Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 51 — page 122: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION force of gravity which it will impose on a passenger is correspondingly small. And remember man is accustomed to living under a constant force of gravity on Earth. In fact his body has been evolved to live under that particular force and cannot be healthy for long where the force is very much greater or very much less. The human beast has to get blood upwards to the head. Contraction of the left ven- tricle of the heart does that, being equipped with muscles adequate for the purpose. The valves and walls of the veins are designed to deal with the appropriate pressures in the legs and varicosity results when they fail to cope with the force of gravity. Put any man for a period of time where the force of gravity is double that on Earth, and even if nothing worse happened to him first, he would certainly develop varicose veins. The skeleton is designed to support the weight of the various parts of the body. Put the body where the force of gravity is strong enough and the weight of the flesh becomes so great that every bone in the body is broken. There are plenty of situations in the universe where the force of gravity is sufficient to produce these horrible effects. On or anywhere near any of the larger planets, Jupiter, Neptune or Saturn for example, the human body will be thus devastated unless something can be done to produce a counter force which will produce a resultant force of gravity comparable with that on Earth. In many of the situations in space, of course the force of gravity will be negligibly small. This will be the case anywhere except near a body at least as big as one of the smaller planets. All Man’s routine of living is based on the presence of a force of gravity. In its absence he could not pour out a cup of tea, and the lightest push on the floor of a spaceship would send him to the ceiling. A small boy once pointed out that under such circumstances we should not need to wear braces and no doubt many other advantages would arise in the absence of a force of gravity, but they may not outweigh the disadvantages. A dinner plate would rest in front of you without a table under it, but the slightest pressure with a knife and fork would send it to the floor, and even with a table under it, the 121 comiclbooks.cormn