Rocket Ship Galileo (4 page)

“Why, I think so.”

“Tell me.”

Morrie took a deep breath. “No mathematics has any reality of its own, not even common arithmetic. All mathematics is purely an invention of the mind, with no connection with the world around us, except that we find some mathematics convenient in describing things.”

“Go on. You’re doing fine!”

“Even then it isn’t real—or isn’t ‘true’—the way the ancients thought of it. Any system of mathematics is derived from purely arbitrary assumptions, called ‘postulates’, the sort of thing the ancients called ‘axioms.’”

“Your jets are driving, kid! How about the operational notion in scientific theory? No… Art—you tell me.”

Art looked embarrassed; Morrie looked pleased but relieved. “Well, uh…the operational idea is, uh, it’s building up your theory in terms of the operations you perform, like measuring, or timing, so that you don’t go reading into the experiments things that aren’t there.”

Cargraves nodded. “That’s good enough—it shows you know what you’re talking about.” He kept quiet for a long time, then he added, “You fellows really interested in rockets?”

Ross answered this time, “Why, er, yes, we are. Rockets among other things. We would certainly like to have a go at those junior prizes.”

“That’s all?”

“Well, no, not exactly. I guess we all think, well, maybe some day…” His voice trailed off.

“I think I see.” Cargraves sat up. “But why bother with the competition? After all, as you pointed out, model rockets can’t touch the full-sized commercial jobs. The prizes are offered just to keep up interest in rocketry—it’s like the model airplane meets they used to have when I was a kid. But you guys can do better than that—why don’t you go in for the
senior prizes?
”

Three sets of eyes were fixed on him. “What do you mean?”

Cargraves shrugged. “Why don’t you go to the moon—with me?”

CUT-RATE COLUMBUS

• 3 •

THE SILENCE THAT FILLED THE
clubhouse had a solid quality, as if one could slice it and make sandwiches. Ross recovered his voice first. “You don’t mean it,” he said in a hushed tone.

“But I do,” Doctor Cargraves answered evenly. “I mean it quite seriously. I propose to try to make a trip to the moon. I’d like to have you fellows with me. Art,” he added, “close your mouth. You’ll make a draft.”

Art gulped, did as he was told, then promptly opened it again. “But look,” he said, his words racing, “Uncle Don…if you take us—I mean, how could we—or if we did, what would we use for—how do you propose—”

“Easy, easy!” Cargraves protested. “All of you keep quiet and I’ll tell you what I have in mind. Then you can think it over and tell me whether or not you want to go for it.”

Morrie slapped the bench beside him. “I don’t care,” he said, “I don’t care if you’re going to try to fly there on your own broom—I’m in. I’m going along.”

“So am I,” Ross added quickly, moistening his lips.

Art looked wildly at the other two. “But I didn’t mean that I wasn’t—I was just asking—Oh, shucks! Me, too! You know that.”

The young scientist gave the impression of bowing without getting up. “Gentlemen, I appreciate the confidence you place in me. But you are not committed to anything just yet.”

“But—”

“So kindly pipe down,” he went on, “and I’ll lay out my cards, face up. Then we’ll talk. Have you guys ever taken an oath?”

“Oh, sure—Scout Oath, anyhow.”

“I was a witness in court once.”

“Fine. I want you all to promise, on your honor, not to spill anything I tell you without my specific permission, whether we do business or not. It is understood that you are not bound thereby to remain silent if you are morally obligated to speak up—you are free to tell on me if there are moral or legal reasons why you should. Otherwise, you keep mum—on your honor. How about it?”

“Yes, sir!” “Right!” “Check.”

“Okay,” agreed Cargraves, settling back on his spine. “That was mostly a matter of form, to impress you with the necessity of keeping your lips buttoned. You’ll understand why, later. Now here is the idea: All my life I’ve wanted to see the day when men would conquer space and explore the planets—and I wanted to take part in it. I don’t have to tell you how that feels.” He waved a hand at the book shelves. “Those books show me you understand it; you’ve got the madness yourselves. Besides that, what I saw out on your rocket grounds, what I see here, what I saw yesterday when I sneaked a look in Art’s lab, shows me that you aren’t satisfied just to dream about it and read about it—you want to
do
something. Right?”

“Right!” It was a chorus.

Cargraves nodded. “I felt the same way. I took my first degree in mechanical engineering with the notion that rockets were mechanical engineering and that I would need the training. I worked as an engineer after graduation until I had saved up enough to go back to school. I took my doctor’s degree in atomic physics, because I had a hunch—oh, I wasn’t the only one!—I had a hunch that atomic power was needed for practical space ships. Then came the war and the Manhattan Project.

When the Atomic Age opened up a lot of people predicted that space flight was just around the corner. But it didn’t work out that way—nobody knew how to harness the atom to a rocket. Do you know why?”

Somewhat hesitantly Ross spoke up. “Yes, I think I do.”

“Go ahead.”

“Well, for a rocket you need mass times velocity, quite a bit of mass in what the jet throws out and plenty of velocity. But in an atomic reaction there isn’t very much mass and the energy comes out in radiations in all directions instead of a nice, lined-up jet. Just the same—”

“‘Just the same’ what?”

“Well, there
ought
to be a way to harness all that power. Darn it—with so much power from so little weight, there ought to be
some
way.”

“Just what I’ve always thought,” Cargraves said with a grin. “We’ve built atomic plants that turn out more power than Boulder Dam. We’ve made atomic bombs that make the two used in the war seem like firecrackers. Power to burn, power to throw away. Yet we haven’t been able to hook it to a rocket. Of course there are other problems. An atomic power plant takes a lot of shielding to protect the operators—you know that. And that means weight. Weight is everything in a rocket. If you add another hundred pounds in dead load, you have to pay for it in fuel. Suppose your shield weighed only a ton—how much fuel would that cost you, Ross?”

Ross scratched his head. “I don’t know what kind of fuel you mean nor what kind of a rocket you are talking about—what you want it to do.”

“Fair enough,” the scientist admitted. “I asked you an impossible question. Suppose we make it a chemical fuel and a moon rocket and assume a mass-ratio of twenty to one. Then for a shield weighing a ton we have to carry twenty tons of fuel.”

Art sat up suddenly. “Wait a minute, Uncle Don.”

“Yes?”

“If you use a
chemical
fuel, like alcohol and liquid oxygen say, then you won’t need a radiation shield.”

“You got me, kid. But that was just for illustration. If you had a decent way to use atomic power, you might be able to hold your mass-ratio down to, let’s say, one-to-one. Then a one-ton shield would only require one ton of fuel to carry it. That suit you better?”

Art wriggled in excitement. “I’ll say it does. That means a
real
space ship. We could go anywhere in it!”

“But we’re still on earth,” his uncle pointed out dryly. “I said ‘
if
.’ Don’t burn out your jets before you take off. And there is still a third hurdle: atomic power plants are fussy to control—hard to turn on, hard to turn off. But we can let that one alone till we come to it. I still think we’ll get to the moon.”

He paused. They waited expectantly.

“I think I’ve got a way to apply atomic power to rockets.”

Nobody stood up. Nobody cheered. No one made a speech starting, “On this historic occasion—” Instead they held their breaths, waiting for him to go on.

“Oh, I’m not going into details now. You’ll find out all about it, if we work together.”

“We will!” “Sure thing!”

“I hope so. I tried to interest the company I was with in the scheme, but they wouldn’t hold still.”

“Gee whillickers! Why not?”

“Corporations are in business to make money; they owe that to their stockholders. Do you see any obvious way to make money out of a flight to the moon?”

“Shucks.” Art tossed it off. “They ought to be willing to risk going broke to back a thing like this.”

“Nope. You’re off the beam, kid. Remember they are handling other people’s money. Have you any idea how much it would cost to do the research and engineering development, using the ordinary commercial methods, for anything as big as a trip to the moon?”

“No,” Art admitted. “A good many thousands, I suppose.”

Morrie spoke up. “More like a hundred thousand.”

“That’s closer. The technical director of our company made up a tentative budget of a million and a quarter.”

“Whew!”

“Oh, he was just showing that it was not commercially practical. He wanted to adapt my idea to power plants for ships and trains. So I handed in my resignation.”

“Good for you!”

Morrie looked thoughtful. “I guess I see,” he said slowly, “why you swore us to secrecy. They own your idea.”

Cargraves shook his head emphatically, “No, not at all. You certainly would be entitled to squawk if I tried to get you into a scheme to jump somebody else’s patent rights—even if they held them by a yellow-dog, brain-picking contract.” Cargraves spoke with vehemence. “My contract wasn’t that sort. The company owns the idea for the purposes for which the research was carried out—power. And I own anything else I see in it. We parted on good terms. I don’t blame them. When the queen staked Columbus, nobody dreamed that he would come back with the Empire State Building in his pocket.”

“Hey,” said Ross, “these senior prizes—they aren’t big enough. That’s why nobody has made a real bid for the top ones. The prize wouldn’t pay the expenses, not for the kind of budget you mentioned. It’s a sort of a swindle, isn’t it?”

“Not a swindle, but that’s about the size of it,” Cargraves conceded. “With the top prize only $250,000 it won’t tempt General Electric, or du Pont, or North American Atomic, or any other big research corporation. They can’t afford it, unless some other profit can be seen. As a matter of fact, a lot of the prize money comes from those corporations.” He sat up again. “But we can compete for it!”

“How?”

“I don’t give a darn about the prize money. I just want to go!” “Me too!” Ross made the statement; Art chimed in.

“My sentiments exactly. As to how, that’s where you come in. I can’t spend a million dollars, but I think there is a way to tackle this on a shoestring. We need a ship. We need the fuel. We need a lot of engineering and mechanical work. We need overhead expenses and supplies for the trip. I’ve got a ship.”

“You have? Now? A
space ship?
” Art was wide-eyed.

“I’ve got an option to buy an Atlantic freighter-rocket at scrap prices. I can swing that. It’s a good rocket, but they are replacing the manned freighters with the more economical robot-controlled jobs. It’s a V-17 and it isn’t fit to convert to passenger service, so we get it as scrap. But if I buy it, it leaves me almost broke. Under the UN trusteeship for atomics, a senior member of the Global Association of Atomic Scientists—that’s me!” he stuck in, grinning, “can get fissionable material for experimental purposes, if the directors of the Association approve. I can swing that. I’ve picked thorium, rather than uranium-235, or plutonium—never mind why. But the project itself had me stumped, just too expensive. I was about ready to try to promote it by endorsements and lecture contracts and all the other clap-trap it sometimes takes to put over scientific work—when I met you fellows.”

He got up and faced them. “I don’t need much to convert that old V-17 into a space ship. But I do need skilled hands and brains and the imagination to know what is needed and why. You’d be my mechanics and junior engineers and machine-shop workers and instrument men and presently my crew. You’ll do hard, dirty work for long hours and cook your own meals in the bargain. You’ll get nothing but coffee-and-cakes and a chance to break your necks. The ship may never leave the ground. If it does, chances are you’ll never live to tell about it. It won’t be one big adventure. I’ll work you till you’re sick of me and probably nothing will come of it. But that’s the proposition. Think it over and let me know.”

There was the nerve-tingling pause which precedes an earthquake. Then the boys were on their feet, shouting all at once. It was difficult to make out words, but the motion had been passed by acclamation; the Galileo Club intended to go to the moon.

When the buzzing had died down, Cargraves noticed that Ross’s face was suddenly grave. “What’s the matter, Ross? Cold feet already?”

“No,” Ross shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s too good to be true.”

“Could be, could be. I think I know what’s worrying you. Your parents?”