INTERPLANETARY TRAVEL

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27065, 13 June 1953, Page 9

INTERPLANETARY TRAVEL

SCIENTISTS’ HOPES SPACE STATION SEEN AS POSSIBILITY (From a Reuter Correepondent.) \ LONDON. Children now being bom will tee toe space age, when man breaks out of his atmosphere and makes trips to toe moon, and further. That at least is the view, publicly announced by a team of rocket scientists and other physicists, including the co-designer of toe German V-2. It has been endorsed by Britain’s Astronomer Royal, Sir Harold Spencer Jones, who believes that “from the scientific and engineering points of view, interplanetary travel must be considered to be a practical possibility.” Today’s babies may be only 10 years old when men first leave toe earth, for toe scientists claim that their plan for a space station, or “Island in toe Sky," 1075 miles above the earth’s surface, could be realised in that time. The Astronomer Royal, while agreeing that “their faith is not mere idle fancy,” foresees a longer wait “The enthusiasts say that it could be done in 10 years,” he Writes. “But the problems to be investigated and to be solved are so many and varied that 1 am inclined to give a much more cautious estimate and to say that half a century would not be an unduly long time.” The problems and perils of space travel are examined in great detail by toe team, from toe actual launching of three-stage space rockets to the details of life in toe 250 feeet wide, wheel-shaped space stations, with artificial gravity induced by continuous rotation and an outer metallic skin intended as protection against inevitable attacks by meteors. All are agreed that a space station is the first necessity for interplanetary travel, and the method of setting up the station in a steady orbit which would cause it to circle the earth every two hours Is i described in detail, by Dr. Werner Von Braun, co-designer of the V-2 and now technical director of the United States Army Ordnance Guided Missile Development Group, Huntsville. ’ Alabama.

Legal Ownership Problems Others writers deal with such aspects as the legal ownership of territories on other moons and planets (by the Deputy Director of the United Nations’ Legal Department) and toe actual day-to-day problems of living for toe crew of 80 in toe hermeticallysealed station, including toe disposal of garbage through space in which there is no pull of gravity and precautions against leaks into toe space vacuum. Brilliantly coloured illustrations give an idea of the outer blackness which will be all around them. As Dr. Heinz Haber, assistant Professor of Astrophysics in the University of California, remarks in a chapter on human survival in space: “Together with toe atmosphere, the soft light of day will have vanished, and close to toe blinding metallic disc of the sun, man will perceive the stars and even the Milky Way. It is difficult to visualise what this unearthly marriage of day and night will look like. The razor-sharp contrasts between blinding light and utter black will be extremely hard on the eyes. Disturbing after-images caused by toe sun and the sunlit parts of the ship’s structure will occur when the eyes are turned away from tl}e window."