Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 53 — page 123: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION do. Temperature? Heat is movement of atoms—no atoms, no heat. We cannot use the expression temperature of space because where there is no substance nothing will be either hot or cold. The only way in which heat will be able to reach the spaceship will be as radiations which may fall upon it and which, as forms of energy, may be absorbed by the atoms of the hull to warm them up a little. How much do radiations warm up the summit of Everest—or a stratoplane? No, not a lot of heat will reach the vessel, but what about the heat generated therein? We have no known type of motor which does not need cooling. All our car engines are eventually air cooled. The so-called water-cooled engine is cooled by water which, having become hot, is taken round a radiator to be cooled by air. Stationary engines are sometimes cooled by taking cold water from a river and returning it to the river heated, and a boat can be cooled by the water through which it moves. This no air in space theme is as repetitive as radishes. Whether we like it or not it just keeps coming up. It is going to make quite a lot of things very different from the way they are here on Earth, and this business of what to do with unwanted heat is one of them. Quite a prickly one, too. HEAT TO SPARE—AND NO TAKERS The heat of the engine can- not be allowed to stay aboard. Even if only the body heat of the occupants were allowed to accumulate indefinitely, the temperature of the ship would become unbearable. There will have to be a way of disposing of heat. It cannot be given away to any other material in the neighbourhood. In some way or other the heat will have to be converted into some form of energy that can either be used or given off ata fairly fast rate. Fortunately this problem is half way towards being solved in the natural order of \ things. All warm objects are always giving out energy in a wave form known as radiant heat. On any night when the sky is clear, especially on a fine windless night when there is not a cloud in the sky—the sort of night on which the stars fairly crackle—you can 122 comiclooks.conrn