Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 46 — page 161: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

FROM EARTH TO THE STARS! “AUTHENTIC covers take you step by step from the first ‘manned rocket to - man’s final conquest of interstellar space. Accurate, scientific, exciting ! This is the way it will happen ! THIS MONTH'S COVER shows something that will probably not be a rare event on the journey to the stars—an emergency | . The engines—ion-drive accelerators, have been working con- tinuously for anything up to a couple of hundred years, and now some- thing has given up under the strain. Immediately, repair crews go into action. Protected by spacesuits from the vacuum outside the ship, they swarm over the motors that lie in a long cylinder down the centre of the ship. They work fast, for time is an important factor on this trip. Even with constant acceleration. the ship will not reach its destination until several hundred—maybe a thousand—years after its departure from the solar system. A drop in acceleration for even a short time might add a century or two to that period! So while one squad of men tear out the covering panels and dismantle the defective units, other squads are busy bringing up spares all ready to be inserted into place with the minimum of delay. One of the amazing things about this ship is that its motors are cannibals! They will eat themselves: or most other things for that matter. As parts wear out they are removed and replaced by spares, and then the broken units are fed into the motors and torn apart into the very ions (charged atoms) on which they are made. Thus, the heavy motor units are not a dead loss to the ship even when useless for their primary purpose, for they become fuel for the parts which have replaced them. Soon, the repair squads will have finished their task, and will climb back into the safety -of the gigantic ship. Maybe another century wil! go by before the motors need attention again. But by then the ship will be approaching another star system — a long way from home. Next month we will give you a view of man’s first approach to another star! comlicloooks.conmm