The New York herald., 1920-01-19
ROCKET TO REACH
MOON? HOAX, SAYS
FRENCH SCIENTIST.
Professor Pelterie Ridicules
Claim of Professor Goddard
as Dream Like Verne's.
by JULIAN HARRIS.
Especial Correspondent of the Heraid.I
[Copyrsht, 1920, By the Neo York Herald
Company-AH Rights Reserred.]
Especial Gable to the HeraId.l

PARIS. Sunday.
A recent cable despatch to the European
Edition of the HERALD, in which was de-
scribed q new type Of multiple charge. high
efficiency rocket. invented by Professor
Robert II. Goddard, OF Clark College,
Worcester, Mass. has attracted much at.
tention in scientific circles in Paris. The
despatch said that IL was believed that
the new rocket would make IL possible
to send recording apparatus into the ex-
treme upper layers of the earth's at
mosphere, and, perhaps, even to the moon
French scientists expressed doubt that
Professor Goddard will be able to achieye
this.
Go to the moon?" questioned Esnauit
Peltere, well known in France as an av;-
ator and constructor. "rhat is very well.
but it is not new. Cyrano de Bergerat
dreamed that long ago and Edmond Ros-
tand regaled us with ballads Oh moonlight.
Jules Verne took us on trip to the moon,
1t is a very inviting planet you see and
what hold it has on the imagination of
mortals!''
Dreamed Of Flight 10 Moon.
1t was suggested to Mr.. pelterie that he,
Also had dreamed OF having travelled to
the moon.
Dreamed is the word he said.
"One day, with nothing better to do,
wrote paper on motors and the poss-
bility of using them to propel an air craft
to the moon. IT was published in 1918.
Evidently every one who read it was
"a f,f inn, nsuia
voyage. However, no one examined into
the physical exigencies involved, nor into
the immensty OF the phenomena which
would be brought into play in such an at
tempted trip.
1T Is assumed that between the earth
and the moon there is only air. However,
an airplane cannot avoid the pressure of
the atmosphere. while a rocket has this
advantage. that it is propelled by reactive
forces rot only in the air, but in empty
space. Too. in rocket, the projectile is
driven by gas formed by combustion Has
this American professor found a suffi-
Iciently powerful gas to do this?
10000 Feet a second Required.
Il doubt IT,; but admitting that he has.
the projectile. in order 10 free itself from
terrestrial attraction, would have to attain
a minimum speed OF $1,000 feet a second
that is to say IL would have to be launched
'iLl a. HpeeO superior 10 tndl, QeuuctlOn De-
ing made for the resistance OF the mir, so
il would not fall back to the earth. To
reach a point OF liberation from the terres-
trial attraction. which would correspond to
an altitude of 30, ,0o0.O 900 feet above the earth
it would take approximately twenty-four
minutes and nine seconds
AT that instant, its speed would he near
ly twenty-five feet second. Then the
rocket would begin the second phase of its
trip, and would continue on it's way by
mere momentum
at that moment however, it would be
influenced each instant by the inverse at
traction of the planet and its satellite At
the point where the attraction OF the earth
and the moon meet, the speed of the rocke1
would be 5000 feet a second the slowest
speed of this phase of the trip. Arriving
at the moons surface, II would be travel
ling at the rate of about nine thousand feet
q second.
This journey from the earth tn the
moon would take forty-eight hours and a
half The whole story, therefore, is n
Jones moon hoax"