 What is the importance of White Sands?
One thousand seventy-five miles above the wrinkled surface of Earth, a woman was in pain. Once every two hours, the artificial satellite looped completely around the planet, watching what went on below. Outside its bright steel hull was the silence of the interplanetary vacuum; inside, in the hospital ward, Lieutenant Alice Britton clutched at the sheets of her bed in pain, then relaxed as it faded away. The terrible pressure of a rocket landing would increase her effective body weight to nearly half a ton; an adult human being couldn't take that sort of punishment for long, much less the tiny life that was growing within her. And at a maximum of half of Earth gravity, you shouldn't weigh more than seventy pounds then.
 It's where the base is that can send help
 It's where the only doctors who can offer advice are stationed  It is where Lt. Britton's family lives  This is where Lt. Britton wants to start her family  It's where the base is that can send help