BOUNDARY(14)

It was here that A.J. had seen an opportunity. Obviously, no one—neither government regulatory agencies nor private insurance companies—was going to let the Ares Project blast human beings into space without firm proof that all aspects of the proposed system would work safely. Pirate was an unmanned device designed to demonstrate the most critical aspects of the system: to be able to travel to the Red Planet with no return fuel, just a small store of "seed" hydrogen; to be able to create fuel from Mars' atmosphere; and then return to Earth using Mars-manufactured propellant.



A rover unit was to be deployed during the atmospheric fuel manufacturing stage to do surveying of the area, which was one of the prime locations currently considered for final landing of a manned mission. It would also leave the first "hab"—habitable enclosure—on Mars, although it was a scaled-down version from the full-scale "tuna cans" in the forthcoming main prep flights. The "hab" would serve as a testbed for the long-term operation of some of the systems and as a radio beacon as well.



A.J. had proposed a modification of this mission profile which would serve NASA's interests and those of the Ares Project: instead of immediately landing, Pirate would aerobrake into an orbit close to that of Phobos, and would release a number of independent, remotely controllable sensor-probe units. The probes would survey Phobos carefully from all directions in a number of spectra, helping them to select the best places for NASA's base. Pirate would then deorbit and carry out its basic mission. Though now, probably, with no rover or a much smaller one, to make up for the extra mass of the sensor drones that A.J. called his "Faeries."



The price tag for A.J.'s proposed modification was substantial for Ares—around twelve million dollars—but was far, far less than NASA would have to spend on any similar mission. Assuming they could do it at all—which, as far as A.J. was concerned, they couldn't. They didn't have him, and that meant that they simply wouldn't be able to design sensor drones good enough.



Apparently, NASA agreed, because they had accepted his proposal and hadn't even quibbled on the price.



The doors slid aside as he approached. "Joe!" he bellowed, making everyone in the room jump. "I believe in Faerie tales!"



Dr. Joe Buckley frowned at him for a moment before catching on. "Well, dammit, why'd they have to wait so long? We've spent the past two months refining the rover designs and the interior supports. Not to mention—"



"Oh, don't gripe, Joe. You'll still get to build the rovers. They'll be used in the next launch—hell, they'll be used in every mission we land, I'll bet. But this first mission will help pay for your rovers, and it's not like all of you won't get something to do in the redesign. I'm going to need half the machine and prototyping group to whip up prototypes of the Faeries. You'll want to try to design a chibi-rover to do at least some of the other stuff we wanted to test on the ground. The main capsule guys are going to need to design the drop-off module so we can match them up with Phobos' orbital speed exactly. I sure don't want to have to make the Faeries try to play orbital catchup; it'd play merry hell with the mass ratio and energy budget. And we'll all be playing games to figure out the best design for the drive systems on the things."



Joe grinned. "Sure. But you know how we engineers hate being kicked out of a nice comfortable rut. Now you're going to make us all work."



"True. Still, don't I get any thanks for bringing us in about twelve million bucks?"



A.J. found himself blushing as the entire engineering group on duty answered by giving him a standing ovation, something he hadn't actually expected. If there were going to be serious gripes about the changes, apparently they weren't going to be addressed at him.



"Umm . . ." The claps trailed off, leaving him in an awkward silence. "Thanks. Thanks a lot, guys."



"Aw, c'mon, you're embarrassing him!" Joe said, grinning. "Next he'll start getting teary-eyed and thanking the Academy and all that kind of thing. Enough of all this, let's get to work—we've got a hell of a lot of redesign work to do, and if we want to make this launch target, we've got just six months to do it all!"





Chapter 6




"For the last time, Joe—no." As if to emphasize the point, she sat down at the desk in her office with a solid-sounding plump that properly belonged to a woman much heavier than she was.



"It's not going to hurt my career, Helen!" Joe Buckley looked just as stubborn as Helen did. "I've gotten my doctorate now, and as far as the rest goes . . ." He snorted derisively. "I doubt if more than two percent of the people in my field know the difference between a triceratops and a tricycle—and less than half of the ones who do could care, anyway."