Well, Wernher was dead. And it was different for Udet. He knew that, try as he might, he could not help but project an aloofness, an aura of the disdainful Prussian aristocrat. The Americans did not trust Udet; and they appeared to find it much easier to believe ill of him than ever they had of von Braun.

And meanwhile, he had been forced to watch as Gregory Dana had risen in status and power within the organization. His fatherhood of the lost hero James, and the fact that his once-vilified mission mode had been chosen as the basis for the new Mars program, had raised Dana’s status almost to national celebrity.

And Dana continued to pronounce his damning testimony on Udet’s life-work, his tone dry, level, like a soulless prosecutor.

Udet’s dark, dwarfish twin.

“Beginning at about 78 seconds, a series of events occurred extremely rapidly that terminated the flight. Telemetered data indicate a wide variety of flight system actions that support the visual evidence of the photos, as the Saturn struggled against the forces that were destroying it.

“At 78.9 seconds the lower strut linking Solid Rocket Booster Number Four and the MS-IC was severed or pulled away. This failure was evidently caused by the abnormal stresses placed on the structure by the failure of the main engines. SRB Four rotated around its upper attachment strut. This rotation is indicated by divergent yaw and pitch rates between the Solid Rocket Boosters.

“At 79.14 seconds a circumferential white vapor pattern was observed blooming from the side of the MS-IC. This was the beginning of the structural failure of the MS-IC’s propellant tank, which culminated in the separation of the aft dome of the tank. This released massive amounts of RP-1 from the tank and created a sudden forward thrust of about 2.8 million pounds, pushing the propellant tank upward through the motor casing toward the S-II. At about the same time the rotating SRB Four impacted the lower part of the MS-IC’s liquid oxygen tank. This structure failed at 78.137 seconds, as evidenced by the white vapors appearing in this area…”

The images on the screen continued to unroll, frame by frame, their pace matching Dana’s dry, analytical delivery. The pictures were blurred and shrouded by the haze of distance, and a fog of escaping vapor, but it was just possible to see how the Solid Rocket Booster was swiveling around, and its conical tip was puncturing the flank of the central first stage.

Then brilliance erupted, within the space of one frame, engulfing the image.