Read Online Kinsella (Kinsella Universe Book 1) by Gina Marie Wylie - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Gina Marie Wylie
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leaks before he says they can leak. And of course, anyone who leaks before next Wednesday is going to be wasting his or her breath because every eye on the country is going to be on the election results.
“The patent and the paper are all fair game.”
“I can’t talk about the paper,” she told him. “I’m a third author, and until it’s either rejected or published, it’s embargoed.”
“When will you know about that?”
“We suggested referees to ‘Science.’ Since that list was a Who’s-Who of modern theoretical physics, the editor called up a couple of them who salivated at the chance to review the paper. They just want to see if there’s any new work, so their own teams can take advantage of it. It’s the hottest research topic in the country right now.”
Captain Gilly got out of the aircraft and held the door open for Professor Kinsella, then waved towards the closest building. “I assume then, since Benko and Chang wrote the paper, there’s nothing much beyond what they’ve seen before.”
“You’d be surprised what physicists can see even in a minor little factor out on the end of a long equation. The relativistic effects on Mercury’s orbit, for instance. Accurate measurements of Mercury’s orbit were the first observational evidence that Einstein was right and Newton was incomplete.”
Two men in suits waited for them, and there were introductions and handshakes.
“I must say, Captain Gilly, we don’t get many requests like the one we got yesterday. Some of our people are still a little stunned,” the head suit said.
“The President wants Professor Kinsella to see the true state of the art in aerospace engineering.”
“Well, considering who asked, we’re quite prepared to show off what we’ve done. We don’t get many chances to do it, you understand, and there’s a certain amount of pride and eagerness to talk about it when we can.”
They went in the building, received security badges and then were escorted through several doors, through progressively tighter security.
Finally they were in a gallery above a hangar. Beneath them was a gleaming white aircraft that was very long, perhaps two hundred feet. There were tiny wings, swept back.
“This is the XA-4,” the lead suit said. “That’s XA for Extra-atmospheric. It has several modes of operation, but now mostly we let it take off on its own power, then it flies up to 40,000 feet, tanks and then she goes on from there to orbit. It has a crew of two and can carry two payload specialists.
“When Columbia went down, we were devastated; everyone in manned flight was. If we’d have known about the damage, we have the capability of launching the XA-4 on two days notice. We have the capability of a quick launch of a fuel supply rocket. The XA-4 could have gone up, mated with the Columbia , taken off three people, flown them to the ISS, and then repeated until everyone was off. Four or five days and they’d have been safe on the ISS.”
John Gilly whistled. “So that’s why NASA ignored most of the repair requirements of the Columbia accident report! They knew they could count on you guys in a pinch.”
The suit nodded soberly.
Stephanie waved at the aircraft. “How much did it cost?”
The suit looked uncomfortable. “I’d rather not say.”
Captain Gilly smiled. “It’ll take me one phone call to the White House. The Man will call the Air Force Chief of Staff and tell him to get it done. The Chief of Staff will call your liaison and the next thing you’ll know you’ll be called away from here and told to do it... and you’ll have wasted an hour of everyone's time.”
“Well, you understand that accounting on projects like this is murky? Let’s take the simplest case. If we wanted to build a second one, we just quoted a price of two and a half billion dollars to the Air Force. This vehicle was about four billion, give or take, but that includes
“The patent and the paper are all fair game.”
“I can’t talk about the paper,” she told him. “I’m a third author, and until it’s either rejected or published, it’s embargoed.”
“When will you know about that?”
“We suggested referees to ‘Science.’ Since that list was a Who’s-Who of modern theoretical physics, the editor called up a couple of them who salivated at the chance to review the paper. They just want to see if there’s any new work, so their own teams can take advantage of it. It’s the hottest research topic in the country right now.”
Captain Gilly got out of the aircraft and held the door open for Professor Kinsella, then waved towards the closest building. “I assume then, since Benko and Chang wrote the paper, there’s nothing much beyond what they’ve seen before.”
“You’d be surprised what physicists can see even in a minor little factor out on the end of a long equation. The relativistic effects on Mercury’s orbit, for instance. Accurate measurements of Mercury’s orbit were the first observational evidence that Einstein was right and Newton was incomplete.”
Two men in suits waited for them, and there were introductions and handshakes.
“I must say, Captain Gilly, we don’t get many requests like the one we got yesterday. Some of our people are still a little stunned,” the head suit said.
“The President wants Professor Kinsella to see the true state of the art in aerospace engineering.”
“Well, considering who asked, we’re quite prepared to show off what we’ve done. We don’t get many chances to do it, you understand, and there’s a certain amount of pride and eagerness to talk about it when we can.”
They went in the building, received security badges and then were escorted through several doors, through progressively tighter security.
Finally they were in a gallery above a hangar. Beneath them was a gleaming white aircraft that was very long, perhaps two hundred feet. There were tiny wings, swept back.
“This is the XA-4,” the lead suit said. “That’s XA for Extra-atmospheric. It has several modes of operation, but now mostly we let it take off on its own power, then it flies up to 40,000 feet, tanks and then she goes on from there to orbit. It has a crew of two and can carry two payload specialists.
“When Columbia went down, we were devastated; everyone in manned flight was. If we’d have known about the damage, we have the capability of launching the XA-4 on two days notice. We have the capability of a quick launch of a fuel supply rocket. The XA-4 could have gone up, mated with the Columbia , taken off three people, flown them to the ISS, and then repeated until everyone was off. Four or five days and they’d have been safe on the ISS.”
John Gilly whistled. “So that’s why NASA ignored most of the repair requirements of the Columbia accident report! They knew they could count on you guys in a pinch.”
The suit nodded soberly.
Stephanie waved at the aircraft. “How much did it cost?”
The suit looked uncomfortable. “I’d rather not say.”
Captain Gilly smiled. “It’ll take me one phone call to the White House. The Man will call the Air Force Chief of Staff and tell him to get it done. The Chief of Staff will call your liaison and the next thing you’ll know you’ll be called away from here and told to do it... and you’ll have wasted an hour of everyone's time.”
“Well, you understand that accounting on projects like this is murky? Let’s take the simplest case. If we wanted to build a second one, we just quoted a price of two and a half billion dollars to the Air Force. This vehicle was about four billion, give or take, but that includes
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