As Hawke arrives back on Satellite 1, the station commander shows him a fragment of the bomb that has been retrieved from the wrecked ferry, a fragment which shows that the bomb was hidden in some of Professor Bodwin,s equipment. Bodwin himself, who has come up from Earth to take his nephew back home, is immediately arrested , while security police back on Earth are instructed to search his lab and home for evidence. They soon uncover documents which show Bodwin to be the mastermind of a secret group which is determined to stop mankind from ever venturing into space. Convinced that all the danger is past and because news has just come through that satellite 2 is now complete, the station commander now orders the

ferries back on Earth , which are carrying the personnel who are to work there to take off and rendezvous with the new station. Jeff however , has misgivings and   forces Bodwin to admit that there is still a powerful “Gravity bomb” on the newly built station. Taking the professor with him, Jeff returns in his moonship to Satellite 2, where the new crews and their families are already disembarking. A search reveals a small explosive device which is made safe, but the gravity bomb is still to be located.   A frantic search ensues after Bodwin reveals that the device is set to explode in just over an hour. Fortunately Scrubby and co come to the rescue when they tell Jeff of the lettering that Scrubby spotted on a patch on one of the construction girders when the boys were out on their “space-walk”.   Realising that this must be the location of the bomb, Jeff and his team quickly locate the girder, and after a few minutes, manage to extricate the device. It is taken out into space and explodes without damage to the satellite. All ends happily and the new station comes into operation.

This was the last of the Junior Hawke stories published in Express weekly . They were replaced by   a   comic strip version of Charles Chilton’s famous radio series “Journey into space”

The Junior Hawke strip never really found its pace, and each story tried a different combination of characters and scenarios in an attempt to get into its stride. The artwork was not at fault , particularly in the last story where the Italian artist Tacconi produced some beautiful colour work. It was the story lines that displayed an unimaginative and journeyman quality and one wonders   how it might have turned out had Sydney been at the helm to weave his own tales in the juvenile version of his great sci-fi creation. Skipper Prossitt