SHALL WE AEROPLANE TO THE STARS?
A man starting on a journey to the sun at \he age of 20, and aeroplatiing at the rate of 60 miles an hour, would no:, return to his terrestrial home till he was 570 years old! If ho paid his fare at ordinary railway rates the tiip would cost him ouo million sterling! A trip from the earth to the moon at a similar speed would be completed in five and a-hal£ years. Signalling to Mars; which had been advocated, would require a flag as large as Ireland in area. A journey to Neptune, the furthest known planet in the stellar system, if it could be made at the fastest railway engine speed, weuld occupy 5,400 years. Stellar distances ure so stupendous thaji- it woukl take a man 500,000 years merrty to count tho number of miles in the distance from earth of the nearest star. What was now seen in the visible universe was as nothing to what was unknown and unseen in the invisible universe. The man had not yet been born who cciild prescribe to the great science of astronomy her boundaries, or tell the perfection of knowledge yet in store for the inquiring curiosity of the human race.
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Bibliographic details
Evening Star, Issue 17312, 27 March 1920, Page 3
Word Count
209SHALL WE AEROPLANE TO THE STARS? Evening Star, Issue 17312, 27 March 1920, Page 3
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