"Appleton, Victor - Tom Swift Jr 12 - In the Race to the Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Appleton Victor)

Tom shook his head. "They just soak up power from the sun's visible light
rays. But that's only a small part of the sun's total output. For this job, I'll need to
tap all the energy we can get, including the rays above ultraviolet and below
infrared."
"You mean a lot of it's going to waste?"
"Sure is, pal." Tom whipped out his slide rule. "If we could harness all the
sun's energy, down here on this earth, we'd get more than three horsepower
from every square foot of surface exposed to the sunshine."
"Then grab it, Tom." Bud grinned. "But how do you tap all this power?"
"Remember those big gadgets like searchlights on the spaceship cabin?"
Tom asked.
Bud nodded.
"Well, those are the conversion units which will collect the sun's energy and
change it into electricity by photochemical action."
"Whoa!" Bud groaned. "You're already out of my league. Just tell me one
thing. Will it work?"
Chuckling, Tom took out an electronic key and beamed open the door of a
steel wall cabinet. "Stick around, chum. We'll find out."
He took two objects from the cabinet. The first was a regular solar battery.
The other was one of his new energy-conversion cells, housed in a case made of
Tom's special catalium plastic.
"I'm going to run a test on both units," Tom
28 THE RACE TO THE MOON
explained, "and see how their electrical output compares."
"Sorry I can't stay," said Bud, glancing at a wall clock, "but I'm scheduled to
test-fly that new jet of your dad's. See you later."
Tom went up alone to the glass-domed solar laboratory on top of the
Enterprises main building. After donning a fiber-glass helmet and gaunt-

A SOLAR EXPERIMENT
29
lets, he hooked up the two units to an electrical control board. Then he
pressed a switch-button control and the whole dome swung silently around until
the sun's rays were focused precisely on the conversion cell.
"Now let's see how she reacts," Tom muttered. His eyes widened as the
wattmeter needle jumped violently across the dial. "Wow! What
j»
a-
There was a brilliant flash and explosion. Tom was jolted to the floor,
unconscious!
When he revived, someone was shaking him. Blinking his eyes, Tom saw
Hank Sterling, the rugged blond trouble shooter and chief

30 THE RACE TO THE MOON
patternmaking engineer of Enterprises, bending over him.
"Tom! Are you all right?"
The young inventor struggled to his feet. "I guess so. Whew!" He shook his
head, still dazed.
"What in the world happened?" Hank asked.
"I was checking one of my new energy-conversion units," Tom explained,