"I am not unreasonable myself, Dr. Gupta. I do not expect you to have a market which will make the project profitable in the next five years, not in an area filled with so much risk and speculation. Give me one real customer, one group which I can believe as needing our assistance in this specific way. Give me a name or two that specifies these 'right allies' that we will need to construct your space elevator. No more generalities." Inwardly, Gupta smiled. He had left those broad statements in to allow one of the members to bring up just these points, in just this manner. "I will answer your second point first, Madame Speaker," he said. "While we have our own space program, it is quite limited at this time. To construct the elevator, therefore, we really require two things-the materials from which it is constructed, and additional people with experience and expertise in the construction and maintenance of reasonably large space facilities who are, themselves, not already going to be devoted to their own country's spaceship projects. Now, the creation of such an immense structure can only be done through the use of carbon nanotube materials." The president's eyebrows rose. "I see." "Indeed.

The Tayler Corporation has established considerable manufacturing ties with India in the past decade, as have many other manufacturing corporations in the past several decades. Tayler is the primary-almost, in fact, the only-source of the material needed. Their work has been well-proven in theNike mission-as spectacularly shown by Ms. Fathom's exploits, among others. I have taken the liberty of approaching them confidentially on this matter, and they were very receptive. Based on that conversation, I have brought with me a sample agreement which, I believe, will suit Tayler's needs. "Manpower would seem to be a difficulty, as all the space-capable countries are already working as hard as possible to create their own-or in the case of the United States, additional-vessels. But there is one other source of such expertise-the one other organization which already is established on Mars. I was contacted earlier by Mr. A.J. Baker of Ares, who has supplied me with this letter of support and commitment."