She did go there, too.
Not immediately, of course. A lot had to be done before that first-ever lunar Olympics could be held - a lot done to the Moon to make it possible, for example, and a quite large lot that had to be done to the Skyhook to at least make it possible to carry passengers with a reasonable hope that they would get there alive.
Now that the briefing texts had become more informative, Ranjit devoured them as soon as they arrived, all the spacecadet fever that Joris Vorhulst had awakened in him flashing back.
Fortunately for Ranjit's peace of mind the world seemed to have taken a turn for the better. The second dose of Silent Thunder had restrained some of the unruliest of the world's leaders. His seminars kept going well enough to keep Dr Davoodbhoy pleased, and his little family continued to be an unfailing delight.
Especially Natasha. The prospect of college looming just a few years before her was no problem, but there was also the lunar Olympics Dr Vorhulst had promised. Training for that was not easy. It made the athletes' training for every other Olympics look like ten minutes of morning jumping jacks to keep the love handles away.
Of course, Natasha was not the only one training for that unprecedented match. All over the world young athletes were wondering if they could get themselves fit enough for the flying events.
Since the task of training would have to be accomplished within the tyranny of Earth's uncompromising 1-G gravity, a good deal of ingenuity was going to be required. There were two lines of approach to the problem of muscle-powered flight.
The "balloonatics" believed in employing gas bags of various shapes, so that the athlete was supported in flight, using all his muscle power to crank a propeller without the need of expending any effort simply to stay aloft. The sky-bikers, on the other hand, preferred to do everything by their muscles alone.
For them sporting goods manufacturers had rapidly invented a whole array of propeller-driven devices. Thanks to carbon-60 nanotubes, the same molecules that made the Skyhook a working means of transportation instead of an idle dream, these devices were so light that even on Earth they could be lifted with one hand - on the Moon, with a single finger! ...
