ROCKET AIR MAIL

Evening Star, Issue 21570, 16 November 1933, Page 5

ROCKET AIR MAIL

NEXT PHASE OF 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 the rocket has become a controlled vehicle of the air, and already animals and birds havo been carried safely and rapidly and a number of flights with mail have been accomplished (writes r. Collas, in the 1 Argus ’ of Melbourne) . The rocket owes its development to numerous earnest experimenters in Europe and America. Dr Goddard at the Clark University (U.S.);- Max Valier, Fritz Von Opel, and Johannes Winkler, of Germany; and Robert _Es-uault-Pelterie, of Pans, were the pioneers. Their work has received the support of the Smithsonian Institute (U.S.A.) and the French Academy of Science. To Friedrich Schmiedl, 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, 1931, when the rocket R 1 carried an experimental mail of 333 pieces, consisting of post cards, letters, and small packages. The R 1 was projected from the summit of the Hock-Trotsch mount, about 4,000 ft high, at an elevation of 65deg toward the nearest post office in the Semriach. valley below. .When above the Semriach 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 moans. All the mail carried boro special violet cachets and Schmiedl issued “ rocket mail ” stamps. Although these stamps had no official status they arc 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 7,700 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 “ dcr 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. SUCCESSES RECORDED. Numerous other mails have been despatched by the same means in Austria, and on a number of occasions special stamps, cachets, and registration labels havo been used in conjunction with ordinary Austrian postage stamps. The German Interplanetary Society, which numbers among its thousand some of the most * brilliant scientists in Germany, has the

largest experimental ground for the study of rocjkets 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 tho society’s experimental grounds and from different parts of Germany. In 1932 a huge sft model was sent aloft at Wangeroong, on the East Frisian Islands, in the North Sen. In January last a “rocket-flying 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 Schmicdl, release mail by parachute when the peak of the flight has been reached by the successive explosions of tho 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 tho 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 twenty-two years ago in India. The rocket is the next step forward to speedier passenger travel. There is no reason to doubt that the rocket will be made as safe os the aeroplane and tho Zeppelin, in spite of tho enormous speed attained. It has been proved that rocket-propul-sion is adaptable only to vehicles travelling at high speed. With further improvements of rocket fuel, speeds of 1,000 miles an hour may ho reached in the stratosphere between ten and thirty 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 ten miles in a comparatively slow vessel —a balloon. Scientists have predicted that before the end of this century a rocket from tho earth will have crossed 240,000 miles of space and landed on tho apparently airless surface of tho moon. It is perhaps a fantastic dream, yet thirty 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 tho interplanetary journey will be, in I the last analysis, the result of the highest achievements of modern science, it will also open the way to experiences more bizarre than tho dreams of any romancer.”