Tom swift and the Captive Planetoid by Victor Appleton II

Author:Victor Appleton II [Appleton, Victor II]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-03-05T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

A SHOVE IN SPACE

TOM SWIFT’S fantastic plan, already explained to his father and approved by Mr. Demburton and Neil Gerard, was set forth to his circle of close friends the next morning. The rest of the world would have to wait.

“Now, son,” piped up Chow, “jest how d’yew plan t’ push around some big space rock like that? Mean t’ say—ain’t it bigger’n Manhattan?”

Tom was weary, but grinned. “Is it really such a wild idea, Chow? The space friends moved Nestria into orbit, you know.”

“Is that the idea?” asked Bud. “Get some help from the SF’s?”

“The Skipper has something else in mind,” Hank Sterling said. “It’s big and wonderful, as usual, but I’ve told him it’ll work. Expert approval!”

Tom drew a diagram on a display board. “It’s just basic, schoolboy orbital mechanics, fellows. When we reach the Follower on our trip—we take off next week—we’ll be carrying along some mighty big luggage. We’re going to embed a bank of oversize repelatrons in the surface of the planetoid. Over the following several weeks, while we’re back home making preparations for the construction of the Gerard space habitat, the trons will be running continuously, gradually shoving the planetoid onto a new trajectory.”

“What’ll the trons be pushing against?” Bud inquired. “Earth? The sun?”

“Neither,” Tom responded. “There don’t happen to be any big celestial bodies at the right angular position to achieve the orbit parameters we want, so I’m using the repelatrons to produce thrust in an entirely new way.” Using the board, the young scientist-inventor described how the repelatrons would use the material of the planetoid itself as a thrust medium. “I’ve designed a robotic machine that will roam around inside the Follower on its own, extracting solid material and ‘pumping’ the stream of fragments up to a feeder device built into the repelatron installation. We’ll then use repelatron force to shoot the fragments spaceward with tremendous speed, producing a counterthrust in the opposite direction.”

“I get it,” Bud spoke up. “A rock-rocket!”

“That’s the plan, flyboy.” Tom noted that there would be an additional benefit. The “rock-chomper” machine would be slowly creating a large hollow space within the planetoid, which was needed to make a reality of Gerard’s overall vision, a safe habitat for longterm occupation by fragile humans.

Hank said, “The whole process will take a while, of course. Even Tom Swift can’t make a flying mountain turn on a dime!”

“Guess I kin sorta see it,” pronounced Chow uncertainly. “Sorta. Now tell me why yuh’re gonna do it in the first place.”

“Right now the orbital path of the planetoid is quite elongated, as Comet Tarski’s was,” the youth explained. “It will essentially end up leaving the solar system after passing close to the sun. So we’re going to circularize the orbit, lasso it to the sun and make it a real ‘captive planetoid.’ The new orbit will be much more closed and compact. It’ll range from somewhat within the orbit of Mercury to a little beyond Jupiter, with a period of several years—years on Earth, that is.

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