Astrotwins — Project Blastoff by Mark Kelly

boat onto the beach. They were walking back along the path when Mark stopped in his tracks and looked around.
    â€œHang on a sec,” he said. “What do you guys think of this as a launch site?”
    They were standing in the bare field between the shrubs and the trees. Grandpa said a builder had brought in a bulldozer and cleared it to put up houses, but there was some problem with money so the project was on hold.
    â€œIt’s a pretty big area,” said Scott.
    â€œOut of the way, too,” said Barry.
    â€œNothing to blow up, either.” Mark grinned. “I think it’s perfect.”

CHAPTER 16
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    Grandpa Joe did the library drop-off that day, and the pickup, too. “Peggy—that is, Mrs. O’Malley—shouldn’t have to do all the chauffeuring,” he explained.
    As the kids had done the day before, they spent part of the afternoon in the library and the rest in the park. When they were finished, Scott sighed and pronounced it “three lost hours of my precious summer.”
    Mark punched him.
    They dropped Egg off at her house in town and Howard at Nando’s Auto Repair. Then Grandpa steered the car for home. “You guys are awfully quiet,” he noted.
    Riding in the back with his brother, Mark leaned his head against the seat. “That’s because building a spaceship turns out to be harder than you’dthink. Did you know NASA spent millions of dollars on the Mercury program?”
    â€œWhat’s your budget?” Grandpa asked.
    â€œNegative numbers,” Scott said. “We still owe Dad for the calculator.”
    Barry shook his head. “I am trying really hard not to say ‘I told you so.’ But if you think about it, I told you so .”
    â€œLucky you’re in the front seat, or we’d pound you,” Scott said.
    â€œI wouldn’t have said it if I weren’t in the front seat,” said Barry.
    They drove for a few minutes in silence; then, in a voice like a stage actor’s, Grandpa said: “We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy but because it is hard, because the goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, uh . . . something something . . . because the challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone.” He shrugged and said in his normal voice, “I’m paraphrasing.”
    Mark closed his eyes and shook his head. “Grandpa, my brain’s so tired it aches, and now you start talking crazy. What was that about?”
    â€œPresident Kennedy, right?” Barry asked.
    Grandpa nodded and looked at Mark in the rearview mirror. “The president’s point was that sometimes you do the hard thing because doing hard things is goodfor you.”
    Like Grandpa, Scott and Mark were usually optimistic. But the stuff they had learned at the library about NASA’s Mercury program did make their project look either impossible or crazy, or maybe both.
    Besides the budget, there was the matter of rocket fuel. The Atlas rocket that shot John Glenn’s Friendship 7 spacecraft into space carried almost thirteen tons of rocket fuel. Where were they going to get that, as well as a rocket big enough to contain it?
    Finally, there was the matter of personnel. Given all the challenges involved, their best bet would be to make the mission as simple as possible, and as light. That meant one astronaut. But both Mark and Scott wanted to be the first kid in space. For all they knew, maybe Egg, Barry, and Howard all expected to be astronauts as well.
    Who would get to go?

CHAPTER 17
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    After so much physical activity at the lake and mental activity at the library, the boys were exhausted. Back at the house, they plopped down on Grandpa’s old, super-comfy sofa and closed their eyes.
    â€œWhat time’s dinner, Grandpa?”
    â€œSoon as you want to make it,” Grandpa said, and all three boys