Assignment in Space With Rip Foster is a fun young adult science fiction novel from the 1950's. The book was written by Blake Savage (A pseudonym of Harold L. Goodwin) and details the attempt to move an asteroid of almost pure thorium from the asteroid belt into earth orbit. Of course the evil Consops (a thinly veiled bad guy replacement for cold war communists) will stop at nothing to prevent this from happening. All in all it's a quite enjoyable read, though the part where they deliberately track radioactive dust into the ship still makes me cringe.
The book was also released under the title Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet. The book isn't too difficult to find but what's nice is the book has fallen into the public domain and is currently available for free download from Project Gutenberg. Read and enjoy!
A wonderful book and way, way ahead of its time!
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