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A fine entrance for a Planeteer officer, especially one on his first orders! Around him, the spacemen were settling in their acceleration seats or snapping belts to safety hooks. From the direction of the stern came a rising roar as liquid methane dropped into the blast tubes, flaming into pure carbon and hydrogen under the terrible heat of the atomic drive.
While Koa supervised the cutting of the block, Rip and the captain chatted. The Mercurian Planeteer base was in the twilight zone, but the Planeteers did all their work on the sun side, using special alloy suits to mine the precious nuclite that only the hot planet provided.
But we're overdue for shipment to somewhere, and if you take eight weeks' leave, we'll be gone by the time you come back to the platform." "I liked serving with all of you, too," Rip replied. "I watched the way you all behaved when the space flap was getting tough, and it made me proud to be a Planeteer." Maj. Joe Barris came in. He was carrying an envelope in his hand. "Hello, Rip.
So he took his disappointment out on the nearest Planeteer, who happened to be Rip. "The gases go through tubes," O'Brine went on. "A little nuclear material also leaks into the tubes. The tubes get coated with carbon, Foster. They also get coated with nuclear fuel. We use thorium. Thorium is radioactive. I won't give you a lecture on radioactivity, Foster.
But I’m nervous just the same. Great Cosmos, Commander! This is my first assignment, and they give me a whole world to myself and tell me to bring it home. Maybe it isn’t a very big world, but that doesn’t change things much." O’Brine chuckled. "I never expected to get an admission like that from a Planeteer." "And I," Rip retorted, "never expected to make one like that to a spaceman."
The Planeteer officer knows what brennschluss is. He doesn’t look old enough to know which end his bubble goes on." Rip started to his feet, but Koa’s hand on his arm restrained him. With a violent kick the big sergeant-major shot through the air. His line of flight took him by the spaceman, and somehow their arms got linked.
Rip shook his head. "Not strong enough. They're designed to withstand the slow push of rocket fuel, not the fast rap of an explosion. When I say slow, I mean slow-burning when compared with explosive. Any more ideas?" Kemp, the expert torchman, said, "Sir, I can burn you a tube into the asteroid." Rip grabbed the Planeteer so hard they both floated upward. "Kemp, that's wonderful! That's it!"
A fine entrance for a Planeteer officer, especially one on his first orders! Around him the spacemen were settling in their acceleration seats or snapping belts to safety hooks. From the direction of the stern came a rising roar as methane, heated to a liquid, dropped into the blast tubes, flaming into pure carbon and hydrogen under the terrible heat of the atomic drive.
He also found that Koa was one of the seventeen pure-blooded Hawaiians left. During the three hours that acceleration kept them from moving around the ship, Rip got a new view of space and of service with the SOS it was the view of a Planeteer who had spent years around the Solar System. "I'm glad they assigned you to me," Rip told Koa frankly.
This ship is powered by a nuclear reactor. In other words, an atomic pile. You’ve heard of one?" Rip controlled his voice, but his red hair stood on end with anger. O’Brine was being deliberately insulting. This was stuff any new Planeteer recruit knew. "I’ve heard, sir." "Fine. It’s more than I had expected. Well, Foster, a nuclear reactor produces heat. Great heat.
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