Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 65 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

The way to the Planets by A. E. ROY, B.Sc., Ph.D.,’F.R.A.S., F.B.LS. 8—Objective—the Moon preliminary to setting off from the space station orbit for the Moon. Suppose we require 9 tons of fuel to raise 1 ton 1,000 miles above the Earth’s surface—a very, very favourable mass-ratio, but accept it for the moment. Suppose, too, it takes 2 tons of fuel to take 1 ton from the 1,000 mile orbit across the 240,000 mile void to a 500 mile orbit about the Moon, and 3 tons to take | ton from that orbit to the Moon’s surface. Let us suppose fur- ther that the reverse steps consume as much fuel, that is, 3 tons to raise 1 ton to the 500 mile orbit from the Moon’s surface, 2 tons to take 1 ton across space to the 1,000 mile circum-Earth orbit and 9 tons to lower 1 ton from that orbit to the Earth’s surface. Now suppose we want, on those figures, to take 1 ton of life compartment, "> DO A LITTLE SUM AS A 20 including food, air and crew, from Earth: to the Moon, make a landing, and return. How many tons of fuel do we require if we neglect the structural weight of tanks, a considerable weight in itself? If we pack that fuel into one ship, at the head of which is our life-compartment, the answer emerges as follows, worked out by reversing the journey. We want 1 ton payload to return to Earth. Therefore, a 10 ton ship must arrive back at the circum-Earth orbit from the circum-lunar orbit. Thus a (2 x 10 +10) ton or 30 ton ship must have reached the circum-lunar or- bit from the Moon so that the ship that left the Moon weighed (3 x 30+30) ton or 120 tons. Proceeding in this way we find, to our horror, that the initial mass of our good ship, on leaving Earth, is 14,400 tons, a figure that connicloooks.Ccomn)