“Oh, shucks. My stomach is strong. I’ve never been air sick.”
“Ever been seasick?”
“I’ve never been to sea.”
“Well, suit yourself,” Cargraves told him. “But one thing I insist on. Wear a sack over your face. I don’t want what you lose in the air-conditioner.” He turned away and started preparing some gelatin for himself by simply pouring the powder into water, stirring, and drinking.
Ross made a face but he did not dig out a K-ration. Instead he switched on the hot plate, preparatory to heating milk for amino-acid concentrates.
A little later Joe the Robot awoke from his nap and switched off the jet completely.
They did not bounce up to the ceiling. The rocket did not spin wildly. None of the comic-strip things happened to them. They simply gradually ceased to weigh anything as the thrust died away. Almost as much they noticed the deafening new silence. Cargraves had previously made a personal inspection of the entire ship to be sure that everything was tied, clamped, or stored firmly so that the ship would not become cluttered `up with loosely floating bric-a-brac.
Cargraves lifted himself away from his seat with one hand, turned in the air like a swimmer, and floated gently down, rather across- up and down had ceased to exist -to where Ross and Art floated, loosely attached to their hammocks by a single belt as an added precaution. Cargraves checked his progress with one hand and steadied himself by grasping Art’s hammock. “How’s everybody?”
“All right, I guess,” Art answered, gulping. “It feels like a falling elevator.” He was slightly green.
“You, Ross?”
“I’ll get by,” Ross declared, and suddenly gagged. His color was gray rather than green.
Space sickness is not a joke, as every cadet rocket pilot knows. It is something like seasickness, like the terrible, wild retching that results from heavy pitching of a ship at sea — except that the sensation of everything dropping out from under one does not stop!
But the longest free-flight portions of a commercial rocket flight from point to point on earth last only a few minutes, with the balance of the trip on thrust or in glide, whereas the course Cargraves had decided on called for many hours of free fall. He could have chosen, with the power at his disposal, to make the whole trip on the jet, but that would have prevented them from turning ship, which he proposed to do now, until the time came to invert and drive the jet toward the moon to break their fall.
Only by turning the ship would they be able to see the earth from space; Cargraves wanted to do so before the earth was too far away.
“Just stay where you are for a while,” he cautioned them.. “I’m about to turn ship.”
“I want to see it,” Ross said stoutly. “I’ve been looking forward to it.” He unbuckled his safety belt, then suddenly he was retching again. Saliva overflowed and drooled out curiously, not down his chin but in large droplets that seemed undecided where to go.
“Use your handkerchief,” Cargraves advised him, feeling none too well himself. “Then come along if you feel like it.” He turned to Art.
Art was already using his handkerchief.
Cargraves turned away and floated back to the pilot’s chair. He was aware that there was nothing that he could do for them, and his own stomach was doing flip-flops and slow, banked turns. He wanted to strap his safety belt across it. Back in his seat, he noticed that Morrie was doubled up and holding his stomach, but he said nothing and gave his attention to turning the ship. Morrie would be all right.
Swinging the ship around was a very simple matter. Located at the center of gravity of the ship was a small, heavy, metal wheel. He had controls on the panel in front of him whereby he could turn this wheel to any axis, as it was mounted freely on gymbals, and then lock the gymbals. An electric motor enabled him to spin it rapidly in either direction and to stop it afterwards.
This wheel by itself could turn the ship when it was in free fall and then hold it in the new position. (It must be clearly understood that this turning had no effect at all on the course or speed of the Galileo, but simply on its attitude, the direction it faced, just as a fancy diver may turn and twist in falling from a great height, without thereby disturbing his fall.)