by Ben Bova
NASA is keenly interested in getting the West European and Japanese space agencies to cooperate in building and using the space station. Early in 1985 the thirteen-nation European Space Agency announced it would join NASA’s space station program with a program of its own, Columbus. While ESA has not yet decided if Columbus will be manned or unmanned, a free flyer or attached to the NASA station, the West European decision strengthens NASA’s hand in dealing with critics of the space station program.
ESA estimates that Columbus will cost some $2 billion.
At least one American private company wants to hook up to the space station. Space Industries, Inc., of Houston, has proposed building an orbital industrial facility—essentially an operating industrial laboratory and manufacturing facility—that eventually can be attached to the space station and buy electrical power and housekeeping services from NASA.
Maxime A. Faget, president of Space Industries, is an old NASA hand, one of the principal designers of spacecraft from Mercury right up to the space shuttle. Space Industries hopes to put their industrial facility into orbit by 1988, riding the shuttle, and then perhaps attach it to the station as a sort of “private enterprise wing” once the station is operational.
The true importance of the space station, however, is that it marks the beginning of a permanent American presence in space. After a quarter century of exploring the solar system and finding the energy, raw materials, and environmental conditions that can generate enormous new industries and lead to historic new discoveries, the human race will at last have a permanent base from which new industries, new explorations, and new scientific research can be launched.
Two men who rarely see eye to eye on space objectives—astronomer Carl Sagan and former presidential science advisor George A. Keyworth II —agree that a manned space station is an important step toward further, grander objectives.
Keyworth sees the space station as a stepping-stone for the eventual return of Americans to the Moon.
Sagan, often a critic of manned space missions, admitted in January 1985 that a space station would be useful as a place to assemble spacecraft for a manned mission to Mars.
Mark Twain once told a grumbling sailing ship captain who was complaining about the newfangled steam-powered ships, “When it’s steamboat time, you steam.” Despite the complaints and doubts about the space station, it is unquestionably the next logical step in the exploration and utilization of space. It is now definitely “space station time.”
Primary
We have not yet begun to feel the true impact of computers in government and politics.
I can’t really say more about this story without giving away some of its surprises. So, since, as Polonius once said, brevity is the soul of wit, I will be brief. (And, by implication, witty.)
Think about who—and what—you are voting for the next time you enter your polling booth.
So they bring us into the Oval Office and he sits himself down behind the big desk. It even has Harry Truman’s old “The Buck Stops Here” sign on it.
He grins at that. He’s good-looking, of course. Young, almost boyish, with that big flop of hair over his forehead that’s become almost mandatory for any man who wants to be president of the United States. His smile is dazzling. Knocks women dead at forty paces. But his eyes are hard as diamond. He’s no fool. He hasn’t gotten into this office on that smile alone.
I want him to succeed. God knows we need a president who can succeed, who can pull this country together again and make us feel good about ourselves. But more than that, I want my program to succeed. Let him be the star of the press conferences. Let the women chase him. It’s my program that’s really at stake here, those intricate, invisible electronic swirls and bubbles that I’m carrying in my valise. That’s what’s truly important.
We’re going to have a busy day.
There are four other people in the office with us, his closest aides and advisors: three men and one woman who have worked for him, bled for him, sweated for him since the days when he was a grassy-green, brand-new junior senator from Vermont. The men are his Secretaries of Defense, Commerce, and the Treasury. The lone woman is his Vice President, of course. There hasn’t been a male veep since the eighties, a cause for complaint among some feminists who see themselves being stereotyped as perpetual Number Twos.
And me. I’m in the Oval Office, too, with my valise full of computer programs. But they hardly notice me. I’m just one of the lackeys, part of the background, like the portraits of former presidents on the walls or the model of the Mars Exploration Base that he insisted they set up on the table behind his desk, between the blue-and-gold-curtained windows.
My job is to load my program disks into the White House mainframe computer, buried somewhere deep beneath the West Wing. He thinks of it as his program, his plans and techniques for running the country. But it’s mine, my clever blend of hardware and software that will be the heart and brains and guts of this Oval Office.
I sit off in the corner, so surrounded by display screens and keyboards that they can barely see the top of my balding head. That’s okay. I like it here, barricaded behind the machines, sitting off alone like a church organist up in his secret niche. I can see them, all of them, on my display screens. If I want, I can call up X-ray pictures of them, CAT scans, even. I can ask the mainframe for the blueprints of our newest missile guidance system, or for this morning’s roll call attendance at any army base in the world. No need for that, though. Not now. Not today. Too much work to do.
I give him a few minutes to get the feel of the big leather chair behind that desk, and let the other four settle down in their seats. Treasury takes the old Kennedy rocker, I knew he would.
Then I reach out, like God on the Sistine ceiling, and lay my extended finger on the first pressure pad of the master keyboard.
The morning Situation Report springs up on my central screen. And on the screen atop Our Man’s desk. Not too tough a morning, I see. He’s always been lucky.
Food riots in Poland are in their third day.
The civil war in the Philippines has reignited; Manila is in flames, with at least three different factions fighting to take command of the city.
Terrorists assassinated the President of Mexico during the night.
The stock market will open the day at the lowest point the Dow Jones has seen in fourteen years.
Unemployment is approaching the 20 percent mark, although this is no reflection on Our Man’s economic policy (my program, really) because we haven’t had time to put it into effect.
The dollar is still sinking in the European markets. Trading in Tokyo remains suspended.
Intelligence reports that the new Russian base on the Moon is strictly a military base, contrary to the treaties that both we and they signed back in the sixties.
All in all, the kind of morning that any American president might have faced at any time during the past several administrations.
“This Mexican assassination is a jolt,” says the Secretary of Commerce. He’s a chubby, round-cheeked former computer whiz, a multi-multimillionaire when he was in his twenties, a philanthropist in his thirties, and for this decade a selfless public servant. If you can believe that. He hired me, originally, and got me this position as Our Man’s programmer. Still thinks he’s up to date on computers. Actually, he’s twenty years behind but nobody’s got the guts to tell him. His beard is still thick and dark, but when I punch in a close-up on my screens, I can see a few gray hairs. In another couple of years he’s going to look like a neurotic Santa Claus.
Our Man nods, pouting a little, as if the assassination of a president anywhere is a low blow and a personal affront to him.
“The situation in the Philippines is more dangerous,” says the Defense Secretary. “If the Reds win there, they’ll have Japan outflanked and Australia threatened.”
I like his Defense Secretary. He is a careful old grayhair who smokes a pipe, dresses conservatively, and has absolute fai
th in whatever his computer displays tell him. He has the reputation for being one of the sharpest thinkers in Washington. Actually, it’s his programmers who are sharp. All he does is read what they print out for him, between puffs on his pipe.
“Maybe we should get the National Security Advisor in on this,” suggests Commerce, scratching at his beard.
“By all means,” says Our Man.
We can’t have the Security Advisor in the room, of course, but I call him up on the communications screen and presto! there he is, looking as baggy and sad-eyed as a hound.
“What do you make of the situation in the Philippines, Doc?” Our Man, with his warmth and wit, and power, is the only man on Earth who can get away with calling this distinguished, dour, pompously pontifical scholar Doc.
“Mr. President”—his voice sounds like the creaking of a heavy, ancient castle door—“it is just as I have outlined for you on many occasions in the past. The situation in the Philippines can no longer be ignored. The strategic value of this traditional ally of ours is vital to our interests throughout Asia and the Pacific.”
As he gives his perfectly predictable little spiel, I call up the subroutine that presents the pertinent information about the Philippines: the screens throw up data on our military and naval bases there, the ocean trade routes that they affect, the number of American business firms that have factories in the Philippines and how losing those factories would affect the GNP, employment, the value of the dollar —that kind of stuff.
I put all this information on the secondary screens that line the wall to one side of the President’s desk. His eyes ping-pong between them and the desktop display of the Security Advisor.
“Thanks, Doc,” he says at last. “I appreciate your candor. Please stand by, in case I need more input from you.”
He turns back to the little group by his desk. I freeze Doc’s image and fling it electronically to my farthest upper-right screen, a holding spot for him.
“Much as I hate to say it,” Defense mutters around his pipe, “we’re going to have to make our presence felt in the Philippines.”
“You mean militarily,” says the Vice President, her nose wrinkling with distaste. She has been an excellent vote-getter all through her political career: a Mexican-American from San Antonio who looks sexy enough to start rumors about her and Our Man.
“Of course militarily,” Defense replies with illconcealed impatience. “Look at the data on the screens. We can’t let the Philippines slip away from us.”
“Why does it always have to be troops and guns?” the Veep grumbles.
“I was thinking more of ships and planes.”
“A task force,” says the man behind the big desk. “A carrier group. That can be pretty impressive.”
While they discuss the merits of a carrier group versus one of the old resurrected battleships, and whether or not they should throw in a battalion of Marines just in case, I do a little anticipating and flick my fingers in a way that brings up the projected costs for such a mission and how it will affect DOD’s budget.
And, just as surely as gold is more precious than silver, the Secretary of the Treasury bestirs himself.
“Hey, wait a minute. This is going to cost real heavy money.”
He has a very practical attitude toward money: his, mine, or yours. He wants all of it for himself. The only black in Our Man’s Cabinet, Treasury is a hardheaded pragmatist who took the paltry few million his father left him (from a restaurant chain) and parlayed them into billions on the stock market. For years he belonged to the Other Party, but when the last president failed to name him to his Cabinet, he switched allegiance and devoted his life, his fortune, and what was left of his honor to Our Man.
Now he calls for details on the cost projections and, thanks to the wizardry of binary electronics, I place before their eyes (on the wall screens) vividly colored graphs that show not only how much the carrier group’s mission will cost, but my program’s projections of what the Philippine rebels’ likely responses will be. These include—but are not limited to—a wave of assassinations throughout the 7,100 islands and islets of the archipelago, a coup d’état by their army, terrorist suicide attacks on our aircraft carrier, and armed intervention by the People’s Republic of China.
Our Man is fascinated by these possibilities. The more awful they are, the more intrigued he is.
“Let’s play these out and see where they lead,” he says. He doesn’t realize that he’s speaking to me. He’s just making a wish, like the prince in a fairy tale, and I, his digital godfather, must make the wish come true.
For two hours we play out the various scenarios, using my programs and the White House mainframe’s stored memory banks to show where each move leads, what each countermove elicits. It is like following a grand master chess tournament on your home computer. Some of the scenarios lead to a nuclear engagement. One of them leads to a full-scale nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union: Armageddon, followed by Nuclear Winter.
Our Man, naturally, picks out the scenario that comes up best for our side.
“Okay, then,” he says, looking exhilarated. He’s always enjoyed playing computer games. “We will forgo the naval task force and merely increase our garrisons at Subic Bay and Mindanao. Our best counter to the threat, apparently, is to withhold economic aid from the Philippine government until they open honest negotiations with their opposition.”
“If you can believe the computer projections,” grumbles Commerce. He doesn’t trust any programs he can’t understand, and he’s so far out of date that he can’t understand my program. So he doesn’t trust me.
The Vice President seems happy enough with me. “We can form a Cease-Fire Commission, made up of members from the neighboring nations.”
“It’ll never work,” mutters Commerce from behind his beard.
“The computer says it will,” Defense points out. He doesn’t look terribly happy about it, though.
“What I want to know,” says Treasury, “is what this course of action is going to do to our employment problems.”
And it goes on like that for the rest of the day. Every problem they face is linked with all the other problems. Every Marine sent overseas has an effect on employment. Every unemployed teenager in the land has an effect on the crime rate. Every unwed mother has an effect on the price of milk.
No human being, no Cabinet full of human beings, can grasp all these interlinks without the aid of a very sophisticated computer program. Let them sit there and debate, let Our Man make his speeches to the public. The real work is done by the machine, by my program, by the software that can encompass all the data in the world and display it in all its interconnected complexity. They think they’re making decisions, charting the course for the nation to follow, leading the people. In reality, the decisions they make are the decisions that the computer allows them to make, based on the information presented to them. It’s my program that’s charting the course for the nation; those human beings sitting around the President’s desk are puppets, nothing more.
And don’t think that I consider myself to be the puppet master, pulling their strings. Far from it. I’m just the guy who wrote the computer program. It’s the program that runs the show. The program, as alive as any creature of flesh and blood, an electronic person that feeds on data, a digital soul that aspires to know everything, everywhere. Even during this one day it has grown and matured, I can see it happening before my teary eyes. Like a proud father I watch my program learning from the White House’s giant mainframe, becoming more sure of itself, reaching out questioning tendrils all across the world, and learning, learning, learning.
“Four o’clock,” announces the studio director. “Time to wrap it up.”
The overhead lights turn off as abruptly as the end of the world. Our Man flinches, looks up, his face showing vast disappointment, irritation, even anger. The others exhale sighingly, wipe their brows, get up from their chairs, and stretch their weary
bones. It’s been a long day.
The TV camera crews shuffle out of the studio as the director, earphone still clamped to his head, comes over to Our Man and sticks out his hand.
“You did an excellent job, sir. You’ve got my vote in November.”
Our Man gives him the old dazzling smile. “Thanks. I’ll need every vote I can get, I’m sure. And don’t forget the primary!”
“April seventh.” The studio director smiles back. “Don’t worry, I’ll vote for you.”
He must tell that to all the candidates.
I remain at my post, hidden behind the computer consoles, and check the National Rating Service’s computer to see how well Our Man really did. The screen shows a rating of 0.54. Not bad. In fact, the best rating for any candidate who’s been tested so far. It will look really impressive in the media; should get a lot of votes for Our Man.
He still has to go through the primaries, of course, but that’s done mainly by electronics. No more back-breaking campaigns through every state for month after month. The candidates appeal to the voters individually, through their TV screens and home computers, a personal message to each bloc of voters, tailored to each bloc’s innermost desires, thanks to the polished techniques of psychological polling and videotaping.
But this test run in the simulated Oval Office is of crucial importance. Each candidate has got to show that he can handle the pressures of an average day in the White House, that he can make decisions that will be good, effective, and politically palatable. Excerpts from today’s simulation test will be on the evening news; tomorrow’s papers will carry the story on page one. And naturally, the entire day’s test will be available on PBS and even videotape for any voter who wants to see the whole day.
