Conquest of the Moon

Description

"Expanded version of a series of scientific articles which appeared in Colliers under the title 'Man on the moon.'"

London ed. (Sidgwick and Jackson) has title: Man on the moon

cf. Moon Man ** re: ref:14.81, cf. "How did Von Braun calculate in 1953 that a rocket would have to be 3× taller than the Empire State Building to reach the moon?", which cites p. 14:

It is commonly believed that man will fly directly from the earth to the moon, but to do this, we would require a vehicle of such gigantic proportions that it would prove an economic impossibility. It would have to develop sufficient speed to penetrate the atmosphere and overcome the earth’s gravity and, having traveled all the way to the moon, it must still have enough fuel to land safely and make the return trip to earth. Furthermore, in order to give the expedition a margin of safety, we would not use one ship alone, but a minimum of three. Calculations have been carefully worked out on the type of vehicle we would need for the non-stop flight from the earth to the moon and return. The figures speak for themselves: each rocket ship would be taller than New York’s Empire State Building (1250 feet) and weigh about ten times the tonnage of the Queen Mary , or some 800,000 tons!