INTERPLANETARY SOCIETY FORSEES SPACE SHIPS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 43, 19 January 1949, Page 6

INTERPLANETARY SOCIETY FORSEES SPACE SHIPS

The man-carrying rocket planned by two members of the British Interplanetary Society has now been turned down by the Supply Ministry. The two men who for years have spent all their spare time on the project are Mr Ralph Andrew Smith, a designer-draughtsman at the Westcott rocket research establishment, and Harry Ernest Ross, production control superintendent at the Electronic Tubes Company factory at High Wycombe. Their design provided for a roc-ket-pilot to 'sit in a specially constructed cradle in a pressure cabin. He would be equipped with a pressure suit and standard high-altitude flying kit, including personal parachute.

At any time the cabin, by quickrelease mechanism, could jettison itself, with the pilot still inside. The cabin itself would be attached to a parachute. . Below the cabin floor would be a deep crumple skirt to reduce the shock of touchdown and prevent bounce. The designers advocated that such a machine should be launched from an extensive desert area or from a location close to the open sea.

They estimate that the rocket would reach a height of 225 miles. Mr Ross told a reporter: “This is no crack-brained idea. A long time was spent in working out details. One day, perhaps sooner than many of us think, space ships will be flying.”