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Daring Men in Seven Nations Aim to Harness GIANT Rockets

FIFTEEN years ago the rocket was a toy, fit only for fireworks or laboratory demonstrations. Twelve years ago only one scientist in the world, the American physicist, Dr. Robert H. Goddard, of Clark University, Worcester, Mass., was working to transform this ancient plaything into a source of power for fast vehicles. So rapid has progress been, since then, that today the rocket is a young giant, though as yet too impetuous and uncontrolled for commercial use.
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Space Cops to Enforce World Peace

Man-made satellite rocketships may soon revolve in endless orbits around the earth, policing our civilization.

By Frank Tinsley

NATIONS of the world are racing to send the first man-made satellite revolving in an endless orbit around the earth. In the hands of an agressor, such a machine might mean slavery for all mankind, but as a police unit of the United Nations, it holds a promise of world peace.

Back in the closing days of 1948, when Secretary of Defense James Forrestal disclosed the existence of an “earth satellite vehicle program,” the press and public reacted with a gasp of incredulous amazement. For the first time, responsible officials had dared to admit that they were seriously investigating the fantastic dreams of Sunday-supplement screwballs!
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MAIL VIA ROCKET

A missile expert predicts rocket mail by 1965. Here are MI’s ideas on how the system could function.

By Frank Tinsley

IT’S Friday noon. In the home office of a giant New York corporation the final drafts of a secret merger are being signed. If they can be signed by the party of the second part in San Francisco and be back here in the office before the stock market closes—so that “buy” orders can be rushed to dealers throughout the country—a possible Monday financial slump can be averted. The atmosphere is tense. A micro- photo machine has been moved into the president’s office and a trusted operator inserts the sheets, one by one. Two tiny prints of each emerge, one for the files and one for mailing. Read the rest of this entry »

No, this article is not about a particularly ambitious band of paparazzi.

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Photographing Stars with a Rocket

WILL science ever be able to take photographs of the spectra of the sun and other stars with cameras far outside the range of the earth’s atmosphere? Speculation on this possibility has been renewed by the recent experiments of Prof. Robert H. Goddard, of Worcester, Mass., in launching rockets of his own design powered with a secret liquid propellant which he invented.

Contrary to popular belief, Prof. Goddard has no intention of occupying one of his rockets on a fantastic journey to the moon. As pointed out by Dr. C. G. Abbott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, a close friend of Professor Goddard, the professor’s experiments are directed toward a scientific exploration of the upper heavens at distances now far beyond the reach of man.
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Skyrocketing to Mars

Will Man Ever Reach the Red Planet?

Rocket machines operate more efficiently in the vacuum of interstellar space than in an atmosphere. Will science be able to harness this new force for interplanetary travel?

SCIENTISTS say that in the next few months we may see the first trials of man-carrying rockets, which will be shot off into space in an effort to land some intrepid adventurer on Venus or Mars! Visions of a Jules Verne voyage to another planet are actually nearing realization through the lessons learned from recent rocket tests made by Fritz von Opel and Anton Raab, two Germans who have made exhaustive studies of rockets as a means of propulsion.
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Rockets Soup Up British Bike

A CROWD of 90,000 saw Bill Kitchen (right), noted British motorcycle racer, smoke up Wembley speedway in London recently (above) on the world’s first rocket-assisted motorcycle.
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LIQUID OXYGEN RUNS AMAZING AUTO

A daring attempt to drive an automobile with the terrific power of fuels like benzine burning in liquid oxygen succeeded at Berlin the other day. Shortly after, one of its two inventors was killed when he sought to repeat the feat.

Dr. Paul Heylandt, German liquid air expert, and Max Valier, builder of rocket cars, were in search of something more than merely a new kind of automobile. They were looking for a concentrated, lightweight fuel that might drive an airplane at tremendous heights across the Atlantic, or even send a projectile to the moon. Read the rest of this entry »

Future GIs to ride rocket troopship

Troop transport in 45 minutes to a brush-fire war anywhere in the world is proposed by Douglas Aircraft space engineers.

The 80-by-210-foot re-usable rocket shown at right would speed 17,000 m.p.h., carrying 1,200 troops and equipment. Landing upright, it would debark them by portable ramps, jet packs, and rope ladders.

It’s called ICARUS: Intercontinental Aerospace craft—Range Unlimited System.

EXPECT HIGH SPEED OF ROCKET-DRIVEN PLANE

If their calculations are correct, a barrage of rockets will soon send a ten-foot model plane whizzing through the air. Maurice Poirier and Franklin L. Wallace, of Los Angeles, Calif., built the model and if it flies they will attempt to build a full-sized craft on the same plan. They predict that the rockets will give the model a speed approaching ten miles a minute.

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10000 Miles an Hour!

Rocket flights of tomorrow will circle the earth in 3 hours—maybe.

WALK past almost any flowered field or meadow from Connecticut to California these fine summer afternoons and as likely as not you’ll see little knots of agitated men puttering with strange-looking contraptions which hiss and let off gaseous odors. Edge over to satisfy your curiosity and some of them will come running up warningly to shoo you away.

There’s a good reason for the presence of so many mysterious looking men. Rocketry is making tremendous strides in its development as an embryonic science. Over the past winter there have been many important developments in cellar and garret workshops everywhere. Under the clear skies of July and August tests are being made to ascertain their practical value.
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Rocket-Cycle Explained by Professor A. M. Low of London while Alec Jackson gets ready to take-off—along the surface, he hopes. Low has been experimenting with rockets since 1917. Four of his rocket-assisted motorcycles were demonstrated at the Wembley speedway meet.

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Rockets on a timetable

By Richard F. Dempewolff

X IS ZERO; the exclamation point in time when the 58-foot, two-stage “Bumper” rocket—combining a modified V-2 with a 700-pound WAC Corporal riding its nose—will stand on its fiery tail above the new long-range proving ground in Cocoa, Fla., whoosh to the stratosphere and lay itself out for the world’s first long, horizontal stretch above the Atlantic.

No one knows when X will arrive. At . any moment, time may stand still while men, hanging half in and half out of yawning hatches in the side of the four-story monster rocket, hold up the count as they make final adjustments.
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