Transcribe
Translate
Southern Star, v. 1, issue 1, 1941
Page 25
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
SOUTHERN STAR Space Ships And Space War Page 25 -tances which might be covered by telescope or radio more easily than by any other means. Here are several types of spotting : Magnetic. The old idea about sensitivity. Have a gadget so sensitive that it can pick up the presence of other space ships either by receipt of electrical waves, vibratory waves, or perhaps super-optical impingement upon a sort of telescopic electric eye. Or you could have a lookout in a conning tower or control room, actually looking out physically, for other ships of the void -- just like the man on the masthead of the old wind jammer or the bucko on the bridge of today's liner. He can be peeking through a 'scope, scouting ahead and around by means of television apparatus, or using the good method at all? Are the intersteller spaces black or light? Are the stars pinpricks of silver as seen from the earth at night, or is the ether pure colorless vacumm transmitting enough light to make the void seem as if daylighted at all times? I don't know. Do you? Oke, anyway let's assume the enemy is spotted. Now -- maneuvera-ability! How to get TO him and AT him? If we imagine space ships as they probally will be: bullets aimed at a certain point on a practically unalterable, charted course (in other words projectiles) -- we have taken all the fun out of space traveling. In fact, we're just going for a ride and can't do any driving. By all means, we must figure out some way of providing fancy space ships with maneuverability, so's they can be parked on a dime, taken anywhere and set down anywhere, and so that they can fly around, over, under, and AT the enemy, executing all kinds of complicated stunts with the same ease our modern airplane employs in barrel-rolling doing a loop-the-loop, or skirting a pylon at 350 miles per hour. So -- can we give the space ship wings? No -- almost out of the question. The job's gotta be streamlined for speed, and anything more protrusive than small stabilizing fins would be unreasonable. Yet you can't maneuver a bullet. Rocket blasts on the port side or the aft-side might change the course, but it'd be a hell of an expensive way to alter direction, what with the expenditure of fuel. Even if the energy was inexpensive and of no matter, it would take all kinds of time -- and distance -- for a ship to deviate from a straight line if it were going at the comparatively mild speed of even a mile a minute. We cannot, therefore, depend on rockets to suddenly alter course. At my wit's end, I'll confess that I can't figure out ANYTHING to give a swift craft such mobility as would be desirable. Speeding vehicles just don't handle like bicycles. Any quick maneuver would jerk the passengers of space ships to shreds. You can't start off in one direction at a mile a minute, even, and switch off to the left or right INSTANTLY without (1) obeying certain laws of centrifugal action, (2) feeling as if feeling elephants were using you for a tug-of-war, and (3) losing a perfectly good lunch. So if we spot 'em but can't maneuver around 'em, how are we gonna make a fight out of it? The only reasonable solution I can see is in long-range bombardment. To your question, rays or shrapnel? -- I can only answer, truth, or consequences?
Saving...
prev
next
SOUTHERN STAR Space Ships And Space War Page 25 -tances which might be covered by telescope or radio more easily than by any other means. Here are several types of spotting : Magnetic. The old idea about sensitivity. Have a gadget so sensitive that it can pick up the presence of other space ships either by receipt of electrical waves, vibratory waves, or perhaps super-optical impingement upon a sort of telescopic electric eye. Or you could have a lookout in a conning tower or control room, actually looking out physically, for other ships of the void -- just like the man on the masthead of the old wind jammer or the bucko on the bridge of today's liner. He can be peeking through a 'scope, scouting ahead and around by means of television apparatus, or using the good method at all? Are the intersteller spaces black or light? Are the stars pinpricks of silver as seen from the earth at night, or is the ether pure colorless vacumm transmitting enough light to make the void seem as if daylighted at all times? I don't know. Do you? Oke, anyway let's assume the enemy is spotted. Now -- maneuvera-ability! How to get TO him and AT him? If we imagine space ships as they probally will be: bullets aimed at a certain point on a practically unalterable, charted course (in other words projectiles) -- we have taken all the fun out of space traveling. In fact, we're just going for a ride and can't do any driving. By all means, we must figure out some way of providing fancy space ships with maneuverability, so's they can be parked on a dime, taken anywhere and set down anywhere, and so that they can fly around, over, under, and AT the enemy, executing all kinds of complicated stunts with the same ease our modern airplane employs in barrel-rolling doing a loop-the-loop, or skirting a pylon at 350 miles per hour. So -- can we give the space ship wings? No -- almost out of the question. The job's gotta be streamlined for speed, and anything more protrusive than small stabilizing fins would be unreasonable. Yet you can't maneuver a bullet. Rocket blasts on the port side or the aft-side might change the course, but it'd be a hell of an expensive way to alter direction, what with the expenditure of fuel. Even if the energy was inexpensive and of no matter, it would take all kinds of time -- and distance -- for a ship to deviate from a straight line if it were going at the comparatively mild speed of even a mile a minute. We cannot, therefore, depend on rockets to suddenly alter course. At my wit's end, I'll confess that I can't figure out ANYTHING to give a swift craft such mobility as would be desirable. Speeding vehicles just don't handle like bicycles. Any quick maneuver would jerk the passengers of space ships to shreds. You can't start off in one direction at a mile a minute, even, and switch off to the left or right INSTANTLY without (1) obeying certain laws of centrifugal action, (2) feeling as if feeling elephants were using you for a tug-of-war, and (3) losing a perfectly good lunch. So if we spot 'em but can't maneuver around 'em, how are we gonna make a fight out of it? The only reasonable solution I can see is in long-range bombardment. To your question, rays or shrapnel? -- I can only answer, truth, or consequences?
Hevelin Fanzines
sidebar
