Journey Into Space Read Online Free PDF

Australian accent; I found it hard to convince myself that he was the man primarily responsible for it all. His manner was a bit rough, his jokes apt to be somewhat coarse and his conversation blunt and straight to the point. He expected others to speak their minds, too.
    “As soon as we’ve had dinner,” he said, when we had about finished anyway, “we’ll hop in a truck and show you round the place.”
    “Perhaps Doc would like to go to bed,” suggested Jet. “He’s just flown halfway across the world. He must be tired.”
    “He doesn’t look tired.” Mitch looked at me with cold, unblinking eyes. “Are you tired, Doc?”
    “No--not really. I’d like to take a look at a few things before it gets dark.”
    “Good. Not that there’s all that much to see yet. Half the buildings are unfinished and outside the City there’s nothing but the Never-Never. You never saw such a Godforsaken place.”
    As the weeks went by, the building of Luna and Luna City progressed steadily. The city was finished first--by an army of builders working day and night. Control room, deep shelters, radio transmitter, radar stations, film unit, deep fuel storage tanks and a host of other buildings were erected and the technical equipment installed.
    During these early months, we paid little attention to the activity going on all around us; we were too preoccupied with our own affairs.
    Our training began with intensified lectures on astronomy and astronavigation. We spent hours in the observatory stargazing and studying lunar geography. Hundreds of photographs of Sinus Iridum, where it was intended we should land, were studied until we knew the area by heart. In addition, there was a vast relief map of the Bay for our use, showing every known crater, crevice, depression and mountain.
    Take-off and landing procedures were gone over time and again. And during the toughening up processes we spent hours in the centrifuge and the pressure chambers. We also received training in mountain climbing and laboured up and down the precipitous walls of the Horseshoes, both with and without space suits, until Lemmy remarked that anyone might think we were a mountaineering expedition.
    Every man’s individual training was, of course, primarily concerned with his own specialised work as a crew member, but he also had to learn a great deal about every other man’s job so that, in the event of one of us falling sick or being otherwise incapacitated, another would be able to step into his place.
    Jet was captain, pilot, chief navigator and second engineer. Mitch was chief engineer, second pilot and navigator. Lemmy was radio, radar and televiewer operator and chief electronic engineer. I was ship’s doctor and responsible for the efficient working of oxygen supply, air-conditioning, and food. I was also principal photographer. If the necessity arose, I could take over most of Lemmy’s duties and he mine.
    In addition to being trained to man the ship, we received instructions as to how to carry out some elementary scientific research and exploration during the fourteen days we would spend on the Earth’s satellite. Our work would consist, principally, of photographing the heavens, particularly the sun and planets, selecting small specimens of moon rock and soil to bring back to Earth, measuring the radioactivity of parts of the Moon’s surface within the landing area and studying the formation and composition of craters within easy reach.
    The building of the rocket was a slow process but, gradually, enclosed in the splints of the erection gantry, it began to climb towards the sky. The first stage, the booster, was finished within three months and by the end of six months the second stage was well on the way to completion, the atomic motor being installed and the crew’s cabin wired up.
    I watched its progress every night. The crew’s quarters were set apart from the rest and were cool, soundproof and comfortable. The four rooms, one for each crew