Voyage. Stephen Baxter

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      ‘Why? We’ve not been considering Mars missions that long, have we?’

      Priest scratched his ear. ‘Well, the original objectives of the site didn’t have much to do with spaceflight, Natalie. Back in the late 1950s, big chemical rockets were still a thing of the future. And the nuclear weapons were bulky, heavy –’

      ‘Oh. They were building ICBMs here. Nuclear ICBMs.’

      ‘Just engineering experiments,’ Priest said evenly. ‘In case of need. And remember, the USSR was well ahead of us then, with their big, heavy-lift chemical ICBMs. But our chemical rockets got bigger, and the bombs got lighter, and the need went away. Later NASA thought they might need the nukes for Apollo Moon missions. But then the Saturn rockets came along …’

      ‘And now, we still need to build nuke rockets because we’re going to Mars.’

      ‘Hey, Ben,’ Mike said now. ‘Maybe you’ll be the first man on Mars. In the nuclear rocket ship Spiro Agnew.’

      Ben snorted. He cupped his hand over his mouth, and intoned Cronkite-style, ‘And now we take you live to the aptly-named Jackass Flats, where the good ship Agnew is ready to lift Man In Space to his new destiny … over to you, Dan.’

      ‘Thanks, Walter, and here as I stand under the painted sky of Nevada, I cannot but help recall …’

      On they clowned, like two kids, laughing and bumping against each other. Petey came away from the fence, drawn by their laughter, and pulled at his father, punching his back playfully.

      York, indulgently, let them walk ahead of her.

      She looked around more carefully now, trying to figure the layout of the place. When the laughter had faded, she said to Priest, ‘Tell me how they operate here.’

      ‘Well, the rail track is the key to everything.’ He pointed. ‘The track runs out of that building, the Radioactive Material Storage Facility. The test articles aren’t too radioactive, you know, until they’ve been fired. They are delivered on their flatwagon trucks to the test cells, and go through their firing. Afterwards they are taken to a dump over there, at the eastern end of the track.’

      ‘Because they are too radioactive to recover?’

      ‘Yeah.’ Priest shrugged. ‘Mike talks about restart capabilities, but it looks more likely now that an interplanetary ship is going to have a whole host of big NERVA rockets clustered together. After you’ve fired one, you’d dump it, to save the crew from the radioactivity. And you’d use them all up at Earth departure; you’d stick to chemical rockets for mid-course corrections.’

      ‘Good grief. And this strikes you as a rational way to fly?’

      He grinned at her, his teeth pale in the gathering darkness. ‘If it’s what it takes to get me to Mars, hell, yes.’

      ‘Have they had any accidents here?’

      ‘Sure. It’s a development site. What do you expect?’

      ‘What kind of accidents?’

      ‘Ruptured cores. Ozone production in trapped air bubbles. Loss of moderator –’

      ‘And injuries?’

      ‘Ruptured ear drums. A few burns.’ Priest looked uncomfortable. ‘Natalie, what do you want me to tell you? The NRDS was born in a different age. You have to see things through the eyes of the times.’

      ‘Oh, sure.’ A different age. But we’re still using this hideous place now. And Mike works here, for God’s sake. She shivered, as if she could feel old Cold War radioactive particles sleeting through her flesh.

      She looked around. ‘How do they do their containment? When the test rockets fire. All that radioactive hydrogen, pluming into the air –’

      Ben said, ‘What containment?’

      They all piled into Ben’s Corvette and roared off down the Interstate toward Vegas, where they were going to spend the night, and Sunday. Petey quickly drifted off to sleep, his head lolling against the seat cushions.

      Ben turned on the radio. A news program was broadcasting; York, sitting up in front with Ben, listened desultorily to dreary statistics from Vietnam.

      Outside, light leaked from the sky, and hard starlight poked through the desert blue.

      Ben leaned forward and turned up the volume. ‘Hey, Mike, listen to this. It’s Agnew.’

       … the three options identified by our Space Task Group represent a balanced program … a wide range of manned flights, unmanned planetary expeditions and applications satellites – serving people on Earth and increasing international cooperation in space …

      Wernher von Braun’s cultured voice came on, testifying to the Senate. I say let’s do it quickly and establish a foothold on a new planet while we still have one left to take off from …

      ‘So they are still talking about going to Mars,’ York said.

      ‘Sure they are,’ Ben said. ‘Agnew’s three options are all about going to Mars; the only difference between them is, the more you spend per year, the faster you get there. Although –’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Although he did put in a fourth option, where we give up manned spaceflight altogether.’ Priest stared at the road ahead. ‘We’re just going to have to see, I guess.’

      ‘Agnew is an asshole,’ York said mildly.

      ‘Maybe, but he’s an asshole who likes spaceships and astronauts,’ Mike said, leaning forward from the back. ‘And that makes him my kind of asshole.’

      ‘Going to Mars is a beautiful idea,’ York said. ‘But it’s science fiction. Isn’t it?’

      Mike squeezed her shoulder. ‘You’ve seen the XE-Prime. We can build this bird. All we need is the money.’

      ‘How much money?’

      ‘It’s not outrageous,’ Ben said. ‘Probably not as much as Apollo, in real terms. The whole program is going to be modular. A few basic components, used in different combinations for different missions. You’d have a Space Shuttle to get to orbit cheaply, a nuclear rocket for long-haul missions to the Moon and beyond, and cans – space station modules – you could assemble in different configurations. You’d put together your Mars ships using space station cans as habitation modules, and nuclear boosters –’

      York felt like arguing, trying to get the unease out of her system – she had been shaken by what she’d seen at the test station. ‘But what’s it all for? More footprints and flags, like Apollo?’

      ‘No,’ Mike snapped.

      There had been an edge of impatience in his voice since they’d left the Flats. She sensed her response there hadn’t been what he’d hoped for.

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