Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 67 — page 88: 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.S.A.S., F.B.LS. 10—Project Moonbase N THE BOOK, “‘ACROSS THE | Space Frontier,’’ Professor Wernher von Braun said: “The first attempt to land on the Moon will be a daring undertaking for a small crew travelling in a single ship.” This assessment of the risk the first expedition will face probably hits the mark squarely. The operation of landing a spaceship on a body such as the Moon, which possesses no atmos- phere, will be a decidedly tricky one. Although many papers on the establishment and potentialities of the lunar base have been published, relatively few authors have considered the actual landing. It will be the prototype of all landings on airless planets. Firstly, winged rockets are out of the question. Indeed, wings would be a positive hazard, being. so much extra dead-weight, and this con- sideration is One more reason why spaceflight pioneers be- lieve more than one type of spaceship is required. The three-stage satellite rocket must obey the laws of aero- dynamics, especially in its third stage which, on landing, will use braking ellipses through the Earth’s atmos- phere to destroy its excess energy. But wings are useless when there is no atmosphere; therefore, the landing craft that ferries the expedition down to the lunar surface must be designed for that specific job. In designing that craft, we must consider in particular the approach trajectory, the mass to be landed, the maxi- mum strains materials and crew can be subjected to in the lunar gravitational field and the type of terrain to be landed on. Last month it was seen that the Moon’s surface 87 was by no means smooth, and it is unlikely that the expedition would chance a horizontal landing by skidding over the surface, since it is easily calculated that the speed of landing would be over one mile a second! While it seems certain that preliminary non-landing expeditions in comicloooks.com