“Wonderful!” exclaimed Phyl, looking at Tom proudly.
“Amazing!” was Mr. Swift’s verdict. “If the
78 SPACE SOLARTRON
machine works this well aboard the Challenger, you should be able to undertake any sort of space expedition.”
Sandy smiled affectionately at her brother. “I knew you could do it. Have you named the new machine yet?”
Tom shook his head. “You give it one.”
“How about space solartron?” Sandy suggested.
“Um, that sounds good,” Tom mused.
“It’s much better than matter maker,” Phyl declared. “I suppose it means ‘maker of matter through energy gathered in space from the sun.’ “
Tom laughed. “You couldn’t be more right, Phyl. And from now on it’s the space solartron.”
Bud spoke up. “Living in space seems to have improved Sandy’s brain.
Maybe you’d better not go home again.” He closed his eyes and shielded them with one arm to shut out the withering look he received from Sandy.
After Tom and several of the men had disassembled the machine again, Tom supervised the job of setting it up aboard the spaceship. “We’ll connect the output pipe directly to the ship’s air-conditioning system,” he told Bud and Ted.
This time, the electric current to operate the solartron would be drawn from the ship’s powerful energy-conversion cells. These cells produced electricity by photochemical action of the sun’s rays which were gathered and focused by dish-shaped reflectors mounted on the spaceship’s cabin.
Bud and Ted were to be Tom’s only compan—
BLACKOUT! 79
ions for this first test cruise. “Good luck!” the girls radioed from the space station, as the young inventor prepared to take off.