Excerpt
Decimation
This I have known always: love is no more
Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,
Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,
Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales.
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Pity Me Not"
LAUNCH MINUS 5 MONTHS, 13 DAYS, 14 HOURS, AND COUNTING . . .
Prometheus MEC Clean Room, Hangar 1-D, Cedar Key, Florida
"NASA is and always has been a subversive organization. Anything else you hear
is a public relations lie," Jack Medaris said.
Dr. Isaac Perlman looked at the ceiling of the big hangar and wagged his head
from side to side, an indication of his doubt at his companion's comment.
"Subversive? Why, Jack, there's never been a more conservative bureaucracy on
this planet. It takes polls to see what it should do next. It lets politicians
decide technical matters. You forget I went there first for my moon dirt. NASA
just laughed at me. That's why I hired you!"
Medaris and Perlman, dressed in clean-room regalia—white one-piece coveralls,
puffy plastic hats, an ... read full excerpt from: Back to the Moon ebook
