But the trouble is I would have to get the equipment up and running quickly (meaning well out into space) so that American and German air defense coverage doesn't get tripped up and they send jets or something to investigate. Not like it wouldn't be hard for their senior staffers to quickly hush things up, telling their subordinates just to ignore what they are seeing, but those characters aren't always out there on the consoles. Some giddy sergeant gets a look at something very unusual then whips out his smart phone and takes a picture of what he sees on the screen. Next thing you know Reuters is pasting it all over the world.
I am pretty much indifferent, but it does strain the 'arrangement' I have with those powers who run the world outside of our valley. Like the time the interns turned an old MRI machine into a rail gun and nearly took out the international space station when they started feeding the 'launcher' some old metallic bone prostheses. I never would have guessed that just goofing around with the thing could result in exit velocities of that magnitude. It's funny now, but the space agencies involved didn't waste any time sending me a huge bill. It's not so much knowing it's my unspoken responsibility to have to pay to replace wrecked pieces of a manned orbital laboratory, but more a reminder of knowing that when this sort of thing happens, who do they think of first?
