Mike was fully recovered from his accident two days after Dr. Cooper told him the news. Later that week as he worked in the lab with just Larry, Jeanie and the supervisor present, they discussed his need for some kind of protection from the sun's rays. It was then that Larry came up with something Dr. Cooper was seriously interested in.
"You know, I wish we could get our hands on one of those old style space suits the astronauts used to wear. I'll bet that would be just the thing to help him out!" the blonde technician put in as he pulled his head out from under the transporter platform.
"Hmmmm!" Cooper mumbled, thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. He paused a moment from signing the form Jeanie was holding for him on a clipboard. "There's only one thing wrong with that suggestion, son. The only place we'd find anything like that nowadays would be in some museum, somewhere, I don't even know where that would be, or how we'd go about borrowing one, let alone keeping it!"
Larry propped himself up on his elbow and thoughtfully turned the wrench in his hands. "You know, my father used to work at NASA. Before he died, he was developing a new material that would later be used in making space suits for the astronauts."
"Wow, really?" Mike cried in excitement.
"You know, with all the connections Dr. Horton has with them, I'll bet he could get us some of that in no time, and we could make our own type of costume for Mike with it," Cooper told him. "I only hope it works."
"Oh, it worked, all right, but there's one problem," Larry explained. "When it was being sent from the factory to NASA aboard a ship, the ship ran into a terrible storm and it sank! The cargo could never be recovered. They lost all hands. We always suspected the Russians had something to do with the "accident", but could never prove it. They were getting desperate to delay us in the space race any way they could."
"Damn!" Mike cursed. His whole appearance changed to be the picture of disappointment.
Larry looked at Mike's face and noticed it was illuminated by a bright, white glow. No one else mentioned it, so he blinked to see if his eyes were playing tricks on him, but afterwards the light was still there. He had a feeling this meant Mike was up to something special by way of using his powers, and, in a second, as the light vanished he found this to be true.
"Doc, can you ask Dr. Horton if he could call someone and find out the last known position of that ship? I've got a FEELING Larry's just put us on the right track of something big, that will help solve all our problems!"