
Transcriber's Note:
THE PLANET STRAPPERS - Raymond Z. Gallun
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A rag‑tag crew of aspiring spacemen gathers in a back‑room of a small Minnesota hobby shop, where a battered “Archer Five” spacecraft sits in a steel‑bound crate. With modest funds and a mix of personalities—students, mechanics, and a one‑legged tinkerer—they assemble the vessel piece by piece, swapping jokes and steadying each other’s nerves as they strap on the silicone‑rubber suits and check the life‑support capsules. Their camaraderie turns the obsolete kit into a hopeful ticket to the stars.
When the makeshift ship finally lifts off, the pilots find themselves hurtling through the emptiness beyond the Moon, the thin plastic bubble their only shield against the unforgiving vacuum. Radar blips betray hidden hazards, and sudden shards of rock pummel the craft, forcing the crew to fight for every breath. The tension builds as they realize space is not the empty quiet they imagined, but a frontier teeming with unseen threats.
The opening chapters blend the excitement of youthful ambition with the stark reality of early space travel, setting the stage for a daring adventure that tests both skill and resolve. Listeners will feel the pulse of every maneuver and the crackle of danger as the team confronts the void for the first time.
Language
en
Duration
~6 hours (382K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Joel Schlosberg, Fred Kiesche and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2008-04-13
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1911–1994
A pioneering voice from science fiction’s pulp era, he helped imagine the genre’s sense of wonder long before space travel became real. His stories mixed far-off planets, strange futures, and a lively curiosity about what humanity might become.
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