Even in the earliest morning the Florida sun was blind- ingly hot. Merritt Island was flat and scrubby, not at all like the hilly California coast at Vandenberg.
Kinsman had flown to Patrick Aerospace Force Base the previous night on a government charter jet filled with Con- gressional aides and their families. He had slept at the base's Bachelor Officers' Quarters. Now, just after dawn, he had driven a motor pool car to the space center to see the place before the newshounds and tourists cluttered it up.
In the old days of the Apollo moon shots and the original space shuttle launches, the roads and beaches would be covered with upward of half a million onlookers, as thick as ants on sugar. Official guests would have to arise at two in the morning to get to the VIP viewing stands before the roads became totally blocked with tourist cars and campers. But now, with government restrictions on travel and synfuels astronomically expensive, the roads leading to Kennedy Space Center were nearly empty. People watched launches on television, if they watched at all.
Most of the old buildings were still there, including the mammoth Vehicle Assembly Building, the largest enclosed structure on Earth, which was still used by the NASA people. The ancient launch towers, tall stately spiderworks of steel standing against the brazen sky, were strictly tourist attrac- tions now. History had been made there, blasting out flames and mountainous billows of steam as the Saturns and Deltas and shuttles had launched men and automated probes into space. Now they stood empty and quiet, gawked at by a trickle of visitors from all around the world, lectured over by National Park Service guards surrounded by eager, curious youngsters and their sweating, sunburned, slightly bored parents.
The real action now was at the airstrip, where the new shuttles took off and landed. Unlike the older vehicles that Kinsman had flown in, the new designs were truly reusable spacecraft that took off and landed like airplanes.
The shuttle was a double-decker craft, two vehicles one atop the other, joined together like a pair of technological Siamese twins. The bottom one was the jet-powered Lifter. It was all fuel and engines, with a tiny cockpit perched high up on its massive blunt nose. It flew to the topmost reaches of the 215 atmosphere, more than a hundred thousand feet above the ground, and then released its piggyback partner. The Orbiter, smaller of the two mates, carried the passengers and payload on into space on the thrust of its rocket engines. Both planes landed at the airstrip, separately, to be reunited for another flight.
Standing at the airstrip's edge, Kinsman stared at the ungainly-looking pair, one atop the other. She'll never fly, Orville. Gimme a good old rocket booster and a lifting body re-entry vehicle like the Manta, the way God meant men to go into space. But he knew that this new shuttle was making space operations practical. Military men could rocket into orbit atop bellowing boosters, but businessmen and their cargoes rode the new shuttle and saved money. It was cheaper, more efficient, and the gee loads on the passengers were negligible.
Fred Durban could ride into orbit on that bird, Kinsman knew, if he was healthy enough to get out of bed.
The shuttle would carry fifty passengers on this trip. NASA was making three flights with the same bird to the completed space station, all on this one day. The entire world would watch the station's official dedication ceremonies via satellite-relayed television.
"Hey, you! What the hell are you . . ."
Kinsman turned to see an Air Policeman yelling at him from a jeep parked a dozen meters away. The AP was in crisp uniform, with gleaming helmet and dead-black sidearm buck- led to his hip. Kinsman was in his summer-weight blues. He walked slowly toward the jeep.
"Oh, sorry, Major. I couldn't see your rank with your back turned." The kid sprang out of the jeep and saluted. He dwarfed Kinsman.
"You expecting trouble, Sergeant?" Kinsman asked, returning the salute.
"Hard to say, sir. We were told some kook groups might try to stage an antigovernment demonstration. Or maybe something more violent by terrorists, like a bomb attempt."
"Well, I'm on your side. I just wanted to see the bird before everybody else got here."
"Sorry I hollered, sir."
"It's okay. Can you give me a lift back to the administra- 216 tion building parking area?"
"Yessir, sure." He waited for Kinsman to seat himself in the jeep, then sprinted around and slid under the steering wheel. As he switched on the nearly silent electric motor, the big sergeant asked incredulously, "You walked out here from the admin building, sir?"
Kinsman nodded as the salty breeze blew into his face. All the way back to the administration building he wondered at the insanity of anyone who would even think of bombing a beautiful piece of hardware like this shuttle.
The rest of the morning was a hateful blur to Kinsman. Now I know what it's like to be invaded and conquered. Crowds of strangers. Solicitous young Air Police—men and women—pointing you in the right direction. Smiling unctu- ous public relations people from NASA and the big corpora- tions taking you by the elbow and telling you how proud and happy you should be that you're here to help make this day a success.
