Chapter 37 37. Death in space orbit

According to legend, every huge project requires at least one human life.For example, on the pier of the Gibraltar Bridge, the names of the 14 people who died in the line of duty who gave their lives during the construction process are engraved.However, during the construction of the space orbital tower, due to the meticulous attention to safety, accidents are rare: often there are no fatal accidents for a whole year. In one year, however, four lives were tragically lost, and two of these fatalities were particularly horrific.There was an inspector engaged in the installation work of the universe, because he was used to working under the condition of weightlessness, he forgot that although he was in the universe, he was not on the orbit of space. buried.After flying like a stone at an altitude of 15,000 kilometers for a while, he was burnt to ashes on entering the atmosphere like a meteor.It was especially unfortunate that the radio in his cosmic suit kept working until the last few minutes...

What an unfortunate year.The second tragedy lasted much longer.On a counterweight away from the synchronous space orbit, a female engineer did not fasten the safety belt as required, so she fell into space like a stone shot from a catapult.At such a height, she can neither land on the earth nor go beyond the range of gravity; however, the most helpless thing is that the air in her cosmic sealing suit is only enough for two hours in total. .In such a short time, it was impossible to rescue her.Consequently, despite protests from all quarters, not even an attempt at rescue was made.The act of the victim was heroic.She gave her farewell words, and then broke the seal of the cosmic seal.Her body was found a few days later; by then, the unchanging laws of celestial mechanics had returned her to the perigee of her elliptical orbit.

Memories of these tragedies flashed through Morgan's mind as he rode the high-speed elevator down to command post with a scowling Kingsley and a terrified Dave.Today's accident, however, was of a completely different type: an explosion was recorded in the area of ​​the "base" station.As for the news that the transport plane crashed to the earth, that was cleared up before there were false reports of a "powerful meteor shower" somewhere in the central area of ​​Taborobani. It is useless to speculate on the subject until new facts are available; and in such cases there will probably be no facts at all, since all the evidence has presumably disappeared with the explosion. was ruined.Morgan knew that accidents in the universe were seldom caused by a single cause, but that on most occasions they were the combined effect of a chain of completely blameless circumstances.Even if engineers have taken all conceivable precautions in terms of safety technology, they still cannot guarantee absolute reliability; sometimes, the cause of accidents lies precisely in their "insurance means".Morgan made no attempt to hide his thoughts: concerns about the safety of buildings far outweighed the question of dead people right now.Can't do anything for someone who's already dead; but when the almost-complete Space Orbital Tower is threatened, that's a different story...

The elevator stopped, and when he entered the command post, it was just at the moment when people began to know the second shocking news of the evening.