Aboard the Moon Palace spacecraft.
In the laboratory module.
Sitting in a chair beside the viewport and gazing at the silvery-white world outside, Ian Crawford, professor of astrobiology and planetary science at Birkbeck, University of London, suddenly smiled and spoke.
"About six years ago, I wrote an assessment detailing the economic feasibility of lunar mining."
Sitting opposite him, Steven Paruby, whose full beard stretched from his chin to his sideburns, snorted.
"And then?"
"Then I published the paper in Progress in Physical Geography and sent a copy to the UK Space Agency," Ian Crawford said with a shrug. "Though the bureaucrats there probably treated it as scrap paper."
"Wasn't it?" Professor Stephen asked.
"Of course not." Professor Ian smiled and tipped his chin toward the viewport. "Aren't the people of Hua Nation turning it into reality right now?"
"And sooner or later, they'll discover that it's better to build things on Earth and send them into space than to send production lines and workers to the Moon," Professor Stephen muttered. "Besides, it's nothing extraordinary. We have similar plans ourselves."
Although Stanford University, where he worked, was not an institution hostile to outsiders, as an American, he did not particularly like hearing any news favorable to Hua Nation in this space race, especially now that the Ares Program had become such a mess.
In a foul mood, he instinctively reached toward his chest, only then remembering that he was wearing an intravehicular spacesuit rather than the jacket whose inner pocket always held his cigarettes.
"Damn it, isn't there anywhere to smoke around here?"
Swearing under his breath, he withdrew his hand. Just as Professor Stephen was about to rise from his chair, a voice came from beside him.
"Allowing smoking aboard a space station would add at least two million to