Parker snorted. “So you want to send some Lady Astronauts up as decoration?”
“As we explained to the congressional hearing, our goal is to expand humanity to other worlds. You will need women on those worlds or they will never be self-sustaining colonies.” I glared at Parker. “I trust you don’t need me to explain the biology of babies?”
“Babies or no, it’s not safe.” Parker shook his head and smiled. “I appreciate your ambition, I really do, but surely the Orion 27 accident demonstrates that we can’t put women in the line of fire.”
“No. That is the wrong tactic to take. If you point to the explosion as a sign that rocketry is not safe, the space program will fail.” I looked back at Director Clemons, but with the cigar in his mouth, it was hard to read his expression. “You know it will. If you want to demonstrate that the program is safe, then you need to demonstrate that these rockets are safe enough even for ladies.”
Parker shrugged, as if none of that mattered. “And we will … after the moon base has been established.”
I pressed my hands flat against my skirt to keep me from balling them into fists. “If you refer to page six of my report … After World War II, there is no shortage of women who flew as WASPs and have the right skills. But if you wait too long, those women will be too old, which will raise the barrier of creating the colonies.”
“She has a point.” Wernher von Braun, of all people, stepped into Clemons’s smoke cloud to support me. “The Russians used their Night Witches in the war to devastating effect.”
Parker tilted his head at the mention of the Russian women’s air squadron. “I always thought they were propaganda.”
“Propaganda, perhaps to begin with. But real and effective.” Von Braun shrugged. “And even propaganda has its uses. We want the space program to continue, yes?”
Propaganda. Yes. I was well aware of what propaganda could do.
Clemons grunted and tapped his cigar in the brass ashtray on his desk. “All right … so let’s go through this point by point.”
I took a breath and stood to join Parker behind Clemons. I kept both of them between me and von Braun. Not because I thought he was going to pick me up and haul me off, but because it sickened me that people forgave him for what he’d done simply because he was a brilliant rocket scientist. A “nice” man. A “gentleman.”
Yet here I was, giving tacit approval to his presence by saying nothing. Because if I did? Then Parker would use that to talk about how hysterical women were.
And worse … if the space program failed, then humanity was going to be trapped on Earth as it got hotter and hotter. So I leaned over Clemons’s shoulder and turned to the first page of my report. “Right … We begin by looking at the budgetary benefits of using women as astronauts, due to our lower mass and oxygen consumption.”
And from there, it was all about numbers, and I was home.
TWENTY-SIX
ROBOT DESIGNED TO EXPLORE MOON
6-Legged Crawling Device Would Report Over TV
March 22, 1957—What has six legs, one claw, television, and sleeps sixteen hours a day? It could be a robot exploration vehicle small enough to be landed on the moon in a Project Reconnoiter package, according to a report to the International Aerospace Coalition yesterday. A working model of the proposed moon crawler has been built. The full-sized object would stand about five feet tall on its walking shoes, weigh 110 pounds, and be powered by little more than a square yard of solar cells.
The first launch after the hearings was unmanned.
It was a requirement that came out of the hearings and a smart thing to do when you’re still trying to make sure that your system is robust. In our department, we computers had always employed a safeguard procedure, in that any calculations intended for a rocket were looked over by two other women. In the past, we had sent it to the Air Force, and they had used one of their men to transfer it to program cards. And that was that.
Now, two computers would look at the output of the IBM machine’s run to make sure no errors had been introduced. It was fairly straightforward. The first launch went smoothly.
The second launch was manned. No one was treating it as though it were straightforward.
Oh, we were all pretending like it was business as usual, but you could have ignited the atmosphere in the glassed-in viewing area above Mission Control. I wasn’t on duty this shift, but there was no way I was going to miss the launch.
If this launch went smoothly, the astronauts would demonstrate that the lunar module could dock and rendezvous with the command module. We could go back on schedule, and we’d be another step closer to the moon.
If it didn’t, then we’d have killed Derek Benkoski, Halim Malouf, and Estevan Terrazas.
There was a whole range of possibilities in-between, including a launch abort, or just scrubbing for weather. Those lesser evils were not the things filling anyone’s minds as we milled around the viewing area. At T-minus four, the wives and children of the astronauts would be escorted to the roof to watch the liftoff from there. It would also sequester them from the press if things went badly. We all laughed and chattered, pretending that nothing could go wrong.
All of the astronauts and their wives—except Parker’s—had turned out for this one to support the men in the capsule. Mrs. Lebourgeois separated from her husband and floated across the room to me. She was a diaphanous blonde with a long neck like a swan’s and a tendency to purse her lips into a kittenish pout.
But she smiled when she saw me, and came up to give me a kiss on each cheek. “Ah, my dear! Our daughter is still talking of you. Not even her father is so impressive.”
“She should be impressed with him! He’s been in space. I just dream about it.”
“It will not be so long for you, I think.” Her swan’s neck bent down in a curve as she winked. “My husband, he is making me take flying lessons so I can be ready.”
That was optimistic, and more than a little charming. “Has he … heard anything?”
“No.” She pouted. “But he has told Director Clemons that he believes women should be included. I think he just wants to … you know … have his wife in space?”
Her hand covered her mouth as she giggled at what must have been a stunned expression on my face. My mouth hung open a little and then I laughed with her. It had not occurred to me that one tactic would be to appeal to the male astronauts about the benefits of … marital duties in space. “Oh my heavens. Maybe I should try to talk to all the wives.”
“Oh, we talk amongst ourselves.”
“I’ll bet. Have you … have you met Mrs. Parker?”
“No. She is always ‘ill’ with something or another, or busy. I think she just does not want to spend time with foreigners, but who am I to guess, hm?” She gave a little shrug and dismissed the absent woman. “Did you know … the weightlessness, it does, how shall we say, ‘interesting’ things to our husband’s anatomy. The blood flow is quite … unrestricted by gravity.”
“Well, now I want to get my husband into space.” I glanced through the glass window to where Nathaniel stood hunched over his desk. They should really just make his station a standing desk, since he had trouble sitting when he was tense. Which was always.
Wait. I couldn’t hear them. They’d turned the speakers off.
When had they…? Something was wrong. Nathaniel had the phone pressed to his ear and a broken pencil in one hand. Clemons stood at a different phone and was clearly shouting. Randy Cleary, the astronaut manning the CAPCOM desk, was talking into his headset and making soothing gestures with his hands as if the astronauts in the capsule could see him.