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Oort training didn't cover everything. Before a candidate could even take the entrance test for Oort training, he—or, approximately 47 percent of the time, she—had to have completed the prerequisites. These included three years of college-level courses in mathematics; two of gas chemistry and chromatography; three years of physics, at least one of which was nuclear physics with particular emphasis on antimatter reaction processes and products; and whatever other courses were necessary to secure a bachelor of science degree or equivalent. And that was not the end of it. It was also necessary to have a pilot's license of some sort, preferably, though not necessarily, for spacecraft.
The course itself ran twenty-four weeks, divided into six four-week segments: Phase One, Orientation and Review; Phase Two, Antimatter Propulsion and Instrumentation; Phase Three, Comet Capture and Preparation; Phase Four, Orbit Planning; Phase Five, Orbit Control; and Phase Six, Review and Specialization—including, for those destined for the Mars orbiters, Demolition and Impact Control.
But that was not the end of the training. That was just as far as anyone could go in the school, and the course got harder as it went along.
Phase Two was where the hard part started. Oort workers didn't usually have to be Augenstein mechanics. It was just that when they did have to—when something went wrong and there was nobody else around to fix it—they had to be very good ones indeed.