ou know. I got them to install the duplicate
controls, over the insistence by Bannister that resorting to them,
even in the event that it became necessary, would prove nothing. He
even went as far as to talk about load redistribution electric control
design. As a matter of fact, I thought he had me for a while, but I
think in the end they decided to try to avoid the waste of another
vehicle. At least, that might be the kind of argument that would carry
weight. The vehicles were enormously expensive, you realize.

I made it all right, as I said. It took me nine hours and then some,
once they dropped me from orbit. I switched off the automatic controls
at the point where the dive brakes were to have been engaged. This
time, the brakes had not responded to the auto controls and they did
not open at all. I found out readily enough why Lynds was against
opening them at that point. Metal fatigue had brought the ship to a
point where even a shift in my position could cause it to stop flying.

I came down in Australia and the braking 'chute tore right out when I
released it. I skidded nine miles. A Royal Australian Air Force
helicopter picked me up two hours later.

I learned of the suspension while in the hospital. I didn't get out
until just in time to get to London for the hearing. My evidence and
Forrest's, and Lynds' recorded voice all served to no purpose. You
don't become a hero by proving an expert wrong. It doesn't work that
way. It would not do to have Bannister looked upon as a bad gambit,
not after all they went through to stay in power after putting him in.
The reason, after all, was all in the way you looked at it. And a
human element could always be overlooked in the cause of human
endeavor. Especially when the constituents never find out about it.

* * * * *

After that, they started experimentation with powered returns. The
atmosphere has been conquered, and now there remained the last stage.
They never did it successfully. They couldn't. But it did not really
matter. What it all proved was that they did not really need pilots
for what Bannister was after. He had started with a premise of testing
man's reactions to space probes under actual conditions, but what he
was actually doing was testing space probes alone, with man as a
necessary evil to contend with to give the project a reason.

It was all like putting a man in a racing car traveling flat out on
the Salts in Bonnev