Fighting disappointment—failure. Yes. That was the kind of fight it had been. How many failures? The first big one had come six years before....
"Acceleration, Monsieur, must be achieved in the first two thousand miles of flight. After that, the speed of the ship remains constant. You follow me?" Tardeau, the half-mad French genius had explained it so logically. And Joshua had believed in him. That's where you made your big gamble in a project of this kind. You selected your men and then believed in them. Others dissented, of course. There are always dissenters. And always points that could not be proven or disproven on the drawing boards or in the test pits....
"I follow you, Henri. The booster units will be in three sections."
"Exactly, Msieu. The primary—ah, booster, as you say, breaks free at twelve miles. That one, and the secondary, we control with radar. We touch a button and Voila! they are free!"
"In case of the men in the ship blacking out, I think you said."
"Exactly. But the third will be disengaged from within the ship and she will be free as a bird to fly to your most illusive Moon!"
"And the return?"
"There we have a much lighter ship, Monsieur. The smaller boosters will lift her easily. The return trip will be slower—much slower, but she will return!"
Michael Bernard was the dissenter. "The Frenchman's crazy! Mad as a hatter, Chief."