Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 53 — page 120: what you’re looking at

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

What spaceships Will really look like SPACE SHIP-SHAPE Bullets seem to be the accepted pattern for vessels to leave the Earth and saucers the approved design for the shape of things to come from space to us. In the first case there is, to many folk, no more than the mental association of a sharp- nosed cylinder with speedy movement to account for the idea that a spaceship will be like a high velocity shell in shape. In the second case a multiplicity of reported sauc- ers, and the established aero- nautic possibility of flight by such a form, are possibly better reasons for believing the saucer to be a successful spaceship shape. True space travel, however, will not involve aeronautics. Rather we shall have to devise a new word for a new science, something like vacuonautics. (Astronautics is not at all suitable.) The shape of any efficient instrument in the service of man is decided by the purpose which it has to serve. The shape of a vessel which will traverse the space between the planets will be decided largely by the nature of space. 119 by W. W. BYFORD, B.Sc. STREAMLINING—WHY ? Since there is no air in space there will be no point in streamlining. Streamlining is designed to make the passage of an object through air dis- turb the air as little as possible, and where there is no air there is no purpose even to be served by a sharp nose. The long cylinder in space has no significant advantage as a mobile shape. In air it is a way of getting as large a bulk as possible to move so that it cuts as small a lane as possible through the air. In space there will be no lane to cut. Remem- ber the classic experiment in which a golden guinea and a feather were dropped simul- taneously in a tall glass cylinder from which the air had been evacuated? They reached the bottom together. Shape will not be related to speed of movement or ease of movement in space. Other fac- tors will have to be considered. SKIN VERSUS BULK A cylinder has the disadvan- tage that it encloses only a small amount of room in a large surface. A high explosive commicloooks.conn