TRIP TO MOON

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 45, 4 November 1946, Page 6

TRIP TO MOON

SPACE SHIP DESIGNED

Details of a space ship planned by French engineers to take a scientific expedition to the moon were given by Dr. Alexander Ananoff, chief rocket designer of the group. Known as Astronef, the ship will be a central cabin propelled by two high-power rockets. The cabin will be heavily insulated against friction with asbestos, and will carry a crew of four or five, including a geologist and astronomer.

Oxygen will have to be supplied throughout the journey and during the stay on the moon's surface. And food and water for the three weeks' trip will take a large part of cabin space.

Astronef will be provided with auxiliary rockets with nozzles pointing forward. As the moon's surface is approached the rockets will be turned on to slow down the missile. It will not be possible to do this by means of parachutes as there is no air around the moon.

The space ship, says Dr. Ananoff, will be made as strong as possible to withstand the impact of high-speed dust particles, in space.

Meanwhile the world's first blueprints for a jet engine driven by atomic energy have been drawn up for the moon project by Professor Albert du Crocq, a top-ranking French physicist. This consists of a metal cylinder fitted with a jet and packed with a mixture of plutonium, the atomic metal of the Nagasaki bomb, and graphite, a pure form of pencil lead. Under the influence of the graphite the plutonium is arranged to give off a stream of high-speed particles from the jet, driving the whole cylinder forward. The chances of France possessing the necessary 26 tons of plutonium were greatly increased in the last few days by the discovery in'Limoges of what is believed to be a vast deposit of uranium, the raw material from which plutonium is made.