"I hope Mr. Roumann lets us help run the machinery," went on Mark.
"I guess he'll have to. He'll need help, and I understand that he and the professor, you and I, and Washington and Andy are the only ones going along. He and the professor can't run the affair all alone, and they'll have to have our help. Wash and Andy won't be much good at machinery."
"That's so. My! Think of steering a two hundred–foot projectile through space, when we're moving at the rate of one hundred miles a second!"
"Great, isn't it?" commented Jack.
"It would be a bad thing if it ever got away from us," said Mark.
"Yes; or if we steered into a comet."
"That's so. We may run into one of those things—or a shooting star."
"As long as we don't fall into the sun and get burned up we'll be all right," went on Jack. "And when we get to Mars I know what I'm going to do."
"What?"
"Go for a sail on one of the big canals. Mars is covered with them, astronomers say."