The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1937-07-29
Scientist Says 1t
May Be Possible to
Fly Around Moon
Book, Zero to Eighty"
Describes How It's Done

Washington.-Did you know
that right now-given money
enough for the development of
mechanisms - scientists could
design a space rocket to take a
trip around the moon? And that
such flight could be achieved
without invoking any imaginary
physical features or laws of
nature?
DR.. Edwin Fitch Northrup, one of
Americas best known veteran cleo
trical scientists of Princeton, N. j.,
is authority for these statements and
proves them in his new book, Zero
to Eighty" which is one of the most
fascinating, readable volumes on
science for the layman to appear
in many years.
Life of Imaginary Scientist.
Zero to Eighty is the life story of
an imaginary scientist, one Akkad
Pseudoman who was born in 1920
and achieved the Jules Vernian goal
of a trip around the moon and back
to the earth. Written as an auto
biography, it is completely fiction
but fiction without one single fact
of fancy in it. DR.. Northrup merely
chooses the fiction form of nara
tive because he is wise enough to
know that the layman likes to read
about people rather than about their
works.
All the scientific material skillful-
ly intermeshed with the fiction tale
has been worked out in consider
able detail and "is believed to be
entirely consonant with current
proved facts and well tested tech
nical knowledge" as the author
puts it.
Behind the book is a considerable
expenditure of money and much la
Dor in building small laboratory
models of rockets initially propelled
by magnetic gums"
Ideas Are Patentable.
Because Zero to Eighty does rep
resent much experimental work and
much of the technical material is
presented for the first time, DR..
Northrup takes the precaution in his
foreword to point out that there are
many ideas in his fiction brainchild
and that he reserves the right to
protect these ideas by patents at
some future time.
DR.. Northrup - pardon, Akkad
Pseudoman-has little faith in the
hope of launching space rockets by
terrific blasts from liquid-air rocket
engines. Scientist Pseudoman uses
the magnetic gun method which al
lows more gradual acceleration
to the terrific speed needed to get
beyond the sphere of the earth's
gravitational influence Then, once
in space, his space ship uses rocket
motors to steer it and slow its We
locity once it has journeyed around
the moon and back to the earth.
DR.. Northrup has built small cleo
tro-magnetic guns in his laboratory
and gives detailed methods of their
construction and how they work.
They consist of a long solenoidal
| coil of heavy conducting wire
through which is passed heavy cur
rents of alternating electricity.
At 1000 cycles a second these
electrical waves travel down the
barrel of the "gun" with a velocity
of three kilometers a second. At
this speed they would circle the
earth at the equator in 222 minutes.
From the instant the nose of the hol-
low metal rocket outlet" enters the
gun until it leaves the muzzle it is
powerfully accelerated, trying ever
to catch up with these speed cleo
trio waves which drag it along.
No Limit to Size.
Theoretically there is no limit to
length which one might build into
such an accelerating gun nor is
there a limit to its cross-sectional
size.
For example, on a trial test of a
rocket to a mere 40.6 kilometers
(28l5 milesD Akkad Pseudoman
uses an abandoned Utah mine shaft
barrel of his gun.
Later, when he takes off for the
moon, larger and more powerful
electric gun is employed whose
base is Mt. Popocatepetl in Mexico.
This mountain, 1880 feet high, has
a fairly gentle slope on the south
western side toward the Pacific; a
slope that is 275 kilometers long.
Thus the gun barrel used is ITO
miles in length.
Great Length Possible.
Virtue of the electric gun, points
out scientist Pseudoman, is that it's
barrel does not need to be rigidly
straight as long as any curves in it
are gentle and of large radius.
Thus, at admittedly staggering ex-
pense, the gun ITO miles long and
with barrel about so inches in di-
ameter is built. 1t is really divided
into five sections energized with cur
rents of different and increasing fire.
quency going from 1000 cycles a
second at the start to 5000 cycles a
second at the muzzle of the gun
nearly $4,000 feet higher up.
Safety Assured.
What happens to the scientists
when they suddenly are given an