It was to be re-run with a popularization
of the technical details by West, and a lurid extrapolation of things to
come by Jamison. The sponsors who got hold of commercial time with that
expanded and souped-up version would expect, and get, an audience-rating
unparalleled in history. Dabney was to take a bow on the rebroadcast,
too--very much the dignified and aloof scientist. There were other
interviews. Dabney again, from a script written by Bell. And Jones.
Jones hated the idea of being interviewed, but he had faced a
beam-camera and answered idiotic questions, and gone angrily back to his
work.
Spaceways, Inc., had a bank-account already amounting to more than
twenty years of Cochrane's best earning-power. He was selling publicity
for sponsors to hang their commercials on, in a strict parallel to
Christopher Columbus' selling of spices to come. But Cochrane was
delivering for cash. Freight-rockets were on the way moonward now, whose
cargoes of supplies for a space-journey Cochrane was accepting only when
a bonus in money was paid for the right to brag about it. So-and-so's
oxygen paid for the privilege of supplying air-reserves.
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