Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Amazing Stories, February, 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
WHAT NEED of MAN?
By HAROLD CALIN
Illustrated by SUMMERS
Bannister was a rocket scientist. He started with thepremise of testing man's reaction to space probes underactual conditions; but now he was just testing spaceprobes—and man was a necessary evil to contend with.
hen you are out in a clear night in summer, the sky looks very warmand friendly. The moon is a big pleasant place where it may not be sohumid as where you are, and it is lighter than anything you've everseen. That's the way it is in summer. You never think about spacebeing "out there". It's all one big wonderful thing, and you can neverreally fall off, or have anything bad happen to you. There is justthat much more to see. You lie on the grass and look at the sky longenough and you fall into sort of a detached mood. It's suddenly as ifyou're looking down at the sky and you're lying on a ceiling by somereverse process of gravitation, and everything is absolutely pleasant.
In winter it's quite another thing, of course. That's because the skynever looks warm. In winter, if you are in a cold climate, the skydoesn't appear at all friendly. It's beautiful, mind you, but neverfriendly. That is when you see it as it really is. Summer has a way ofmaking it look friendly. The way you see it on a winter night is onlythe merest idea of what it is really like. That's why I can't feel toobad about the monkey. You see, it might have been a man, maybe me.I've been out there, too.
There are two types of classified government information. One is thetype that is really classified because it is concerned with effortsand events that are of true importance and go beyond publicevaluation. Occasional unauthorized reports on this type ofinformation, within the scope that I knew it at least, are written offas unidentified flying objects or such. The second type of classifiedinformation is the kind that somehow always gets into the newspapersall over the world ... like the X-15, and Project Dyna-Soar ... andProject Argus.
Project Argus had as its basis a theory that was proven completelyunsound six years ago. It was proven unsound by Dennis Lynds. He gotkilled doing it. It had to do with return vehicles from capsulestraveling at escape velocity, being oriented and controlled completelyby telemetering devices. It didn't work. This time, the monkey wasused for newspaper consumption. I'm sure Bannister would havepreferred it if the monkey had been killed on contact. It would havebeen simpler that way. No mass hysteria about torturing a poor,ignorant beast. A simple scientific sacrifice, already dead uponannouncement, would have been a fait accompli, so to speak, andnothing could overshadow the success of Project Argus.
But Project Argus was a failure. Maybe someday you'll understand why.
Because of the monkey? Possibly. You see, I flew the second shot afterLynds got killed. Aft