Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 12 – In the Race to the Moon

polished mirrors to focus sunlight on the solar-battery assembly line.

“Steering check!” Ken called out. Two crewmen guided him by signals as he nosed the rocket into mooring position. Then his hand closed a switch, locking the ship to the space wheel by magnetic grapples.

One by one, the rocket voyagers disembarked through the air lock. Happy shouts greeted Tom and Bud as they entered the space station.

“Hi, skipper! You fellows sure had us worried!”

“What happened? Lose your bearings?”

“More than our bearings.” Bud grinned. “Some joker blasted our rocket into Stardust. We had to thumb a ride with Ken.”

The space station crew seethed with anger as the boys told about the mystery raider’s attack.

“Brungarians, I’ll bet!” said Bob Jeffers, a young crewman.

“Could be,” Tom agreed, “but we can’t make charges without proof.”

Tom and Bud made their way around to inspect the various sections. Each spoke of the wheel served a different purpose. Some were used for communications, tracking, and TV relay, others for battery production. There were also botanical, zoological, and other laboratories as well as crew’s quarters.

After a hearty meal, Tom went into the space platform’s observatory with Bud. The observatory, being the first one to be established outside the earth’s atmosphere-the factor that limits the

72 THE RACE TO THE MOON

magnifying power of telescopes-had been swamped with requests from other astronomers for data from interplanetary observations.

Tom, knowing the great importance of these requests, had given no priority to his own observations of the moon. Therefore many of the questions he would have liked answered had had to wait. Now, finally, he could learn some of these answers.