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Show JOURNEY TO THE MOON Get Your Rockets Tuned Ud Science has advanced to the point where, when you talk about taking a trip to the moon, people no longer look sorrowfully upon you as one who has been affected by the fabled light from that lunar orb. An actual journey to the moon may become a reality sooner than one would have expected five years ago. Right now, in several parts of the world, there are small groups of earnest experts who are quite serious seri-ous about the prospects of travel between the planets. One of those organizations is the British Interplanetary society, a group of about 450 members nearly one-third of whom are rocket and supersonic research scientists. Another An-other third is made up of mechanical mechani-cal and electrical engineers, radio and radar technicians. Many researchers working on military rocket-powered weapons believe that their work on rockets can be just as important for a peaceful future as it might be for war. From the aspect of motive power they know that by the time they can send a rocket halfway around the world they are likely to be within easy reach of the next phase interplanetary travel. That time may not be very far distant.' Present velocity of a V-2 type rocket is about two miles a second. The velocity required to send one to the most distant spot on this globe is about five miles a second; and the estimated velocity needed to get a rocket out of the earth's gravitational pull is seven miles a second. But actual travel in space is still a secondary consideration. After man has succeeded in shaking off earth's gravity pull with, his rockets, rock-ets, the first thing he will do is to shoot a load of scientific instruments instru-ments into space. The visionary scientist sees himself him-self sending instruments to the moon or to Mars. Or arranging it so that part of his rocket would become be-come a satellite to one of the planets. plan-ets. Thus, through a development of television, he might see such things as the secrets of the dark side of the moon. j A wealth of research literally out of this world would be opened up long before an attempt eould be made to begin human interplanetary interplanet-ary travel j |
