Muldoon turned to the audience, his lean face underlit by the lamp on his desk. “Now, Hans, I don’t think we’re in a position where we’re going to be able to hide on this. We have to discuss the implications for the manned program. And we have to face the fact that there was evidence of potential problems on earlier VB tests, with solid fuel burns inducing destabilizing oscillations…”

Udet found himself shouting. “But the AS-5B04 loss was not caused by a Solid Rocket Booster failure!”

“But Solid Rocket Booster problems contributed,” Muldoon said. “We’ve seen that. And it seems to me that the whole design is inherently more risky than the old liquid-fuel configurations. Remember we survived Saturn V launches in which we lost whole engines. But if you’re sitting on top of those damn unstoppable Solid Rocket Boosters, it’s not a question of if you go, just which direction. None of us is arguing that we should stop flying the upgraded Saturns; it’s just that we have to be honest about the consequences of the compromises we’ve made in its design. Because if we don’t come clean now, the folks on the Hill are going to hang our hides out to dry.”

Muldoon looked around the room, taking in all of the delegates. “You know the situation we’re in, folks; the budget deficit is running so high this year that every discretionary program — including Ares — is under pressure, all the time, every budget round. Now, you may say that isn’t fair — that our mistakes get magnified out of proportion, while the much bigger foul-ups of other agencies are hidden — but we’re a high-profile agency; you have to accept it as a fact of our lives. So, we have to be squeaky clean. We’ll take questions at the close, folks; I want to move this along now…”

Udet, still standing, did not trust himself to speak. Compromises. You talk of compromises. We were compromised from the beginning. Our Saturn VB fuding from the start has been half the projections we requested. Half! Without compromises you would not be flying into space now. And yet you bleat about the consequences, about the loss of a single launcher!

He felt he could bear no more of this. He clambered past the people beside him, apologizing, and reached the aisle. He stalked toward the back of the room.

Dear God. Are we really reduced to such finger-pointing inanity? All I ask — all I have ever asked — is that you give me adequate tools, and I will finish the job. Achieve the dream. Even with half the resources, I will find you solutions! But what I will not — cannot — achieve is a miracle, I cannot guarantee you perfect safety and reliability. When will you people understand that?

It seemed a long way to the door Nobody was prepared to meet his eyes.