Free Up and Down by Terry Fallis

housewives and shopkeepers in space alongside astronauts who have trained their entire careers for a single shuttle mission diminishes all of us and the legacy of the original seven astronauts, who, by the way, were all friends of mine.”
    Crash and burn. I was dead.
    Well, it was clear we’d lost the astronaut vote on the panel. The role of astronauts has been a topic of much debate right from the earliest stages of the space program. During the Mercury program, the original seven astronauts mentioned by Chandler had felt that they were just human ballast being shot into space in a tin can and that their considerable aeronautical skills were being ignored. They wanted more of a role in the mission. They wanted to “fly” the rocket, not just strap in for the ride. So suggesting that inexperienced civilians should “tag along” for a mission made space flight seem just too pedestrian for the likes of the former Apollo commander. Even in the shuttle era, this remained an issue. On-board computers had the power to guidethe shuttle through re-entry and land the shuttle safely without an astronaut ever touching the stick. Yet
every single mission
has ended with the commander actually “flying” the shuttle to a dead stick landing. Screw the computers.
    “Thank you, Mr. Chandler.” Kelly intervened to put me out of my misery. “Further questions?”
    The NASA Administrator piped up next.
    “I understand how my colleague feels, but the unfortunate reality is that Congress is squeezing us so goddamned tightly now that I’m looking for spare change in my office couch. Right now, it is not a good scene. It is downright ugly. To make matters worse, Congress has access to all the polling we’ve ever done, so they know the public has drifted away. So the slashing and burning continues. Do you really think we can bring citizens back to us simply by holding out to them the slim prospect of a trip to the space station?”
    “Yes, sir, I truly believe we can.” I hoped I sounded more convinced than I felt.
    Kelly asked many more questions about how it would all work and I skated my way through them with a little help from Amanda, Diane, and Michael. Crawford Blake was no help. He was still fuming, with arms folded, and wanted out of there. He had gathered up what little he’d brought and seemed to be leaning towards the door.
    “Well, thank you for your presentation,” Kelly said as she stood up. “Do you have hard copies for the panel?”
    Diane jumped in fast as Amanda reached for the copies in her bag.
    “Um, no, unfortunately we don’t have them with us. Our printer blew a gasket just as we were printing your hard copies this morning. But I received a text during the presentation that they have fixed the problem and the copies have been couriered to you to arrive by the end of the day,” improvised Diane.
    Very smooth. I realized that the printed decks in Amanda’s bag did not include the big idea – my big idea.
    “Thank you,” Kelly said. “I know you’ll be wondering about next steps. Yours was the final pitch, so we now have some thinking to do, and we’ll be back to you one way or another soon. Likely within the week.”
    She paused before continuing.
    “And I’m sorry I prematurely cut off the presentation earlier. NASA can only succeed in this if we try bold and creative approaches. The run-of-the-mill media relations program that I thought was the extent of your proposal is something we can do internally, in our sleep. So let me close the meeting with some friendly advice. Don’t bury the lead next time. Start with your big idea.”

    “What an unholy bitch she was!” shouted Crawford Blake after the team had reconvened in the TK boardroom an hour later. “I very nearly pulled the plug and took us out of the running.What a bitch! And where did she come from anyway? Didn’t we do a recce on who’s running the show over there?”
    Diane, Amanda, and I stole a glance at one another. Crawford was