Cochrane was not overwhelmed by the
achievement itself, though less than eighteen hours since the ship and
all its company had been aground on Luna, and now they were landed on a
new world twice as far from Earth as the Pole Star.
It is probable that Cochrane was not awed because he had a
television-producer's point of view. He regarded this entire affair as a
production. He was absorbed in the details of putting it across. He
looked at it from his own, quite narrow, professional viewpoint. It did
not disturb him that he was surrounded by a wilderness. He considered
the wilderness the set on which his production belonged, though he was
as much a city man as anybody else. He went back to the control-room.
With the ship standing on its tail that was the highest point, and as
the embers burned out and the smoke lessened it was possible to look out
into the night.
He stared at the dimly-seen trees beyond the burned area, and at the
dark masses of mountains which blotted out the stars. He estimated them,
without quite realizing it, in view of what they would look like on a
television screen. When light objects in the control-room rattled
slightly, he paid no attention.
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