Pillar to the Sky Read online

  “You mean, like Wikipedia today?” Victoria asked.

  “Sorta like that.”

  “Got it.”

  “That is infamous that you did that, Gary. I never knew that,” Eva exclaimed, genuinely upset. “I read every word of Pushkin and Tolstoy assigned to me, even if they were Russian and not Ukrainian.”

  Gary shrugged, a bit embarrassed.

  “Franklin, maybe you better dig in and give us the straight line now, to save me from my wife’s wrath.”

  Franklin got up and poured himself a soda water, no Scotch. He motioned to Gary’s glass—which Gary put a hand over as a refusal after a sharp glance from Eva and Victoria—then sat down again.

  “I am proposing that we build the Pillar.”

  No one else spoke; the only sound in the plane other than the engines and the occasional brief chatter on the radio channel, which was still open, was that of Erich’s gentle snoring.

  “I have followed your work ever since your dissertations. I met Erich”—he paused to look affectionately at the old man, fast asleep in his seat on the other side of the aisle—“when I first visited Goddard years ago to discuss some computer hardware designs for one of the Mars orbiters which my company was bidding for.

  “Not many people realize that Goddard does the hard research, has people like you two working, dreaming, but then it is people like me who take those dreams and build them and make them work. Erich fired me up on my old childhood dream of the Tower of Babel; that was when he first mentioned that he had two young assistants working on the concept. You could say it seemed so insane that I could not help but be captivated by it.

  “So, years back, I quietly created a corporation within my corporations tasked with seeing on our own if the idea was feasible and, if so, how we would do it.

  “I assumed all along, political currents being what they were, that ultimately you would face the heartbreak of rejection you endured today.”

  Eva muttered something in Ukrainian that Gary and Victoria understood, but Franklin did not, and Gary was glad he did not.

  “I felt morally bound to sit back to see what the government would do. You who labor at Goddard, Langley, Houston, and elsewhere under the NASA umbrella are like monks at times. You labor, intent on your dreams of a better future for all humanity. Your work is, as is said in the business, public domain, meaning it is free to anyone around the world to learn of and, dare I say, seize hold of and even build with the appropriate rights of patent attached to them. It might seem mercenary to some, but all benefit in the long run. Look at all the spin-offs of Apollo that private companies seized upon to enrich our lives.”

  He looked at the three staring at him and, a bit nervously, cleared his throat.

  “My company within a company used material you two first pioneered, along with that of others, such as the NASA team at White Sands, who actually ran tests using laser-beamed energy to power an ‘elevator climber.’ Nice try, but I felt not feasible.

  “That being said, I will have Mr. McMullen up front turn the plane around, we’ll go back to D.C., I’ll go with you to the patent office, and you can see where my company has quietly, and without any fanfare, filed scores of patents which originated in research you two have done—which, as you were government employees of our nation, was research free and open for any to use.”

  “Somehow what you said seems troubling to me,” Eva replied.

  “It is the beauty of our system in this country. NASA has created thousands of wonders that impact all our lives, from that iPad you have in front of you to some hospital tonight using imaging systems to save a child who needs surgery to clear out blood clots in their veins because of a birth defect that forty years ago would have been fatal. Without companies like mine to build on your research and make it viable, scientific progress would be at a crawl. It is what made America preeminent in the twentieth century, and my hope is to see it continue in that position in the twenty-first based upon ideas hatched at NASA that people like me then pick up and run with. That has always frustrated me more than anything else: how few in our country realize how much NASA has made their lives better and, in the case of millions now, saved their lives.

  “Without companies like mine to take that basic research, which opened a door first cracked open by NASA, how different our world would be today, and how much poorer our quality of life.”

  Gary nodded in agreement. “Regarding the Pillar,” he said, “I think we should focus on why we are on board this flight with you this evening and save the philosophical side for later.”

  Franklin smiled and cleared his throat.

  “I have the plans in place to build it,” he said, as if this were just a matter of simple fact that should not surprise them in the slightest. “The Japanese are years ahead of us in carbon nanotube technology research, but…”

  And he grinned.

  “… I put quite a few billion into becoming the major stockholder of that company. We’ve developed, in secret, the technology to spin out not just a few millimeters of carbon-60 nanotubes. We have in place the ability to produce threads, continuous threads of whatever length you desire.”

  “Forty thousand kilometers’ worth?” Eva asked with incredulous delight.

  “Two hundred years ago, what was then called ‘spring steel’ could only be made by specialists, a few pounds at most in a pour. Fifty years later someone named Bessemer was making it by the thousands of tons. So, yes, Eva, I can give you—can give us—any length we want. And my goal was to be able to mesh together threads 40,000 kilometers in length, a means of fusing them together in a vacuum and low- or zero-gravity environment.”

  “My God,” Eva whispered in Ukrainian.

  “It is all in your pad computers. Now, to cut to the chase, as they used to say. I want to incorporate with you. This started out as your dream. It is now time to translate that into reality. You two”—he smiled, nodding to Victoria—“and when she is eighteen, your daughter as well, will be partners in this venture. To be blunt, since you were working for Goddard with nearly all your research, your efforts are public domain. I think my team, in secret, as is common in this business, such as the legendary ‘skunk works’ of the 1950s and ’60s, has improved on the practical aspects and patented many of your initial efforts.”

  “If so, why do you need us?” Eva asked, and after her initial enthusiasm, with a touch of cynicism now.

  “I know this sounds like a line but I believe in honesty and fair play,” Franklin replied. “You two thought up most of this, though others had a role as well. If you want me to sound pragmatic and not sentimental, there is a lot more to be done to transfer this from theory to practice, and at this moment I feel you are the two most valuable people on this planet to make my dream come true, and thus I want you on my side.”

  “With that said,” Erich muttered, obviously not fully asleep, “to hell with a million dollars: ask for ten million a year.”

  “I thought you were asleep,” Franklin said, looking over at the old man half curled up on the double-wide seat.

  “Old habit from the war: always sleep with one eye and ear open,” Erich whispered.

  They could not help but laugh.

  “I think we need each other, my friends,” Franklin said, nodding toward Erich as well. “You are the brilliant minds who dreamed of this. I am asking for you to partner with me to build that dream, because I have the resources to do it.”

  Gary, Eva, and Victoria, who together had felt so defeated less than a dozen hours ago, just looked at him in stunned disbelief.

  “Tell them what you are willing to put into this,” Erich muttered.

  Franklin was silent for a moment.

  “I think it was Andrew Carnegie, reflecting on his accomplishments, who said that the pleasure of life was, in the first half to build his empire, and in the second half to give nearly all his earnings away … that he who died rich, ultimately died poor.”

  “How much?” Erich grumbled.


  Franklin’s features were now fixed with intensity.

  “I’m putting up everything I own. At last count it was something like fifty billion dollars.”

  Eva actually gasped. Victoria looked at him wide-eyed. Only Gary could respond.

  “Not enough,” he sighed, “regardless of what the dreamers—of which I am one—would say. It will be a hundred billion or more to have a fully operational tower viable not just for exploration but commercial use as well.”

  “What is fifty billion more or less?” Franklin said, and there was a look of complete earnestness in his eyes. “I’ll find the money; it is out there from my generation who created the computer revolution. Men and women like Branson, Rutan, and others, when they see we are dead serious about this, will be knocking on our door. And that is where you, my friends, come in. With your names attached to this, they will come. You might have led a somewhat cloistered life at Goddard, but believe me, your work is known where it matters and thus another reason I want you on my team. You carry the respect of more than you know with you.

  “Together, we will build it. We will create a new American dream for the twenty-first century, and though some shortsighted types in our government lag behind, the work of NASA will shine forth again as it did with Apollo and Curiosity, which still roams the plains of Mars. Believe me, they will come and we will build our Pillar to the Heavens.”

  As he spoke, it was as if Franklin were standing before an assembly of others like him, making his pitch. The force of his personality was such that none could ever disagree.

  And Gary could not help but believe.

  “This flight is only the first leg of our journey. Three days from now I look forward to showing you something that will prove my point. But, for now, look through the contracts on your computers. I am certain, of course, dear Dr. Rothenberg will want certain addendums to your contracts, and I’ll be frank. There was an old Western movie I loved where the main character said, more than once, ‘Make a deal that is fair to the buyer and fair to us.’ Feel free to tell me any concerns.”

  “Three days from now?” Eva asked. “I thought we were just going to Seattle.”

  Franklin smiled.

  “For starters. I want you to meet our team first. I regret this, but my darn lawyers will hang me if I don’t say this now: you will have to sign the nondisclosure forms before you decide to work with me. After that, then on to someplace else once we get the paperwork taken care of.”

  As he spoke he stood up and stretched, the somewhat narrow cabin of the Gulfstream confining his towering six-and-a-half-foot frame.

  “But for right now, I feel like I need a few hours of log time copiloting this bird. Miss Victoria, would you care to copilot for this copilot?”

  She leapt up with a grin.

  “Can we try a loop?” she cried.

  He laughed softly.

  “I think the FAA and the pilot would not approve, but we’ll still try a few tricks—all legal, of course, young lady.”

  Minutes later, after Victoria had announced over the intercom that all passengers should expect some turbulence and to secure their seat belts, the jet was weaving and banking. The now replaced copilot was sprawled out in the aft bed, fast asleep; Erich was stirring and muttering that the turbulence felt like the damn flak while going in for a drop; Eva was complaining that this man up at the controls was not the best example for their daughter; and Gary was silently reading through the pages of data in his computer in all but absolute disbelief.

  The dream could indeed be real.

  5

  Eighteen Years Earlier

  The two stood at Erich’s door, both nervous. They had sent up their joint report to him the day before and now it was time for the final meeting of their internship. Eva was flying out from Dulles at the end of the day, and Gary would drive back to West Lafayette, Indiana, after dropping her off at the airport.

  The door opened and both stiffened slightly. It was the assistant director of Goddard, saying something over his shoulder to Erich about him coming over for dinner soon. He paused and looked at the two interns.

  “So you two are his imaginative geniuses,” he said, extending his hand first to Eva and then Gary.

  “Now, the real act of genius,” he chuckled, “would be convincing the higher-ups to try to work just fifty billion or so more into the budget. If you could pull that miracle off, I’d hire you on the spot right now!”

  Neither of them spoke and he smiled.

  “Of course, your luggage must be checked, Miss Petrenko, before you depart our company today.”

  She reddened, and Gary, standing behind the administrator, started to wave his hand to urge her not to explode.

  The assistant director laughed and extended his hand for a fatherly pat on her shoulder.

  “The Cold War is over, Miss Petrenko. Just joking, there will be no luggage check. Please convey to Professor Rakolvski, who I assume you are working with, my warmest regards. Years ago we agreed that most of this rivalry was foolishness and it is time to work together.”

  The icy glare changed to a warm smile.

  “He is my mentor.”

  The assistant director winked at her.

  “I know; that is why we agreed you’d be our first exchange intern. My old friend Basil and I had a long talk about you before you were even aware of our plot. Safe travels home.”

  He held out a small box.

  “Not sure if this will get through your customs, but Basil claimed a great weakness for my wife’s pecan pie. Please convey it to him with our warmest wishes.”

  Eva actually curtsied slightly as she took the box, definitely still an Old World custom and clear indication this meeting was no accident: the assistant director had been waiting to meet her and bid her a fond farewell.

  He shook her hand again and left. Erich, as usual behind his desk, had tea already poured for Eva and coffee for Gary. He waved them into his office, motioning for Gary to close the door.

  “So you met the assistant to my boss,” he said. “I think he was hanging around to meet you two.”

  “Why would that be, sir? There are fifty interns checking out today.”

  “Besides his friendship with your Basil Rakolvski, whom I hold in high regard as well, I daresay it is because I passed your report on to him last night. He e-mailed back to me.” Erich gestured at his computer. “Actually, I hate those things; everyone says they will make life easier for us, but I think we’ll wind up spending half our days just answering the darn mail. Anyhow, I think he said something to the effect of I was bloody crazy for letting you two work on this and nothing else for the summer. That it was a sci-fi fantasy dream. If a Senator Proxley got wind of the fact that even interns were working on it, especially one from Russia…”

  He paused.

  “Excuse me: especially if one from the newly independent Ukraine was involved, he’d be screaming about security. And after saying that, he said he wants the two of you back next summer to continue your research, this time with a stipend and expenses covered by us as well.”

  The two could not contain their grins. In the last few weeks Gary had taken to bringing along an extra bologna sandwich and a bag of chips when he noticed how Victoria would beg off going to the café for lunch.

  “So, you two finally reached some sort of agreement?” Erich asked.

  “We met in the middle,” Eva said. “Actually, about 90 percent my way.”

  She looked over at Gary and smiled.

  Erich picked up the 155-page printout that they had written together over the last two weeks. It admitted to one predication outside the realm of current science: that research in carbon-60 nanotube technology would accelerate and reach the strength required for the tower within fifteen to twenty years. After that assumption, everything else followed.

  Erich made the gesture of thumbing through the report.

  “I like the idea of it being a ribbon rather than a thread but, given costs and the co
mplexity of manufacturing a ribbon when we have yet to even create sufficient material beyond a few millimeters in length, that the first attempt should be a single wire—good thinking—and that from that single wire, we later haul up material for a ribbon at a fraction of the cost of sending it up via rockets.”

  He paused.

  “But regarding collision avoidance with the wire by deliberately triggering a harmonic wave to swing the tower out of the way, I think you are a bit overoptimistic about the ability to dampen that.”

  “I know, sir, the whole ‘Galloping Gertie’ nightmare,” Gary replied, “but it is the only alternative we could come up with for collision avoidance.”

  “Exactly.”

  Both he and Eva had pulled up videotapes of the infamous “Galloping Gertie” bridge disaster of 1940 and even watched the original 16-millimeter films of the incident in the National Archives, at times pausing frame by frame. “Galloping Gertie” was the tragic, sarcastic nickname for an elegant, slender suspension bridge built over the Tacoma Narrows in Washington State in the late thirties. Too elegant and too slender. The design engineers had run all the usual calculations about the impact of wind and weather but had let slip by wind of a particular velocity from a particular direction. It had set the bridge to swaying, which like all suspension bridges it was designed for. But a harmonic wave had set in, like a vibration on a violin string, running up and down the string; just as the wave reached a particular point, the impact of the wind increased the vibration, building on it, doubling its intensity with each wave running up and down the length of the bridge.

  It was a remarkable film to watch. A car abandoned by a panicked driver in the middle of the bridge was soon being tossed up in the air like a child’s toy as the waves of the harmonic vibration raced back and forth along the length of the bridge. Torque began to set in, the bridge floor twisting and swaying … and then it simply ripped itself apart.

  It was fascinating and it was horrifying.

  “So you propose that eventually there will be thrusters not just to bend the ribbon out of the way of any debris or satellite but also to dampen out any harmonics.”