7

I can't remember when I read it - but likely the 70s. The young boy was so enamoured with travelling to the Mars that he built his own ship (which I think was box shaped) and flew there and came back.

That's all I remember. I'd like to get it for my kids now if anyone can remember it.

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  • Teleported there and back? or built a rocket with three friends? – sarge_smith Mar 23 '13 at 3:44
  • Neither. I think I recall it being a solo adventure. Completely about flying in a spaceship he made from a big wooed box IIRC – Preet Sangha Mar 23 '13 at 3:59
  • Apparently this is marked as a duplicate of the question asked 6 years in the future. – Preet Sangha Feb 17 '19 at 19:10
14

Could it be "Welcome to Mars!" by James Blish?

Dolph had found the secret of anti-gravity and now the solar system was his to explore. In his homemade spaceship he soared through the star-studded blackness of outer space. It was all systems go until the power tubes burned out during the landing on Mars. Dolph was now the first man marooned on a strange planet...

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  • 1
    By Jove! I think you may be right. I'm going to order it and see. I recall him be on Mars for a while and it getting really cold - and the precis seems to indicate a survival story! – Preet Sangha Mar 23 '13 at 7:30
  • If the protagonist was Dolph Haertel then this was probably the book. – ConcernedOfTunbridgeWells Mar 24 '13 at 13:06
  • It was serialized in If magazine with the title The Hour Before Earthrise. isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?32896 – M. A. Golding Jan 1 '19 at 0:11

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