suited to missiles: there was a large central space where the rockets could be checked out, with two-storey wings either side for offices and smaller laboratories.
Elspeth was in Hangar R. She had a typewriter and a desk in the office of her boss, Wily Fredrickson, the launch conductor, who spent almost all his time elsewhere. Her job was to prepare and distribute the launch timetable.
Trouble was, the timetable changed constantly. Nobody in America had sent a rocket into space before. New problems arose all the time, and the engineers were forever improvising ways to jury-rig a component or bypass a system. Here, duct tape was called missile tape.
So Elspeth produced regular updates of the timetable. She had to stay in touch with every group on the team, record changes of plan in her shorthand notebook, then transfer her notes to typed and Xeroxed sheets and distribute them. The job required her to go everywhere and know almost everything. When there was a hitch, she learned of it right away; and she was among the first to know about the solution, too. Her title was secretary, and she was paid a secretary's wages, but no one could have done the job without a science degree. However, she did not resent the low pay. She was grateful for a job that challenged her. Some of her RadclifFe classmates were still taking dictation from men in grey flannel suits.
Her noon update was ready, and she picked Up the stack of papers and set out to distribute them. She was rushed off her feet, 'but that suited her today: it stopped her worrying constantly about Luke. If she followed her inclination, she would be on the phone to Anthony every few minutes, asking if there was any news. But that would be stupid. He would contact her if anything went wrong, she told herself. Meanwhile she should concentrate on her work,
Elspeth went first to the press department, where public relations officers were working the phones, telling trusted reporters that there would be a launch tonight The army wanted journalists on the scene to witness their triumph. However, the information was not to be released until after the event. -Scheduled launches were often delayed, or even cancelled, as unforeseen snags arose. The missile men had learned, from bitter experience, that a routine postponement to solve technical problems could be made to look like an abject failure when the newspapers reported it So they had a deal with all the major news organizations. They gave advance notification of launches only on condition that nothing would be published until there was 'fire in the tail', which meant that the rocket engine had been ignited.
It was an all-male office, and several men stared at Elspeth as she walked across the room and handed a timetable to the chief press officer. She knew she was attractive, with her pale Viking looks and tall, statuesque figure; but there was something formidable about her - the determined set of her mouth, maybe, or the dangerous light in her green eyes - that made men who were inclined to whistle, or call her 'Honeybunch', think again.
In the Missile Firing Laboratory she found five shirt-sleeved scientists standing at a bench, staring worriedly at a flat piece of metal that looked as if it had been in a fire. The group leader, Dr Keller, said: 'Good afternoon, Elspeth.' He spoke in heavily accented English. Like most of the scientists, he was a German who had been captured at the end of the war and brought to America to work on the missile programme.
She handed him a copy of her. update, and he took it without looking at it. Elspeth nodded at the object on the table and said: 'What's that?'
'A jet vane.'
Elspeth knew that the first stage was steered by vanes inside the tail. 'What happened to it?'
"The burning fuel erodes the metal,' he explained. His German accent became stronger as he warmed to his subject 'This always happens, to some extent However, with normal alcohol fuel, the vanes last long enough to. do their job. Today, by contrast we are using a new fuel, Hydyne, that has a longer burning time and higher exhaust velocity - but it may erode the vanes so much that they become ineffective for steering.' He spread his hands in a gesture of exasperation. 'We have not had time to run sufficiently many tests.'
'I guess all I need to know is whether this is going to delay