Hank Searls, Martyr's Flight (1955)
“ He remembered the dreams, the toil, the heartbreak, far back to when men laughed at the concept of a platform in space. He thought of the pioneers of rocket work, some of them dead; the men at Peenemunde using their brains for war but even so adding painstakingly to the fund of knowledge. He thought of the moment of blinding elation three months before, when the last reactor had been cut off and the core of Space One swung easily into her orbit. ”
Hank Searls, Martyr's Flight (1955)
“ Walter Stanton felt the Platform, his dream, pulsing around him. For a moment he felt an affection even for the maddening wail of the ventilators. Behind him, he knew, were some of the best brains in science; men whose concepts cut across the lines of nationalism; who by their presence on the Platform showed that they disregarded the very instinct of self-preservation in the search for Truth. ”
Hank Searls, Martyr's Flight (1955)
“ Howard, a grey, unemotional power plant expert, a grim man whom Walter Stanton barely liked, sat back and folded his hands. He spoke with dogged emphasis."This project has taken the best of science for the last four years. It has held up research in other fields, and justifiably so. I do not propose to let four years of mankind's progress go spinning off into space alone, war or no war, Russians or no Russians. I shall not leave it. I'm a civilian, and I refuse to go. ”
