“Yeah, but you have to take a positive view of it, Fred. Skylab A is still operational, nearly a decade after it was launched. What if we’d abandoned it? — let it fall back to Earth? What a hell of a waste that would have been; we’d have been a laughingstock. And Moonlab is still up there—”

“Okay, okay. But it’s still just Apollo applications. Nothing we didn’t design in the sixties. And meanwhile, the world is moving on, Joe. We don’t have the lead that we had a decade ago. The Russians have kept on flying Soyuz and Salyut—”

“But our stuff is advanced over theirs.”

“Maybe, but their endurance records have been beating the pants off us. And the Soviets aren’t the only ones. Even our buddies are moving into the gaps we’re leaving. The Europeans have been flying their Ariane for a couple of years, so we’re soon going to lose out in terms of commercial launches, too, to our so-called allies.”

He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fleshy fingers and closed his eyes. “Ah, hell. Another eight or nine years on, and here I am again trying to reshape the space program for another new president. And once again I’m trying to figure out the way the future is going to pull at us, and which way the new White House is likely to jump. Maybe it’s not so obvious to you guys; I know what it’s like when you’re buried inside the program. But things are so different now, from 1971, and 1960; so different…”

Muldoon grunted. “Oh, I look around, Fred. I can see the changes. In spite of the Afghanistan thing, the Cold War is done now. Or at least people want to think so. And if space was all about fighting the war symbolically—”

“Then what use is it now?” Michaels smiled over his glass. “You got that right. We were happy enough to play that card when it suited us, Joe; maybe we couldn’t have flown without it. But now people have had enough, and we’re being paid back. But on the other hand…”

Muldoon prompted, “Yeah?”

“On the other hand, maybe there are still some angles we can use. You know Reagan is expanding his military spending.”

Muldoon grunted. “Sure. Just as he’s cutting taxes, and the rest of the budget.”

“And I don’t think that’s going to go away, not during Reagan’s term.” Michaels was thoughtful, calculating. “Haig is saying that all of Carter’s human rights stuff was misguided; that what we’ve got to do now is counter the Soviets, who are still the main threat.”

“So what does that mean for us, Fred?”