Notes
A Maurice Gray novel.

Reprinted in 1958 in the Falcon Library series.
Revised edition published in 1974.

Publisher’s Blurb – Dust Jacket Flaps
Sixteen year old Maurice Gray arrives at Woomera, Australia, to join his only surviving relative, Professor Leslie Yorke, the well-known scientist. Several weeks after his arrival Maurice has still not seen his uncle, and oppressed by the secrecy and loneliness surrounding this desert colony, he makes friends with Bruce Talbot who, although only eighteen, already has a key job.

Through Talbot, Maurice learns the secret of his uncle’s absence – he and his crew had taken off several months previously in a rocket bound for Mars.

No message had come through from Yorke – the team at Woomera are apprehensive – then faint contact is suddenly established with the scientists, who have made a successful landing on Mars, but in doing so have damaged the rocket beyond repair.

It is decided to take off with another rocket for Mars to try to rescue the stranded scientists. But the rocket must take off with three men only. Two men have already been chosen – Bruce Talbot and Dr. Mellor. Who will be the third? How the take-off is effected; how on the journey Talbot falls into space; how on landing on Mars the rescue party damage their own rocket ship; how there is little hope of finding their friends and what they do eventually find is all vividly told against the accurate and authentic background of the author’s scientific knowledge.

THE AUTHOR
Patrick Moore has been interested in the possibilities of space travel and astronomy from childhood and has the unique distinction of having been elected to the British Astronomical Association when only a schoolboy.

During the war he served in the Royal Air Force as a Bomber Navigator. Since the war he has been a schoolmaster, but now concentrates on writing.

He is Secretary of the Lunar Section of the British Astronomical Association and has published numerous papers on the Moon and planets. His scientific books include Guide to The Moon and Guide To The Planets.

He is a Fellow and Council Member of the British Interplanetary Society and in his garden in Sussex there is a small observatory with a 12½ inch reflector.