A Space Oddessey 2061 Book 3 Chapter 8: Starfleet PART I : THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN

A Space Oddessey 2061 Book 3 Chapter 8: Starfleet PART I : THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN

Sir Lawrence Tsung was not a sentimental man, and was far too cosmopolitan to take patriotism seriously - though as an undergraduate he had briefly sported one of the artificial pigtails worn during the Third Cultural Revolution. Yet the planetarium re-enactment of the Tsien disaster moved him deeply, and caused him to focus much of his enormous influence and energy upon space. Before long, he was taking weekend trips to the Moon, and had appointed his son Charles (the thirtytwo- million-so! one) as Vice-President of Tsung Astrofreight. The new corporation had only two catapultlaunched, hydrogen-fuelled ramrockets of less than a thousand tons empty mass; they would soon be obsolete, but they could provide Charles with the experience that, Sir Lawrence was quite certain, would be needed in the decades ahead. For at long last, the Space Age was truly about to begin. Little more than half a century had separated the Wright Brothers and the coming of cheap, mass air transportation; it had taken twi…