Science Fiction Story: The Hackbolt Fractal

Launch day had almost arrived and Professor Hackbolt was working laboriously to finish the programming of his spacecraft. He sat in his office, alternately running fractal programs for leisure while testing and debugging the rocket engine equation programs for his spaceship. His white lab coat, which he wore constantly, was pristinely pressed. His large nose with two moles and his tousled gray hair and his left eye shooting out to the side and his thick glasses provided him with an ambiance of intensity most people didn't dare disturb.

Professor Hackbolt began his own project shortly after NASA announced they were initiating a mission to put a man in orbit around Jupiter. He immediately signed up, but he was turned down with no explanation given. Only a comment that he should enjoy his retirement.

He had been retired for over seven years now, but had thought his qualifications would allow him to be a part of any space exploration mission in the world: He held numerous patents in rocket technology and aeronautics, had been on the research staff of a number of previous (although top secret and obscure) deep space explorations, and had even made major contributions to other scientific fields, the most significant of which being fractal mathematics (elegant geometrical self-similar structures). He assumed that NASA's board of directors denied him for the Jupiter mission because of his age, 67. But that wasn't the reason. They denied him because of his overwhelming obsession with fractals.