ROCKET AIR MAIL

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 302, 16 September 1933, Page 18

ROCKET AIR MAIL

Next Phase in Speed

Amazing progress has been made in the last few years toward employing the rocket as a safe and speedy method of aerial transport. In the next decade or so rocket-planes may make the journey from Melbourne to London in seven or eight hours. From a mere toy ths rocket has become a controlled vehicle of the air, and already animals and birds have been carried safely and rapidly, and a number of flights with mail have been accomplished (writes P- Collas in the •‘Argus” of Melbourne). The rocket owes its development to numerous earnest experimenters in Europe and America. Dr. Goddard at the Chark University (U.S.), Max Valier, Fritz von Opel, and Johannes Winkler, of Germany, and Robert Esnault-Pelterie, of Paris, were the pioneers. Their work has received the support of the Smithsonian Institute (U.S.A.) and the French Academy of Science.

To Friedrich Schmledl, of Graz, in Austria, and Reinhold Tiling, of the German Interplanetary Society, must be given the credit of first successfully adapting the rocket as a carrier of mail. After some years of experiment with postal rockets in the Austrian mountains, where post offices were frequently difficult of access and mail deliveries are slow, Schmiedl proved at Schockel, In February and April, 1931, the utility and safety of the carrier rocket. The first rocket post open to the public was inaugurated on September 9,1031, when the rocket R 1 carried an experimental mail of 333 pieces, consisting of postcards, letters, and small packages. The R,l was projected from the summit of the Hock-Trotseh mount, about 4000 ft. high, at an elevation of 65 degrees toward the nearest post-office in the Semrlach valley below. When above the Semrlach post-office the rocket opened and a parachute safely carried the mail to earth. From this point the first rocket-conveyed mail was forwarded to the respective addresses by ordinary means. All the mail carried bore special violet cachets and Schmiedl issued "rocket-mail" stamps. Although these stamps had no official status, they are interesting souvenirs. In the rocket about 531 b. of solid explosives (powdered chlorate"' and nitrate mixture), which by experiment had proved to be the best fuel, were used as the propulsive agent. The speed produced by the exhaust from the explosive was estimated at about 7700 ft. a second, and the rocket was built stoutly to withstand this strain. The inner shell consisted of several layers of tough brass plating, a number of layers of heavy paper, and binding cord. The inside covering of the shell was made of asbestos, which also surrounded “der ofen”—the oven—that part of the rocket which contained the explosive. The external covering consisted of aluminium, and the mails were enclosed in a locked metal case and enclosed in the head of the rocket, from which they were released and dropped by parachute at a predetermined time. Numerous other malls have been dispatched by the same means in Austria, and on a number of occasions

special stamp s, cachets, and registration labels have been used In conjunction with ordinary Austrian postage stamps. The German Interplanetary Society, which numbers among its thousand members some of the most brilliant scientists in Germany, has the largest experimental ground for the study of rockets in the world, and a permanent staff of six engineers is working every day on the problems associated with the harnessing of the rocket to the service of man. Herr Reinhold Tiling, an aviator and scientist, has sent up dozens of rockets from the society's experimental Grounds and from different parts of Germany. In 1932 a huge sft. model was sent aloft at Wangeroqng, on the East Frisian Islands in the North Sea. In January last a "roeket-ily.ug day” held in Berlin did much to stimulate interest in this method of air travel, and a larger number of different types of rockets has been evolved lately. Some, like those of the Austrian experimenter Schmiedl, release mail by parachute when the peak of the flight has been reached by the successive explosions of the propulsive fuel. Others, instead of releasing the mails, allow wings to unfold, and the rocket becoming a glider, glides safely to earth. This design is intended for future passenger flights. Tiling has achieved remarkable success with his experimental rockets. His first glider rocket-ship attained a height of six miles and then glided to a safe landing some five miles from the point of departure. On the upward flight Tiling’s model rocket attained the almost incredible speed of 700 miles an hour. It is thus possible to imagine that the future of mail transport lies with the rocket. The world’s first official aeroplane mail was carried only 22 years ago in India. The rocket is the next step forward to speedier mail transport and possibly speedier passenger travel. There is no reason to, doubt that the rocket will be made as safe as the aeroplane and the Zeppelin, in spite of the enormous speed attained. It has been proved that rocket-propulsion is adaptable only to vehicles travelling at high speed. With further improvements of rocket fuel, speeds of 1090 miles an hour may be reached in the stratosphere between 10 and 30 miles — or even more—above the earth’s surface. Professor Piccard, the Belgian scientist, holds the world’s record for the greatest altitude ever reached by man, but he rose only 10 miles in a comparatively slow vessel—a balloon. Scientists have predicted that before the end of this century a rocket from the earth will have crossed 240,000 miles of space and landed on the apparently airless surface of the moon. It is perhaps a fantastic dream, yet 30 years ago the aeroplane had still to emerge from the pages of a Jules Verne novel. David Lasser, president of the American Interplanetary Society, remarked recently:—“ . . . Although the Interplanetary journey will be, in the last analysis, the result of the highest achievements of modern science, it will also open the way to experiences more bizarre than the dreams of any romancer.”