Read Online The Rocket Man by Maggie Hamand - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Maggie Hamand
Ads: Link
course not, how could it have been? You are not like anyone else.â
This tenderness disturbed her, because she so much wanted and needed it; Bob never said such things. But what she was doing was frightening; she wasnât sure she could cope with it. She turned away from him suddenly. âI shouldnât be here. I canât carry on like this, seeing you, deceiving Bob. I feel so ashamed.â
âNo,â said Dmitry, touching her face, âThat is the lovely thing about you; you are shameless.â
âBut only with you,â said Katie, âIâm only like this with you.â
IV
N ihal knew within a few hours of beginning his researches that he was onto something potentially very big.
The index to
International Aerospace Abstracts
contained various references to Wolfgang L Richter dating back to the mid-1970s. There was a paper given at an Aeronautics conference in California in which Richter said he had developed âA bi-propellant rocket engine with low thrust and high performance⦠it has been made possible to achieve unlimited burning without ageing, short pulsing time, high reliability and low cost.â This paper gave the name of a company after Richterâs name:
Raketenforschung GmbH
. Nihal had looked up some other papers; they were all in the same vein. The later papers referred to his company as RASAG,
Raketen und Aufklärungs-Satelliten AG
. It was all technical stuff, way over his head. He looked through one or two general scientific and aerospace magazines. In one he found a small piece about the German company seeking investors for developing a low-cost satellite launching system.
In the Space Directory Nihal had found a listing for the company, RASAG. It was based in Stuttgart and was a small enterprise, developing low-cost rocket technology. Richter was the president; the chairman was a man called Karl Weiland. That rang a bell; Weiland, he recalled, was one of the Nazi rocket scientists from Peenemünde who had at one time been a consultant to NASA.
This was interesting. He rang RASAGâs offices in Stuttgart and spoke to the PR man, Becker, who promised him a brochure in the next post. Becker, who spoke excellent English, emphasised that the company was carrying out space research and that it was entirely independent of the German Government. They planned to offer rocket launches which would be far cheaper than the existing choices, making satellite technology available to a wider range of companies and nations than at present.
But when asked where they were going to launch the rockets, Becker suddenly refused to say, telling him that a deal with an unnamed country was under negotiation.
Richterâs history was not hard to unravel. A brilliant young engineer, he had won his first research contract while still at university. He had then gone into industry and joined two of the wartime German scientists, Sänger and Pilz. At first, his company had received huge contracts from the West German Government, and was given the use of government research facilities. But in the mid-1970s the Government cut all ties with Richter, who appeared to have then hit a lean time, trying to raise money for his research.
In the mid-1980s he married Liliana Carneiro, then one of the top models for fashion magazines; her lean, honey-coloured face decorated their covers, while, on the inside pages, her slender bronze body was draped with the most expensive clothes. This marriage bought Richter into a new world of wealth, power and prestige. He began to be more successful in raising money, mainly from private investors, and before long had recruited Weiland, one of the last surviving Nazi rocket scientists, and formed RASAG.
Nihal then telephoned the Nazi-hunting agency, the Jewish Documentation Centre, conveniently situated here in Vienna, to find out about Weiland. Some years ago, Nihal had interviewed one of the few British scientists attached to the US Air Force
This tenderness disturbed her, because she so much wanted and needed it; Bob never said such things. But what she was doing was frightening; she wasnât sure she could cope with it. She turned away from him suddenly. âI shouldnât be here. I canât carry on like this, seeing you, deceiving Bob. I feel so ashamed.â
âNo,â said Dmitry, touching her face, âThat is the lovely thing about you; you are shameless.â
âBut only with you,â said Katie, âIâm only like this with you.â
IV
N ihal knew within a few hours of beginning his researches that he was onto something potentially very big.
The index to
International Aerospace Abstracts
contained various references to Wolfgang L Richter dating back to the mid-1970s. There was a paper given at an Aeronautics conference in California in which Richter said he had developed âA bi-propellant rocket engine with low thrust and high performance⦠it has been made possible to achieve unlimited burning without ageing, short pulsing time, high reliability and low cost.â This paper gave the name of a company after Richterâs name:
Raketenforschung GmbH
. Nihal had looked up some other papers; they were all in the same vein. The later papers referred to his company as RASAG,
Raketen und Aufklärungs-Satelliten AG
. It was all technical stuff, way over his head. He looked through one or two general scientific and aerospace magazines. In one he found a small piece about the German company seeking investors for developing a low-cost satellite launching system.
In the Space Directory Nihal had found a listing for the company, RASAG. It was based in Stuttgart and was a small enterprise, developing low-cost rocket technology. Richter was the president; the chairman was a man called Karl Weiland. That rang a bell; Weiland, he recalled, was one of the Nazi rocket scientists from Peenemünde who had at one time been a consultant to NASA.
This was interesting. He rang RASAGâs offices in Stuttgart and spoke to the PR man, Becker, who promised him a brochure in the next post. Becker, who spoke excellent English, emphasised that the company was carrying out space research and that it was entirely independent of the German Government. They planned to offer rocket launches which would be far cheaper than the existing choices, making satellite technology available to a wider range of companies and nations than at present.
But when asked where they were going to launch the rockets, Becker suddenly refused to say, telling him that a deal with an unnamed country was under negotiation.
Richterâs history was not hard to unravel. A brilliant young engineer, he had won his first research contract while still at university. He had then gone into industry and joined two of the wartime German scientists, Sänger and Pilz. At first, his company had received huge contracts from the West German Government, and was given the use of government research facilities. But in the mid-1970s the Government cut all ties with Richter, who appeared to have then hit a lean time, trying to raise money for his research.
In the mid-1980s he married Liliana Carneiro, then one of the top models for fashion magazines; her lean, honey-coloured face decorated their covers, while, on the inside pages, her slender bronze body was draped with the most expensive clothes. This marriage bought Richter into a new world of wealth, power and prestige. He began to be more successful in raising money, mainly from private investors, and before long had recruited Weiland, one of the last surviving Nazi rocket scientists, and formed RASAG.
Nihal then telephoned the Nazi-hunting agency, the Jewish Documentation Centre, conveniently situated here in Vienna, to find out about Weiland. Some years ago, Nihal had interviewed one of the few British scientists attached to the US Air Force
Similar Books
