（外文电子版资料）Robert A Heinlein - Destination Moon.pdf

file:///F|/rah/Robert%20A.%20Heinlein/Robert%20A%20Heinlein%20-%20Destination%20Moon.txt DESTINATION MOON Today, with space full of ships, colonies on the inner planets, and Earth’s Moon so close that pilots on the Luna run sleep home nights, it is• hard to imagine when ‘flying to the Moon” was a figure of speech for the impossible, when men who thought it could be done were visionaries, crackpots. It is hard to realize the opposition they faced, to understand why they persisted, what they thought. — Farquharson, History of Transportation, III: 414 I The Mojave Desert was gray with first morning light, but at the construction site lights were still burning in the office of the technical director. The office was quiet, save for petulant burbling of a pot of coffee. Three men were present—the director himself, Doc tor Robert Corley, Lincoln-tall and lean, Rear Admiral “Red” Bowles, regular navy retired, and Jim Barnes, head of Barnes Aircraft, Barnes Tool Works, other enterpnses. All three needed shaves; Barnes badly needed a haircut as well. Barnes was seated at Corley’s desk; Bowles sprawled on a couch, apparently asleep and looking like a fat, redheaded baby; Doctor Corley paced the room, following a well worn pattern. He stopped, and stared out the window. A thousand yards away on the floor of the desert a great ship, pointed and sleek, thrust up into the sky, ready to punch out through Earth’s thick atmosphere. Wearily he turned away and picked up a letter from the desk; it read: Reaction Associates, Inc. Mojave, California. Gentlemen: Your request to test the engine of your atomic-powered rocket ship at the site of its construction is regretfully denied. Although it is conceded that no real danger of atomic explosion exists, a belief in such danger does exist in the public mind. It is the policy of the Commission—Corley skipped down to the last paragraph:—therefore, test is author