"Appleton, Victor - Tom Swift Jr 21 - And the Asteroid Pirates" - читать интересную книгу автора (Appleton Victor)

cut blond youth at the controls. "Tom, does this mean our Venus probe will be
scrubbed?"
The two eighteen-year-olds, both veteran astronauts, had been looking
forward eagerly to piloting the first interplanetary space flight.
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2 THE ASTEROID PIRATES
"Could be." As he spoke, Tom's blue eyes ranged over the bank of special
recording instruments in the cabin of the giant research plane. "If Dad's
predictions are correct, the radiation may be too intense for us to risk it just now.
Never mind. I have another trip in mind, pal."
Husky, dark-haired Bud flashed a hopeful look at his friend. "A space
cruise?"
"No-and yes," Tom said. "I'm planning to set up a solar observatory on
Nestria to try unraveling the mysteries of the sun's radiation and its effects on
other bodies in the solar system."
The phantom satellite Nestria, sometimes called Little Luna, was a small
asteroid which had been moved into orbit around the earth at an altitude of about
fifty thousand miles. Tom had led a space expedition to claim the asteroid for the
United States, and the Swifts had established a permanent base there with
personnel to staff it.
Bud, excited over the new project, began peppering Tom with questions. But
suddenly the copilot stiffened in his seat and pointed off to starboard.
"Jumpin' jets! What's that over there? A rainbow at night?"
A weird, filmy band of red, yellow, and green light was sweeping across the
jet-black sky.
Tom's eyes, too, widened at the amazing spectacle. Then suddenly he
chuckled. "Relax, pal. It's a natural phenomenon called airglow, caused
EXPLOSION IN SPACE 3
by the reactions of oxygen and sodium in the upper atmosphere. This is the
first time we've had a grandstand seat to the show."
"Whew!" Bud settled back in relief. "For a minute I thought I was going loopy
from break-off!"
Though neither Tom nor Bud had ever succumbed to "break-off," both boys
knew about the giddy feeling of detachment from the earth sometimes
experienced by jet pilots when flying at high altitudes.
"Fat chance of that ever happening to an old space-hopper like you," Tom
reassured his friend.
"Boy, I hope not! But getting back to business," Bud went on, "what's causing
all this fuss on Venus?"
"A flare-up on the sun," Tom replied. "As you probably know, there's a
regular solar wind of charged particles blowing outward from the sun at all times."
"I didn't, but go on."
Tom grinned. "Well, every so often the sun shoots out an especially hot gust
of those particles •-or plasma, as the stuff is called. Dad's been making a
spectroscopic study of Venus's atmosphere. He probably figured that conditions
in the cloud cap were so unstable that the next gust of plasma might trigger a
violent chemical reaction."
"And he called the shot just right, eh? Tough luck for us."
4 THE ASTEROID PIRATES
Tom nodded. "It's beginning to look that way."