Part 47 (1/2)

”Confirm and update”

NINETEEN

Hawkins blew his cool ”Look at the Goddamned monitor for Chris- sakes Just look!” He yelled into the intercom

EIGHTEEN

”Holywho'splease confirm, local analysis,” the sober voice sounded concerned for the first time

SEVENTEEN

”Confirmed anomaly” ”Confirmed” ”Confirmed” ”Confirmed”

The votes streamed in

SIXTEEN

”We have a confirm”

T-MINUS 15 SECONDS AND COUNTING

TEN

”We have a go for ine start”

SEVEN

SIX

FIVE

”We have a ine startwe have a cut off”

”Colu at T-er, Houston,” the commander of space Shuttle Colum- bia responded calmly

”We have a manual abort override Columbia's on board computers confirer”

The huge block letterVolker spoke rapidly into his master intercom system ”Cut network feed Cut direct feed Cut no!” All TV networks suddenly lost their signal that was routed through NASA's huge video switches NASA's own satellite feed was si to the public it didn't get sent

CNN got the first intervieith NASA officials

”What caused today's flight to be aborted?”

”We detected a slight leak in the fuel tanks We believe that the sensors were faulty, that there was no leak, but we felt in the interest of safety it would be best to abort the nment is not critical and we can attempt a relaunch within 2 weeks When we know more ill make further informa- tion available” The NASA spokes to NASA, afuel monitor was the cause of today's aborted shuttle launch