The reactions in the upper echelons of NASA were almost as bad--in their own way. No thought had ever been given to a need for complete decontamination of astronauts and equipment after exposure on the moon. The requirement, if admitted, would threaten the entire program in the minds of some of the engineers. Others admitted it was tough, but thought they could solve it in an extra year or so. Rumblings were heard echoing down from Congressional halls. Why hadn't the stupid scientists known in the beginning that this was necessary? Always bungling things-- In the end, it was Alan himself who came up with a proposal that kept the project from bogging down and still provided some measure of protection against the possible menace. He suggested a plastic outer suit to be fitted over the space-suit and discarded as the astronaut re-entered the space vehicle. With care, such a procedure could prevent direct contact with moondust. In the meantime, it was hoped that robot vehicles could bring back moon samples before the Apollo was sent out. This rather mild proposal did much to calm the furor in NASA and contractor engineering circles and soon the press had abandoned it for other, more sensational stories. But Hennesey and a number of other officials didn't forget. Some of them believed Jim Cochran was a charlatan at worse and an incompetent at best. They considered he had degraded American science with his fantastic theory. Scientific judgement was being held in abeyance until actual moon samples were available on earth. For the present, at least one of Jim's predictions had come true. The hypothesis was becoming known as Cochran's Theory. That it was also called Cochran's Idiocy by a few didn't matter. Jim continued his own sixteen-hour stints at the analyzer controls, probing in a wide pattern over the floor of the Sea of Rains, and striking deeper toward the heart of the moon with each probe. Probing to such great depths was made possible by a development that didn't even exist when the Prospector design was begun. Then, it was hoped that penetration to a foot and a half of the moon's surface might be possible. Five-hundred-foot holes were only a madman's nightmare. How could you carry such drilling equipment all the way to the moon? Then, in the last months of Prospector design, laser devices had been produced, capable of burning holes in a diamond. It was only a small step, then, to the design of a drilling head which mounted a cluster of laser beams. These would literally burn their way toward the heart of the moon. * * * * *