The Moon hadn’t been as exotic as some had suspected. Some had predicted that the astronauts would sink into miles of dust. Or that the mountains of the Moon might be fragile, like huge gray meringues maybe, and would collapse in puffs of dust when the astronauts tried to walk there. Or maybe the moondust would catch fire, or explode, when the astronauts brought it into the LM. Or the astronauts would be afflicted by terrible diseases…

In the end, those hardheaded engineers who had stubbornly insisted that the Moon would be just like Arizona — and had designed the LM’s landing gear that way — had turned out to be right. That’s what I’ve gotta bear in mind, he thought. Mars will be just like Arizona, too.

To Seger, that was a magical thought, as if Earth and Moon and Mars were somehow unified, physically bridged, as they were bridged by the exploits of Americans.

He walked carefully down the steps, away from the Flight Director’s console, and latched the door behind him.

Monday, August 16, 1971

GEORGE C. MARSHALL SPACE CENTER, HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA

Gregory Dana arrived late, his Vu-graph foils and reports bundled under his arm; by the time he reached the conference room — right next to the office of von Braun himself — it was already full, and he had to creep to the back to find a space.

The room was on the tenth floor of Marshall’s headquarters building, colloquially known as the von Braun Hilton. Just about everybody who counted seemed to be here: senior staff from Marshall and Houston, a few managers from NASA Headquarters in Washington, and a lot of people from the contractors whose studies were being presented today.

At the front of the room, so remote from Dana that it was difficult to see his face, Bert Seger, head of the nascent Mars Program Office, was making his opening remarks.

They were all here to listen to the Mars mission mode Phase A studies final presentations. Their purpose today, Seger said, was to settle on a recommended mode for the development program. The group had to regard itself as in competition for resources and endorsement with the parallel studies going on into the reusable Space Shuttle; a similar heavyweight meeting had recently been held in Williamsburg to thrash out some of the conceptual issues involved in that program.

In his rapid Bronx delivery Seger gave them a little pep talk: about the need for open discussion, for receptivity, and for a willingness for all there to walk out of the room with a consensus behind whatever mode was favored. Dana could see a little crucifix glinting on Seger’s lapel, under a wilting pink carnation.