She flicked desultorily through her coloring book. That was what the students called the volumes that were passed out at the start of each lecture; they were fat books containing diagrams, no text. The diagrams on the Vu-graph charts were supposed to be identical to the diagrams in the books, except for the colors, and the rookies — all of them highly qualified specialists — had to work like grade school students, coloring in their copies of the diagrams with pens. They were supposed to memorize every transistor and valve and duct and pipe and wiring conduit in every goddamn spaceship, planned or actual.

Coloring books were a fantastically dumb way to teach anybody anything, she’d quickly decided. And besides, all the systems knowledge in the world wouldn’t have helped Jim Lovell’s Apollo 13 crew when that oxygen tank blew.

And you also had the problem that the MEM design in particular was a moving target. The MEM was being built in a different, more leisurely manner from previous generations of spacecraft, with the basic research — into biconic shapes, ballutes, plug-nozzle rocket engines — being proved before the first ships were assembled. It was all a marked contrast to Apollo, and, she supposed, a lot more logical; but because of that the ECLSS diagram in her book didn’t match in all its detail the diagram on the screen, which in turn, probably, didn’t match the reality of what anybody would build, one day. So why did she need to fill her head with all this crap?

It was all part of their ascan syllabus, a document that was, incredibly, set out like a flowchart. You followed the flow, doing a one-hour module on subsystems here, a couple of hours of reading on space medicine there, until you passed barriers in the flowchart which proved you’d reached another level of skill. It was formulaic, an education system designed by an engineer, not a teacher.

It was typical NASA, really. Not that she could get anyone to listen to that kind of complaint.

The rookies got to bring in their own pens, though, and York derived some ignoble pleasure in producing books full of Day-Glo orange engine bells, puce oxygen tanks, and electric blue reaction control solenoids.

After the class broke up she ran into Ben Priest. Ben was heavily caught up in the training for his own first flight: Apollo-N, the NERVA 2 orbital proving mission, planned for the end of next year.

Today he was frustrated, too, hot as hell and irritated after spending all day in a niggling integrated sim.

For some reason, the usual silent barrier between the two of them wasn’t working today. They just stood in the corridor, close together, facing each other, Ben’s shirt crumpled and open at the neck. Maybe it was their shared frustration. Anyhow, today she just knew.

They got in Ben’s car and went back to her apartment.

It was their third time, in as many years.