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Fantasy Fiction Telegram, v. 1, issue 4, January 1937
Page 11
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THE ROCKET AND INTERPLANETARY FLIGHT by Charles H. Bert [Illustration of a rocket ship flying over a city.] A trip to the moon. That has fascinated rocket experimenters and thrilled science-fiction fans for years. It would open new frontiers and new markets and lead the way to new worlds, Interplanetary travel, a realization of an ultimate dream of a select group of intelligent astronautics, as the new science of rocketry is called. There had been so much confusion and misinformation about this subject that I feel an article of this type is timely. Many decades ago, Newcomb, an old scientist, informed his scientific audience that a heavier than air machine could not fly and was mathematically impossible and they gravely agreed with him. Years passed then came the Wright brothers. At Kitty Hawk one day a queer contraption rose into the air. Newcomb's belief crumbles into dust and a new science was born: the science of flight. Years later an even more fantastic dream was given birth; the science of rocketry and interplanetary flight. The public scoffed and said it was impossible. They were right, then, but it did not stop those courageous experimenters. It was almost impossible to get money to finance their work. What business man would want to waste their money in such an absurd fashion? A few wiser experimenters banded together and formed societies. They managed to lump enough to keep themselves going. [Illegible] and shy Fiction writers recognized the rocket was new material and wrote many absurd stories about it. Newspaper reporters had their puns. People scoffed, business men laughed, and most scientists were afraid their reputations would be harmed if they expressed belief in this new lunacy. In recent years, science has taken gigantic strides and aeronautics has gained some recognition. The really wise people who investigated the subject met with some surprises. It is absurd to believe that an experimenter would build a rocket and then hop off to the moon. We have to learn to walk before we can run. There is plenty of theoretical evidence supporting rocket flight. Science has the material to build the rocket, but fuel and acceleration are other things. The use of rockets would be practically useless on the ground and its future lies in the air. In the last three years there has been a steady advance in the new data. It is true that in years from now rockets will wend their way from New York to Paris, and other important cities. Development of a rocket to fly to the moon will come soon after this. The job is tremendous and if accomplished, would be the greatest engineering feat of the 20th
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THE ROCKET AND INTERPLANETARY FLIGHT by Charles H. Bert [Illustration of a rocket ship flying over a city.] A trip to the moon. That has fascinated rocket experimenters and thrilled science-fiction fans for years. It would open new frontiers and new markets and lead the way to new worlds, Interplanetary travel, a realization of an ultimate dream of a select group of intelligent astronautics, as the new science of rocketry is called. There had been so much confusion and misinformation about this subject that I feel an article of this type is timely. Many decades ago, Newcomb, an old scientist, informed his scientific audience that a heavier than air machine could not fly and was mathematically impossible and they gravely agreed with him. Years passed then came the Wright brothers. At Kitty Hawk one day a queer contraption rose into the air. Newcomb's belief crumbles into dust and a new science was born: the science of flight. Years later an even more fantastic dream was given birth; the science of rocketry and interplanetary flight. The public scoffed and said it was impossible. They were right, then, but it did not stop those courageous experimenters. It was almost impossible to get money to finance their work. What business man would want to waste their money in such an absurd fashion? A few wiser experimenters banded together and formed societies. They managed to lump enough to keep themselves going. [Illegible] and shy Fiction writers recognized the rocket was new material and wrote many absurd stories about it. Newspaper reporters had their puns. People scoffed, business men laughed, and most scientists were afraid their reputations would be harmed if they expressed belief in this new lunacy. In recent years, science has taken gigantic strides and aeronautics has gained some recognition. The really wise people who investigated the subject met with some surprises. It is absurd to believe that an experimenter would build a rocket and then hop off to the moon. We have to learn to walk before we can run. There is plenty of theoretical evidence supporting rocket flight. Science has the material to build the rocket, but fuel and acceleration are other things. The use of rockets would be practically useless on the ground and its future lies in the air. In the last three years there has been a steady advance in the new data. It is true that in years from now rockets will wend their way from New York to Paris, and other important cities. Development of a rocket to fly to the moon will come soon after this. The job is tremendous and if accomplished, would be the greatest engineering feat of the 20th
Hevelin Fanzines
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