“Seriously, that’s an idea, Phyl,” Tom said. “I think I’ll mention them to your dad as a new product for the Swift Construction Company.”
“Good idea. And now, please explain what you were talking about just before we nearly went overboard.”
Tom said that he had decided to design a spaceship with a keel.
“With a keel?” Bud echoed. He looked puzzled. “What good would a keel be to a spaceship? There’d be nothing for it to act on.”
Sandy agreed. “That’s right, isn’t it, Tom? A sailing ship couldn’t sail into the wind unless it had a keel to keep the craft from being blown sideways off course.
The push of the keel against the water is a force that reacts with the force 150 COSMIC ASTRONAUTS
produced by the wind on the sail to enable the ship to go forward. But in outer space there’s no water, and not even air.”
Tom nodded. “Right, Sis. But the kind of sailing ship I have in mind won’t need air or water. It will use the great flow of cosmic particles in space as its operating medium. Just think,” her brother went on, his eyes flashing with enthusiasm, “such a ship will need no fuel or outside power, and will cost very little to build and nothing at all to run!”
The key to his new spaceship, Tom explained, would be a “cosmic keel.” It would work in conjunction with the cosmic reactor.
“As the ship intercepts cosmic radiation,” Tom went on, “my reactor will convert this radiation into usable force. But instead of just using this force in one way, as I did in my space kite, the new ship will use the force in two different ways.
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