SOLVED. S.F./Juvenile or YA. Adventure story about a trip to Venus, aboard a flying boat. Spoilers ahead. [s]

[Margret]

I read this book around 55 years ago, which would put it in the early 1960s; it was the first S.F. I ever read, and it piqued my imagination - I was too young to recognize how full of cliches it was. I checked it out of my elementary school library and it did NOT look like a new book. However, the attitude toward the Russians in the book suggests that it was written and published post WWII, perhaps McCarthy era. Perspective was definitely American.

Hardback. I saw no cover picture because whatever dust jacket there was had been removed. The author was probably male or using a male pen name; I would have noticed a female name.

The target audience was either children or young adults. I remember the title as "Springboard to Venus," but I can find no record of a book of that name ever being published.

PLOT:

The first person hero is a young man who has been left crippled by the auto accident that killed his parents when he was a child. He lives in a YMCA in New York city (I think), and he works as a court reporter. And I don't remember his name because he didn't use it much in the book.

One night he goes to a lecture being given by a scientist who's attempting space flight. The speaker discusses the problems associated with rockets, primarily problems landing them safely on uneven terrain. During the Q&A, our hero suggests that they use a flying boat instead of rockets, since the only landing pad it needs is an ocean. The speaker immediately shuts him down, making fun of the suggestion.

After the lecture ends the speaker asks to see our hero and explains that a flying boat is exactly what they're trying to build, but it's still top secret. Then he invites our hero to join the team. Our hero says "Yes!" of course.

The secret project is located in some tropical oceanic paradise, and there are hundreds or thousands of people living there, all working on the project. The flying boat is huge, and everyone is being given a chance to ride in it during test flights (liftoff, a few days in space, return to base). Our hero and his best friend at the project, an Australian named Augie, are both on the same test flight, but during their test flight word arrives that the Russians have just launched a rocket, trying to get there first, so this "test flight" has just become the real thing; we're on our way to Venus, the only planet that has proper landing for a flying boat.

After months of travel the good guys land on Venus, just in time to see the Russian rocket come down and attempt a landing, which results in the rocket tipping over. Venus is, indeed, largely a water world, with tropical temperatures and a breathable atmosphere, and the land masses are covered with rain forests.

SPOILERS








An exploratory team heads out, but our hero and Augie are selected to stand watch on the ship because of our hero's disability and Augie's decision to volunteer to stay behind with him. That night the Russians, needing another way to get home, send out 2 teams, one to ambush the exploratory team and the second to take control of the ship, and here my memory gets a bit fuzzy.

I BELIEVE that our hero and Augie manage to foil the ship takeover using their ingenuity and superior knowledge of the ship, but they may have just put some booby traps on the ship to keep the Russians busy and re-taken it on their return with the full crew.

Either way, once the ship takeover has been dealt with our hero and Augie head out to rescue the exploratory team, allowing themselves to be captured as the surest way to find their captured shipmates. Then Augie, in an apparent escape attempt, is shot (at least that's what his screams would make you think, but he's hidden by the thick foliage) while our hero makes the most of his disability to make himself seem more frail than he actually is, after which the two of them work together to rescue the entire team. The team then takes the Russians captive.

On the victorious trip home from Venus the ship's doctor discovers that he can do things surgically in microgravity that would be impossible in full gravity, so, with permission, he re-breaks and then repairs the bones that have caused our hero's disability and our hero spends the rest of the trip healing and exercising (and cursing, though no actual bad language was quoted in the book, of course), while the doctor repeatedly laments the fact that he doesn't have a fluoroscope on board. {Note the archaic name for an X-ray machine.} On their arrival home, with bands playing and confetti flying, our hero is actually able to walk off of the ship without canes, though he's glad the ramp has a rail he can hang onto and he needs to sit down fairly quickly.

[Ayshe]

Operation Springboard by John Ball Jr. maybe?

[Margret]

SOLVED!

That's definitely it. Reading the description even the name of the hero was familiar, and you can see from the cover picture that it's a flying boat rather than a traditional space ship.

Thank you so much!