Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 03 – And His Rocket Ship

“When do the recording instruments go in?” Bud asked Tom as he returned to the launching platform.

“They’re the last thing to be installed,” Tom answered. “Members of the Rocket Commission are coming out to see them before the instruments are sealed up and put in the nose. And they’re bringing a couple of their own.”

As Tom watched in consternation, Bud exclaimed, A STARTLING ASCENT

Bud wanted to know what still had to be installed before \N the following afternoon. Tom named several items and said that the most important was his father’s dust collector.

“This invention is designed to catch specimens of mineral particles in space that are perhaps not known on earth,” Tom explained. “Dad thinks they might be very useful to us.”

“How are you going to hold onto this dust at the rate of speed we’ll be traveling?” Bud asked.

Tom smiled and said that the dust would be collected on an electrified field between special copper plates arranged just inside a small opening in Ł the rocket’s hull.

“Dad has made the plates so

117

“The rocket ship! It’s launched itself!”

118 TOM SWIFT AND HIS ROCKET SHIP

foolproof,” said Tom proudly, “that the heat from the sun can’t fuse the particles to the plates.”

Next, Tom went off to inspect the various tanks of fuel before ordering that they be stowed in the four stages of the rocket.

High on the framework, a painter was busy putting on the name. The first word Star was finished. As Tom stood gazing at it, Hanson walked up and told him that several of the men wanted to give the two space pioneers a party that evening in honor of the great event.