ROCKET POST TO U.S.A.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20870, 9 November 1929, Page 22

ROCKET POST TO U.S.A.

GERMAN INVENTOR’S IDEA. Professor Orherth, who secured the first prize in the international rocket competition in Paris last year, proposes to carry out a fresh experiment, with the object of testing the possibilities of at great distances above the earth ("writes the Berlin correspondent of the Daily Telegraph). He has constructed a rocket, consisting of a tube some 30 feet long and about four inches in diameter, furnished with stabilisation wings. The tube itself is of iron, with an inner lining of copper, and it will be filled with liquid oxygen, in which four carbon rods are placed. When the rods are burned gases will be generated, which, it is claimed, will have a propelling force of about 1600 yards per second—or 60 miles a minute. Professor Oberth talks of sending special postal rocket from Europe to America in 30 minutes when an efficient steering apparatus has beer devised. Special safety valves are fitted to the apparatus, to maintain a regular pressure of 30 atmospheres. Attached to the rocket is a parachute, which, it is hoped, will.ensure a slow fall back to the earth when the driving force is spent. The upward maximum speed of the apparatus is reckoned by the inventor at about 1100 yards per second, and he believes that a height of some 45 miles can be attained. Professor Oberth promises that the first trial shall be made in a short time. As the law requires that such experiments shall be conducted from an open space whose diameter is equal to the height that is to be attained he will operate from the North Sea. The first flight is intended only as a test of the propelling material. No I scientific instruments will be attached to the rocket, and no living being is to be sent up in it. 'Subsequent trials will be made with liquid oxygen and benzine, for experiments conducted with these substances have proved successful.