"ANCHORING" IN SPACE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 147, 23 June 1928, Page 20

"ANCHORING" IN SPACE

NEW METHOD OF TRAVELLING. A fantastic scheme for future aerial travel has been expounded by, an aviation student, who believes it will bii possiblo to construct an air vessel that will rise Vertically to a point just above thq' "hundred-mile" belt of tho earth's atmosphere, romain-'poised in space, and descend when its destination is brought immediately beneath it by terrestrial rotation. His idea, as awriter in London "Tit-Bits'" explains it, is to leap upwards in .catapult fashion while tho earth does, .the travelling, so that the journoy between London and New York, one-sixth of tho distance round tho globe, would .takefour hours. , . The airplane woulibe equipped with the usual frontal propellers for the journey through the hea-vier strata of atmosphere, with oxplosion chambers in the rear to force the craft upwards so long as air-resistance remained. Oxygen would 'bo carried and electricity used'for heating and cooking. This is certainly a rcmarkablo vision, but aev- ■ oral difficulties appear to have been overlokcd. It. has been estimated that since the earth's motion cannot bo reversed, and a journey that would take four hours in one direction would occupy twenty hours when homeward - bouud.