Peace had led a British technical mission to the United States, offering the Americans the new motor as a co-operative effort in space exploration. Britain made no secret of her pride in her invention, and SNAP was equally well received in the United States. Its merits were endorsed by no less a man than Marvin K. Green, the brilliant young American astronaut and scientist who had become Vice-President. MKG, as he was popularly known, had turned that rather stultifying office to splendid account as the representative of the new technocratic society which had sprung into being in the United States. He had assumed the chairmanship of Special Projects-an independent body answerable to the President only-whose function was the development of special American missiles. Special Projects was enthusiastic about SNAP, MKG and Peace formed a close friendship, and it seemed that a new bond in Anglo-American relations was about to be forged.

Then-success struck. The Americans launched two men,

Davis and Acton to the moon. Using a land-based Air Force

Sirius rocket staged from a space-station orbiting round the earth, these astronauts reached the moon but failed to return, and were cremated in a shallow orbit round the earth.

The great American success-a skyport was established on the moon itself by Davis and Acton-killed the new AngloAmerican project. Against the wishes of the President, an economy-minded Congress scrapped it. What point had it, they argued, now that there had been a successful landing on the moon?

Peace-and to a lesser extent MKG-had been publicly outspoken against the dropping of the project and Peace's forthright views had made him the storm centre of the controversy in the United States.

I had thought Peace to be in England when his cable arrived. Glad to go and 'eager to see my old friend, I had been shocked at his tenseness when he met me at Mauritius as the South Africa-Australia jet landed.