“What cooks, skipper?” asked Arv as he walked in.
“Special job I’d like you to handle,” Tom replied. “Sit down, Arv.”
He briefed the engineer on his matter-making machine, telling of the need for a tremendous supply of energy to operate it. “For the time being, I’ll carry on my experiments at the space station,” Tom went on, “using a solar-battery setup. But for full-time operation aboard a spaceship or on the moon, I’ll need a much better method of power supply.”
“What do you have in mind?” Arv asked.
“A device which you might call a ‘power gatherer’ or ‘energy collector,’ ” Tom said. “Each collector will be a huge sheet about four acres in size. The ship will carry a dozen or more of them.”
“Four acres!” Arv gasped. “How do you expect to load them aboard the spaceship?”
“Each one will be made up of small squares, so that it can be folded into a compact bundle,” Tom explained. “The squares will be held together by a framework of foil tubing. When we’re out in space, helium gas will be pumped into the tubing. This xvill cause the whole sheet to open up to its full size outside the ship, just like one of those paper snakes you blow into at kids’ parties.”
62 SPACE SOLARTRON
“I get it.” Arv nodded. “And there’s no air drag in space, so it’ll be no problem to keep the sheets flattened out.”
“Right,” said Tom. “Now, each of the small squares in the sheet will be made up of twin leaves of Tomasite plastic-one with luxium metal, and the other with conductate metal.”
The two amazing metal alloys had been developed by Tom for his spaceship’s energy-conversion units on his first trip to the moon. When placed in contact with each other and exposed to sunlight, the two metals formed a cell which generated an electric current.
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