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+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/78281-0.txt b/78281-0.txt
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/78281-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,207 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78281 ***
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                        Four-Billion Dollar Door
+
+                           by Michael Shaara
+
+
+  _Old Sam Button devoted his life to being the first man on the
+  Moon--in one way, he was._
+
+
+
+
+I see, by the latest history books my boy brings home from school, that
+they are already beginning to rewrite the incredible tale of Sam Button
+and the door. And I can see their point. Sam Button was a great hero,
+first man to reach the Moon and all that, and it was a rare moment in
+history when he made it.
+
+But still, they haven’t got any right to hush up about the door.
+Because, even if that was one of the great moments in history, it was
+also undoubtedly one of the funniest. Anything that funny ought to be
+handed on to posterity. So, since nobody else had taken on the chore I
+guess I’ll have to take it on myself.
+
+Old Sam Button was a long lean man with blonde hair that looked like it
+had been stuck on with glue. Old Sam was a rare man, as well as a lean
+one. For as far back as I can remember, Old Sam lived with one great
+dream, to get from Earth to the Moon. There are a lot of people like
+that nowadays, but there weren’t so many then.
+
+We used to kid him about it. “Old Onward and Upward Button”, we used
+to call him, and it was a standing joke that his mother had been
+frightened by a flying saucer.
+
+Kidding never stopped Old Sam--not even when he was Young Sam. He knew
+exactly where he was going. He kept at it all through school, up to a
+Ph.D. in physics, and then went right to work on guided missiles. He
+planned it from the very beginning, so that, when the chance came, he
+would be ready. When it finally came, Old Sam was readier than any man
+in the country. Which shows you what a deeply dedicated man he was. It
+also makes it kind of peculiar that such a comedy finish should finally
+wind up his dream.
+
+Old Sam had faith every step of the way--I mean faith in science. He
+was absolutely certain men would get to the Moon, and Mars, and all the
+other places, and he was pretty sure that most of it would be within
+his lifetime. So he traveled around the country, making speeches.
+
+In his spare time, Old Sam wrote science articles, speculating on the
+amazing things we would find when we got wherever we were going. I
+guess he had more to do with the first big rocket being built than any
+man in the country. It cost four billion dollars, you see, which even
+now will go a good long way in the right hands, and Congress naturally
+had to be practically dynamited before they’d hand it over.
+
+But Old Sam never gave up. He bribed them, he warned them, he sweetened
+them, he promised them everything. He claimed that the Moon was an
+invaluable military base, that whoever got there first would rule
+the world, that the scientific information we would receive would be
+enormous. He even hinted seriously that there might be loose diamonds,
+lying around on the Moon’s surface--caused, he said, by meteors
+striking rock with great speed and pressure.
+
+He promised them, in short, the Moon--and, in the end, he got the money.
+
+I have never heard a more eloquent speaker. The only time I ever saw
+him stumped was when one Senator, an amiable, earthy man from Missouri,
+commented that, “If the good Lord had meant us to get to the Moon,
+why’d he make it so dagnab fur away?”
+
+“But science,” Old Sam declared, “science would find a way.” There were
+a lot more atoms in the world than there were people, and, as far as
+Sam was concerned, what the atoms did was more important.
+
+Now, perhaps, you begin to know a little about Old Sam. True, he was
+not exactly a likeable man. Dedicated men like that seldom are. But I
+guess Old Sam really went a mite too far. After spending a lot of his
+lifetime in a laboratory, he was certainly a one-sided man. If a thing
+wasn’t done scientifically, it wasn’t done at all, for Sam.
+
+Fortunately, he had no children. If he had had kids, he was the kind
+of man who would have spared the love and spoiled the child. All his
+emotional interest was bound up in space flight. Which, considering
+what happened, must have made subsequent events really rough on him.
+
+At any rate, he got his money and built the satellite station _and_ the
+space-ship. They were four years in the building, and then, one July,
+he took off for the Moon.
+
+I don’t suppose there was a man on Earth who didn’t know about Old
+Sam’s trip, and there were very few people who weren’t excited about
+Man’s first step into space. It was a great moment, a dramatic moment.
+There were television cameras mounted on Old Sam’s ship beaming it
+all back to Earth. At least fifty million people were following Old
+Explorer Sam and his crew on their spectacular journey.
+
+So, one morning, as Sam finally began to maneuver for the Lunar
+landing, he was already a monumental hero. Newspaper reporters all
+over the world had been busy for months, writing about the hazards of
+the trip, about the deathly cold of outer space, about collisions with
+mountainous meteors and cosmic death rays.
+
+But Old Sam had merely sniffed smugly for the cameras. “Everything
+has been considered,” he reassured the press, “we have foreseen every
+detail.”
+
+So the papers painted him as a vast man, calm, unworried, going off
+into the illimitable dark, on the greatest of all explorations. No
+doubt, Old Sam _was_ a great man--in his way.
+
+All eyes were on him, as he went in for Man’s first landing on the
+Moon. The TV cameras were focussed upon him, as he gave the orders for
+the landing, standing proud and triumphant in a spotless white cap and
+gilded uniform. There was a great bump, the picture leaped and blurred
+for a moment, while fifty million breaths were held, and then you could
+almost hear the cheers rising up from all over Earth. The Moonship was
+finally down--down and safe. What a moment!
+
+Old Sam took off his hat and made a little speech. “Men and women
+of Earth,” he said simply, “we have reached the Moon.” It was very
+impressive--it was about as impressive a moment as I have ever seen.
+Then Old Sam stepped toward the door.
+
+Naturally, the next moves had all been carefully rehearsed. He was to
+don his uniform, a thick rubberized affair with a fishbowl helmet, then
+he was to step out of the airlock of the great steel ship, bearing a
+flag in his hand.
+
+Then he was to plant the flag in the soil of the Moon, and the
+television cameras were to be brought outside the ship, and we were all
+to get our first look at the Moon, while he made the speech claiming
+it. So we all watched breathlessly, while he got into his helmet.
+
+At last, Old Sam went to the airlock, turned once to wave at the
+cameras, and pushed a button. The door didn’t open.
+
+There was a seemingly endless pause, and then, still calm, he pushed
+the button again.
+
+The door still didn’t open.
+
+He pushed several times, then motioned to one of the crew. You could
+hear people begin giggling nervously. The crewman examined the lock
+with bewilderment, then mumbled something to Sam.
+
+“What do you mean, frozen?” Old Sam cried, and the question must have
+been audible all over the world. Then he pushed feverishly at the
+button. But the great steel door wouldn’t open.
+
+It was all very embarrassing. Having reached the Moon safely, they
+couldn’t get out of the ship. The ship of course was built of solid
+steel, fully pressurized, and there was simply no exit. They had
+spanned two hundred and forty thousand miles of space, had spent four
+billion dollars and they couldn’t get out of the ship! No flag, no
+speeches, no scientific information--no diamonds! They couldn’t get out
+of the ship!
+
+The door was frozen shut. Moments later--some of the most wildly
+hysterical moments in history--Old Sam announced unbelievingly to fifty
+million people that he had discovered the reason. Some mechanic, back
+on Earth, had greased the outside of the door. In outer space, the
+grease had frozen rock-solid. There was no possible way of opening the
+door.
+
+I must say, to Old Sam’s credit, that he didn’t break down. He waited,
+at least, until the cameras were off him. Then all we saw was a
+frigidly smiling announcer, trying to point out that Man had after all
+reached the Moon. But you could feel the shock rising all over the
+world--and then the laughter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mankind guffawed from pole to pole. Practically everybody enjoyed it
+but Congress. Some hothead introduced a resolution banning spaceflight
+forever. There was nothing for Old Sam to do, but to bring the ship
+back to Earth. It would be understandable if he had committed suicide
+on the way. He came back to what must have been the worst ribbing in
+history. I guess, deep down, we were all a little embarrassed, and we
+had to take it out on somebody.
+
+Well that’s about all there is. What Old Sam did thereafter is obscure.
+When the laughter finally died down, and space travel was revived,
+he had no part in it. For he died, about that time, of a stroke of
+apoplexy, brought on one day at a picnic with his wife.
+
+It seems she had forgotten the can opener.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note:
+
+
+  This etext was produced from Satellite Science Fiction December 1956
+  (vol. 1, no. 2). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+  the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+  Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but
+  minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78281 ***
diff --git a/78281-h/78281-h.htm b/78281-h/78281-h.htm
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+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+    <meta charset="UTF-8">
+    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
+    <title>
+      Four-Billion Dollar Door | Project Gutenberg
+    </title>
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+/* Transcriber's notes */
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+    </style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78281 ***</div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe113_8125" id="cover">
+  <img class="w20" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      Satellite Science Fiction December 1956 (vol. 1, no. 2).
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe46_8750" id="103">
+  <img class="w30" src="images/103.png" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<h1>
+Four-Billion Dollar Door
+</h1>
+
+
+<p class="f15 center">by <strong>Michael Shaara</strong></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><i>Old Sam Button devoted his life to being the first man on the
+Moon—in one way, he was.</i></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+
+
+<p>I see, by the latest history books my boy brings home from school, that
+they are already beginning to rewrite the incredible tale of Sam Button
+and the door. And I can see their point. Sam Button was a great hero,
+first man to reach the Moon and all that, and it was a rare moment in
+history when he made it.</p>
+
+<p>But still, they haven’t got any right to hush
+up about the door. Because, even if that was one of the great moments
+in history, it was also undoubtedly one of the funniest. Anything that
+funny ought to be handed on to posterity. So, since nobody else had
+taken on the chore I guess I’ll have to take it on myself.</p>
+
+<p>Old Sam
+Button was a long lean man with blonde hair that looked like it had
+been stuck on with glue. Old Sam was a rare man, as well as a lean
+one. For as far back as I can remember, Old Sam lived with one great
+dream, to get from Earth to the Moon. There are a lot of people like
+that nowadays, but there weren’t so many then.</p>
+
+<p>We used to kid him about
+it. “Old Onward and Upward Button”, we used to call him, and it was a
+standing joke that his mother had been frightened by a flying saucer.</p>
+
+<p>Kidding never stopped Old Sam—not even when he was Young Sam. He knew
+exactly where he was going. He kept at it all through school, up to a
+Ph.D. in physics, and then went right to work on guided missiles. He
+planned it from the very beginning, so that, when the chance came, he
+would be ready. When it finally came, Old Sam was readier than any man
+in the country. Which shows you what a deeply dedicated man he was.
+It also makes it kind of peculiar that such a comedy finish should
+finally wind up his dream.</p>
+
+<p>Old Sam had faith every step of the way—I
+mean faith in science. He was absolutely certain men would get to the
+Moon, and Mars, and all the other places, and he was pretty sure that
+most of it would be within his lifetime. So he traveled around the
+country, making speeches.</p>
+
+<p>In his spare time, Old Sam wrote science
+articles, speculating on the amazing things we would find when we got
+wherever we were going. I guess he had more to do with the first big
+rocket being built than any man in the country. It cost four billion
+dollars, you see, which even now will go a good long way in the right
+hands, and Congress naturally had to be practically dynamited before
+they’d hand it over.</p>
+
+<p>But Old Sam never gave up. He bribed them, he
+warned them, he sweetened them, he promised them everything. He claimed
+that the Moon was an invaluable military base, that whoever got there
+first would rule the world, that the scientific information we would
+receive would be enormous. He even hinted seriously that there might be
+loose diamonds, lying around on the Moon’s surface—caused, he said, by
+meteors striking rock with great speed and pressure.</p>
+
+<p>He promised them,
+in short, the Moon—and, in the end, he got the money.</p>
+
+<p>I have never
+heard a more eloquent speaker. The only time I ever saw him stumped
+was when one Senator, an amiable, earthy man from Missouri, commented
+that, “If the good Lord had meant us to get to the Moon, why’d he make
+it so dagnab fur away?”</p>
+
+<p>“But science,” Old Sam declared, “science would
+find a way.” There were a lot more atoms in the world than there were
+people, and, as far as Sam was concerned, what the atoms did was more
+important.</p>
+
+<p>Now, perhaps, you begin to know a little about Old Sam.
+True, he was not exactly a likeable man. Dedicated men like that seldom
+are. But I guess Old Sam really went a mite too far. After spending a
+lot of his lifetime in a laboratory, he was certainly a one-sided man.
+If a thing wasn’t done scientifically, it wasn’t done at all, for Sam.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, he had no children. If he had had kids, he was the kind
+of man who would have spared the love and spoiled the child. All his
+emotional interest was bound up in space flight. Which, considering
+what happened, must have made subsequent events really rough on him.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate, he got his money and built the satellite station <i>and</i> the
+space-ship. They were four years in the building, and then, one July,
+he took off for the Moon.</p>
+
+<p>I don’t suppose there was a man on Earth
+who didn’t know about Old Sam’s trip, and there were very few people
+who weren’t excited about Man’s first step into space. It was a great
+moment, a dramatic moment. There were television cameras mounted on Old
+Sam’s ship beaming it all back to Earth. At least fifty million people
+were following Old Explorer Sam and his crew on their spectacular
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>So, one morning, as Sam finally began to maneuver for the
+Lunar landing, he was already a monumental hero. Newspaper reporters
+all over the world had been busy for months, writing about the hazards
+of the trip, about the deathly cold of outer space, about collisions
+with mountainous meteors and cosmic death rays.</p>
+
+<p>But Old Sam had merely
+sniffed smugly for the cameras. “Everything has been considered,”
+he reassured the press, “we have foreseen every detail.”</p>
+
+<p>So the
+papers painted him as a vast man, calm, unworried, going off into the
+illimitable dark, on the greatest of all explorations. No doubt, Old
+Sam <i>was</i> a great man—in his way.</p>
+
+<p>All eyes were on him, as he went in for
+Man’s first landing on the Moon. The TV cameras were focussed upon him,
+as he gave the orders for the landing, standing proud and triumphant in
+a spotless white cap and gilded uniform. There was a great bump, the
+picture leaped and blurred for a moment, while fifty million breaths
+were held, and then you could almost hear the cheers rising up from
+all over Earth. The Moonship was finally down—down and safe. What a
+moment!</p>
+
+<p>Old Sam took off his hat and made a little speech. “Men and
+women of Earth,” he said simply, “we have reached the Moon.” It was
+very impressive—it was about as impressive a moment as I have ever
+seen. Then Old Sam stepped toward the door.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally, the next moves
+had all been carefully rehearsed. He was to don his uniform, a thick
+rubberized affair with a fishbowl helmet, then he was to step out of
+the airlock of the great steel ship, bearing a flag in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Then
+he was to plant the flag in the soil of the Moon, and the television
+cameras were to be brought outside the ship, and we were all to get our
+first look at the Moon, while he made the speech claiming it. So we all
+watched breathlessly, while he got into his helmet.</p>
+
+<p>At last, Old Sam
+went to the airlock, turned once to wave at the cameras, and pushed a
+button. The door didn’t open.</p>
+
+<p>There was a seemingly endless pause, and
+then, still calm, he pushed the button again.</p>
+
+<p>The door still didn’t
+open.</p>
+
+<p>He pushed several times, then motioned to one of the crew. You
+could hear people begin giggling nervously. The crewman examined the
+lock with bewilderment, then mumbled something to Sam.</p>
+
+<p>“What do you
+mean, frozen?” Old Sam cried, and the question must have been audible
+all over the world. Then he pushed feverishly at the button. But the
+great steel door wouldn’t open.</p>
+
+<p>It was all very embarrassing. Having
+reached the Moon safely, they couldn’t get out of the ship. The ship
+of course was built of solid steel, fully pressurized, and there was
+simply no exit. They had spanned two hundred and forty thousand miles
+of space, had spent four billion dollars and they couldn’t get out of
+the ship! No flag, no speeches, no scientific information—no diamonds!
+They couldn’t get out of the ship!</p>
+
+<p>The door was frozen shut. Moments
+later—some of the most wildly hysterical moments in history—Old Sam
+announced unbelievingly to fifty million people that he had discovered
+the reason. Some mechanic, back on Earth, had greased the outside of
+the door. In outer space, the grease had frozen rock-solid. There was
+no possible way of opening the door.</p>
+
+<p>I must say, to Old Sam’s credit,
+that he didn’t break down. He waited, at least, until the cameras were
+off him. Then all we saw was a frigidly smiling announcer, trying to
+point out that Man had after all reached the Moon. But you could feel
+the shock rising all over the world—and then the laughter.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Mankind
+guffawed from pole to pole. Practically everybody enjoyed it but
+Congress. Some hothead introduced a resolution banning spaceflight
+forever. There was nothing for Old Sam to do, but to bring the ship
+back to Earth. It would be understandable if he had committed suicide
+on the way. He came back to what must have been the worst ribbing in
+history. I guess, deep down, we were all a little embarrassed, and we
+had to take it out on somebody.</p>
+
+<p>Well that’s about all there is. What
+Old Sam did thereafter is obscure. When the laughter finally died down,
+and space travel was revived, he had no part in it. For he died, about
+that time, of a stroke of apoplexy, brought on one day at a picnic with
+his wife.</p>
+
+<p class="pb2">It seems she had forgotten the can opener.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe31_2500" id="107">
+  <img class="w10" src="images/107.png" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div><div class="transnote">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Note">
+    Transcriber’s Note:
+  </h2>
+
+
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>This etext was produced from Satellite Science Fiction December 1956
+(vol. 1, no. 2). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.</p>
+
+<p>Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor
+inconsistencies have been retained as printed.</p>
+</blockquote>
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78281 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/78281-h/images/cover.jpg
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
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--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0eb8d45
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78281
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78281)