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perceived giant budget.”
    “And you and I both know that NASA’s budget is tiny compared to most every other entitlement program or congressional boondoggle.”
    “True.”
    Stetson continued. “Only NASA can make the most complex and challenging endeavor in the history of humankind seem dull. Maybe we should’ve hired George Lucas or Steven Spielberg to do our marketing. Sure, we had great coverage for the last shuttle flight, with lots of legacy stories about the successes and failures of the shuttle program. Though if I’d had to see that video of the Challenger exploding again, I think I’d have puked.”
    “No hot green chicks,” Jim interjected. “We need some hot green chicks. I think they were called green animal women slaves from Orion or some such thing. Yep, we need ’em.”  
    Bill ignored the comment and kept on going, “Yes, it was a tragedy, and yes, mistakes were made, but we’ve got to get over it someday and move forward. Think how insulting it must be to the thousands of engineers who made sure that those other one hundred and twenty flights were flown safely. What about the video that shows their successes?”
    “Uh, people like a train wreck,” Jim reminded him.
    “Humph.” Bill was on a roll and wasn’t ready to relinquish the floor just yet. “And what about the first manned flight of Ares I? The press was there with cameras rolling to see the rocket fly, but I think they’d have been just as eager to see it crash. They probably had their commentaries written for that before they even arrived at the Cape…and the astronauts’ obituaries, too. We were lucky the second flight made the news at all. If it hadn’t been for the Chinese having a launch failure the week before, I doubt we’d have rated high enough to report on.
    “So, now we’ve flown over a hundred space shuttle missions, circling our tails in Earth orbit for decades. We’ve built a space station that people have been living in for fifteen years with the public’s perception that they were just floating around twiddling their thumbs and having fun eating floating globules of liquid astronaut food. We’re rebuilding a capability to go the Moon that we had—we had, mind you—when I was a child and then threw away.” Stetson almost looked angry as he turned to face England. Jim hated seeing his friend getting so worked up.
    “Water under the bridge, buddy. Now, if we can manage to find some of those green animal—”  
    Bill cut him off with a very Spock-like raised eyebrow that told Jim he was about to push a little too far. “Jim, we’ve wasted fifty years since Neil Armstrong walked on the Moon. Yeah, we’ve done some science, and we’ve supposedly learned about how people will ultimately survive the trip to Mars. I’d never say it in public, but we’ve wasted the legacy of Von Braun and all those engineers who put us on another world before you were born. I want to get back to the Moon and prove to the American people that space exploration is worth it. That going to Mars is doable and worth it. And that going to Mars should not wait another fifty years. Going to the Moon is the first step toward that, and it is what I’m meant to do.”
    “Me, too, Bill. Me, too.” Jim smiled at his friend because he didn’t doubt his last statement for an instant.  
       

Chapter 4
    Retired Navy pilot Paul Gesling paced in the waiting area outside the office of Gary Childers, president of Space Excursions. Gesling, who was too tall to qualify as a NASA astronaut, looked more like a recently retired professional basketball player than a soon-to-be commercial space pilot. His forty-one-year-old frame was covered with muscle, and his piercing green eyes and coal-black hair gave him the appearance of being some sort of wealthy playboy—at least to the ladies that he frequently found himself in the company of. And they seemed to like it—and him.
    He grew tired of pacing after a while and sat on the plush green