The contrast between the two groups struck Lee strongly. The McDonnell/Hughes cadre was sleek, weighty-looking, all middle-aged white men with slicked-back hair and comfortable guts. There was Gene Tyson from Hughes, for instance, still stinking of cologne and tobacco, looking as if he had stepped off the cover of Fortune. By contrast, Lee was carrying his own slide projector, for Christ’s sake, and all he had to back him up was with this bunch of college kids and a hungover doctor.

Lee had actually seen a copy of McDonnell’s final report, the result of millions of dollars worth of study. It called for a biconic approach, a variant of the theme Rockwell would be developing. The study was damned clever stuff, and so vast that nobody at Columbia had had time to read it.

Tyson came over to Lee. “Well, JK. I’m surprised to see you here.”

“Oh, we were passing,” Lee said. “So we thought we’d throw something together, and see how it hangs.”

Tyson laughed, quite good-natured, and he clapped Lee on the shoulder and walked off.

Art Cane walked up to the lectern, slow and dignified and very impressive, and he gave a short speech about the commitment of his company to the bid, and referred to their tradition and values.

Then Lee strolled to the front of the room, smiling and nodding, and exchanged a brief formal handshake with Cane. He stood at the lectern and called for his first slide.

The room lights dimmed, and the slide came up, right on cue.

Thursday, September 24, 1981

LYNDON B. JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON

Phil Stone and Adam Bleeker watched her steadily.

The three of them were in a small conference room that had been turned over to the Ares landing site selection committee. The walls were covered with images of Mars: Mariner orbiter photographs, U.S. Geological Survey maps, false-color stratigraphic profiles, geological surveys. The long tables which ran in rows down the walls of the room were covered by more charts and pictures and ring-bound folders.

York unrolled a chart and pinned it up on a wall, covering maps and photos. It was a bright, simple, block-color map, with little flags scattered over it.

“Mars,” she said. “In as much detail as you need to understand it for now. Know your enemy, right? This is a geological map of the planet, drawn from Mariner data.” Actually that wasn’t true; the map was kiddie stuff, too simple to be anything but an operational guide. Useful if you were planning to bomb Mars rather than study it. “Now. What’s the first thing you notice?”

Stone grinned. “I see seven little Stars and Stripes, and seven little Hammer and Sickles, all with labels beside them.”

“We’ll come to the flags. Think about the geology first. Just describe what you see.”