The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1921-12-21
''T0P OF WORLD"
so MILES AWAY
Writer Gives Some Interesting
Facts in Connection With
Recent Aviation Feats.
OF LITTLE SCIENTIFIC Value.
Attempts to Go Higher Than Mac
Readys Record Breaking Flight
Would Not Be Productive of
Worthwhile Results.

Washington-The" top of the world
still waits to be reached Lieutenant
MacReady's record breaking fly to a
| height Of nearly eight miles left the
ceiling of the earth" still at least
| forty miles away.
How near the aviator may come to
what is practically the upper limit Of
the atmospheric layer surrounding the
earth we may not know in this genera
ton. But the meteorological and the
astronomer tell us that both Major
Schroeder after his flight of SO, $50
feet and Lieutenant MacReady after
his 10000 were speaking only f1gnra-
lively when they spoke Of having at
tanned the stop Of the EARTH"
Layer Fifty Miles Thick.
The layer of atmosphere, many say,
is at least fifty miles thick.
Aviators now have the means of
taking sufficient oxygen along with
them for their engines and for them
selves, and the heat that keeps their.
bodies from freezing. They lack only
denser air to fly upon at great heights.
But this, Of course, they will never
have.
Yet there is another solution: The
faster plane capable of rising still
air.
1t will be a problem forever increas.
ingly difficult. The higher man rises,
the thinner will he find the air upon
which he must depend for buoyancy.
Indeed the air gets thinner even in
greater proportion than the increased
height of the flight For though Mac
Ready had risen through but one-sixth
Of the air cushion that cloaks the
earth, he had left behind him four
fifths of the air.
From the surface of the earth,
where the total pressure upon his body
was fifteen tons, he had risen to q
three tons And had he gone three
times as high he would have reduced
the pressure to so pounds.
Any higher airplane flights than
those that have been taken by these |
two men will have little scientific |
value. Their observations will give
scarcely mere information than that to
be had from balloon sent up with
various pieces Of recording apparatus.
No Interest at Poles.
But neither did the poles of the
earth have great scientific interest
Yet men sought and attained them.
And so long as the astronomer and the
make known the exist
.nce of an ocean of air beyond any
JAILED thus far, there will be strug-
lie to fathom its depth.
But for the present that fathoming ]
will be done only from observation and
deduction to be made upon terra firma
AmOng the best of the methods that
re used to determine the upper limit
f the blanket of air about the earth
) called the twilight method" :
Twilight has been defined as the
me after sunset when day seems to
e continued into the night because of
pper air.
1t has been determined that twi- :,
ght lasts until the sun is about
ghteen degrees below the horizon, 6
nd with this as a known value and I
le radius of the earth given as 1905
lies. it is not difficult to solve, by the +
ethods of trigonometry, right tr.- "
lgle that gives 40 miles as the height
the air still dense enough to reflect Il
e twilight rays of the sun after II n
Is set. A.
On the other hand, another method
yes a different result. The presence 81
shooting stars in these fail nights. h
lculated often to be at height OF
0 miles, would seem to indicate that VI
ere must be air even at that heigft. " "
r itSis the friction Of the air that -
ats the meteor as 1t rushes tOwarn n
e earth.-Chester E. Tucker, in Chi
60 Post pl
Fl