BY RADIUM TO THE MOON.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1156, 9 October 1913, Page 4

BY RADIUM TO THE MOON.

FRENCHMAN’S STARTLING

PROPHECY

AROUND THE WORLD IN A FEW MINUTES.

Mr Ernest Archdeacou, wiiliug in Paris o£ the marvellous progress made iu aerial science, expresses the cultivation that iu a few centuries aerial navigation, as we know it, will have become as out-of-date as the horse Is to-day as a means of trauspoit.

“For numerous reasons, he remarks in Fa Controverse, it appears unlikely that flying machines will ever considerably exceed 125 miles an hour. At this rate we should take 200 hours or a little more than eight days, to make a circuit of the earth. It is evident that we shall soon discover something infinitely better than the aeroplane. It is certain that our children will girdle the earth (25,000) in a time of which we at present can have no idea. One sees at once what a fantastic revolution this will cause in the world’s commerce. All the peoples of the earth will then form a sole and single nation. Our planet will have become mud) 100 small for the mobility and activity of its inhabitants, who will evidently be bored to see even the same landscape with which their eyes are satiated.

“The earth haviug become too small for us and even decrepit. we shall be fain to go and visit the other planes, unless the inhabitants of one of the planets in question are beforehand with us and come and pay us a surprise visit one of these days. INTER rLA NETAR V VISITS. “According to the mathematical calculations of M. EshaultPelterie, the new means of interplanetary will be Jules Verne’s cannon ball transformed into a continuously self-propelling rocket. The problem is to give this rocket a self-contained velocity of 11 kilometres (nearly seven miles) a second, which would be sufficient for it to leave the circle of terrestrial attraction. At this velocity our planet could be girdled in 66 minutes, and the journey from Paris to Nice covered in under two minutes.

“Now, with 27 kilogrammes (about 6olb) of radium, a projectile of one ton could be shot from the earth to the moon in about 49 hours. The molecular projections of radium would be made to work b\ reaction. The difficulty is to find how to release in 49 hours all the energy contained in the radium, which in the present stale c,f science it would take 2SOO years tor set free. “The difficulty is not insuperable, when we think what has already been achieved. With 400

kilogrammes, that is to say, threefifths of a ton, on board, a visit might be made to Venus and back to earth again.’’ NO MORE WAR, Then M. Archdeacon, who is an incurable pacifist, continues ; “There will be no more wars, for our needs will be reduced to a minimum Esperanto will have become useless, for we shall communicate by the transmission of thought through space.’’ “To terminate my anticipation,” says M. Archdeacon, “I am convinced that in a certain number of centuries the inhabitants of all the planets will have made acquaintance with one another, and I foresee the day when a world’s inter-planetary congress will be held.” M. Archdeacon is, perhaps, the most prominent patron of aviation in France. He has given several big prizes for competitions, and his name is a household word in French aerial circles.