“Some trip!” exclaimed Joe.
“She’s already made longer trips,” replied the captain. “She made one continuous trip to St. Louis and back, a distance of about two thousand five hundred miles. The trip from Nome over the Pole to Spitzbergen would be only two thousand one hundred miles.”
“But though the trip is shorter, it’s more risky,” objected Jimmy. “If she’d had to come down in this country, she’d still have been in a civilized land. Up there there will be nothing but ice and seals and bears, and maybe a few Eskimos.”
“Of course there are greater risks,” conceded the captain, “just as there are greater dangers in flying over water than over land. But risks are like food to the men of the service. They just eat them up. Then, too, the Shooting Star will have a radio set on board that can transmit more than a thousand miles. And the supply boat at Nome will have three airplanes equipped with skis for landing on ice, water, snow and land. They’d hurry to the airship’s help if she radioed for any. They have a cruising radius of two thousand miles.”
“Suppose the airship had to come down on the ice?” inquired Bob. “How would they be able to handle her, if even now it requires three or four hundred men to hold her when she lands on the ground?”
“She’s having a special anchor made now for holding her in snow or ice,” was the reply.
“Suppose she runs short of gas?” queried Jimmy.
“She’ll no doubt have plenty to start with,” was the rejoinder. “You see, in the Arctic there are practically no changes in the temperature from night to day, resulting in expansion and contraction of the helium gas in the bag. She could be adrift an indefinite period without losing gas enough to cause any trouble.”
“It certainly seems to have been all figured out,” remarked Bob.
“Nothing has been overlooked, I imagine,” said the captain. “Of course, it’s only a project as yet, and, for some reason, the trip may never come off. But if it does, I have no doubt that the result will reflect credit on the men who take part in it and add new luster to the Stars and Stripes. You boys will see——”