"
"But as we manufacture air ourselves!" objected Ardan.
"We manufacture air only partly, friend Michael," replied Barbican. "We
manufacture only oxygen; we can't supply nitrogen--By the bye, Ardan,
won't you watch the apparatus carefully every now and then to see that
the oxygen is not generated too freely. Very serious consequences would
attend an immoderate supply of oxygen--No, we can't manufacture
nitrogen, which is so absolutely necessary for our air and which might
escape readily through the open windows."
"What! the few seconds we should require for flinging out poor
Satellite?"
"A very few seconds indeed they should be," said Barbican, very gravely.
"Your second reason?" asked Ardan.
"The second reason is, that we must not allow the external cold, which
must be exceedingly great, to penetrate into our Projectile and freeze
us alive."
"But the Sun, you know--"
"Yes, the Sun heats our Projectile, but it does not heat the vacuum
through which we are now floating. Where there is no air there can
neither be heat nor light; just as wherever the rays of the Sun do not
arrive directly, it must be both cold and dark. The temperature around
us, if there be anything that can be called temperature, is produced
solely by stellar radiation.
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