Journey into Space

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Perhaps (who knows?) man's three-dimensional space is folded. At present man cannot cut through the fourth dimension to another part of space, but with new understanding, he might learn. A space ship using this tactic could vanish from nearby space and pop up at once a billion light-years away.

Oversold Public. A large public, happily mixing fact & fiction, apparently believes that space travel is just around the corner. Two years ago New York's Hayden Planetarium whimsically offered "reservations" to the moon and planets. It got 25,000 requests, many of them deadly serious, from all over the world. Every military guided missile center has to chase "space volunteers" away from its guarded perimeter.

The practical rocket men fear that their gradual march toward space may disappoint the oversold public. All the necessary, cautious first steps (a small missile shot into an orbit, a hit on the moon with a small payload. etc.) are a long way from manned space ships. But Dr. von Braun (of the V-2s), who would hurry the cautious missile men along, says that manned space flight "is as sure as the rising of the sun." He tells just how the U.S. military can establish a "satellite space station" in an orbit around the earth, and he insists that such a station could dominate mankind.

A popular and "unclassified" version of Wernher von Braun's proposal can be found in Across the Space Frontier (Viking $3.95). Von Braun, who wrote one chapter, leads off with the statement: "Within the next 10 or 15 years, the earth can have a new companion in the skies, a man-made satellite which will be man's first foothold in space."

To raise the satellite station into its orbit 1,075 miles above the earth, Von Braun proposes to build a fleet of three-stage rockets, each standing 265 feet high and weighing 7,000 tons when fueled. The 51 motors in the first stage will have a thrust of 14,000 tons. The second stage will be smaller, and the third, containing the crew, control apparatus and final payload, will be a winged vehicle rather like an airplane.

The ascent of one of these monster rockets will be something to see and hear. It will roar up vertically and turn its course toward the east to take advantage of the spin of the earth (1,038 m.p.h. at the equator). At the altitude of 24.9 miles and the speed of 5,256 m.p.h., the first section will separate and return to earth, braked by a steel-mesh parachute and downward-firing rockets. The second section will carry on, its motors lifting the rocket to 39.8 miles and boosting its speed to 14,364 m.p.h. Then it too will drop off, leaving the final, manned section to blast itself upward alone, attaining the speed of 18,468 m.p.h. When it reaches the desired altitude (1,075 miles), it will have spiraled halfway around the earth and will have been slowed by gravitation to 14,770 m.p.h. This is not quite fast enough to keep it in its orbit. If left to itself, it would follow an elliptical course down to the atmosphere.