But then the cabin tipped again, over to the right, and her stomach knotted up. Saliva pooled at the back of her throat. No. No, that’s not fainting.

She turned away from the others, toward the wall; when it came, the vomit splashed against the port and wall and slid down under her seat.

There was a hand on her shoulder. “York. You okay?”

It was Gershon; she waved him away. She tried to talk, but her throat was still closed up.

And then the stink hit Gershon. “Oh, Jesus.” He lunged, sticking his head over the back of his couch, and began to throw up, too, in huge, noisy spasms.

Viktorenko laughed. “So, Bah-reess, only you and I are able-bodied seamen, eh?”

“Fuck,” Ralph Gershon groaned.

The water lapped against the hull of the Soyuz, and Boris the cosmonaut dangled from his silver chain above York’s head.

She wondered what had happened to Gershon’s gum. Washington Post, Monday, February 23, 1981

…We have no hesitation in devoting this editorial exclusively to the report of the Presidential Commission into the Apollo-N space disaster, which has at last, after weeks of leaks, rumors and counterrumors, been formally published. The report is 3,300 pages long and weighs in at 19 pounds, and it does not mince words. The report makes it clear that the accident was not the result of a chance malfunction, in a statistical sense, but rather resulted from an unusual combination of mistakes, coupled with a deficient design.

The Apollo-N disaster has sparked a fresh national debate, led by a skeptical Congress, over whether the country should be spending tens of billions of dollars on a “footprints-and-flags” program to send men to space, when it faces so many problems at home. Public opinion polls find many citizens asking if the program is costing too much and feeling that any trip to Mars would be as much a political stunt as was the Apollo race to the Moon.

Meanwhile, many prominent scientists, such as Professor Leon Agronski, a former science advisor to President Nixon, are arguing in public fora that less expensive unmanned probes could teach us more about the composition of Mars and the other planets than astronauts.

On the other hand, supporters of the space program point out that the average American spends much more per year on cigarettes and alcohol than on sending fellow countrymen to other planets, and that untold scientific and technological benefits will flow from the continuing program.

This paper remains skeptical.

The most damaging part of the Commission report is a frank indictment of NASA and its senior contractors. The Commission’s investigation revealed many deficiencies in design and engineering, in manufacturing and quality control. Numerous examples have been unturned, in addition to the simple and avoidable defect that led to the tragedy itself.