As the rocket rushed farther and farther from the earth, Tom reported to the field that the temperature and oxygen changes were being made perfectly.
“And the kicker in the second stage is working just as we planned,” he concluded.
“You sure picked the right name for your invention!” Bud spoke up. “With that kicker hooked in, we’ve got about a million mu/epower!”
Tom smiled and glanced out of the porthole. The world was rapidly taking on its true spherical shape. Both land and ocean had a neutral gray-brown color, and the sky was no longer blue, but black.
“We’re seventy-seven miles up,” Tom announced into the radio, “and our speed is 5200 miles per hour.”
There was no further communication from Fearing Island, and the boys wondered if the message had reached the instrument on the tracking platform.
GHOST WINDS 173
A few minutes later the buzzer and warning light for the dropping of the next section interrupted the boys’ discussion. The seconds ticked away and stage number two was successfully jettisoned. Number three cut in without a hitch.
The third stage would burn for fifty-nine seconds and cut out at an altitude of two hundred and seventy-eight miles. From this point the momentum of the Star Spear would carry them up with diminishing speed to the 1075-mile altitude stipulated by the contest.
At this altitude, in free flight, the race would begin! The rocket ship would circle the earth in exactly two hours.
The two boys looked at each other and grinned. Bud remarked, “No complaints on this trip. What say we skip the race and go right on to Mars?”