Murray Leinster's "Space Platform" (novel, space station, free): US putting up a nuclear missiles facility in orbit

I won't put it anywhere among the better stories of Leinster, but it's action packed - if occasionally a bit draggy. And if you are interested in machine tools, particularly in balancing things rotating fast around an axis, parts of it may be hard sf.

Story summary.

US is putting a space station ("Space Platform") in orbit around earth. It will be primarily a military facility capable of throwing nuclear weapons anywhere on earth. Reason given is a rather pious one: US wants to force a warring world to stop fighting!

Much of the world, of course, doesn't buy this peace argument; so there are major attempts to sabotage the building of the space station.

Hero, of course, will repeatedly frustrate these sabotage attempts. And of course, US will successfully launch it, in spite of all the sabotage attempts.

Notes.

1. Story also gives 2 secondary reasons for building the space platform: as a launching pad to go to stars, & as a launching pad for laboratories to do experiments too dangerous to do on earth.

See also.

1. Eric Frank Russell's "Wasp" (download): Another novel primarily about sabotage that I found far more interesting. And often hilarious.
2. Alfred Bester's "Adam & No Eve" (download comic book adaptation) & Larry Niven's "The Hole Man": Two popular examples of experiments that can threaten the home world. Experiments that Leinster proposes to conduct far away from earth, in labs launched from space platform, so earth won't be threatened.

Fact sheet.

First published: 1953.
Download full text from Project Gutenberg, Manybooks., Feedbooks.
Rating: B.
Related: Stories of Murray Leinster.