had had a twenty per cent drop-out. But the rest had cheered him to the Pacific clouds.
After that, Paulis had proven himself something of a genius in raising public interest in the project. A goodly chunk of the booster when it lifted from its pad would be paid for by public subscriptions, raised every which way from Boy Scout lemonade stalls to major corporate sponsors; in fact when it finally took off the BDB’s hide would be plastered with sponsors’ logos. But Malenfant couldn’t care less about that, as long as it did ultimately take off, with him aboard.
Paulis, remarkably, was still talking, a good five minutes since Malenfant had last spoken.
‘… The stack is over three hundred feet tall. You have a boat-tail of four Space Shuttle main engines here, attached to the bottom of a modified Shuttle external tank, so the lower stage is powered by liquid oxygen and hydrogen. You’ll immediately see one benefit over the standard Shuttle design, which is in-line propulsion; we have a much more robust stack here. The upper stage is built on one Shuttle main engine. Our performance to low Earth orbit –’
Malenfant touched his shoulder. ‘Frank. I do know what we’re building here.’
‘… Yes.’ Nervously, Paulis dug out a handkerchief and wiped sweat from his neck. ‘I apologize.’
‘Don’t apologize.’
‘It’s just that I’m a little over-awed.’
‘Don’t be.’ Malenfant was still studying the somewhat squat lines of the booster stack. ‘Although I feel a little awe myself. I’ve come a long way from the first rocket I ever built.’
At age seventeen, Malenfant was already building and flying model airplanes. With some high-school friends he started out trying to make a liquid-fuelled rocket, like the BDB, but failed spectacularly, and so they switched to solid fuels. They bought some gunpowder and packed it inside a cardboard tube, hoping it would burn rather than explode. ‘We propped it against a rock, stuck on some fins, and used a soda straw packed with powder for a fuse. We spent longer painting the damn thing than constructing it. I lit the fuse at a crouch and then ran for cover. The rocket went up fifty feet, whistling. Then it exploded with a bang –’
Paulis said, reverent, ‘And Emma was watching from her bedroom window, right? But she was just seven years old.’
Malenfant was aware that the girl driver, Xenia, was watching him with a hooded, judgmental gaze.
Weeks back, in the course of his campaign to build support, he’d told the story of the toy rocket to one of his PR flacks, and she had added a few homely touches – of course Emma hadn’t been watching; though she had been a neighbour at that time, at seven years old she had much more important things to do – and since then the damn anecdote had been copied around the planet.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
