"How did he do on the emergencies?" I asked.

Axel grinned. "He acted like they were the real thing."

The space capsule carrying Willy was the old-fashioned type, with room enough for only one man. However, it had special controls which made its manual operation similar to that used on the plasma craft. Throughout the flight, Willy was in charge of the operation. Without warning, certain simulated emergencies were signaled to instruments aboard the capsule and Willy was expected to meet them.

Although space flight sounds dangerous, most of it isn't because space is more empty than anything most of us ever saw. The only critical times are usually at the lift-off, the re-entry and the landing. However, other emergencies can arise. The worst would be the sudden appearance of a large meteor, meaning a pebble a quarter of an inch in diameter or bigger. Since about 95 per cent of the meteors in space are less than that size, chances of meeting one, even on a trip lasting two-and-a-half years, are remote. But it could happen.

The plasma ship was equipped with meteor bumpers which would vaporize anything smaller than a quarter of an inch. Larger ones might puncture the sides, but even then there was patching fluid in the walls of the craft which would prevent too much air loss. A tremendously large meteor can be detected by radar and avoided. Willy'd had to make the right maneuver to avoid such a meteor.

Radiation in space also poses some problems. Space travel requires high speed, and astronauts can pass through a radiation belt in so short a time that the exposure isn't harmful. But a very large cloud might pose problems and Willy would have to meet such an emergency by determining the size of the cloud and the best way to pierce it.

Another hazard could be faulty astrogation. On a 75,000,000-mile trip—the distance we were to travel to reach Mars—a small error at the start might put the ship too far from Mars to be caught by the planet's gravity at the end of the voyage. Willy had to make observations throughout the test flight and go through operations necessary to correct his trajectory. There might be other minor emergencies, such as failure of equipment and instruments, but Willy had demonstrated his ability to cope with them in tests conducted on the ground.

Dr. Warner Joel entered the room. A few months ago he had been overweight, but stringent diet had cut his weight down enough to allow him to qualify for our crew. 

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