Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 67 — page 90: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION is a final error in estimating the height when the motors are cut, the undercarriage could be designed to allow for this. Theundercarriage, equipped with shock absorbers, will be wheelless, because of the ver- tical descent and ascent. It will consist of a number of legs at the feet of which are broad, flat plates. Theoretic- ally, only three legs are required to support a struc- ture, but—as anyone knows who has ever sat on a three- legged stool!—to provide stability, at least four should be provided. In addition, the greater the number, the smaller will be the strain on each. These legs are carried outside the main body of the vehicle and prevent the nozzles of the rocket motors from touching the lunar surface. In case of uneven firing from the motors, which would cause the ship to depart from a vertical aspect, it has been suggested that means of correcting such a tendency should be provided. This can be achieved by using small side-rockets, or provid- ing a system of small, massive flywheels inside the ship to utilise the law of the conserva- tion of angular momentum. In practice, the side-rockets are more likely to be used, 89 since the use of flywheels is a slow business, and the correc- tions should be applied as quickly as possible. In addi- tion, for greater stability, the height of the landing craft should be as near its width as is conveniently possible. The vehicles planned by Professor von Braun and described in COLLIER’S magazine three years ago used nitric acid and hydrazine as propellants, were 160 feet long, 110 feet wide and weighed 4,370 tons com- pletely fuelled. In this design, however, they were built in an orbit 1,075 miles above the Earth and were landed on the Moon without the use of special landing craft. But these monsters are unlikely to be used on a first expedi- tion, so that von Braun’s own description, quoted at the beginning of this article, probably describes more cor- rectly the first landing-party’s resources. Thus, in the way sketched above, which follows a design of Mr. R. A. Smith of the British Interplanetary Society, the picture of a lunar landing craft is built up, a squat, ugly, unstreamlined affair of fuel tanks, cargo and living compartments, rocket motors and undercarriage, held to- gether by a girder framework. ecomicloooks.com