and the little rocket boat soared over the mountains, soared directly upward into the golden, glistening, spinning glare of Saturn.
He glanced for a split second behind him. The ship was already a miniature on a table-top moonscape. He fancied he saw a figure jump from the door, a tiny antlike figure, but then he turned his eyes back to the unknown rendezvous he had made with a lost father and a cosmic secret.
CHAPTER 11 Look Before You Leap!
Bruce buckled down to the job of getting to the rings. It was a thirty-one-thousand-mile leap, not at all simple even by the standards of his day. In an atmosphere the job would have been impossible in his limited time. But in the void of interplanetary space, where there was no air to slow down and to create frictional heat, the problem came down to one of speed.
The theoretical speed of the tiny space boat was without any limit. As long as its rockets blasted, just so long it would increase its speed. If it could carry as much fuel as a giant space ship, it could go as fast. Therefore, in practice the question was one of determining how much fuel could be used for how long.
The little boat carried a full load. The atomic fuel was hundreds of times more powerful than any of the chemical fuels of the dawn of rocketry back in the twentieth century. So this problem did not bother Bruce too much. He had power to spare for the work he planned to do.
If he coasted at a thousand miles an hour, he would cross the space in thirty-one hours. At two thousand, in half that time. But half that time would still be too long. At five thousand an hour, it would be roughly six hours. That also left little time for him. So he applied his jets as fast as his wide-open throttle would permit.
Bruce watched the dials before him on his small control panel. It was amazing how rapidly the speed grew. He felt the constant weight of his body as the tiny craft thrust forward at the top of a wide beam of blasting disintegrating material—a beam that left a swath of red and yellow behind him that stretched for half a mile before fading to invisibility. It took perhaps twenty minutes before the tiny rocket had reached the speed of twelve thousand miles an hour. He increased it still a bit more, then turned his engines off. The ship did not slow down, but, as happens in empty space, simply continued at that speed.
As Bruce watched, he noticed that his speed was slowly increasing, very faintly. This, he recognized, was the pull of Saturn, for he was plunging directly toward it. In the proper time, he would adjust his speed. He had about three hours to make his destination, the outer rings of Saturn.
He looked around him now, taking stock of his little boat. The rocket space boat was actually about the size of a small motorboat on Earth. The vessel was all enclosed, and the only living space was the cramped seat at the very nose, where the controls were. Just behind Bruce, underneath the leather-cushioned back of this driver’s seat, was a small space for storage, in which he had put his food. Some purification was supplied by the air system, though this would not operate with the perfection of the big ships. On those craft, the air was completely purified and reoxygenated. In this small boat, which was never intended for other than short trips, it would keep the air breathable for two or three days, although it would become quite stuffy early. After that, the air would rapidly get worse, and fill with poisonous gases and fumes.
A Geiger counter and other devices for detection and analysis of space substances was part of the built-in machinery and registered on dials on the control board. Behind the air-purification valves were the engine, the tanks, the tubes, the mixing chambers, the electric system, and so on. This machinery, in fact, took up most of the tiny crafts space.
There was no room for space suits. The driver was meant to be wearing one—and Bruce
He glanced for a split second behind him. The ship was already a miniature on a table-top moonscape. He fancied he saw a figure jump from the door, a tiny antlike figure, but then he turned his eyes back to the unknown rendezvous he had made with a lost father and a cosmic secret.
CHAPTER 11 Look Before You Leap!
Bruce buckled down to the job of getting to the rings. It was a thirty-one-thousand-mile leap, not at all simple even by the standards of his day. In an atmosphere the job would have been impossible in his limited time. But in the void of interplanetary space, where there was no air to slow down and to create frictional heat, the problem came down to one of speed.
The theoretical speed of the tiny space boat was without any limit. As long as its rockets blasted, just so long it would increase its speed. If it could carry as much fuel as a giant space ship, it could go as fast. Therefore, in practice the question was one of determining how much fuel could be used for how long.
The little boat carried a full load. The atomic fuel was hundreds of times more powerful than any of the chemical fuels of the dawn of rocketry back in the twentieth century. So this problem did not bother Bruce too much. He had power to spare for the work he planned to do.
If he coasted at a thousand miles an hour, he would cross the space in thirty-one hours. At two thousand, in half that time. But half that time would still be too long. At five thousand an hour, it would be roughly six hours. That also left little time for him. So he applied his jets as fast as his wide-open throttle would permit.
Bruce watched the dials before him on his small control panel. It was amazing how rapidly the speed grew. He felt the constant weight of his body as the tiny craft thrust forward at the top of a wide beam of blasting disintegrating material—a beam that left a swath of red and yellow behind him that stretched for half a mile before fading to invisibility. It took perhaps twenty minutes before the tiny rocket had reached the speed of twelve thousand miles an hour. He increased it still a bit more, then turned his engines off. The ship did not slow down, but, as happens in empty space, simply continued at that speed.
As Bruce watched, he noticed that his speed was slowly increasing, very faintly. This, he recognized, was the pull of Saturn, for he was plunging directly toward it. In the proper time, he would adjust his speed. He had about three hours to make his destination, the outer rings of Saturn.
He looked around him now, taking stock of his little boat. The rocket space boat was actually about the size of a small motorboat on Earth. The vessel was all enclosed, and the only living space was the cramped seat at the very nose, where the controls were. Just behind Bruce, underneath the leather-cushioned back of this driver’s seat, was a small space for storage, in which he had put his food. Some purification was supplied by the air system, though this would not operate with the perfection of the big ships. On those craft, the air was completely purified and reoxygenated. In this small boat, which was never intended for other than short trips, it would keep the air breathable for two or three days, although it would become quite stuffy early. After that, the air would rapidly get worse, and fill with poisonous gases and fumes.
A Geiger counter and other devices for detection and analysis of space substances was part of the built-in machinery and registered on dials on the control board. Behind the air-purification valves were the engine, the tanks, the tubes, the mixing chambers, the electric system, and so on. This machinery, in fact, took up most of the tiny crafts space.
There was no room for space suits. The driver was meant to be wearing one—and Bruce
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