"Yeah, we were talking it over in the sauna this morning," Vlad said. "Your old pal Nokidze came by while you were at work this morning, and he and I had a few. So I walked down to the bathhouse to sweat it off. Turned out the Chief was in the sauna, too—he’d been up all night working. He and I did some time together, years ago. We used to look up at the stars, talk rockets together ... So anyway, he turns to me and says, ‘You know how much thrust Von Braun is getting from a single engine?’ And I said, ‘Oh, must be eighty, ninety tons, right?’ ‘Right,’ he said, ‘and we’re getting twenty-five. We’ll have to strap twenty together to launch one man. We need a miracle, Vladimir. I’m ready to try anything.’ So then I told him about this book I’ve been reading."