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one giant turbofan engine on each of its four wings. Each engine was four meters in diameter and put out 650,000 newtons of thrust. Launch aircraft were pilotless, optimized to haul the suborbital shuttle and its cargo pod up to its launch altitude of twenty kilometer—usually somewhere over the Pacific. Once there the suborbital shuttle and its cargo/passenger pod separated from the launch aircraft. Its mission complete, the launch aircraft returned to base. It traveled too slowly to need thermal protection and its oxidizer came from the air.
    The job of the suborbital shuttle—also pilotless—was to lift a detachable cargo pod up to an apogee of 250 kilometer. After the shuttle and cargo pod separated from the launch aircraft, the shuttle fired a pair of nuclear thermal rockets or NTRs each rated at 250,000 newtons. They used 93 percent enriched U-235 as fuel.
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    “Now see here, young man!” then chief engineer of SpaceCorp, Irwin Musk had said back in 2041 when Mack first interviewed at SpaceCorp. In 2030 Irwin had been lead designer of the Von Braun class space station. He was the closest thing SpaceCorp had to royalty. “Anything over 90 percent is considered bomb grade. Do you mean to tell us that SpaceCorp, whom the nation has entrusted its space effort, is going to fly a fleet of nuclear bombs? Your contraptions may fly in theory, but I doubt they’ll will fly in Washington.”
    Mack, who had just turned eighteen, slouched quietly in his board room chair, elbows resting on the arms, fingers laced across his middle. His expression was flat as he stared unblinking at the chief engineer until the old gentleman had finished. Then he waited some more.
    “Well? Have you thought of that? Hmm?”
    “No, sir. It’s not my job to think of that. Washington is your problem. Laying in the required 93 percent uranium is also your problem. Providing SpaceCorp with a launch architecture that will sustain it from LEO to the Main Belt Asteroids is my problem. If you don’t do your job, I can’t do mine. And SpaceCorp’s so-called ‘Dream’ of one day becoming a spacefaring society will be bullshit.”
    Now it was the chief engineer’s turn to pause, though he did not pause long. “Young man—”
    “—Mack.”
    “Eh?”
    “My name is Mack, Doctor Logan if you prefer,” he said still slouching in his chair. “Please stop calling me ‘young man.’ I don’t like it.”
    “Hm. Very well, Doctor Logan… I’m sure the recruiters filled your head with fairy tales about the Dream, but the reality the rest of live by is that SpaceCorp is a satellite company. We host the satellites the world desperately needs, but can’t because of space debris. SpaceCorp does that—because nobody else can. That’s reality, young… Doctor !”
    “The recruiters did in fact fill my head with the Dream. They did not call it a fairy tale. But if, as you say, going to the stars really is a fairy tale , then we should stop wasting each other’s time.” With that, Mack rose from his chair and began walking to the door.
    “What’s to stop us from building your launch system anyway? Say, with chemical rockets?”
    Mack stopped and turned to face the chief engineer. “Two things: First, while America’s space infrastructure may be in tatters, I assure you her legal system is not. I’ll tie you up in patent infringement for decades. Second, since you claim to like reality, here’s some engineering reality for you. Your present rockets burn kerosene fuel and liquid oxygen giving them a specific impulse of 250 seconds at best. Switching to liquid hydrogen fuel could up that to 450 seconds. But NTRs work by allowing the nuclear core to become white hot inside a rocket motor, then spraying it with liquid hydrogen or LH 2 propellant —not fuel. The resultant heat expansion is directed out a nozzle to produce thrust. NTRs don’t need an oxidizer which gives you three benefits: a significant reduction in up-mass, a