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The guys who stayed, and kept their act straight, did so because they found ways of coping with Skycan. Wallace had his fantasy world, of the intrepid commander leading his men boldly forth where no man has gone before. I had my SF to read and write, a similar escape, if not quite as obnoxious. Other people came up with other ways, and I’ll get around to telling you about that. But let’s start with good ol’ Skycan.
    As the name implies, it was cramped. A new extreme in coziness, you might say. Each bunkhouse module was about twenty-four feet long by six feet wide, with eight bunks per module, four on each side. The bunks had accordion screens across the open sides; each bunk had its own locker, intercom, viewscreen, and computer terminal. And, except for the modules occupied by Doc Felapolous, Wallace, and Hank Luton, the construction foreman, that was the maximum amount of privacy one could get in the station. Not even the showers and johns were that private.
    Speaking of the showers: Because we had to be water-conservative, we often went days—and sometimes weeks—without bathing. You got used to it. After a while.
    From the outside, Skycan looked like a huge stylized top hanging in geosynchronous orbit. As one got closer, as during an approach from Earth or from one of the other stations, smaller spacecraft could be seen continuously moving around it: orbital-transfer vehicles up from low Earth orbit, ferries transporting men to and from Vulcan Station, on occasion a Big Dummy or a Jarvis bringing up supplies from the Cape.
    The station consisted of forty-two modules linked together by interlocking connectors and rail-like rims running above and below the modules. On the inside of the wheel was an inner torus, an inflated passageway which connected the modules, called the “catwalk.” At the center of the wheel was the hub, a converted external tank from a Columbia -class shuttle that had been brought into high orbit by OTV tugs and transformed into the station’s operation center. It was connected to the rim modules by two spokes, which ended at terminus modules at opposite ends of the rim.
    All the modules were the same size, and had been brought up, three at a time, by Big Dummy HLV cargo ships. The modules, built at Skycorp’s Cocoa Beach facility, each had certain specialized functions. Besides the sixteen bunkhouses, there were four modules for the wardroom, or mess decks; two for Data Processing, where the computers were maintained; two for Sickbay/Bio Research; two for the rec room; five for Hydroponics, where the algae and vegetables were grown; three for Life Support, where water and air quality and circulation was controlled; two each at opposite ends of the station for Reclamation, which purified and recycled the water and solid wastes from the bunk-houses; one for the Lunar Resources lab; one for the Astrophysics lab; and two for Skycorp’s offices, which doubled as comparatively spacious living quarters for Wallace and Luton.
    The hub was about one hundred and fifty-five feet long and twenty-eight feet wide. Through the center ran a central shaft that connected the levels; the spokes ran into it at the center of the hub. At the bottom was Meteorology; above that was Power Control, which housed the RTG nuclear cells that powered the station. Above the spoke intercepts was the Command deck, the largest compartment on Skycan except for Power Control, containing the work stations for the crewmen operating Traffic Control, Communications, and other functions. Above Command was Astronaut Prep—better known as the “whiteroom” from the old NASA days—where crewmen went to prepare for EVA or for boarding spacecraft. The last level was the Multiple Target Docking Adapter, better known as the airlock or the Docks, where up to five spacecraft could dock with Skycan.
    Olympus spun, clockwise in reference to Earth, at 2.8 rpm, which produced at the rim an artificial gravity of one-third Earth normal.