It was a good story about a newly minted Lieutenant on his first space assignment where he has to take his crew to an asteroid and "drive" it back to Earth so that we can cut it up for the important minerals therein. While doing this he has to fight off the bad guys, called the Connies (I have to admit I hit the wrong key on that name - guess which one, which should be obvious). ( )

I read this book about 50 years ago (no lie!).
This is a good book (i.e., a 3 on a 5 point scale), which is what I expect when I buy a book.
This was a very enjoyable read for a preteen boy.
It is an adventure story about a mixture (7 foot Hawaiian, small Filipino, etc.). The leader is the main character and is on a 'confidential and most incredible space mission as the leader of nine men'. ( )

Features a rather extensive decription of how to build an atomic bomb, in Chapter 13.

"Rip grunted. If they had parts, he could assemble nuclear bombs, too.
Part of his physics training had been concerned with fission and its
various applications. But no one had taught him how to make two bombs
out of one.

The theory behind this particular bomb design was simple. Two or more
correctly sized pieces of plutonium or uranium isotope, when brought
together, formed what was known as a critical mass, which would fission.
The fissioning released energy and produced the explosion.

But there was a wide gap between theory and practice. A nuclear bomb was
actually pretty complicated. It had to be complicated to keep the pieces
of the fissionable material apart until a chemical explosion drove them
together fast and hard enough to create a fission explosion. If the
pieces weren't brought together rapidly enough, the mass would fission
in a slow chain reaction with no explosion."

I am not sure how I first came to own this book, but I know it was the first book I read multiple times. I think this was the genesis of my love of science fiction. It may have been a gift from my grandmother.

My Childhood collection represents books I remember reading and loving as a young boy. Some are orginal ones I owned, but, unfortunately, most are replacement copies from yard sales, flea markets, and used book stores. I am always on the lookout for a dozen or so, and I am always trying to remember and add new titles. --JJM, 10/15/05