“Why bother with a space suit!” Bud needled him. “We’ve been expecting you to take off in that shirt you’re wearing!”
Chow preened himself proudly as the others stifled their amusement. His latest cowboy shirt was patterned with a wild galaxy of stars and planets. “I designed this here number myself, buckaroo. You couldn’t buy another one like it fer love or money!”
“That I can believe,” Bud muttered.
As they cruised silently upward beyond the earth’s atmosphere, Tom checked out Sandy and Ted on the Challenger’s controls.
“What’s this on your left?” asked Ted, pointing to a large fluorescent screen.
“Our space position finder,” Tom explained. He flicked a switch. As the screen lighted up, a large curved reddish area appeared with a small white dot close by. “The red area represents the earth, and the white dot is the space station. Farther out in space, the scope would pick up other objects in the solar system.”
Tom also showed them a large control board which projected out on the right-hand side of the flight compartment. Its various dials were labeled for earth, moon, sun, Mars, Venus, and other heavenly bodies.
70 SPACE SOLARTRON
“The dials are fed by tapes from our electronic computers,” Tom explained.
“They tell us the distance and angle of each body from our spaceship, and how much force we need to repel them for any desired acceleration.”
“Skipper, if I needed anything to prove you’re a young genius, this is it,” Ted said, wide-eyed with amazement.
“Take a bow, pal!” Bud grinned at Tom.