AS FAST AS SOUND

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 116, 8 January 1932, Page 6

AS FAST AS SOUND

MIRACLES OF SPEED RQCKETS WHICH MAY TRAVEL AT ONE THOUSAND v MILES AN HOUR. GREAT SPEED MONSTERS. Rockets — the new monsters of doom? Terrific deviees that annihilate time and space at 1000 miles an hour — will they end war? Will they pale into insignificance the radio, the aeroplane, television and other marvels ^ of 'this century ? The safe delivery in England of the first All- Australian air mail draws attention to rockets, the latest scientific deviees that are attracing worldwide attention. Secret expeyiments with model rockets hy foreign Powers indieate that future transportation, aeronautics, and even warfare will be revolutionised by rockets, and the delivery of Australian mails in England will he a matter of mere hours! Fanciful pictures of the future are mirrored by present indications — such as a Hinkler or a KingsfordSmith hissing himself round the world in a few hours; and swarms of roc-ket-torpedoes spreading wholesale death, reducing the civilised world to ruins in less than a week. A few months ago, nearoBerlin, a mammoth rocket was shot out of sight into the sky, later returning to earth by parachute. And in April last Herr Reinhold Tiling, an ex-Ger-man war pilot, fired the first rocket mail. Filling a 5ft model rocket with post-cards, he released his invention before a vast crowd. Quickly it became a mere speck, and, the motive

power being spent, the tail burst, and "small wings automatically spread, enabling the rocket to make a safe ianding. The post-cards were given to the crowd as a memento of this historic event. Herr Tiling claims that large rockets, based on his invention, will eventually be used to fire mails between Europe and America. Closely shrouded experiments are being carried -out in Russia by the Soviet's Department of Planet Traffic, under Professor A. P. Feodorff and K. E. Ziolowsky. Rocket-torpe-loes are being developed. They present a more sinister side to the pictures of future wars. European experimenters claim enormous speeds for rockets based on scale models. They hint that interplanetary communication with them will be simple, as Professor Auguste Piccard absolut'fiy proved recently, for the first time, that man can live artificially in intensely rarefied atmosphere or in a vacuum by his balloon ascent into the stratosphere. A round trip to Mars — a distance of 90 or so million miles — is timed to take 146 days for the first band of stout explorers prepared. to attenipt the flight. Rockets, which are driven by great rushes of gas out of the base, thus rlriving the rocket forward with great and increasing velocity, are more than a Guy Fawkes Day thrill. Early in the 19th century Sir William Congreve, an Englishman, introduced. them, weighing up to 241b, in the form of war-rockets. Cavalry lived in dread of these vicious missiles. His rockets were used at Leipzig (1813), and in the Peninsular and second American Wars, and at Waterloo. The Royal Horse Artillery once boasted of two rocket troops. Britain, after extensive mathematical analysi^ by experts who were responsible for the Schneider Trophy records, has rejected rockets, despite Continental and American claims. British experts point out that aircraft driven by propellers will aiways accomplish more than rocketpropelled craft. Scientific tests have rated the efficiency of the average propeller at 75 per cent. and that of rockets at only 50 per cent. They declare that man will never succeed in accomplishing a speed greater than that of sound, which is slightly under 1000 miles per hour. Above the speed of sound there is a very marlced change in the flow of air, and a compressed wall of air in

front of the body causes the resistance to increase rapidly. The possibilities of speeds higher than 1000 miles per hour are very remote, according to these British experts. But, despite this emphatic British opinion, foreign Powers place enormous faith in their rocket experiments. By reason of radio control and television tliey contend that rockets will reach incredible speeds, and will be directed to land at any given point. They can be slowed down or speeded ap, according to the wish of the operator. An air armada of roeket-torpedoes could cut a hideous swathe through a defensive armada of aircraft and wipe out any city! * These foreign experts are confident and optimistic. Do we lag behind? Will these ungodly satanic instruments of death amount to nothing more or less than a colossal suicide pact for mankind ? Certainly a grim pieture — but one that must be reclconed with!