She couldn’t get that astonishing image out of her head: the single, pristine crater, punched in the top of a mountain range.

Wednesday, June 3, 1981

HEADQUARTERS, COLUMBIA AVIATION, NEWPORT BEACH

JK Lee thought the new Mars Excursion Module RFP was the roughest piece of crap he’d seen in many a long day.

An RFP, a Request For Proposals, was part of the standard procedure the federal government followed to award large contracts. This particular RFP had gone out to fourteen companies, including McDonnell, Boeing, Rockwell, Lockheed, and Martin. Response was requested in ten weeks. NASA would then evaluate the proposals, using a scoring system based on a prearranged formula, to weigh the technical approach, the personnel to be used by the bidder, the bidder’s corporate expertise in areas relevant to the bid, and so on. For a major contract an RFP was a major piece of work in its own right.

The document JK Lee held in his hand — short, badly photocopied, some of it even completed by hand — was horseshit.

He called Jack Morgan into his office.

Lee threw the MEM RFP at Morgan. “Look at this thing.”

Jack Morgan was compact, grizzled, with broad, strong hands. He sat down on the other side of Lee’s big metal desk.

After skimming the RFP, Morgan dumped the paper back on Lee’s desk.

Lee asked, “So what do you think?”

“I wouldn’t wipe my ass with it. I’ve never seen such a hasty, amateurish piece of work.”

Morgan was right, of course. The weight limits on the new MEM were fantastically tight, and the cost ceilings and time frames, to make a 1985 launch, were forbidding. The RFP had obviously been issued in a hell of a panic, as NASA, in the midst of its recovery from the Apollo-N thing, scrambled to put together a viable program for getting back on course to Mars.

Lee said, “I agree. This RFP is a piece of shit. I’m surprised they put it out. But still…”

“But still, what? JK — you’re not thinking of bidding.”

Lee sat back and put his feet up on his desk. “Why not?”

“Because we wouldn’t win. Because it would be a waste of money. I don’t even know why we were sent this thing.”

Lee thought he knew.

He happened to know that Ralph Gershon was on NASA’s evaluation panel for this bid. Since they’d met at that lousy Technical Liaison Group meeting over in Rockwell’s Brickyard, and gone for that drive in the Mojave, and Lee had bullshitted a rookie astronaut about a MEM shaped like Apollo — making it up as he went along, really — he and Gershon had stayed in touch.

He had Gershon to thank for this RFP invitation, he figured.

“Anyhow,” Morgan said, “Rockwell is going to get the MEM; everyone knows that.”

“Yeah, but suppose.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Just suppose.”