Tom Swift and His Outpost in Space Read Online Free PDF Page A

we’ll have a dozen space stations in orbit!" Tom exclaimed. Then he added: "But Dad, we’ll have to make quite a few changes in our plans. My three-spoke ‘wheel’ will have to be quite a bit bigger and more complicated—and Mr. Soberstein sounds pretty definite about wanting a geosynchronous satellite, not the sort of near-earth station we’d planned. That’s 22,300 miles straight up!"
    "Obviously," nodded the elder Swift. "But your basic design is easily adaptable, and the modules are already being constructed. The main difficulty looks to be the launching schedule. Our company doesn’t have the capacity to launch a great number of our big Workhorse-line rockets in a short period of time."
    They agreed to think the matter through further, and to try to come up with some figures to guide their deliberations.
    As the busy day wore on, Tom arranged to have a different model of his solar battery launched on a brief flight into space aboard a suborbital micro-rocket that Swift Enterprises had developed. Launched from the Enterprises airfield, the sleek single-stage projectile, only twenty feet long, climbed through the stratosphere, ionosphere, and exosphere in minutes, rising into airless space for only ninety seconds before slipping back down into the atmosphere. But even that brief span was sufficient to expose the battery to the completely unshielded rays of the sun. Tom hoped that the alternative formulation of the chargeable metal foil in the battery, which Tom had named sol-alloy, would succeed where the other formulation had fallen short. The original version of sol-alloy had been developed to tap the power of the sun for Tom’s Flying Lab. But that first formulation was too bulky and inefficient for adaptation to a small portable battery cell.
    In the Enterprises control tower Tom kept a keen eye on the instrument readouts and radar returns tracking the progress of the rocket.
    "Tom, something’s wrong!" said the flight manager, Daylene McMurdo. She gestured toward one of the instrument dials. "The main chute didn’t deploy!"
    "What about the reserve chute?" asked Tom.
    "It took over automatically. But I don’t think I can correct for the change in trajectory—not with those high-altitude winds crossing our path." She did some fast calculations. "No, it can’t be brought back to the runway. Shall I send the detonator signal?" This emergency feature would blow the rocket to tiny fragments, which would rain harmlessly over the sparsely inhabited hills to the north of Shopton.
    Tom studied the readouts with a grim expression on his face. "No, that’s not necessary."
    "But Tom, if we—"
    "I said no," interrupted the young inventor brusquely. "Switch to manual. I’m taking over the controls." Daylene moved aside and Tom sat down in her place. He reactivated the small maneuvering thrusters, which usually played no role after deployment of the parachute, and used them to gradually force the rocket onto a new heading.
    "What do you have in mind?" asked Daylene with hesitation. Tom’s mood struck her as odd.
    He took a moment to respond. "I’ll bring her down in Lake Carlopa, near Rickman Dunes. No one’s down there this time of year." Ten minutes later he stood up. "Okay, she’s down, and the signal beacon is still running, so everything should be fine."
    "Great job, boss," declared Daylene. But Tom left the tower without replying.
    Tom located Bud, and the two of them headed out to the nearby lake in one of the large Swift transport trucks. Using the triangulator equipment built into the vehicle’s dashboard they quickly zeroed in on the rocket.
    "Is she floating in the lake?" asked Bud.
    "I don’t think so," was Tom’s answer. "The location of the beacon hasn’t moved for several minutes now. I’d say the rocket has beached itself somewhere near the Dunes." They drove into the deserted Rickman Dunes recreation area, leaving the road for the sandy beach.
    "I see her tail fins!" Bud cried.
    In a moment