—”
“That’s right.” Vic gestures with his beer. “When you’re sitting in a banana republic with a tinpot dictator—”
“And the Communists have got a man on the moon,” says Jack, “and they’re promising a chicken in every pot—”
“Sputnik was just the tip of the iceberg—”
“Look at Vostok III and IV—”
“What are their names? Nikolayev?”
“And Popovich,” says Froelich.
Jack nods. “The ‘heavenly twins.’”
The Russian cosmonauts have just completed a feat straight out of science fiction: a dual orbit of the earth in separate space capsules, passing within an incredible one hundred miles of one other for a total of 112 orbits, more than five times the distance to the moon. The Americans will be lucky to achieve a mere six orbits next month. The logical next Soviet step: a fantastic manoeuvre involving the mooring of two spaceships, and from there, complete control of space and target earth.
“And those are just the flights we know about,” says Jack.
Hal Woodley joins them. They make room for him, imperceptibly straightening up.
“Think what else they got up their sleeve,” says Vic.
“Nowadays,” says Jack, “the real battles get fought in the press and in front of the TV cameras.”
“So that’s what happened to Nixon,” says Woodley, and they all laugh.
Jack opens another beer, offers it to Hal. “Cheers, sir.”
“Prost. Call me Hal, Jack.” The others raise their glasses but, with the exception of Henry, avoid calling Hal Woodley anything at all, “sir” seeming overly formal for the setting, and “Hal” being inappropriate unless expressly invited.
“Think of the disappointment, eh?” says Jack with a grin. “You’re a great Russian hero, a cosmonaut. You orbit the earth like a god, the whole world down below is your oyster, and where do they take you when you parachute down? Back to some godforsaken desert in the middle of Kazakhstan!”
“I’d take six orbits over a hundred any day if it meant I could spend a week or two in Florida,” says Steve. “The waitresses alone are bound to be easier on the eyes.”
“Not to mention the food!” says Vic.
Froelich waits until they have stopped laughing. “By landing on the moon”—he speaks with the precision, the slight annoyance, of an expert—“the successful party demonstrates the ability to achieve instant liftoff which is necessary for the moon which is a moving target. When one is adding to this the superior Soviet guidance and control, there is the prospect also of ICBMs that launch to orbit where they cannot be shot down, then re-enter earth’s atmosphere to strike a target—” As Jack listens he speculates; Froelich with his PhD could be teaching at a university, patches on his elbows. Maybe he’s an eccentric, getting away from it all out here in the boondocks. Yet he clearly loves his subject. Why would he want to get away from it? “Sputnik made the West very afraid,” Froelich is saying. “But what is Sputnik?”
“Fellow Traveller, I think is the translation,” says Jack.
Froelich ignores the comment and continues. “A small transmitter on the head of a rocket. And also the last resting place of a dog who did not ask to be a cosmonaut.” The others chuckle, but Froelich does not smile. “Sputnik was not an intercontinental ballistic missile, it had to hit no target, just it had to … go up.” And he points. “They did not have the ICBM, we have this — America has this — before Russia, but ordinary people in the West become afraid and this fear becomes useful to….” He pauses, knits his brow, in search of the words. The other men wait respectfully for him to pick up the thread. Froelich is the picture of the absent-minded professor.
Hal Woodley supplies the missing phrase: “The powers that be.”
“Ja, thank you,” says Froelich. “By landing on the moon, the successful party demonstrates also the ability to rendezvous between two spacecrafts in orbit, and this is vital to making a military installation.”
There is a moment of silence. He seems to have finished.
Jack says, “You’re right, Henry, putting a man on the moon’ll give us a nice warm fuzzy feeling, but the bottom line is security. The Yanks ought to pour their dollars into the air force space program.”
“It’s all politics,” says Hal. “Look what happened with the Arrow.”
A moment of silence for the Avro Arrow, the most advanced jet fighter in the world. Created by Canadians, test-flown by Canadian pilots, scrapped by Canadian politicians.
“And what did we buy instead?” says Steve with disgust. “Bomarcs.”
“American hand-me-downs,” snorts Vic.
“I don’t know why McNamara is stalling,” says Jack. “USAF’s got all kinds of good stuff in the works like their, uh — they’re working on those Midas satellites that tell you every time the enemy launches a missile, they’ve got a manned space glider in the works, what do they call it—?”
“The Dyno-Soar,” says Vic.
“Yeah, Time had a whole spread. NASA’s got Apollo but there’s plenty of work to go around. Kennedy ought to throw USAF a bone.”
Vic says, “Uncle Sam don’t want to look like the Soviets, rattling the sabre in space.”
Henry says, “You think space is not military now?”
“NASA is a civilian agency,” argues Jack. “In fact, half the movers and shakers down in Houston are your countrymen, Henry.”
“That’s right,” says Hal. “Look at von Braun and that other fellow—”
“Arthur Rudolph,” says Jack. “Guy’s a managerial genius.”
Froelich shrugs. “They worked for Nazis.”
“Really?” says Steve.
Jack winces. “Technically yes, but they were civilians. Scientists and dreamers.”
Vic lifts his glass to Henry. “You got to hand it to the Germans, eh, when it comes to technology.”
But Henry is still hunched, arms crossed, glass in hand. “Scientists and dreamers also caused the first atomic bomb to detonate at Los Alamos. They hold — held it together with masking tape. Very idealistic. It would stop Hitler. It kills instead millions of civilians.”
There’s a pause. Then Jack says, “It ended the war, though, didn’t it?”
Hal says, “Although I wonder if you could’ve found a single general who’d’ve made that particular call.”
Another pause. Vic sighs. “The Yanks always get stuck with the dirty work.”
Jack nods. “Yup.” Then smiles. “You know, Peter Sellers had the right idea. We ought to declare war on the Americans. They’ll come in and hammer us, then give us a whole bunch of aid and we’ll be better off than ever.” Henry shrugs again, sips. Jack continues. “We’re just lucky the nuclear types didn’t get together with the rocket types over in Germany during the war — they’d’ve had nuclear missiles.”