I don't own Quatermass.

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Probe 1.

Bernard Quatermass sat in his wheelchair to the side of the launch control room while he followed the progress of the countdown while his general position in the room gave him the perfect vantage point. From where he was sitting in his chair, Bernard was amazed by the sheer scale of the launch building, and the control room. It was a far cry from the makeshift control rooms used by the British Rocket Group, but at the time the British government had wanted to cut as many costs as possible despite being supportive of the Rocket Group's aims before they wanted to move the Group's research over to something more aggressive and antagonistic.

But Jack Porter's space agency was a different kettle of fish. While they had the permission of the British government aimed to get Britain into space much like Richard Branston's Virgin set up, and they had the resources of a private organisation to build a renewable spacecraft in order to explore space, they didn't have to worry about the same kind of governmental meddling Quatermass had endured for a long time.

Porter was one of the latest in a growing list of businessmen who had aimed their efforts into getting humanity out into space. Quatermass considered them to be heroic; not only were they independent unlike organisations such as NASA and his own former Rocket Group, but they were willing to take risks in order to ensure a different age of space exploration was becoming reality.

Today was the launch of Probe 1, the first manned solar sail craft, and there were plans for the small ship which would head out into the rest of the solar system for a few weeks before they headed back. The idea was the ship would be tested to see how the Probe ship could cope with prolonged space flight, but to get those results they needed to send up a few prototypes which were manned solar ships to determine the best way of constructing a solar system exploration mission ship.

Who knows? Perhaps we can find a way of propelling a lightship towards Alpha Centauri; yes, we would likely have problems getting the ship out of the solar system for good, but it would be interesting to see if we reach that step.

Quatermass was snapped out of his thoughts when Jack Porter appeared by his side.

"Hello, Jack, how is it going with the launch preparations?" Quatermass asked.

"It's almost ready, Bernhard," Porter replied, and after a few moments, he went on hesitantly. "I'm glad you chose to come, Bernhard."

Bernhard smiled and shook his head kindly at the younger man. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything; ever since the Rocket Group closed down and you were inspired by my work and wanted to get out into space for yourself, I have looked to the future of space exploration with great interest. I just wish there were more people like you, Jack; Musk and Branston and the others are good, but so are you."

Jack smiled at the compliment.

"Jack, you haven't exactly told me about your plans for your space probe agency is," Bernard went on, partly asking out of a desire for conversation and the other part desperately wanting to know what the other man wanted to do.

Jack looked like he wasn't a hundred percent sure he wanted to reveal all of his secrets, but he decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to at least give out some of his ideas. "Well, at the moment Bernard, I just want to send out as many solar sail ships as I can to map out and explore as many corners of the solar system as I can. But what I want to do, is to send out a hybrid ship propelled from a combination of solar sails and rocket engines like a spaceplane to return to the moon. Maybe more than one, and explore different parts of the moon, and leave behind an automated observatory or two…"

"And collect photographs from different angles in space?" Bernard's voice was filled with reverence as he picked up what Jack was saying.

"That's the idea. I was also thinking of sending probes out into space, or an automated robot-operated ship to drop radio beacons throughout the system to allow for communication with future explorations, and probes would be sent out deeper and deeper into space from there," Porter's voice sounded full of passion, but at the same time Bernhard knew his ambitions wouldn't be easy to set up; space exploration was extremely expensive, and without a continuous flow of money then his ambitions would dry up, and it could be years before somebody else reached the same level as Porter to develop those ambitions.

Bernhard decided to voice those thoughts. "I hope you're prepared to foot the bill of those costs, Jack," he said delicately, more than aware of how touchy people became when the subject of money came up. "You know as well as I do space exploration is incredibly expensive."

"No, I haven't forgotten," Jack's voice was cool but his expression was still friendly. "But I've thought about that."

"Oh, what?"

"Space tourism and mining," Jack replied, "by opening up a space hotel in orbit or allowing tourists to walk on the moon commercially, we'd be supported by the public. It's not an uncommon model."

"Quite," Bernard replied, although deep inside he wasn't sure how he felt about the whole of the solar system being clogged by tourists and mining companies. And yet at the same time, he could see the attractiveness behind it; with so much money coming in, and a space exploration organisation would have a wider scope for its plans. And it might even pave the way for colonies in space to be developed.

Bernhard hoped so. He also hoped, in the near future, they were going to travel to other worlds in other solar systems. Science-fiction movies depicted exploration and war, but he hoped with space being so vast, resources being plentiful and found on numerous worlds, they would have a reality closer to Gene Roddenberry's vision, although he wasn't sure if that was feasible.

"LIFTOFF!" Bernard was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the shout and he turned his attention to the screen. The rocket ship was taking off in a burst of blames. Ever since the day he had seen the first rockets being used for space exploration, Bernard had found it hard to equate space travel to anything different. While the rocket was different from the ones used by NASA, in this craft was not attached to a space shuttle, the sight of the rocket was still a beautiful and thrilling sight; for Bernard, it was the symbol of the future, a key to the stars humanity had to embrace.

Or they would perish.