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the minimum necessary on NASA’s next endeavour: the space shuttle. Instead of an intelligent design that would cost more to develop but would be cheaper and safer to use, he allowed Congress to choose the opposite - a design that was cheaper to build but more expensive and dangerous to operate. So the space shuttle, complete with solid rocket boosters and an expendable external tank, was born.
     
    The alternative - a totally reusable space plane that would fly the shuttle close to orbit, launch it, then return home under its own power, just like a passenger jet - didn’t employ the frail solid rocket booster that could burst an O ring and burn a hole in the external tank (the cause of the Challenger explosion), and it didn’t use a fragile external tank that could shed foam at lift-off and punch a hole in the shuttle’s wings (the cause of Columbia’s break-up), but it wasn’t the one chosen.
     
    So it’s Richard Millhouse Nixon’s fault Judd can’t sleep.
     
    But is it really? How did Nixon even become president? Wasn’t there a viable alternative?
     
    Yes.
     
    Backwards one last time.
     
    Chappaquiddick.
     
    Ted Kennedy’s failure to navigate a wooden bridge while driving a young teacher home on Chappaquiddick Island. His inability to save her from the upturned car in Poucha Pond. And his decision not to alert police about it for ten hours.
     
    Without Chappaquiddick, Teddy would have run for president in 1972 and won. As president, even considering the Senate’s pressure to cut NASA’s budget, he would not have skimped on the funding NASA needed to build a safe spacecraft. After all, NASA’s challenge to land on the moon by the end of the 1960s was his brother’s greatest legacy.
     
    So Judd blames Ted Kennedy for not being able to sleep.
     
    He pulls himself up in bed and looks around. He knows that wasting time with idle conjecture is just his way of distracting himself from the truth of his life. Just enough moonlight steals in through the blinds to illuminate the bedroom he’s shared with Rhonda for the last decade. He finds no joy in the pictures and commendations proclaiming his past success. He wishes he did.
     
    Rhonda. She’s working late tonight, won’t be home for a while. He takes a swig of water from the bottle on the bedside table, grabs the remote control and flicks on the TV. CNBC news flickers. The voices, like white noise, sometimes help him fall asleep on nights like these. He turns over, buries his face in the pillow. He hears fragments. A jet was stolen from an air-force base in Arizona. He doesn’t think anything of it as he closes his eyes and wills himself towards the land of nod.
     
    **
     
    Rhonda quietly eases open the front door, then just as quietly eases it shut. The Ghost and The Darkness greet her and immediately slump onto their sides in a plea for affection. She’d heard ragdoll cats had a dog-like demeanour but she’s constantly amazed at how gregarious they are. She kneels, tickles their bellies and does her best cat-lady whisper: ‘Ooo, hello there, my little fatties.’ She checks they have enough food and water in their bowls then turns to climb the staircase.
     
    ‘Hey.’ Judd stands in the half-light on the landing above.
     
    ‘Hey. Didn’t wake you, did I?’
     
    ‘No, no. Couldn’t sleep.’
     
    Couldn’t sleep. She knows that’s code for I want to talk. She lets the words hang, unaddressed, then climbs the stairs. As she passes by she leans in and gives him a kiss-hug. ‘I’m bushed, got a killer day tomorrow. Up at four-thirty. I might sleep in the guestroom. I need a solid five and you were a bit restless last night.’
     
    ‘Was I? Sorry ‘bout that.’
     
    She continues up the stairs.
     
    ‘Things didn’t go too well in the sim today.’
     
    She stops, breathes out, turns to him with a sympathetic expression.
     
    ‘You know, it’s just, I can’t seem to get it right. I used to be really good at this stuff.. .’ He