"Bruce Sterling - Think of the Prestige (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

Project Babylon was Bull's grandest vision, now almost within
his grasp. The Iraqi space-launcher was to have a barrel five hundred
feet long, and would weigh 2,100 tons. It would be supported by a
gigantic concrete tower with four recoil mechanisms, these shock-
absorbers weighing sixty tons each. The vast, segmented cannon
would fire rocket-assisted projectiles the size of a phone booth, into
orbit around the Earth.

In August 1989, a smaller prototype, the so-called "Baby
Babylon," was constructed at a secret site in Jabal Hamrayn, in central
Iraq. "Baby Babylon" could not have put payloads into orbit, but it
would have had an international, perhaps intercontinental range.
The prototype blew up on its first test-firing.

The Iraqis continued undaunted on another prototype super-
gun, but their smuggling attempts were clumsy. Bull himself had little
luck in maintaining the proper discretion for a professional arms
dealer, as his own jailing had proved. When flattered, Bull talked;
and when he talked, he boasted.

Word began to leak out within the so-called "intelligence
community" that Bull was involved in something big; something to do
with Iraq and with missiles. Word also reached the Israelis, who were
very aware of Bull's scientific gifts, having dealt with him themselves,
extensively.

The Iraqi space cannon would have been nearly useless as a
conventional weapon. Five hundred feet long and completely
immobile, it would have been easy prey for any Israeli F-15. It would
have been impossible to hide, for any launch would thrown a column

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of flame hundreds of feet into the air, a blazing signal for any spy
satellite or surveillance aircraft. The Babylon space cannon, faced
with determined enemies, could have been destroyed after a single
launch.

However, that single launch might well have served to dump a
load of nerve gas, or a nuclear bomb, onto any capital in the world.

Bull wanted Project Babylon to be entirely peaceful; despite his
rationalizations, he was never entirely at ease with military projects.
What Bull truly wanted from his Project Babylon was *prestige.* He
wanted the entire world to know that he, Jerry Bull, had created a
working space program, more or less all by himself. He had never
forgotten what it meant to world opinion to hear the Sputnik beeping
overhead.