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He hoped that Haney and the Chief and Mike weren't nervous. He also hoped that nobody had gotten at the fuel for the pushpots, and that the slide-rule crew that had calculated everything hadn't made any mistakes. He was also bothered about the steering-rocket fuel, and he was uncomfortable about the business of releasing the spaceship from the launching cage.
Donning overalls, and with ordinary rule in his hip pocket as against the slide-rule with which he had worked out his theoretical calculations during his college years he went to work at whatever was assigned him as a task by his superiors shop foremen, assistant superintendent, occasionally an engineer from the office. This young man did many things.
It seems important to fully explain the reason why, with the aid of a slide-rule, and after having studied the art of cutting metals, it was possible for the scientifically equipped man, who had never before seen these particular jobs, and who had never worked on this machine, to do work from two and one-half to nine times as fast as it had been done before by a good mechanic who had spent his whole time for some ten to twelve years in doing this very work upon this particular machine.
Barnes, and I myself, who were all three of us escorting the Napoleon on board the Pluton, used to rush on deck to watch her behaviour. M. Normand would give us a lecture on her lines and her displacement wave, or the degree of her rolling or her pitching. Mr. Barnes, a great big Englishman, said never a word, but pulled a slide-rule out of his pocket and mumbled algebraic formulae.
Four or five men at various periods gave practically their whole time to this work, and finally, while we were at the Bethlehem Steel Company, the slide-rule was developed which is illustrated on Folder No. 11 of the paper "On the Art of Cutting Metals," and is described in detail in the paper presented by Mr.
Mike scrambled back to his communication board. He began feverishly to work the computer which in turn would swing the tight-beam transmitter to the target the computer worked out, He threw a switch and said sharply, "Calling Space Platform! Pelican One calling Space Platform! Come in, Space Platform!..." He paused. "Calling Space Platform...." Joe had a slide-rule going on another problem.
"Leavin' aside what we were arguin' about," said the Chief blissfully, "Sally here mind if I call you Sally, ma'am? she says the slide-rule guys have given our job the works and they say it's a better job than they designed. Take a bow, Joe."
Cochrane said crisply: "Jones, what speed would that be?" "It'd take a slide-rule to figure it," said Jones' voice, very calmly, "but it's faster than anything ever went before." Cochrane waited for the next beep. It did not come in ten seconds. It was easily fifteen. Even he could figure out what that meant!
And all that slide-rule and comptometer business.... But Jeff four thousand dollars?" she queried. "You only got five from me, and you can't run a detective agency on old pistols." Rand grinned as he set down his empty glass. Gladys refilled it from the shaker. "My dear lady, that five thousand I unblushingly accepted from you was only part of it," he confessed.
The seats were being filled. But naturally, the least important personages were arriving first. There were women in costumes to which they had given infinite thought and nobody looked at them except other women. There was khaki. There were gray business suits slide-rule men, these, who had done the brain-work behind the Platform's design. Then black broadcloth. Politicians, past question.
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