Chapter One
The Rocket-Ship
TOM Sacket, chief correspondent of the Sunday Globe, had pulled out his pad of paper like lightning. But in his hand, his pen trembled a little. Accustomed as he was to recording the most hair-raising sensational reports in almost impossible positions, without the twitching of an eyelash, his calmness had deserted him this time. It was only with difficulty that he overcame his excitement. Nevertheless his words were filled with a warm emotion, such as one feels toward dear people who are still standing before one in the abounding freshness of life, but who are to depart the next moment, perhaps forever.
“Have you actually considered everything?” he asked the engineer.
“This question is idle, my dear fellow. Even a person who intends to pay a visit to our old moon does not omit to think and plan. But the trip to the moon compared to ours is like a morning walk compared with crossing Africa barefoot.”
“Then you intend to go further than—” Tom Sacket with staring eyes stopped in the middle of the sentence. “Certainly!”
“Then you are not going to the moon at all!”
“Oh, yes, for we unfortunately have to use it as a filling station.”
“Why, do you think that—?”
“We do not think anything; we know that on the moon there is to be found what we need in order to produce our fuel by means of solar power. There is ice, which we shall decompose electrolytically into its components, hydrogen and oxygen.”
“I wonder whether everything will work out as you think.”
“It must, for otherwise we cannot get back again!”
Tom Sacket let the pad sink a moment and looked at the floor.
Then he pulled himself together and looked into the clear blue eyes of the engineer, who stood before him like a giant.
“I was going to ask you much more—but I cannot. Not now in this hour, in the space ship which will in a few minutes carry you so far away from our native planet. Whatever.. your destination may be, whether the red glowing star of the war god or shining Venus, I wish you from my heart the best of success. Good luck for starting and for landing!”
“You have guessed our plan! That is a good omen. If your good wishes come true, we shall meet again in two years, when the earth has returned for the second time to that point in its orbit from which we are now starting. But now I must really ask you to leave the ship. We must get ready for the trip—we must undress ourselves and get into the spring hammocks.
“Oh yes, we have to travel nearly naked, for during the start even the lightest clothing is as heavy as sheet platinum. To be sure, all of us, the doctor, my wife and I, have been tested in the centrifugal machine for ten times the terrestrial gravity, but as far as possible we want to make the activity of heart and lungs easy.”
“What, your wife is going with you?”
“Somebody must do the housekeeping, even in the rocket. That is not work for men. And then, who knows whether other planets are not perhaps inhabited? She would surely not want me to succumb to the enticements of the beautiful dwellers in other worlds.”
IN SPACE
“ARE you ready? We start in 80 seconds!”
Two voices answered in the affirmative. “You already know the plans by heart. First, sixteen seconds with only 25 meters acceleration, until we have gradually penetrated the dense air. Then the gas lever over to the middle point, until at 100,000 meters above sea level we have reached the velocity of 2000 meters a
second, 100 seconds after starting. When we are in airless space, then full gas for all the exhausts, as much as the machine and our hearts will stand, so that we can get through the zone of the earth’s gravitation.
“Yes, children, we must cover the distance to the moon at an extreme speed, in order to make up for the day lost by yesterday’s delay. Otherwise we shall miss the connection with Mars, and all our painfully worked calculations would be in vain. Instead of taking 49 hours, we shall reach the moon in 19 hours.
“Hello! Still 40 seconds. Have you the hypodermic needles? Then use them without delay, so that the lobelia solution will have still 30 seconds to circulate thoroughly through the blood. And now breathe deeply and just think of one thing, not to stop breathing.— Still 10 seconds. Count with me. Now!”
A blast shook the air. A mighty train of fire shot like a comet up toward the vault of the night sky. And before the few favored ones, who knew about the ascent and were allowed to witness the start, were aware of it, the shining ship had vanished among the stars.
Silently the people went away, most of them slowly, as though the force of the ascent were weighing upon them. Only one had regained his mobility. This was Tom Sacket, who like a true acrobat of the pen was hastily writing his ideas on paper, regardless of the jouncing of the car, in order that he might wire them to his paper at midnight from the nearest telegraph station. He could not help thinking of the brave, charming little woman, who, in order not to have her husband go alone, was risking all the dangers of space.
* * *
At the same second that Sacket’s car had to stop at a railroad crossing, the space ship at a height of 1600 kilometers above the surface of the earth had attained the unheard-of-velocity of 10,000 meters a second. Now the screw of the automatic regulator pushed back the lever which controlled the flow of fuel to the rocket. This arrangement, regulating the calculated start automatically, at the same time permitting the hand of man to intervene in case of need, had stood the test. Thus every unnecessary motion, every lifting of the hand or moving of the arm, was avoided. And the apparatus did its duty. From second to second the acceleration decreased 0.5 of a meter, being now equivalent to six times the pull of the earth’s gravitation, and thus the hearts as well as the entire bodies of the occupants adopted themselves gradually to the state of complete weightlessness, which followed.
The actual start had been successful, without any pressing in of the nose of the ship by air resistance or bulging of the walls due to friction or excessive heating of the ship. As a matter of fact, only such an excellent material as beryllium, which had very recently come into industrial use, could have satisfied these demands for lightness, hardness, and smoothness. Every gram of this rare metal however had cost a full mark.
All the data of importance regarding the start, the flight acceleration, the performance of the rocket, the consumption of fuel, the external and internal temperatures and pressures, were indicated by self-registering instruments. The desolation and emptiness of the long flight through space which was before the voyagers would afford opportunity enough to study and evaluate these curves.
“One of us may now sleep six hours,” said the engineer, turning to his companions, without as yet rising from his hammock. “Two of us will always be on duty, twelve hours at a time. We cannot manage otherwise, for it is dangerous to leave one all alone, not alone for physical but also for psychical reasons.
“Who knows what effect the cosmic short-wave radiations may have upon the mind? Whoever finds it his turn to sleep will just stay in bed. The other two will dress and try to get around as well as possible with the aid of the iron-shod shoes, metal insertions in the clothing and the electromagnetic carpet on the floor, because here gravity has, for the time being, ceased to exist.”
“We have noticed that,” was the reply, as if from one mouth.
THE lot for sleeping fell to the doctor, the trusted assistant of the engineer. So Inge made herself ready and floated like an angel up to her husband (who had taken the pilot’s place in the upper part of the ship). As yet she was not wearing the sandals with iron soles on
her pretty feet. And she would have bumped her head against the ceiling of the room, if her husband had not caught her in time with two fingers, just as one catches a bit of down which is hovering in the air.
“I will connect the magnets, so that we can sit side by side, the way we are accustomed to do on earth.”
“Yes, do it, Edmund, for with the best will in the world I cannot get used to being an angel living outside the limits of time and space. But it is fine, after all. It is as blissful as though we were falling in dreams from one world into worlds more and more beautiful.”
“We are indeed falling, in fact at the enormous speed of about 10,000 meters a second at present, though to be sure falling upward. But this velocity will soon lessen, ytor the gigantic arm of terrestrial gravitation is still reaching out for us and drawing us back to the earth. But all the power of the earth cannot entirely destroy our tremendous speed.”
‘For a while the two were silent. As yet not a quarter of an hour had passed since the moment of starting, but the time seemed to them like an eternity. This is a phenomenon which the passenger of the Lufthansa becomes acquainted with, when he soars over land and sea in a great tri-motor plane. An hour in a plane seems longer than three hours in an express train.
Already the first shade of boredom was beginning to settle upon the couple, when Inge started up with a cry of surprise. Like a red glowing torch, a gigantic arc of light appeared at the edge of the black disc, which was the earth, which stood out among the constellations, the are increased every second in luminosity.
Finally the fiery red light changed into a rosy veil, which struggled with shadows edged in blue, and reached out like the jaws of pincers, until a full half-circle was filled. But at this moment there appeared so dazzling a light that Inge had to close her eyes, in order not to be blinded.
She did not venture to look out again until her husband had pushed the dark glasses over her eyes. Meanwhile the picture had changed quickly. As a “clear, brightly illuminated crescent the earth stood in the window of the space ship, surrounded by an aureole of changing colored lights, the atmosphere gleaming in the brilliance of the sun.
In the other window there appeared at the same time the image of the bright silver moon, which was illuminated a little beyond its first quarter. With a flight of 19 hours projected it had unfortunately been impossible to make the start from the earth by day.
After all, it was necessary to direct the flight by the moon, which is most favorable for the start to Mars, when it is on the increase as seen from earth and 16 1/2 degrees before its full illumination, because from that position an extremely favorable elliptical path leads to the red star of the war god in relatively short traveling time. Thus it was unfortunately necessary to give up the real view of the sunny side of their native planet and content themselves with seeing the earth in the form of a huge crescent with an edge shading into twilight slowly moving in the constellations of the zodiac. From the decrease of the angular diameter of the earth, measured from the horns or ends of the crescent, the distance of the space ship from the center of the earth could at any time be secured, and by comparison of the measurements taken from time to time with the sextant, the velocity of flight could also be determined. The same measurements on the diameter of the moon served to check data on the approach of the ship to the earth’s satellite.
At last twelve hours had passed since the start. At the first change of watches, after six hours, Inge had endeavored to .serve as hostess, though not without some trouble in accustoming herself to the condition of weightlessness. To be sure, there was no need to worry about breaking dishes or glasses. If they were dropped, they remained floating freely in the air of the room and could only be held fast by the electromagnetic table top because of their iron inlays.
Unfortunately the magnetism could not be extended to the food and drink. The morsels had actually to be juggled, in order to get them to the mouth. On the other hand, drinking out of bottles with the aid of straws offered no special difficulties. Now, the second time, everything went much better. After that Inge withdrew, for the third watch fell to the two men, while the engineer had slept
during the second one. For the landing maneuver on the moon at the nineteenth hour they were all to be at their posts, in full complement.