David hesitated. "Uh, Frank, I'm just a pilot with a yen for space. I'm not qualified to judge an entire program."
Paul finally spoke. "To be honest, I've always been interested in the Kliper/Parom project. I like the idea of a two – or more – section craft. The idea's been kicking around since the '60's." His enthusiasm began to show. "Let's say you do it in four sections," he explained. "You send up two unmanned cargo shipments in canisters designed to mate with the Kliper and extend the hull. You follow that with an unmanned fuel and booster shipment, and then finally launch the Kliper itself. Once in Low Earth Orbit, the crew docks with each of the cargo canisters and attaches it, making it part of the Kliper. Then they do the same with the final, booster/fuel stage, and presto! You've got a spacecraft over a hundred meters long with tons of supplies and six astronauts already aboard. Can you say 'Mars'? When you get back, you just unhook from the train and leave it in orbit for the next mission. Only the basic Kliper returns to Earth to be launched again. Basically, it's a reusable ship that can even grow. You could end up with a ship kilometers long, if you wanted."
"Seems to me you'd use up a lot of boosters," remarked David.
Frank frowned. "I hadn't thought about that. I was distracted by the 'space tug' thing they planned to use to supply the International Space Station, which I already consider junk." He paused, thinking. "I like it," he decided. "But unless you see something similar in all that paper, I want you to write it up as a proposal and put it on a flash drive. I may be able to use it.
"At any rate, you seem to feel that there's more to it than the usual Russian space fiction. But I still want you to check out those papers; you may find something the newspapers missed."
They reconvened the next morning in Frank's room. "Okay, I don't have a problem with the money," he said. "I've already contacted my brokers about shifting some money around to free up the cash. But I won't have my name used to defraud a lot of others. So, I want opinions from each of you. Are the Russians going to follow through this time, or is it going to be another in their long string of cancellations?"
David started off. "I'd say it'll be another failure. It's Energia's pet project, but that's because they specialize in heavy lift launchers, and this would take a big one. The Russians have been through several projects since Kliper, and all of them were cancelled. Hell, they never even completed the basic feasibility studies."
Paul was looking thoughtful. "I don't know that I agree, David. The maths in this stuff look solid to me, and as I said, I like the concept. If you're really interested in something besides up and down and tin can 'space stations', Kliper could be a big step up. And as far as real, reusable space ships are concerned, it's the only real game in town. I am concerned about the lifting body design, though. Most everyone studied them, and then rejected them. I'd like to know why, but it will take more research than I've been able to do. Some of these drawings look like they've rejected it too, but I can't be sure.
"Overall," he continued, "I'd say it's a serious effort. It may fail, but there's a risk in any space effort. If they can put together enough money to build it, your investment may turn out to be a good one. If not, your money is truly gone. A hundred million should translate into a pretty sizeable share."
They talked on through the morning, and then Frank called Dr. Ternayev at Energia. He told the engineer that according to his information, one of the remaining Burans, OK-KS, was at the Energia factory. He asked if they could examine it.
Dr. Ternayev was enthusiastic, and offered to send a car for them. He welcomed the idea of having them tour the Buran, and the existing Energia Booster, and the Energia museum.
When the car delivered them to the plant in a suburb of Moscow, Dr. Ternayev was waiting for them. He greeted Frank and David effusively, and Paul with polite courtesy.
Ternayev explained that the Energia Buran was a test model that had been sent to Energia to work out the relationship between the orbiter and the booster. There were, he explained, very few differences between the flight Buran and this test model. "In fact," he bragged, "it could be ready to launch in a month." He leaned over close to Frank and murmured, "We can throw this into the deal." He also explained that he knew of the other three Burans in the Moscow area, but this one was 'the best one', adding that the one at Ramenskoye Airport, OK-2K1, had been partially disassembled, and of course, the one in Gorky Park, OK-TVA, was no longer a spaceship, but just a hull, an attraction for tourists.
Paul was obviously impressed by the Buran. He crawled over, around and through the vessel until Frank quietly reminded him it was time to move on. David's only quiet comment to Frank was to note that there was no airlock/docking collar. This Buran was an early one.
The Buran was fascinating; the Energia booster was overwhelming. Lying on its side in a huge building, the tank was nearly 60 meters long, and dwarfed the Soyuz boosters nearby. The nozzles on the main engines looked huge to the three, and they had little doubt of its capability to launch the Buran. David quietly noted that if there was a booster here, and the good possibility of one at Baikonur, it was possible that two of the huge boosters still existed.
Dr. Ternayev apologized for not taking them to the Energia Space Museum downstairs, but instead invited them to his office to discuss the project. Once there, he introduced them to a thin, middle-aged, elegantly dressed man that had apparently been waiting for them. "Vasily Karpov, a friend," Ternayev said, and an engineer at Khrunichev, the big boy on the block in the Russian space industry. Khrunichev's success had been based on the Proton-M launch vehicle. Someone with foresight there had had the good sense to create partnerships with American space industries. The loss of the Saturn V and then the Shuttles had reduced America's ability to lift heavy loads. The Proton-M was a dependable, powerful, heavy lift vehicle, and updates had made it one of the most successful launch vehicles in the world. Energia, on the other hand, was mostly surviving by building Soyuz capsules to send to the International Space Station, and supporting the Ukrainian Zenit boosters. When the space station project ended, Energia would be in trouble. Frank wondered if he should try to pick up some stock.
Karpov was interested in their project, and could discuss it knowledgeably, but Ternayev was a true convert. Though forgotten in the west, Buran was remembered with pride in Russia, and it was generally accepted that had the Soviet Union not fallen when it did, Burans would have been flying more often than American Shuttles. The possibility that the Buran might fly again had Ternayev as excited as a child.
They discussed the project until Frank had to protest that the talk had become so technical he could no longer follow it. Then Paul turned the talk to the Kliper/Parom program, and was inundated by facts and figures. Karpov showed little interest. It was, after all, competition for Khrunichev's own TKS proposal. But It seemed that Dr. Ternayev had been deeply involved in that program, and it was still something of a pet for him.
In all, it was an exciting and informative afternoon.
The three of them spent the next day preparing for Frank's meeting. Frank got his attorneys started on incorporating "Man's Hope International," a corporation formed in Geneva that would actually sign the contract. Paul had, in fact, written up his idea for the 'spaceship train' as he called it, and Frank would carry it on a flash drive in his pocket. The three had also collaborated on a summary of a proposed contract that would be Frank's answer to the Russian proposal. In all, Frank was fairly satisfied with the counteroffer he was about to make; he had tried to be as fair as possible. He was a ready as he could be.
A day later, Frank, Gorneliev, Stoltznitz, and Ternayev were once again ensconced in the conference room. This time, though, it was Frank's show.