Where to Start?
After Steve tried out everything he thought he wouldn't break, he and Leslie went back upstairs. Steve took a quick shower and they made giant sandwiches for lunch.
"Are you ready to tell me about satellite TV yet?"
Because he looked more relaxed after his workout, Leslie decided they could take time for another lesson.
"Do you know what a satellite is?" she asked.
Steve considered how to define the word. "A subordinate companion," he decided. "Like, the moon is a satellite of the Earth and Mongolia is a satellite of the Soviet Union — or it was in my time," he added more hesitantly.
"That's good," Leslie agreed. "The moon is a natural satellite of the Earth. When we talk about satellite TV, we're talking about manmade satellites. Satellite TV delivers programs the way cable companies do, but in a different fashion. You connect your TV to a satellite dish in order to see the shows." She opened her computer so she could show Steve a photo of a satellite dish.
"The satellites are in orbit like the moon?"
"Yes, they use rockets to launch them into orbit."
"Just for television?" Steve was incredulous.
"No, they're for many things. Spying, photography, research. The maps on your phone use GPS. That stands for global positioning system. Satellites can find the precise coordinates of your location, like triangulation. Maybe it actually is triangulation, I haven't studied the details."
"How many satellites are there?" Steve asked.
Leslie blinked. "I have no idea." She looked it up. "More than 2,000," she said. "More than 1,000 of those belong to Russia. The U.S. has about 600 and other countries have a few."
"So, Russia has the most?"
"Russia was first in space," Leslie said. She turned to her computer again. "In 1957, the Soviet Union launched a satellite called Sputnik into orbit. That galvanized the U.S. space program. Couldn't let our enemy get ahead."
"Enemy?" Steve asked. "I'm not really surprised. They were our allies during the war, but never friendly allies."
"Right, let me go back to the Cold War. No, even farther. Back to the end of World War II."
Leslie explained that after defeating the Nazis, Germany and Berlin were divided by the four Allies. England, France and America worked together, but the Soviet Union kept its section separate. Eventually, the Russian sector became East Germany and the rest became West Germany. Even worse, Berlin was likewise divided into two parts, but the city as a whole was in East Germany. It was surrounded by the Soviet sector.
"At one point, the Soviets blocked ground access to West Berlin. The U.S. Air Force, the RAF and other allied western forces flew supplies to West Berlin for nearly a year until the Soviets finally lifted the blockade."
"Um, what's the U.S. Air Force?" Steve asked.
Leslie could have smacked herself. "After World War II, the Air Corps was made a separate branch of the service called the Air Force."
"So we have four branches of the service?" Steve asked. He picked up their lunch dishes, took them to the counter and began running water in the sink.
"Right, Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force," Leslie agreed. "Of course, every branch of the service has pilots, because air travel is ubiquitous now. The Army still has its own planes and jets and helicopters."
Steve raised his hand like a kid in school. "What are jets and helicopters?"
Leslie banged her forehead with the heel of her hand. "This is why I dreaded trying to explain satellite TV," she said with a groan. "One thing leads to another and I can't find a good starting point."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize. It's my fault, not yours. Do you know what a jet is?"
Steve thought for a moment, then put his fist in the soapy water and squirted a jet of liquid into the air.
Leslie chuckled. "Yes, that's a jet. I'm talking about jet aircraft. They don't use propellers. Most use turbines to force out air like your fist forced out the water. They're generally faster than propeller planes."
Steve frowned in thought. "I think I remember reports of planes that didn't have propellers, but I never saw one. What are helicopters?"
"They are aircraft that can hover and take off and land vertically, which is very handy. Very versatile, and good for tight spaces. They have rotors above them, like a horizontal propeller."
"Oh, an autogyro!"
Leslie considered. "Yes, I think that was a term for early helicopter designs." She called up movies of jets and helicopters in action. Steve grinned. Jets were just fast airplanes, but helicopters were something else entirely. He touched a gentle finger to the screen.
"That looks like fun," he said wistfully.
"I'll see what I can do," Leslie promised. "Now, where was I before we got sidetracked on modern aircraft?"
"Sputnik," offered the man with the perfect memory. "West Berlin."
"Right, the Berlin Airlift. That's an example of how the Soviets tried to spread their influence after World War II. Winston Churchill made a speech in …" Leslie looked it up. "… 1946 that included the line 'From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.' We said 'behind the Iron Curtain,' meaning the USSR and the countries it controlled either directly or indirectly, such as Hungary and Romania. It was also called the Eastern Bloc. Competition between the Eastern Bloc and the west was called the Cold War, because no one wanted to start shooting and cause World War III."
No one wanted to start a nuclear war, but, God help her, she didn't want to explain atomic bombs today.
"So, you see how the U.S. and the USSR were in competition?"
Steve nodded.
"So, in this atmosphere, the Soviets put the first satellite in space," Leslie said.
Steve whistled in understanding. "It could be a spy in the sky."
Leslie nodded. "The Soviets also put the first person in space, a man named Yuri Gagarin. The U.S. became determined to catch up. This was called the Space Race."
"Did the U.S. ever catch up?" Steve asked, hunching forward as if he was at an exciting movie.
"Well …" Leslie said casually, "… we were the first to put a man on the moon."
Steve inhaled sharply. "On the moon!" He smiled a little wistfully. "Gosh, Bucky would have loved this. He was a big fan of Amazing Stories and other scifi stories."
Steve wanted to hear more. Leslie found an encyclopedia article that summarized the space race. Fascinated, Steve heard about NASA, the early satellites, and President Kennedy's bold promise to go to the moon by the end of the decade.
Leslie read about the Mercury 7 and the Gemini space walks. When she started to grow hoarse, she let Steve read for himself about the tragedy of Apollo 1 and the triumph of Apollo 11.
"And that was only the 1960s," she pointed out. "We've had other programs since Apollo. Right now, we have astronauts in orbit in the International Space Station."
"How can I find out more?" Steve asked. "Can you teach me how to look things up the way you do — on the computer and on your phone? Can I use the internet for myself?"
Leslie hesitated.
"I wouldn't have to bother you so much," Steve wheedled.
Leslie laughed. "It's only been two days. You're no bother," she said kindly. "And I'm literally being paid to have fun while being your 21st century tour guide. I'm just … I'm not sure you're ready. The internet is a perilous place."
"Don't kids go there?"
"With adult supervision," Leslie answered. "For one thing, the internet is a huge time sink. You start with one topic, then one link leads to another and suddenly it's hours later and you wonder how it got dark so soon. It's like the way this conversation veered from satellite TV to the Cold War to helicopters."
Steve understood. "I've had that happen with the encyclopedia in the library," Steve pointed out.
"That's the other thing," Leslie said. "The internet is like a library where all the books are in plain brown wrappers. You can find a book on Captain America, but you don't know if it's a true history, a comic book, a fictional story or a book of blue postcards. You need to find a reliable source, or you may be reading rumors instead of news."
Steve was disappointed.
"I didn't say 'no,'" Leslie said. "I will show you how to do it tonight, I just wanted to warn you. You may learn things you didn't want to know, and see things you can't unsee, and they won't necessarily be true."
There were so many things she wanted to prepare him for. Atomic bombs and slash fanfiction and the death notices of the Howling Commandos. Terrible things that might traumatize a man who'd suffered enough trauma. But she couldn't protect him forever.
"Tomorrow," she promised. "Today, let's go outside."
A/N: I have written two and a half Christmas stories that I will run in my "A Very Good Team" anthology starting next Saturday. Then we'll get back to Leslie. Happy upcoming holidays.