Why was the Atomic Earth Blaster modified?
For Tom’s planetoid project, he needed to find a way to quickly hollow out a large piece of rock. His normal-model Blaster wouldn’t work in the absence of gravity, though, so he had to design a new model. Some details on this: The spaceship was moored again, and Tom’s atomic earth blaster was hauled outside to a suitable drilling site. A launching rig was set up and anchored to the rock with explosive bolts. Then the torpedo-shaped blaster was positioned nose down in the rig. By this time Petronius’ brief night had fallen, so Tom called a halt. The astronauts returned to the Challenger to eat and nap. As Chow served a hearty meal, Tom explained the drilling operation. “You see, with the planetoid’s low gravity, the blaster would tend to rebound out of the drill hole instead of grinding up the rock effectively. So I’ve added the magnetic clamps to hold it tight to the walls of the shaft.” “Then how can the blaster move along and keep drilling?” a crewman asked. “It operates in pulses,”
