Pillar to the Sky

by William R. Forstchen

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.

  Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  There are so many I wish I could dedicate this work to and the choosing has been hard. The first is to my mentors, such an interesting concept, that of a mentor, thinking of that ancient bit of wisdom that when a teacher is needed one will be found. And thus this dedication to Betty Keller, librarian at Hightstown High School, and Russ Beaulieu, history teacher who shaped my life at such a crucial and sensitive time. And, of course, Gunther Rothenberg of Purdue University, what a blessing it was on the day you came into my life.

  A dedication must go out as well to all those who inspired the dreams of my youth, the team at NASA who shaped a belief in my young heart that the greatest adventures were still ahead of us.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraphs

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Acknowledgments

  Books by William R. Forstchen from Tom Doherty Associates

  About the Author

  Copyright

  It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.

  —Dr. Robert H. Goddard

  The progressive development of man is vitally dependent on invention.

  —Nikola Tesla

  I believe that we are children picking up pebbles on the shore of the boundless sea.

  —John Stevens, engineer, Panama Canal

  PROLOGUE

  “Dr. Morgan, and Dr. Petrenko, with all due respect to your academic credentials, your proposal for this space tower—or Pillar, as some call it—is absurd.”

  Senator Proxley, head of the Senate committee that had oversight of NASA’s budget, looked to his left and right for support from the other senators present. Nearly half the chairs were empty, and of those present most just looked off as if bored and waiting for the meeting to come to its inevitable end so that they could rush off to what they felt were far more important affairs, either of state or personal.

  “In these times of economic stress, of towering deficits and public demand for budget cutbacks”—he paused for effect—“pipe-dream schemes that are a waste of taxpayers’ money are utterly absurd and, frankly, a waste of my time as a senator who believes in fiscal responsibility.”

  He cast a sidelong glance at one of his staffers who was recording his comments for later distribution, since even C-SPAN had decided not to cover this hearing. He cleared his throat and continued.

  “I find it disturbing that such a proposal even reached this level and was not terminated by the proper administrators in your program, and believe me, I shall question them about that after this hearing. We are facing the worse deficit crisis in our nation’s history. If I approved continued research funding for this sci-fi fantasy, let alone the insanity to actually go ahead and build it, I can only imagine the howls of protest from my constituents and every other taxpayer. I agree NASA should continue as a government entity, but let it set realistic goals and not allow this type of idea to worm its way up through the budget proposal. I know it has been popular with some to praise the recent mission to Mars, but even with that I ask: Why do we spend more than a billion to go explore a lifeless rock when that same billion could be better spent here on earth, solving a multitude of problems rather than being wasted out there?”

  Dr. Gary Morgan threw a quick look at his wife, Evgeniya Petrenko Morgan. It was an attempt to warn her not to lose her temper now. She could be tough as nails when angered and at such moments would often slip into her native Ukrainian, which—given the current cold feelings between America and Russia—would only make matters worse, since few knew the difference between the two languages.

  They both knew beforehand what they would be facing here at this hearing, which was not even a remote chance of success. They were the “sacrificial goat of the day” receiving a dressing-down at the hands of one of the country’s fiercest opponents of any expansion of space exploration beyond the bare minimum to keep the program alive. There had been some hope of increased research budgets after the stunning success of the Mars Curiosity touchdown and its continuing mission, which he had just pointedly denigrated. But that enthusiasm, which so many supporters had hoped would renew support for the space program, had proven to be short-lived with yet another oil crisis pushing the price of the precious black gold up over $150 a barrel, the threat of yet another war in the Middle East, and all the other issues that had plagued and continued to plague humanity.

  It was an inside joke that if only NASA could figure out how to use corn and milk to fuel its spacecraft, they’d have Proxley’s vote, as he was from a midwestern state that did not have a single NASA facility and thus could target it with impunity.

  Gary’s wife caught his gaze, took a deep breath, and nodded for him to go ahead.

  “Senator Proxley…” Gary looked down at his notepad and fumbled for a moment. He had never been much of a public speaker, except when debating with the “inner circle” of teammates at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. In that environment he could hold forth for hours on this “special project” that he and his wife had worked on for over two decades, scraping by each year on a minimal budget buried inside another budget for “advanced research and development.” Their dream was a space tower, or “elevator,” that would reach from the equator to geosynchronous orbit, 23,000 miles above the earth. At first glance it did indeed seem like a mad scheme, but the science was there to prove it had long ago migrated from the realm of science fiction to that of scientific possibility in the same way that other dreams—to reach the moon, to cross the Atlantic by plane, even to just fly or move a ship without oars or sails—had long ago started out as dreams.

  However, this year Proxley had singled out their particular dream for this one-hour grilling, bestowing on it his infamous “Golden Fleece Award,” which he announced each month as some example of absurd government extravagance (usually money spent on building projects like “bridges to nowhere” or museums for teapots, or why some people are left-handed), and at least a couple times a year he aimed his sarcasm at NASA.

  Thus the absolute shock of several weeks earlier when one of the top administrators at Goddard called them into her office and, with genuine sympathy, informed them that their budget would be “zeroed” at the end of the fiscal year—which is to say, at the end of the month—and then handed them notice that they were to appear before a Senate hearing on the subject of NASA’s budget. The subtext: for the “good of the service” they cou
ld defend their program, but there was no chance it would be defended by anyone higher up the “food chain.”

  It was heartbreaking, but both Gary and Evgeniya understood. They were loyal to NASA, which had quietly nursed along their dream—had even helped to arrange some grants nearly a decade ago to test possible propulsion systems for “tower climbers”—but in the larger struggle to stay alive, they would have to be “let go.” There were even some tears as Evgeniya and the administrator—old friends with daughters the same age and attending the same high school—chatted over tea after the hard news had been delivered.

  Gary paused, looking at Proxley. He was the classic example of the bureaucrat, forever the opponent of the inventor. One was an idealist, a believer, a “doer” of dreams, transforming them into realities that could change a world … the other was a naysayer, holder of the public purse strings, forever drawing them tighter unless the loosening of them would directly benefit him. NASA, of course, had no professional lobbyist whispering into Proxley’s ear, with fat campaign contributions promised for the right kind of vote. The great industrial powerhouses that first made America the aviation innovator of the world, then the preeminent explorer of space—those once enterprising firms were barely hanging on in these economic times and in turn had to devote their efforts to more immediately profitable and less ambitious projects; for them, the prospect of a space tower was not on the table.

  Gary knew they should just fold their cards, yield the rest of the time allotted to their reply, and leave. But he could not let it go. After twenty years of effort, he felt they had the right to make a final statement.

  Gary shuffled his papers, nervously brushed back the strands of slightly graying hair from his forehead, then looked straight at Senator Proxley. As he gazed at this man, he felt his frustration and anger rising.

  “Senator,” he began. “Ten years after its completion, this project has the potential of transforming the global economy and in so doing give our country a preeminent economic position for the rest of this century in much the same way as Apollo, by putting Americans on the moon, also triggered a technological revolution right here on earth, fueled our economic growth for the next thirty years. That cell phone in your pocket has more computing power in it than the computer that guided Armstrong and Aldrin to the moon. Sir, where do you think much of the initial research and development came from for that in the first place? It started in the 1960s when NASA said it needed compact computers to get us to the moon. No one then was thinking of cell phones, the GPS in your car, the myriad of medical tools that we take for granted today, but they had a start, and that start was with NASA. Just the research for a space tower can open fields of endeavor that will revolutionize our technology base yet again with innovations not yet dreamed of.

  “This project…” He paused, faltering, but his wife gently nudged him under the table to press on. “This project is not some ill-conceived flight of fantasy like those we see in far too many government proposals, which either deservedly get filed away and forgotten or become public embarrassments after they are attempted, when they fall flat, with cost overruns in the tens of billions of dollars.”

  He was tempted to cite a few examples of programs that Proxley had supported in the past but knew better than to do so. To try to embarrass his opponent would serve no purpose now.

  “The project to build what some call a space elevator and our team calls a ‘Pillar to the Sky’ has undergone rigorous review, not just within NASA, but outside our community as well. Try to imagine an America in 1880 without a transcontinental railroad, an America of the 1920s without Henry Ford or Charles Lindbergh, an America of today without the Internet linking the world via communications satellites put up there by who else but NASA in the first place. This will have the same impact.”

  He felt he had gained his stride after being knocked off-balance by Proxley’s scathing comments, and there was a touch of anger in his voice now. He held up the economic impact report supporting the building of a space tower, then looked around the room and saw that of all those facing him, only one had a copy on her desk: Mary Dennison of Maine, who subtly pointed to her copy of the report and, with a sad smile, just nodded an acknowledgment. Taking the gesture to be encouragement, he pressed on.

  He took a deep breath, his nervousness gone.

  “This project, within ten years after completion, will make the deficit our country now struggles with a thing of the past. It offers a future of limitless growth, Senator, by truly opening up space and all that it can offer us—not the dead end we are approaching now. If we can thus boost our economic growth by but a few additional percentage points a year, within that decade the deficit that terrifies us now will become manageable again and in two decades seem almost trivial. We faced an equally staggering debt at the end of World War II when compared to our total national production, but the economic boom that came in the decade after—because of all the new technologies we had developed to save the world from tyranny—wiped that debt clean. This could do the same, sir.

  “Instead, at this moment we are still drilling for oil, the cost of which is becoming more prohibitive each day; we are scrambling for ever dwindling resources, ignoring the fact that as the rest of the world—especially China and India—strive to achieve our economic level, they are also triggering a global economic and environmental crisis. We must face that reality, sir. We are plunging headlong toward a dead end—a dead end economically, certainly, but an environmental dead end on a global scale as well. This project offers an answer far better than what we now do: plunder food crops covering entire states just to produce a trickle of fuel in an effort to stave off the inevitable. We are trading food production for fuel in order to keep the wheels turning just a little bit longer. How long can we continue to do that in practice? And with an ever expanding global population, how long can we continue to do that morally?”

  Gary’s ally Dennison shook her head at that comment, but since he already knew they were defeated, he didn’t really care. Proxley, from a farm state, of course heavily supported subsidies for such food to fuel projects running into the billions. He wanted to add that if Proxley would at least allow them to limp along with just a few million more for research and development, afterward he’d work on a way to try to turn corn into rocket fuel. For that matter, even milk could be turned into alcohol if you allowed it to sour, then drew off the whey and fermented it, then distilled it into burnable fuel. The only drawback to that scheme was that the hundreds of millions of gallons of curdled milk would not be pleasant to work with.

  He knew that would bring the house down—become the quote line of the day if anyone in the media ever bothered to even cover this other than Proxley’s assistant, who had pointedly turned his camera off while Gary replied; but he had too many friends still with NASA who might suffer an even greater backlash, so he fell silent but remained defiant as he stared at Proxley.

  “Your pie-in-the-sky figures, like everything else in this report…” Proxley said, grimacing with disdain as he held up the five-hundred-page general report on the construction of a “space tower.” His assistant had switched his camera back on in time to record the senator dismissively tossing the document aside so that it slid off the table and crashed to the floor. This symbolic act made Evgeniya and Gary wince with surprise at such rudeness.

  “To be frank, sir”—Proxley’s tone became harsh—“I have far more pressing matters than to remain here listening to yet another unrealistic proposal. This is a waste of my time and taxpayers’ money, sir. I see no reason whatsoever to amend the budget for NASA as currently presented.”

  He offered an ironic smile.

  “I was willing to convene this committee to at least hear by what logic your program was allowed to survive as long as it did. Now I am absolutely convinced we are doing the right thing by sending the budget proposal back on to the floor, with programs such as yours deleted. Therefore, with the approval of my esteemed colleagues, I excuse m
yself from these proceedings to attend to more important matters.”

  Without further comment, Proxley stood and headed for the door, his aides scrambling to pick up the piles of paperwork, stuffing them into briefcases, and falling in behind him.

  As Proxley made his way down the aisle toward the exit, Gary Morgan, Ph.D. in astrophysics and engineering, and Evgeniya Petrenko Morgan, Ph.D. in aerospace engineering, remained seated, their eyes fixed on the retreating form.

  The dream was over and they had lost.

  “What would you have said to Columbus?” someone shouted.

  Gary and his wife, called “Eva” by her friends and colleagues, recognized the voice and looked to the back of the room, Eva broke into a smile but Gary just froze; he did not even know that their sixteen-year-old daughter, Victoria, who was on her feet, had somehow managed to slip into the hearing room. Savvy with regard to all things computerized, she had most likely forged some sort of pass and ID to get in—typical of her, Gary thought, with a touch of pride, but he feared what his fiery young daughter might now say in righteous wrath at her parents being treated in such a manner. Victoria was gangly and tall at almost six foot, like both her parents, and pushed a lock of blond hair back from over her eyeglasses as she stepped out into the aisle to block the senator.

  Gary actually started to stand up and call to her to stop, but Eva reached out, grabbing his arm and smiling.

  “That’s our girl; let her have her say,” she said.

  “She definitely has your temper,” he whispered.

  “Damn right she does,” Eva replied in Ukrainian.

  Proxley slowed.

  “Are you talking to me, young lady?” He said it with a bit of a threatening edge, reminding Gary of a famous line from an old movie.

  Gary could not help but smile. The senator might be used to the game of intimidation, but he had never tangled with this young lady when her blood was up.

  “Yes, I am talking to you!” She hesitated just long enough to sound ironic when she added one more word: “Sir.”