Surrounded By Thunder by Williams Tom;

Author:Williams, Tom; [Williams, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Inspire on Purpose Publishing
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 57

“Every month we do a bold adventure. This is the golden age of space exploration.”

—Charles Elachi

April 12, 1961

Far across the globe from Cape Canaveral and the palm trees on Cocoa Beach, an R-7 Russian heavy booster thundered into life and roared over the desert steppes of Kazakhstan. The Russian rocket carried the first human pilot to ever enter outer space. His name was Yuri Gagarin and his face behind the visor of his space helmet was on the cover of almost every newspaper in the world.

With Darrell, Les Myers, and Les Geisman looking over the morning headlines, it was amazing how the American press corps embraced the Communist’s success. The newspapers were brutal when it came to the American efforts in the race for space, and it was more than obvious that Russia was the big favorite.

Les Geisman was new to the Cape. He was a fuel and staging specialist and sat in the control room next to Darrell. Almost at once, the Cowboy from Iowa and the big Texan from West Texas had become fast friends. Geisman was huge and big as a bear. He was six foot four, with blues eyes and blond hair. He was German but American born and recently in from Huntsville. When the new fuel and staging specialist arrived, he brought a copy of the Huntsville Times that was cargo on the morning plane. With the local Cocoa Beach paper pushed aside, the three men focused on the discouraging headlines from the home of the rocket-patch soldiers.

Beneath the bold letters reading: “Man Enters Space” was the photograph of the Russian pilot and a caption that read: “Soviet Officer Orbits Globe in Five Ton Ship.”

Another set of bold letters proclaimed: “So Close and Yet So Far—Sighs Cape Canaveral,” and beneath that: “US Had Hoped for Own Launch.” At the bottom of the page was a feature article that spilled onto the following pages: “Reds Win Running Lead in Race to Control Space.”

“Can his ship really be five tons?” Les Geisman asked with his deep Texas drawl. “Hell,” he said as he shook his bear-like head, “our little-ole Mercury is not even one ton and we’ve got to go with Atlas to get that into orbit.”

One of the control room technicians called over his shoulder, “There’s no way that commie ship weighs five tons—no way! Let’s not believe everything we read in a newspaper.”

Darrell sipped his coffee and looked beneath the headlines. All of the newspapers he had seen were showing almost the same photograph: The Russian with his fishbowl helmet and headgear either just before the launch or just before he was sealed inside his ship. There were no photos of the launch or of the rocket booster. Five tons was a lot of weight to lift.

“Darrell, you should know . . .” one of the engineers started from across the three rows of consoles. “The new Saturn that von Braun is working on . . . how much do they say it can

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