Science Fiction Gallun, Raymond Z.: The Planet Strappers, v1, 5 June 2008

[Stanart]

A science fiction story from 1961, copyright not renewed per Project Gutenberg.

From Wikipedia:

Raymond Zinke Gallun (March 22, 1911 - April 2, 1994) was an early science fiction writer.

Gallun (rhymes with "balloon") was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. He lived a drifter's existence, working a multitude of jobs around the world in the years leading up to World War II. He sold many popular stories to pulp magazines in the 1930s. "Old Faithful" (1934) was his first noted story. "The Gentle Brain" was published in "Science Fiction Quarterly" under the pseudonym Arthur Allport. Another of his pseudonyms was William Callahan.

The teaser from the inside of the book:

A Million Miles Beyond the Moon...

... Nelson and Ramos sped on toward Mars in their tiny plastic-bubble spacecraft. They were on the alert—it didn't pay to take anything for granted in the Big Vacuum....

The way between the worlds was mostly empty space—except for the outlaws of the void who drifted, patiently and vengefully waiting for a victim, then struck!

Nelsen and Ramos tensed—blips on the radar screen! Maybe meteors... More blips—and fist-sized chunks of rock flicked through their fragile vehicles. Air puffed out ... and Nelson and Ramos were fighting for their lives...

... A Million Miles Beyond the Moon!

And the blurb from the back cover:

THE PLANET STRAPPERS

started out as The Bunch, a group of student-astronauts in the back room of a store in Jarviston, Minnesota. They wanted off Earth, and they begged, borrowed and built what they needed to make it.

THE PLANET STRAPPERS got what they wanted—a start on the road to the stars—but no one brought up on Earth could have imagined what was waiting for them Out There!

In THE PLANET STRAPPERS, Ray Gallun has written a story of the Day After Tomorrow—a story of what it will be like for the men who cross the space frontier—a story that some of us will be living some day....

[jtkenny_2006]

thank you very much