Chapter 11

The next day Martin Oberg and his band of renown started working on the Venusian BioAtmospherics project as they called it. In typical NASA fashion they tried to consider every aspect, of every issue, of every component, of the problem. They ran computer simulations of every possible thing from the rate of consumption of the atmosphere by the blue green algae to the concentration of thermophilic sulfur dioxide consuming bacteria needed. They found optimal heights for the ultralight drone aircraft, they considered which side of the planet to work on first given the extremes of temperature gradient. Even the MBA wonks got in on the project. They simulated the response of Congress to the budget. Finally, they ran the most important computer program of all: Pork. It had been written a few years ago to cross reference the congressman and senators on each committee with the suppliers for all equipment. It printed a list of pay backs, graft, and possible benefits to each legislator's specific district. They never even considered the reaction of the general public. You know, John Q. Public, the guy who always gets his VISA card on television. The guy who ultimately pays the bill. Harold never understood the public so he was no help to them.

George knew better. He kept trying to convince the NASA people that public relations was the key to it all. If the general public loved the idea, then every senator and congressman in the country would jump on it. If it looked like it was going to take money away from social security then only the technically inclined would vote for it. Things that filled the welfare sewer were passé, those that spawned corporate growth were in. He also urged them to get an environmentalist to work on the idea. Sooner or later the environmentalists were going to get wind of the idea and if it didn't get their blessing they would all spend the next few decades in court.

Well, it happened sooner rather than later. The phones at the press relations desk at NASA started ringing. Every morning talk show wanted someone to comment on the project. Martin Oberg kept trying to fend them off but George, George knew what needed to be done. He volunteered to go into the shark pit of grease paint and over the counter medicine commercials. The first was Good Morning America.

George graciously volunteered and was shuttled off to New York. He was picked up at his hotel at 5:00 in the morning and fed a light breakfast of coffee and toast. All the while the makeup and hair styling went on. George was not hideous in appearance so it was unclear to him why it took two hours of constant work to make him presentable for three minutes of conversation, but he didn't object. When it was his turn he was whisked onto that stage that looked like a living room to everyone in America except the people who were there who knew it was a fake.

Debra Nonwhile opened with an introduction. "We are with George Stone this morning, one of the originators of the new NASA initiative on BioAtmospherics. What is BioAtmospheric's Mr. Stone?"

George suddenly realized that not only was he in front of one of the more beautiful television personalities, but that 50 million people, many of them only partially awake and incompletely clothed, were watching his every move. "Well Debra, first it is not solely my idea. Dr. Harold MacAnish and I have been working on the development of this project for several months. The project is really quite simple. We realized that the planet Venus, while closely resembling the planet Earth, is completely uninhabitable in its present form as a result of the surface temperature. We then realized that this temperature problem is the result not, as many people believe, of its proximity to the sun, but rather because of its atmosphere. Its atmosphere is 99% carbon dioxide. Our concept is to use algae and bacteria to metabolize the atmosphere into hydrocarbons and oxygen, making the atmosphere give off heat and therefore allow the planet to cool down and thereby become inhabitable. The planet Venus has the ultimate greenhouse effect and we were planning to use life to convert the greenhouse into an inhabitable one."

Her first question was the obvious one. "Do you think it will work?"

George was ready. "We have been working on the feasibility studies for some time and NASA is now doing large scale simulations both with computer models and with large tanks of simulated Venusian atmosphere. We have collected the proper microorganisms and are actually cloning several to make them more tolerant of the conditions."

"Why do you need to clone the organisms?" She turned her head to feign interest.

"The Venusian atmosphere at present is at 700oK on the surface. At the 55 kilometer altitude we are starting with, the temperature is a more balmy 30oC but the availability of water is low. We plan to clone a bacteria and a blue green algae together, much like the common lichen which grows on rocks, so as to allow the two organisms to coexist. We also need organisms that can fix sulfur to remove the elemental sulfur and sulfur dioxide. Each of these organisms will be optimized for the temperatures and pressures present at the altitude where we will release them."

"You plan to release them into the atmosphere? Sort of like a cloud of germ warfare agents?" Ms. Nonwhile in her choice of a single expression may have just killed the entire project. When George looked across at her she didn't look the least bit vicious or even like she had intended to offend. She was just making a comparison, but at that moment George realized that the jig was up. He had better either put this lady away or run for the hills.

"This is a natural organic solution to an environmental problem, Ms. Nonwhile. We are in essence planting trees in the atmosphere to reduce the carbon dioxide content. We would only be committing warfare if there were an indigenous population on the planet Venus. None of our present research has demonstrated such a population, so the use of the term germ warfare is inappropriate to say the least."

But Ms. Nonwhile smelled blood in the water and turned for a second attack. "Why, Mr. Stone do you think we should change the entire planet of Venus for our use? Would it not be more reasonable to leave the planet in its natural state for the study of future generations? Are you not defacing an entire world?"

"Ms. Nonwhile, the planet Venus in its present form is completely uninhabitable. We are not ruining the planet we are simply cooling it down so that it can become inhabitable. This is a barren rock floating in the depths of space that could become a new world. Do you want to just leave it as a desolate, uninhabitable, but pure souvenir of planetary evolution?"

Debra stepped down, her time was up. "Thank you Mr. Stone and now a word from our sponsor." As soon as the camera was off George took a long look at this lady and was about to verbally rip her head off. He restrained himself and let himself off the stage.

In his dressing room the production manager appeared. He was a thin, well dressed, fortyish man with a few gray hairs interspersed with blond. "George, you did great."

"I wasn't expecting that germ warfare question. Where did she get the right to say that?"

"George, George, George, this is TV, we need controversy, we need excitement, you did great. You stuck her in her place. Besides, people are going to ask those questions. You've got to be ready to answer them. I am surprised the Sierra Club isn't picketing your house or putting you in the environmental violators poster club. You guys have come up with a pretty new idea. It's going to take the general public a bit of time to get used to it. They aren't even ready for people to dredge up pieces of the Titanic and you guys want to create a new world out of a floating piece of rock. They're Americans, they're conservative, and they do everything slowly."

"OK, I just didn't like the way she was so pleasant before the show and then ripped into me when she had the camera turned on."

"Part of the job, George, part of the job. Besides you looked great. Just imagine how the people Mike Wallace chases around must feel."

"I am reminded of a Gary Larson cartoon of two lions relaxing in front of an empty school bus. One says to the other. I love those things - no horns, no hair, just soft and chewy."

George felt a bit better. He was off to the other two networks for two more rounds of morning talk show patter. It went remarkably well considering his total lack of training and preparation. By lunch time his beeper had gone off about twenty times. All the pages were from California area codes. There was a three hour delay in the broadcast, so this must be the morning reaction to his work. He couldn't even get through to the office. The phone was too busy to get through. So he called Harold in SF.

Harold was busy in the lab and hadn't even seen the broadcast. The office was abuzz with discussion though. Was it this Harold MacAnish that had come up with the idea? Were they really going to do this? It was like the reaction of the general public to the assassination of a great leader. The general hubbub, the rumor, the confusion until everyone had heard the story and had begun to understand it. Harold ignored it and was no help at all to George.

Chapter 12

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