Space The Foul-Up

ce cummings says DAMN EVERYTHING BUT THE CIRCUS.

"Hey, come watch the space foul-up!"

"Well, emergencies are the name of the game."

"It's not a panic situation where they have to do a lot in a short time."

It's a long time with nothing to do. A long panic.

"Well, that's the difference between atmosphere flying and space flying."

This is the big leagues.

"Aborted."

"The astronauts are seeing a lot of particles flying by."

The shit has hit the fan.

Mrs. Lovell and Mrs. Haise went home in a very good mood after being assured by the Voice of Apollo squawkbox that their husbands were OK. Then they got a call from Mission Control.

"We've got a problem here."

The postmaster's wife rushed to get the show on their family tape recorder so they could send it to their daughters in Spain, along with the voices of all the relatives and friends.

Cool Hand Luke is shot in the mouth just as he says...

... shots are considered rather blah.

"Now they have a phantom to chase and this is not a phantom!"

The news conference. Chris Kraft and three friends sit down and meet the press, "Yes, there is enough oxygen."

"If you have to land in the Atlantic..."

"Yes, next time there will be a reassessment.... I would not hesitate to rely on any ship of opportunity...."

And as the questions become tougher...

A small voice from the television crew says: "All I hear is me!"

"I don't hear you. Mission Control."

And the four men from NASA continued explaining what went wrong, nodding to one another, restraining panic in their faces, blanching, passing on information to the hungry American public... in absolute silence.

A television picture consists of a million tiny flecks of jumping grey dots. The set squarked.

"A little problem here... here HERE HERE HEREHERE!"

The voice was caught in a nelectronic echo chamber and the overlapping, intensified HEREHERE is finally cut off by two horizontals converging on the center of the set... ZAP!

BZZZAAAAZZZ!

NASA men have't got the word.

Boston breaks in: "Obviously audio difficulties at the point of origin."

The NASA 4 mouth on.

They are talking away without voices at a camera that is feeding us the picture. BZZZZZaappp! Zap! zap!

The sound returns. "Chris, could you put this in perspective?"

An elitist walks in: "Weren't you kind of pulling for them to get knocked off the first time?"

"I hate the whole program..."

"But isn't it necessary for them to get bumped off?"

"This flight has been taken spaceshots out of the realm of a hohum affair. We are not really in control..."

"And clectrical failure in bay four of the service module has left the command module without power..."

All power to the people.

"Everyone was a-laughing and haw-hawing to beat the band but I was all a-tremble..."

"And now to the voices of Lovell and Haise in the LM..."

There are many calm overlapping bleeps of voices and one small voice comes out of the sound: a little hollow...

"Hello. Earth?"