BY ROCKET TO MOON

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 545, 24 December 1928, Page 12

BY ROCKET TO MOON

HOW TO GET BACK IS THE QUESTION POSSIBLE IN FIVE YEARS I met Monsieur R. Esuault-Pelterie, the inventor of the “joy-stick” control of the airplane—wlio is lecturing at the Royal United Service Institution, on travelling by rocket to the planets —in his flat in Berkeley Street, Mayfair, writes Commander H. M. Daniel, formerly of H.M.S. Royal Oak, in the “Daily Mail.” He was surrounded by diagrams, charts and papers covered with advanced mathematical calculations. In discussing the problem of a journey through space, he disposed of the idea that it could ever be undertaken in any sort of projectile fired from a gun. But a rocket, he said, is different. As it ascends its speed increases indefinitely; firstly, because the force of gravity becomes weaker; secondly, because the mass of the rocket is getting steadily less as the composition burns away. show how fast the rocket' must be travelling at various heights to be sure of escaping finally from earth. A study of these show at once the enormous size of rocket required to achieve this in order to carry, enough composition or fuel, not to mention air for the occupants to breathe, which when compressed for transport is quite a heavy commodity. Harnessing the Atom German scientists are to-day hard at work on similar investigations, and from figures obtained by them in recent practical experiments he considers that the problem is not so far from solution as he; had recently thought. But he clearly points out the obstacles that are yet to be overcome before a serious attempt can be made. One was the necessity for finding some fairly hopeful method of return. Without some special safeguard the “astrocraft” would be consumed with the heat generated by friction with the air, and therefore a reverse rocket to act as a brake would be ‘necessary. When the energy of the atom can be harnessed to man’s use the whole subject will at once assume practical proportions; until then we must perhaps be content with small flights a mere matter of a hundred miles or so into space to return again by parachute. When asked how long he thought it would be before there could be any experimental flights, he answered, “In five years I prophesy that there will be such flights.”