Things had been bittersweet for Henry Casper in the intervening nine years. After the Kassner incident, Swehteir leaped at the chance to launch a lunar landing, succeeding and pushed forwards leaps and bounds in their scientific knowledge and theory, something Casper had torn out his hair over. It had been a massive embarrassment on the UCS' part, and it was safe to say that Casper was not reelected as President of the UCS. It said much about Casper's replacement when he ran again recently was, once again, elected. President Powers wasn't a popular man after he was discovered to be using a number of illegal drugs and substances, and his policies, what extremely few he could pass anyways, were almost universally unpopular. It was a surprise that any of them had gone through in the first place, though it was possibly an effort by the states of the UCS to push support further in their favor.

When Casper had received word that Swehteir was calling for him personally, he was extremely tempted to simply put them on hold for... possibly the next few hours. When he received further word that it was Nat Thurmond himself calling him, those temptations were rather quickly dropped. While the UCS was a rather large player by itself, Mr. Thurmond was definitely up there due to his influence and position, possibly even more influential than the UCS. This was someone who was important on the world stage, to be sure, and Casper would rather not piss off someone with such power and influence, especially with the federal reputation as it was.

Casper picked up the phone, and spoke into it. "President Casper speaking. To what do I owe the honor, Mr. Administrator."