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Fantasy News Annual, v. 7, issue 1, whole no. 150, July 27, 1941

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FANTASY NEWS  SPECIAL FEATURE SECTION PAge Five


         THE DAWN OF THE AGE OF ROCKETRY
            by Thomas S. Gardner.

   An old European legend relates that once there was a boy who herded sheep. His friends and the other shepherds told him that if a wolf came about, he should cry: "Wolf! Wolf!" and they would come and kill the wolf. Well, the boy got bored with watching the sheep, and decided to have some fun; so he cried in a loud voice,"Wolf! Wolf! Help me!" The came running with their bills and hooks to slay the animal. But lo! when they got there, they found the boy rolling on the ground in laughter for it had been so funny to see them running for nothing. The shepherds were very wroth and went away muttering. Soon after, a lean, grey, hungry wolf loped out from a gully toward the boy and his sheep. This time he cried "Wolf! Wolf!" in dead earnest, but no one came. The shepherds heard him, and said to one another, "It is only that foolish boy who wants to laugh at us again. We will not be fooled a second time." And the wolf at the boy up, and carried away a sheep for his supper.
   Thus it is with writers who tell the public about rockets and their use as a means of propulsion. That has been going on now for several years, and no one has yet seen a rocket ship outside of the movies. However, they foget that the same thing happened for hundreds of years before the airplane was developed. At the risk of beign called another crier of "Wolf! Wolf!", the writer will describe what he believes has made rocket ships a possibility within a very few years--before the end of the Second World War.
   Every invention must depend upon the application of basic principles before it is a success.Thus the airplane was a complete failure as long as the helicopter principle was used. Even today, with motors thousands of times more powerful, than the ones fifty years ago, the helicopter is still not a practical method of flight. The first big advance in the airplane took place with the application of Bernoulli's principle to plane surfaces as is used in flight. Observations on birds fully confirmed this. The principle states that if a fluid, gas or liquid, moves rapidly over a surface, the pressure on the surface decreases according to a mathematical relationship. The rapidly moving air above the curved wing surface of an airplane causes a partial vacuum on that surface, and the atmospheric pressure below the plane exerts a lift. That is the fundamental principle of the successful airplane.
   However, even with the use of the Bernoulli principle, to uide investors, the airplane had to ait upon the gasoline motor that delivers a high horse power output per pound of weight. Today, our engines are much better--because they deliver an even higher ratio of power output per pound of engine weight. Once the gasoline motor was developed the success of the airplane was assured.
   The same thing has happened  in the development of rocketry. Like all inventions, it had to wait upon something--in this case, the proper fuel mixture. As every reader of science fiction knows, powder rockets were tried, the hydrogen-oxygen rocket has been discussed, and a great deal of work has been done on the use of the liquid-oxygen-gasoline fuel mixture. Let me refer the reader to Willy Ley's articles in ASTOUNDING and THRILLING WONDER and to P. E. Cleator's (Con. on p. 6.

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FANTASY NEWS SPECIAL FEATURE SECTION PAge Five THE DAWN OF THE AGE OF ROCKETRY by Thomas S. Gardner. An old European legend relates that once there was a boy who herded sheep. His friends and the other shepherds told him that if a wolf came about, he should cry: "Wolf! Wolf!" and they would come and kill the wolf. Well, the boy got bored with watching the sheep, and decided to have some fun; so he cried in a loud voice,"Wolf! Wolf! Help me!" The came running with their bills and hooks to slay the animal. But lo! when they got there, they found the boy rolling on the ground in laughter for it had been so funny to see them running for nothing. The shepherds were very wroth and went away muttering. Soon after, a lean, grey, hungry wolf loped out from a gully toward the boy and his sheep. This time he cried "Wolf! Wolf!" in dead earnest, but no one came. The shepherds heard him, and said to one another, "It is only that foolish boy who wants to laugh at us again. We will not be fooled a second time." And the wolf at the boy up, and carried away a sheep for his supper. Thus it is with writers who tell the public about rockets and their use as a means of propulsion. That has been going on now for several years, and no one has yet seen a rocket ship outside of the movies. However, they foget that the same thing happened for hundreds of years before the airplane was developed. At the risk of beign called another crier of "Wolf! Wolf!", the writer will describe what he believes has made rocket ships a possibility within a very few years--before the end of the Second World War. Every invention must depend upon the application of basic principles before it is a success.Thus the airplane was a complete failure as long as the helicopter principle was used. Even today, with motors thousands of times more powerful, than the ones fifty years ago, the helicopter is still not a practical method of flight. The first big advance in the airplane took place with the application of Bernoulli's principle to plane surfaces as is used in flight. Observations on birds fully confirmed this. The principle states that if a fluid, gas or liquid, moves rapidly over a surface, the pressure on the surface decreases according to a mathematical relationship. The rapidly moving air above the curved wing surface of an airplane causes a partial vacuum on that surface, and the atmospheric pressure below the plane exerts a lift. That is the fundamental principle of the successful airplane. However, even with the use of the Bernoulli principle, to uide investors, the airplane had to ait upon the gasoline motor that delivers a high horse power output per pound of weight. Today, our engines are much better--because they deliver an even higher ratio of power output per pound of engine weight. Once the gasoline motor was developed the success of the airplane was assured. The same thing has happened in the development of rocketry. Like all inventions, it had to wait upon something--in this case, the proper fuel mixture. As every reader of science fiction knows, powder rockets were tried, the hydrogen-oxygen rocket has been discussed, and a great deal of work has been done on the use of the liquid-oxygen-gasoline fuel mixture. Let me refer the reader to Willy Ley's articles in ASTOUNDING and THRILLING WONDER and to P. E. Cleator's (Con. on p. 6.