FLIGHT TO MOON

Southland Times, Issue 20394, 25 January 1928, Page 7

FLIGHT TO MOON

CONFIDENT INVENTOR QUESTION STUDIED FOR YEARS USE OF ROCKET PROPOSED (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Rec. 8.25 p.m.) London, January 24. Interest has been aroused by a book on the exploration of the upper atmosphere by rockets by M. Robert Esnault Pelterie, the famous inventor of the aeroplane joy stick and many other essential aviation devices. He declares that after considering every scientific possibility he is emphatic that a 240,000 miles flight to the moon will eventually be made by man. The vehicle will be a cigar-shaped rocket propelled by gases or atomic particles driven out of the rocket’s tail at an extreme velocity. The flight would occupy 49 hours. The rocket would be pointed directly towards the zenith and leave the earth’s surface at a comparatively slow speed, becoming faster and faster through the higher regions. At an altitude of 70 miles the density falls to practically nothing and the speed would reach a maximum of six miles a second after travelling 2000 miles. It would then travel on its momentum, decreasing in speed to a mile and a-quarter a second at the central point where the attractions of the earth and moon balance. Arriving within 150 miles of the moon the rocket would be headed about and the power turned on again. The propulsive gases would simply be used for about four minutes to slow up the descent and the pilot would probably lay a straight, flat course with the moon at one end of the telescope and the earth at the other. He adds: “I have been studying the question from the viewpoint of pure mechanics for fifteen years and I am convinced it will become possible. People may smile. Within my lifetime I have seen mankind perform miracles. When it is possible to fly to the moon it will be almost as easy to go on to Mars and Venus. In the face of modern progress who dares to say it is impossible? It is not more fantastic than a 300 miles an hour aeroplane would have seemed half a century ago.”— A. and N.Z.