Destination Moon

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Today, with space full of ships, colonies on the inner planets, and Earth's Moon so close that pilots on the Luna run sleep home nights, it is• hard to imagine when 'flying to the Moon" was a figure of speech for the impossible, when men who thought it could be done were visionaries, crackpots.

It is hard to realize the opposition they faced, to understand why they persisted, what they thought.

- Farquharson, History of Transportation, III: 414

The Mojave Desert was gray with first morning light, but at the construction site lights were still burning in the office of the technical director. The office was quiet, save for petulant burbling of a pot of coffee.

Three men were present-the director himself, Doc tor Robert Corley, Lincoln-tall and lean, Rear Admiral "Red" Bowles, regular navy retired, and Jim Barnes, head of Barnes Aircraft, Barnes Tool Works, other enterpnses.

All three needed shaves; Barnes badly needed a haircut as well. Barnes was seated at Corley's desk; Bowles sprawled on a couch, apparently asleep and looking like a fat, redheaded baby; Doctor Corley paced the room, following a well worn pattern.

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