Free The Red Journey Back by John Keir Cross Page A

end on a kind of gigantic
tripod.
    That
was the other thing, you see: the old Albatross had rested at an angle on a huge launching ramp, but the Comet stood right up on its tail, as it
were—straight up into the air. On Earth, when we first saw it, it was held in a
kind of framework of steel girders—a kind of scaffolding. But Dr. K. explained
that that was only for additional strength—it was quite possible, because of
the smaller gravity pull on Mars, for the Comet to take off from its own resting
position on the tripod for the return journey. You see, the beauty of it all
was that as you were approaching Mars (or anywhere else for that matter—the
Moon or Venus or what have you), you could turn the whole rocket around in
space and land on the surface very gently (braking like mad, of course, with
the jets) tail first.
    One
other thing I ought to say (without being technical, for I don’t know enough—it’s
only that I couldn’t help being kind of interested), and that is that the Comet used the idea, same as Doctor Mac
had, of two separate fuels, but in a rather different way. In the Albatross , the two fuels were fired off through
the same sets of tuyères ,
with one auxiliary set of tuyères to start
off the second fuel, of course, once you were out a bit in space, but then
everything going through the main set once the first fuel had cut off. In the Comet there were really two distinct rockets altogether. Fixed to the tail, on top of
the Comet’s own
jets, and underneath the tripod, was a huge “booster” rocket, as Dr. K. called
it. This could be fired off by remote control from the spaceship’s cabin—and it
was this that whipped up the colossal power to make the Comet rise from the ground—and even quite slowly, at first, again unlike the Albatross ,
which whizzed off zoom from the word go. Then, when you were well away from
Earth’s surface, and the booster fuel had burned itself out, in one operation
the whole contrivance fell away from the Comet’s tail
and back down to Earth, and the Comet’s own
jets came into action and there you were—on your way.
    I
should maybe add, lest you’re worrying about a great chunk of spent booster
rocket coming wham out of the sky one day and biffing you on the head (R.I.P.),
that as the spent booster fell away a special mechanism released a fairly
sizable parachute, so that the whole thing floated down and there were no
chances of serious accidents—at least you had time to see it, I mean, and could
jolly well get out of the way pronto!
    And
the other thing was—just to complete the whole picture—that the Comet carried inside her all the component
parts of a second booster, so that when you landed on Mars and were happily
perched up on the tripod, the very first thing you did was fix this whole
prefabricated contrivance onto the tail again, and there you were—all set for a
take-off the moment you wanted to. And since it was Mars we were going to on
this trip, and it had the smaller gravity pull, this booster didn’t have to be
anything like as big and powerful as the one needed to shift us from Earth, so
that was all right, and cut down on the weight the Comet had to carry.
    So
that’s that. (Phew! my hand’s all tired and cramped from writing all this—the
trouble is that you get carried away and go on for longer than you first meant. Yd better stop now and pick up again
later on.  . . . )
     
    Here
we are, then—next day, and in fine fighting trim, all ready for another spell
at the desk.
    You
know all about the Comet now—at least, maybe not all about it, but enough to be going on with: later on, Dr. K. will be publishing a
book of his own going into all the real technical details. He’s also going to
explain how it was that just about the time when we were due to set off, Mars
was fortunately coming around toward one of its “nearest-to-earth” positions.
We were jolly lucky in this, I must say—otherwise the journey would have taken
much