REALM OF FANTASY

Evening Star, Issue 25617, 18 October 1945, Page 5

REALM OF FANTASY

INTERPLANETARY COMMUNICATION USE OF LONG-RANGE ROCKETS LONDON, October 17. (British scientists believe that in a few years rockets may carry mails, goods, and perhaps passengers across the Atlantic in 15 minutes, Scientists now know all the secrets of the German long-range rocket —V2—and research is now being directed to discover how to check the landing speed of the projectile and make rocket travel safe. At the launching site which British experts built hear Cuxhaven a highranking British Army spokesman demonstrated how simple it would bo to use V2 with a head containing, not high explosive, but an atomic bomb, making it possible to lob 100 atomic bombs a day from one country into the cities and industrial centres of another. " There are few limits we can visualise on its possible speed and range," he said. " German experts have ideas which seem to go into the realm of fantasy. They say that if a crew can make its own oxygen there is no reason why men in rockete should not travel beyond the power of gravitational attraction and anchor in 6pace between the planets." It is widely believed by German scientists that'improved V2's may_ be used for interplanetary communications or to reach the moon. The British experiments at Cuxhaven are being carried out under the supervision of - Lieutenant Zimmermann, a 33-year-old German scientist who was captured when the Germans abandoned their firing sites in Holland. He is now explaining the secrets of V2 with alacrity and goodwill. From what he says and from what the British experts now know, it is evident that England would have been in a sorry plight if the war had lasted another year.