Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 52 — page 97: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION mention those that arrive in daylight. We can then cal- culate the chances of a meteor reaching the much smaller surface of a spaceship in an equal time. And still we have to consider the power of the Earth’s gravitational field to ' deflect and pull in the far greater proportion of its meteor immigrants which, left to themselves, would have given us the go-by. Also, there’s quite a field of mathematics to deal with estimating the effect of re- lationships between speeds of meteors and speeds of space- ships. A meteor coming up behind you at 1,000,000 m.p.h. has to be pretty big to hurt if you are already travelling at 999,999 m.p.h. Even those that do hit have to be travel- ling in the right direction head on, if your speed and that of the meteor are com- parable, to be fully damaging. But what of the blackness? Without Love Remember how the dust motes make a beam of light visible? It is possible that the real danger may come from the smallest meteorites. They may prove much more numer- ous than we suspect. But they will be in the path of the invisible sunlight that is not coming straight at the vessel and they will make that light visible, since they will reflect it and show up from afar as a shaft of sunlight through a rift in the clouds if seen at a distance. Indeed, they will sparkle like jewels in the blackness behind them. The big fellows will shine forth from the darkness with reflected beams that will make their proximity impossible to miss. By comparison, a contem- porary motorist looking out for illuminated zebra crossing beacons is as an aircraft pilot looking for a flare path lighted by glow-worms. by Rick Strauss is our lead story for next month, Other stories by John Christopher, Martin Jordan, W. H. Boore and Peter E. Rigby. The usual non-fiction departments will be featured, PLUS a 16-page illustrated supplement. AUTHENTIC—A MONTHLY MUST 96 comiclooks.com