INTRODUCTION
The first time I met Jack Faust, I knew for sure that he was a pilot. There was no question – he was wearing all the right clothes for example. He was driving a beat-up pickup truck and clearly had not shaved for several weeks. I suppose it would be useful for me to point out that he was not a military pilot. He was, he used to be, all good pilots are, but he wasn't a military pilot by the time I met him. He was a contract test-pilot. He worked for a small company out of Little Rock, Hammer Aeroworks, Harris Aeroworks, I can't remember the exact name. I remember a lot of things about him though, I can picture him sitting here, right now, in the passenger seat of my 1997 Saab. He wasn't a very tall person, maybe 5' 7” or 5' 8”. He was naturally lean and had a deep-love for leather jackets. He washed his jeans once a month and when I first met him he was living paycheck to paycheck. He had just quit smoking, he informed me, as he flashed a wide, bright smile from across the tarmac. I was instantly aroused, but the wind from the mountains to the west was blowing sand at face level and I had to squint my eyes as I walked towards him. I could feel his eyes sizing me up and I began to regret my decision to forego my gym membership for the past six months. I was scrawny and awkward; there was no way around it. I was skinny and really tall and my arms stuck out from the sides of my body like branches on a tree. I hid this under a tailored suit and an expensive tie. In one hand I held a file-folder, a thin manila record of Jack's entire life. I held my other hand open and extended. “You wouldn't believe the kind of money I'm saving not buying a pack a day.” He laughed and patted me on the shoulder as he walked straight past me, my hand closing on empty air. I turned around and sputtered, “I think they'll need to see some identification, you know, because this is a military base.” Over the roaring wind and sand and desert grit I heard him reply that he knew the guards from weekend poker. The words were lost as he opened the door on the side of the base and dissappeared inside. I stood for a few seconds, feeling rather foolish, and then proceeded to follow him indoors.
I had no idea why Major Opule had instructed me to greet Jack on his way into the base. It was a job for a secretary and I was hardly that. As the coordinator of the loosely designated “Rocket Scientists”, I was primarily tasked with the oversight of major engineering projects. Besides, I had only been on the base for a month and it seemed like Jack felt as much at home here as he probably did at whatever nearby bar he spent his weekends. I hadn't argued though, I just didn't argue. I hated confrontation, I hated conflict. I was an engineer, a mechanic, a chemist. I was the guy that sat in the lab in front of a computer running simulations after everyone else had gone home. I was a genius and my tool of choice was a calculator. At the time, dealing with a dark and mysterious test-pilot seemed like the last thing I had been trained to do. My orders were specific, greet him at the front gate and escort him into the building. The file folder weighed heavy in my hand as I ran down the linoleum-lined hallway rushing to catch up with him. Much of the stress was psychological; I had spent several minutes studying his file and preparing a list of topics with which to engage in small talk. I had been on the verge of making notes. Now I was running after him as he took a left and headed straight for the command center, his ragged cross-trainers were silent on the floor and the air was quietly and methodically puncuated with loud claps from my polished loafers. “Mr. Faust? Pleasure to meet you, my name is Jim.” He punched a button next to the elevator. “Major Opule has had nothing but good things to say about you.” He starting whistling as he stared at the floor. “This program is black-listed, as I'm sure you know, but I would be happy to breif you on what were doing.” He rubbed his right hand against the stubble on his jaw, moved up and over his face until he was massaging his eye brows together, as if pondering a great philosophical mystery, he responded without looking at me. “Listen Jim, I am really hungover right now and I don't know if you are aware but Major Opule is a very large asshole that I don't particularly look forward to seeing every two or three years. Can you breif me later? Do you have somewhere to be, something to do? You look very important.” I coughed and shook some of the sand off of my suit.
“MIT?”
“Caltech, actually.” I responded.
“Beautiful LA. Do you miss the girls?”
“I'm actually gay.” I replied for the thousandth time in my life. He looked at me for the first time.
“That must be fun for you. Still, Los Angeles, California and now you're living in Shithole, Nevada. You must miss it.”
I didn't know how to repond., and winced as a said, “I like to travel.”
He laughed and punched the elevator button again with a knuckle. I decided to make a quick getaway, to escape with what little remained of my dignity. “I've got a project running I should get back to. If you need to see me, I'm in the main lab all day.” He nodded and smiled and continued to look at the elevator which opened as I stepped away. He dissappeared inside and the metal doors closed behind him and I was left alone in a linoleum-lined hallway surrounded by the whirring of hidden air conditioning systems.
At the time that I first met Jack Faust, the program had been running for a little over two years. There were three different kinds of people on base; Air Force, NASA, and private contractors. With the end of the shuttle program came the beginning of what the failing administration had coined “The New Space Race”. Hundreds of thousands of scientists across the country were recruited by the government, lured in by the lucrative promise of contracts and access to extremely desirable private-market inputs, things like priority-orders for foreign tech, military bandwidth, and a giant pair of scissors with which to cut through the red-tape surrounding air, ground, and ocean testing. The goal was simple; put a rocket deeper into space than ever before. Of course, the competition was different. No longer were government mandates passed down the ranks, creased and pressed with the fear of Soviet aggresion affirmed in every paragraph. Instead, the competition was domestic; privatized space, the captains of the aeronautics industries were stronger than ever. In the first year of the program, the year I was recruited fresh out of UCLA, the numbers were clear; for every rocket sent up by the U.S. Government, private companies were sending up twenty or thirty. And it had only gotten worse. These companies had money, energy, efficiency, and were attracting some of the brighest minds. They were run by internet business-owners on laptops and they had slogans and fundraisers, and for the first time in a very long time, people wanted to be astronauts again.
I knew I was on the failing end of the equation: I knew this even when I signed up. Maybe it was the reason why I had signed up; I had always been attracted to lost causes.
