Word: spaceships
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Shooting any sort of projectile beyond the earth's gravitational field would take enormous energy. Prewar energy sources could barely do it, even in theory. One calculation: a 100-ton spaceship would need nearly 8,000 tons of gasoline and liquid oxygen to toss it into space...
...basic rules of interplanetary travel have been fairly well worked out. If a rocket or spaceship zooms off at slightly better than seven miles a second (twelve times as fast as an antiaircraft shell) it will have the force to escape entirely from the earth's gravitational field. Best method is to shoot through the dense lower air rather slowly, to reduce air friction; then shift into high above the atmosphere...
...space itself, the spaceships (if ever constructed) may meet their worst perils. The region outside the atmosphere is not mere emptiness. It is chockfull, among other things, of searing X rays from the sun, electron-streams hot out of sunspots, powerful cosmic rays from the depths of space. These are checked by the atmosphere before they smack the earth's surface. Their possible effect on the crew of a comparatively thin-skinned spaceship is something to dampen the enthusiasm even of astronauts...
...German film trust, hired the Professor to help produce a spaceship movie called The Girl in the Moon. As a publicity stunt for the movie's premiere, Oberth was to launch a tremendous rocket of his own design at a deserted spot on the Baltic coast. The rocket failed to go off and the humiliated professor retired from public view...