Show 4 4s I '1" 46 41At oo Ink Ts9 zP 09 aze 9 "OW ' " i4i "Nor II' gm U 1 rlb L s witpwoo4111001 a d - AUTE:a'S CLLITItailT Aft FOR curl I don There had bean no more sensation crossing the line than a passenger on an ocean liner feels when he crosses the equator But once the instruments gave him their position on the other side of the tine John began to feel a heightened sense of tension He could see that Larry felt it too Now the great test wotdd begin and there would be no sleep dtwing the remaining ten hours for either of them With no atmosphere to slow it down the ship would smash into the moon at well over 6030 miles an hour if they did not check the fall skillfully with rocket power Presendy Larry sent his hourly status surface when at an exactly predetermined altitude a radar altimeter cut in the rocket atgihes which began to retard the fall John watched the blips on the saxes which the altimeter recorded Short radar pulses were beamed to the ground and echoed back The traveling time of these pubes from ship to moon and back gave the altitude and the Jate at which it changed furnished the rate of descent report to earth The ship's transmitter operated on a few watts of power only and Larry's verbal exchanges with the radio operators on earth were almost like e telephone conversation by Almost — yet then was a difference and this difference had by now become quite apparent On an ordinary radio shortwave telephone when One man says "Over" the other can be heard immediately for radio waves travel with the speed of Light— 186000 miles a second But with the ship now well over 200000 miles from the earth it took Larry's quesfion a little over a second to travel from the ship to the earth receiver And it took another second for the reply to reach the ship again The conspicuous interval of silence reminded Larry that he was pretty far from home mar-visi- two-seco- Landing Maneuver After a late supper from the food locker complete with plastic squeeze bottle for consumption of liquids under weightless condition John ordered preparations begun for the landing maneuver Working the together he and Larry ship around until it was falling toward the moon tail first Because there was no air in outer space this kind of rotation could not be accomplished with the aid of atmdymrnical control &wrote as it would be with an ordinary aircraft The movement was accomplished by a set of three small electrically driven flywheels When put in motion the reaction torques of these whets gave the ship a slow rotation in the opposite direction The final orientation of the ship in space was controlled by a gyroscopic platform - With the ship now rushing toward the rapidly growing lunar surface both men strapped themselves into their contour chain While Larry was testing the hydraulic mechanism of the landing par John turned on the pressurization cyde for the propellant tanks They were still several hundred miles above the lunar cart-wheel- ed tail-fir- st With these two pieces of information in front of him John could control the thrust of the rocket motors in such a fashion that both altitude and rate of descent would become zero simultaneously With skill the ship would set down on the moon as smoothly as a helicopter and back on earth he had learned how to do it John could not see the moon at all mirror except through a tiny in the canopy ceiling But with the flip of a switch the rapidly approaching crater landscape appeared on his television scope Their destination was a shallow crater near the moonss North Pole where temperatures would be moderate due to the low elevation of the sun They were to arrive shortly after local stmrise With two adjustment knobs he now kept a pair of movable cross hairlines bracketed on the predetermined landing spot By turning his two knobs John 'could override the automatically controlled flightpath guidance of the ship and thus avoid boulders or crevices in the landing area too small to have appealed on the photographic plates He also used the knobs to eliminate any drift the ship might have with respect to the lunar surface A push right or left of even a few feet per second as they touched down could shear off the shiri's landing gear At a few thousand feet above the ground John called briskly to tarry and four spider legs were hydraulically extended Mowed by a fifth central kg which was lowered through the fiery exhaust This central leg would be the first to make contact with the ground It was a strong spike about IS feet long with a built-i- n shock absorber Several horizontal discs were pushed over the spike the smallest discs at the lowermost tip and the larpst at the root of the spike Scientists - re-ent- ry Dram's they might hit anything from a layer of volcanic ash several feet deep to a rather hard surface of pumice rock Using a landspike with cross plates safe been bock home demonstrated had ings on a wide variety of surfaces All John could do in those last few seconds was to keep his fingers crossed for the picture on his television screen was blurred by dust kicked up lathe rocket blast ' A moderate landing shock hit the ship as the spike buried itself in the grouts! For a few seconds the ship balanced precariously on its single kg while Larry lowered the four outrigger legs hydraulically to prop it up and keep it in a vertical position The whine of the inverters and gyros subsided and for just a moment John lay there enjoying the subdued ex- dement of their triumph Then be flipped the switch of the radio contact with earth When the call was acknowledged he said crisply "On the ground at 2358 Greenwich Mean Time Everything ok About to begin exploration of surface" tail-fir- st on Airlock 'Ck—ait He got up then and ihoàk hands silently with Larry The two men pulled on full space suits and helmets over the lighter space uniforms they had worn on the voyage As John pulled himself over to the airlock he noticed that he was subjected to gravitragain a weak kind of gravity but gravity nevertheless There was a hissing sound as Larry helped him depressurize the airlock The outer door pushed slowly open and the two men looked out at the magnificent lunar scenery It was a grandiose yet desolate sight A brilliant sun stood dose to the horizon amidst a velvet black sky spangled with myriads of stars The mountain peaks shadows across the cast long plains Over there close to the horizon was a strikingly beautiful object the d disc of earth A vast feeling of loveliness overcame John Mason for a moment He touched Larty's arm "Let's ett ping" he said be startpliely over the int back in five days" And he swung ma End bint!1 out to the jet-bla- ck -- With now Skinoia you shrno itnpro—tins skim stays onl You lust laro-buf- f" away water spots dirt and scoff marks betwoon shines—la wends' that's because only new Shinola'spatentbd blendof special waxes contains shoes a harder film of polish It shines on brighter stays on longDura-Shine—- to give in seconds! Get new er Shinola today! re-bu- ffs - multi-colore- inter-contWe- 'ii ' i to E7 mat Dr von Braun pkou to urite a sequel to 114 story: the exploration of the "tomes surface and the renew Ark Wading latatching from the moon and of the ship into the eardes atmosphere tazons von at home unable to reedit peeciz- --ly the hardness of the lunar surface had said "On The Geound" short-wav- - Pressure cabin (cutaway) contains contour chairs' as'trodome and airlocks (bottom) of cockpit are fuel tanks and rocket motors Forward: nose cone instruments and more fuel Notes at right are Dr t ritt-z- :! lades iv liasCr Aloe libleolo hetereno mod Mow L : |