Science fiction -- Periodicals; Science fiction, American -- Periodicals
Larry gripped my hand. In times of emotion one is sometimes
inarticulate. "Good-by, George," he said. "We--we've said already all
there is to say, haven't we?"
There were tears in both the girls' eyes. We four had been so close;
we had been through so much together; and now we were parting forever.
All four of us were stricken with surprise at how it affected us. We
stood gazing at one another.
"No!" I burst out. "I haven't said all there is to say. Don't you
destroy that cage! You come back! Guard it as carefully as you can,
and come back. Land here, next year in October; say, night of the
15th. Will you? We'll be here waiting."
"Yes," Tina abruptly agreed.
We stood watching them as they slid the door closed. The cage for a
moment stood quiescent. Then it began faintly humming. It glowed;
faded to a spectre; and was gone.
Mary and I turned away into the New York City of 1935, to begin our
life together.
(_The End_)
TO THE MOON
The prediction that man will fly to the moon within the next 100 years
was made by John Q. Stewart, associate professor of astronomical
physics at Princeton University, in a recent address at the Brooklyn
Institute of Arts and Sciences.
The first obstacle to be overcome is that of developing a speed of
25,000 miles an hour, the professor said, which means production of
fuels more powerful than coal, gasoline, dynamite or any other source
of energy now available. Such remarkable progress has been made in the
speed of passenger carrying vehicles in the last century that
scientists believe that a speed of 1,000 miles per hour will be
reached in 1950 and 50,000 an hour will be surpassed before the year
2030, a century from now.
The one theoretically feasible method of making the journey to the
moon, Stewart believes, is a vehicle propelled on the principle of the
rocket. He visions a ship built in the form of a large metal
sphere--110 feet in diameter, weighing 70,000 metric tons and carrying
a crew of sixty and a dozen scientists. A dozen or more cannon would
protrude slightly from the surface, shooting material the rate of 200
miles a second.
A half hour or so before noon and about three days before a new moon,
Stewart would head his ship toward the sun, expecting it to rise
twelve miles in the first six minutes and to soar out of the earth's
atmosphere at 200 miles per hour.
Two hours and 29 minutes after the take-off the firing from the lower
cannon would be stopped with the ship going upward, the professor
estimates, at 190 miles per minute and having reached a height of
13,200 miles. Seventy hours later, crossing the moon's orbit, Stewart
would fire the forward cannon and the ship would coast around the
moon, becoming the temporary satellite of a satellite.
"The rest would be easy," said Stewart, "owing to the lesser gravity
of the moon. The cannon would be fired to cushion the fall to the moon
as the ship was gradually sucked toward the satellite.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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