No use doing it the hard way on the asteroid, when I can do it in
a few minutes here with the ship's computer."
He turned and hurried back, hauling himself along by handholds. The ship
had stopped acceleration and was at no-weight again. As he neared the
analysis section, it went into deceleration, but the pressure was not too
bad. He made his way against it easily.
The chief analyst was waiting for him. "We have everything you need,
Lieutenant, except the orbital stuff. We'll do the best we can on that
and have an estimate in a few minutes. Meanwhile you can mark up your
figures. Incidentally, what power are you going to use to move the
asteroid?"
"Nuclear explosions," Rip said, and saw the chief's eyes pop. He added,
"With conventional chemical fuel for corrections."
He felt rising excitement. The whole ship seemed to have come to life.
There was excited tension in the computer room when he went in with the
chief. Spacemen, all mathematicians, were waiting for him. As the chief
led him to a table, they gathered around him.
Rip took command. "Here's what we're after. I need to plot an orbit that
will get us out of the asteroid belt without collisions, take us as close
to the sun as possible without having it capture us, and land us in space
about ten thousand miles from Earth.
Pages:
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75