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Erisa was watching TV when the CNN announcer explained the discovery by American satellites of a number of Russian launches. The Russian President, who was not in Moscow when the bomb went off, explained that it was people, on a one way trip to establish colonies in space. The vehicles could combine, like cylindrical tinker toys. For every vehicle that had people, there was a vehicle with supplies, maneuvering fuel, and air. Enough plutonium went aloft on four rockets to provide the energy needs for a thousand rockets of people, but only three hundred and fifty three made it up, in this, the first wave of humanity to escape the planet.

The administration at NASA was more or less gutted by one speech by the U.S. President. It was impossible to re-launch the shuttles quickly enough, and making new shuttles would take as long. Rockets could move people up, and the shuttle could move up containers and large-sized provisions. A legitimate effort was made to provide a connection with the Russian fleet vehicles. But survival against the elements was more important. The Americans, too, lacked the means of getting the people back. And, as with the Russians, there was no lack of volunteers.

In place of NASA came the NSP, or "National Space Program." Erisa sent in her resume as a single girl, now of 25, with experience in interacting with road crews on map problems and also experience in working crews using the GE Subterranean TV. As luck would have it, a manager on the program had been a Harvard student that worked on one of Erisa's road crews. John Adamson graduated from College and left for a position in personnel administration at NASA. He was young enough not to be deemed 'old guard' in the creation, in the same facilities, of the NSP. He knew Erisa, liked her, and, recognizing that she had survived the terror in Boston, invited her down.