piloted to Fearing Island. From here, he and Bud blasted off in the Challenger for the return trip to the space station. They reached it on schedule.
After a few hours’ rest, Tom plunged into work on the second model of his space solartron. In three hours it was assembled and ready for testing. The huge machine took up most of the available room in Tom’s space laboratory, and the dial-studded control panel stood head-high to the two boys.
“Wow! What a monster!” Bud gasped. “You figure this will make other elements besides oxygen?”
“It should if I’ve designed it properly,” said Tom. “See those push buttons marked Element Control and Isotope Control?”
Bud nodded. “What are they for?”
“By altering the velocity of the speeded-up particles, these control buttons will enable us to select any element-or any isotope of an element -that we want to produce,” Tom explained. “Solid matter will be condensed in this receiving tank, after passing through the heat exchanger. And gases or liquids can be drawn off through this valve.”
Bud scratched his head. “Looks as though it’ll take enough power to drive a spaceship! Have you rigged up that temporary power source you were talking about?”
“That’s our next job.” Tom pointed to a bale of metal foil which he had brought along with the machine parts. “We’ll go outside the station 88 SPACE SOLARTRON
and erect this foil in the shape of a huge parabolic reflector. I’ll use it to concentrate the sun’s rays into a bank of energy-conversion cells just like the ones on the Challenger.”