LUNAR BUSES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 378, 12 June 1928, Page 13

LUNAR BUSES

ROCKET CAR IDEAS

TRIPS TO VENUS The astounding success of Opel’s "rocket car” is the first leg in voyages to the moon and planets. Since Professor Goddard proposed his “rocket to the moon” three years ago sceptics have pooh-poohed the idea of straight-out explosives as “reaction propellant" at all. They are wiser now. There is absolutely no reason why an airplane (as next proposed by Opel) should not attain the upper atmosphere, and perhaps “kick-oil” into interplanetary space. Passenger for Verjis? This has been the basis of “Prof.” Condit’s “Trip-to-Venus” scheme, and his weird rocket-machine parked on Miami Beach, California. Recent advices suggest Condit merely exploited the idea, for since a refusal to allow him charge sightseers, he has “postponed his trip.” There were no windows in his “projectile," and no provision for return. Condit thought the absence of air in space would cause any glass window to burst. He was wrong. Ordinary electric

light bulbs stand the same pressure easily, only from without inwards. Another objection has been that in space a rocket has “nothing to kick against.” Newton knew better. A rocket works by reaction (recoil) and (by Newton’s law) is as effective in space as in air. Cheapest Travel More, once in free space, no propellant is needed, as unless it meets another planet’s atmosphere, any moving object keeps its speed unchecked for ever. A traveller could get to the farthest planet known, on explosive sufficient to take him out of the earth's attraction.

Probably the first trip will be to the air-roof (100 miles), then into space and back, then round the moon and back —all. of course, in enclosed cabins of rocket-planes. As the scientists at Opel’s test proclaimed, we stand at the threshold of communication between worlds.