The Topeka state journal., 1913-05-09
TO MOON IN 4S HOURS.
French Savant Declares 1t Is Possible
to Make such a Voyage.

| Scarcely a generation has passed
| since Jules Verne wrote his startling
books Around the World in Eighty
Days." Twenty Thousand Leagues
| Under the Sea- and the "Trip to the
Noon" His flights of picturesque
| ina gination stirred the scientific world
to much abuse, ridicule and adverse
criticism.
world more than twenty years ago, and
shortly aft or Verne wrote his books. in
seventy-odd days. Moreover, submar-
] inc boats have been so common in the
last 10 years that it required the
Wright brothers invention of the aero
plane to again arouse public wonder.
| Since aviation has become the vogue
| daring airmen have raShly begun to
! think that Jules Verne's other imagina-
tive work may yet be realized, and no
less eminent an aerial engineer than
NJ. Robert Esnault Pefterie, a man of
undoubted position and an officer in
the French Society of Physics, has de-
| signed, constructed and patented
heavier than air machine with the
avowed object of travelling the 23S, $40
miles that separate the moon from the
earth.
NJ. Pelterie has presented his plans
before the French Academy of Physics.
where the matter has been given
serious discussion.
When the objection was made by an
eminent PHYSICIST IIdI an increase IN
weight would require an equal increase
in size of the air craft, Monsieur Pei
terie met this by declaring that his
inclosed aeroplane or projectile will
weigh one ton and have an engine or
motor of 414 900 horse power and a fuel
that is similar to liquid air.
This liquid gas will have a perfect
com bustion in the interstellar space, as
we'll as in an atmosphere of oxygen,
as the spectroscope shows a lunar at
mosphere of vitiated gases entirely diff
ferent from that of the earth. The
propeller discharge of this fuel will be
effective in any vacuum or any gas
A trip such as the French savant
projects might be made in some such
way as this. There could be, as he
proposes, three worldwind stages in the
lunar journey.
The first of these, the passage from
the earth to that point at which it's
attraction ceases, would occupy "a min
uteS and seconds The second would
be crossing the neutral zone wherein
there IS neither attraction by the
earth nor by the moon, and this, he
says, would be accomplished by the
inertia of the projectile, there being
nothing to check the speed at which
it entered the zone. For this stage of
the journey 48 hours and so minutes
would be needed.
The final stage, the dropping to the
surface of the moon, would take 8 min
utes and 46 seconds. Thus the total
length of the trip would be 40 hours,
II minutes and 45 seconds.
Or a somewhat more leisurely voyage
might be made. The craft-which is not
strictly an aircraft, because most of its
trip is made in a sea of interspatial
radiations lacking air-would be
equipped with a lo-spectroscope, a
fuel combustible, in a vacuum, pack
ages of aper-oxysalt to generate oxygen
of concentrated food, trophogens-the
life sustenance of food discovered by
Prof. Rutherford-lead bottles contain
ing radium for illumination and photo
graphy and other small necessities.
The approximate distance of the
moon from Cairo, Egypt, where the
start is to be made, is 240, 900 miles, but
the path of the moon is 33, ,160 miles
nearer the earth at one time than an
other. May 13 would be the time to
start. Since the moon is about the
size of South America, the aim would
be directly at the Moon Maiden-the
man in the moon is fading away from
lunar volcanic eruptions. The string
of Jewels in the Moon Maiden's hair is
a chain of lunar Apennines, upon which
landing from the flying machine
would be made.
This Pelterie flyer carries three pas
sengers, two men and a young woman.
They are clothed and fitted out with
uncompressible hoods, masks, clothing
and leggings.
They have entered the Lunar Flyer at
Cairo. The start is made perpendicu-
larly to clear from the earths force
of gravity. Since this force pulls back
the flyer inversely with the square of
it's distance from the surface, increased
acceleration of the skyrocket propeller
will, If all goes well, soon clear the
machine for the interplanetary space.
The calculations were made so that
after the flyer leaves the last stratum
of the earths atmosphere a direction
would be taken that would allow for
the change in position of the luminary
and the mountains of the moon of 49
hours II minutes and 55 seconds 1ongi-
tude. For the moon will have moved
westward just that far before the aero
plane arrives. The awful consequences
of missing the satellite by that amount
of time may better be left to the
imagination than described. Instead of
entering the orb the machine of the
sky travellers would have become the
Wandering Jew of the great universe,
until seized upon by the force of grav-
ity of some passing planet.
Two other "soundings of the deep sea
Of space" must be gagged before leav-
ing terra firma. Halley's comet, be it
remembered, as it left on its return
journey away from the earth, unlike
Mary's little lamb, held its tail before
It, In other words the tail of the comet
preceded the body.
This strange and mysterious state of
affairs has been explained upon the
theory that the rays of light from the
sun exert a pressure strong enough to
drive the small particles of a comets
tail away, but these light rays are not
powerful enough to destroy the pull
ing" force or gravitation of the body.
of the comet.
Professor Pelterie, then, makes his
estimates of direction so that the side
drive of the suns rays, acting like the
current of a river on a ferry boat,
could not defect his flyer from its