The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1908-05-21
A VISIT TO THE MOON.
Is Such Thing Within the Bounds Of
Possibility

Possibility?
Can men visit the moon? In any age
but the present, says Professor Ernest
Green Dodge. A. NJ, this question if
seriously asked would have been an
swered by a chorus of jeers. So far
beyond the pale of possibilities has the
visiting of other worlds always APP
peared that writers of fiction have
felt free to treat the idea sportively,
describing thrilling Journeys through
space in impossible vehicles.
Nevertheless the thought of explor-
ing distant planets, pausing en- route
to view the farther side of the moon,
so tantalizingly turned from us, is one
that fires the human Imagination most
profoundly. The worst that can be
said is that it now looks as difficult to
US as the crossing of the great Atlantic
must once have appeared to the naked
savage upon it's shore. The impossi-
bility of the savage became the tri
umph of Columbus, and the day dream
of the nineteenth century may become
the achievement even of the twentieth.
A body on the earth's equator is
travelling with the earths rotation at
a speed of more than a thousand miles
an hour. If relieved of gravity it
would not fly suddenly off, like a can
non ball, and disappear into space. For
several seconds its rise from the sur
face Of the earth would be so slow
as to be practically imperceptible ow-
ing to the small difference between a
straight tangent line and the earth's
slow curvature. Gradually, however.
its apparent upward velocity would
increase so as to lift 1t some sixty-fve
yards the first minute and more than a
hundred miles the first hour. 1t would
travel $4,000 miles, the distance be-
tween the earth and the moon, in ten
days and If suitably exposed to the
earth's attraction, acting as a brake,
while screened from that of the moon.
its landing could be made gentle and
safe. Strangely enough, the unturning
attitude Of the lunar surface in rela,
ton to the earth makes the return
voyage absolutely impossible save by
tedious roundabout journey of many
months. involving the circumnaviga,
ton of Mars.
the moon good for. even If man sue
ceeds in reaching it?''
We know it to be barren, rocky
world, without air or moisture, I'M
speakably cold at night and below the
freezing point even at noon. However
men could abide there for a time ir
thick walled, air tight houses and could
walk out Of doors in air tight divers
suits. Scientists would find in the
lunar wastes a fresh field for explora
ton. Astronomers could plant theil
telescopes there. free from their mos
serious hindrance, the earths atmos
phere. Tourists of the wealthy anC
adventurous class would not fail Il
visit the satellite. and costly hotel:
must be maintained for their accommo
dation. Then it is quite proba Bile tina
veins Of previous metals. beds Of Ola
| monds and an abundance Of surphuI
| might be discovered on world of 81
| highly volcanic a character.
| The foregoing may seem filled witt
the stuff that dreams are made of,
| yet most Of the assertions are baseC
| on the hard facts of mathematics anC
| physics. History is not always par
| ticular TO follow the precise path lait
out for it by prophets, yet in the lon:
run it never fails to achieve large
| things than the seer dared to predict
| New York World.