Chapter 17: Waiting for Palmdale

I had a phone call from Bob Mather at the White House.

"Hi, Bill. I'm calling you to congratulate you on your suggestion about recruiting your scientists into the Space Service. We have had about fifty enlistments and the suggestion that the others interested should form an advisory body have mollified the rest. I do hope you're not going to tie yourself to following their advice."

"No! We won't have any such commitment to follow their advice. I will, however, consider their advice, provided that there isn't too much of it."

"I doubt that they will be able to come to any sensible conclusion before you take off on your first expedition. After that, they will be always digesting the results of your trips. How is the craft coming along?"

"Derek Paulsy has really been pulling out all the stops. It should be ready for the equipment installation in about six months. Although on second thoughts, it might present an interesting exercise in navigation."

"That will be just about the time that the staff should be finished with their crash course at New London."

"How are they taking to Service life?" I asked.

"Most of them are taking to it well. Many of them are college graduates and that makes things simpler. They're soaking up the required information like sponges. What's more they seem to take the regular students along with them. How are the miniature drives coming along?"

"James has the problems with the shuttle drives licked and the drives for the message-drones are just about there. The problems associated with message capsules are the retrieval methods, but I think that we're nearly there with those also. It all seems to be coming together for the first training cruise in February."

"And what have you got in mind for after that?"

"Probably Tau Ceti. It's more or less in the opposite direction from Epsilon Eridani. I anticipate coming home first to digest the results of the training cruise."

As you can guess, Bob and I were in regular communication with each other. One event that made our day was the arrival of four young Petty Officers. When I heard where they from I put them into training on the shuttle simulator. I had upgraded it to include the data for the Solar system together with what we had on the Epsilon Eridani system. They could practice searching for and cataloging data for a real planetary system.

The real climax to the incident was when they told me about Doctor Gentry's reaction to them handing in their notice to NASA and told the good Doctor where they were going. I even thought of issuing an invitation to him to take a quick jaunt in the Enterprise, but I didn't want him to suffer apoplexy.

A lot of our recruits were commuting between our Holloman Base and the Skunk Works at Palmdale. I think that the new spacecraft was the largest thing that they had ever built there. Incidentally, Derek Paulsy had enlisted, and as I had promised him, I had posted him back to the Skunk Works. Just before Christmas he had moved his family to Holloman as he expected to be leaving Palmdale for here early in the new year.

Christmas was a happy time at the Space Service's Holloman Spaceport. We were looking forward to accepting the new spacecraft in the new year and then to going on our first cruise. James joined us for Christmas and was welcomed as the father of deep space exploration. Christmas was only eclipsed by our New Year's parties. The Officers' Mess entertained the Officers from the Base next door and their ladies.

Charles Groves had received his promised promotion to Captain, and Susan Chalmers had been promoted to Lieutenant-Commander as the Executive Officer. Our Scientific group was commanded by Lieutenant-Commander John White with Lieutenant Gerald Shaw in charge of the Environmental Sciences. His opposite number in charge of the Life Sciences is Lieutenant Barry Thompson.

Early in February, we flew the Enterprise down to Palmdale with three new drives. They were being installed before the outer hull could be completed. The guys at the Skunk Works had certainly worked their socks off in order to complete the new craft up to the stage that they had. Another four weeks and we could take delivery. The marine mechanics who were amongst our first recruits were our engineering shift commanders. They had stayed at Palmdale for those four weeks, helping with the installation of the drives.

The living quarters and other domestic equipment were also installed during this period, leaving only the scientific equipment to be installed back at base.