"James P. Hogan - Craddle of Saturn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

"It's difficult to say," Joyce answered as they came to a live screen on one of the consoles. The
face showing on it was of a man in his forties with clear blue eyes and straight, yellow hair
brushed to the side. He turned to look out full-face as Keene moved within the viewing angle of
the console pickup.



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"Hello. I'm Landen Keene—NIFTV's flight engineer; also one of the principal design engineers
involved with the project."

"John Feld, Pacific Coast Network news."

"Hi."

"You are with the Amspace Corporation, Dr. Keene?"

"In a way. I run a private engineering consultancy that Amspace contracts design work and
theoretical studies to."

Feld looked mildly surprised. "And does this relationship result in your going into space often?"
he asked.

"Oh, Amspace and Protonix—that's the name of my company—have known each other for a long time. I
go wherever the job demands. A desk has more leg room, but this way we get to have more fun."

"As we saw," Feld agreed. "That was a spectacular performance you people gave up there earlier."

"And it was in spite of everything this country has done in the last forty years, not thanks to
any of it," Keene replied.

"So what were you demonstrating? Obviously you were doing more than having fun. Is it another
version of the message we hear from time to time about private enterprise being able to do things
better than government?"

Keene shook his head. "Hell no. What we were telling you has to do with the whole future of
humanity, not somebody's political or economic ideology. The world is still burying its head in
the sand and refusing to face what Athena is telling us: the universe isn't a safe place. For our
own good, we need a commitment on a massive scale to broadening what the Kronians have pioneered
and spreading ourselves around more of space. What we showed today is that we can start doing it
right now, without needing to negotiate any deals with the Kronians—although if you want my
opinion, we should avail ourselves of any help they offer. We already have the technology and the
industries. The vehicle that we demonstrated today was a test bed for a Nuclear Indigenously
Fueled engine. That means it uses a nuclear thermal reactor to heat an indigenous propellant gas
as a reaction mass. `Indigenous': native to a particular place."