Read "Space Tug" by Murray Leinster online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The others got the space tug into the platform's lock and did things to it, in the way of loading, that its designers never intended, while Joe was calling Earth for calculations. The result was infuriating. The Moonship had taken off for the Moon on the other side of the Platform's orbit, when it had a velocity of more than 12,000 miles an hour in the direction it wished to go. The Platform and of course the space tug was now on the reverse side of the Platform's orbit. And of course they now had a velocity of more than 12,000 miles per hour away from the direction in which it was urgently necessary for the space tug to go. They could wait for two hours to take off, said Earth, or waste the time and fuel they'd need to throw away to duplicate the effect of waiting.
"But we can't wait! " raged Joe. Then he snapped. "Look here! Suppose we take off from here, dive at Earth, make a near-graze, and let its gravity curve our course! Like a cometary path! Figure that! That's what we've got to do!"