Word: earthly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...bring his own food, water, shelter and tools. But once established, there is ample reason, within the achievements already reached or within sight, to be sure that he can learn to live there. Compared with the planets and stars, the moon probably has a mineralogical composition much like the earth's. In this recognizable state, man could live by means of today's technology, crude as it is. He could, suggests Air Force Lieut. Colonel S. E. Singer in the Air University Quarterly Review, store the sun's abundant heat energy (daytime heat 248° F.) with...
...lunar military potential takes on a new urgency in terms of observation and missilery. Says Air Force Brigadier General Homer Boushey: with moderate-sized telescopes, lunar observers could daily "monitor the positions of all ships at sea, all major surface construction, all above-ground missile sites" on the earth. The growing sciences of optics and radar observation already promise the tools to assure continuous observation of the turning earth and the pinpointing of objects as small as 100 ft. across...
...moon, he can eventually transport missiles. Missile sites located underground, or planted in craters on the far side of the moon (never seen from earth), would be beyond observation, and thus beyond target spotting, of earth-based attackers. Even if there were a missile exchange between earth and moon forces, lunar missiles would have the advantage of time and accuracy, and of direct guidance systems that are already in existence...
Since the moon's escape velocity is lower than the earth's, a lunar-based missile would spend less fuel in blastoff, could use it to increase speed of travel. Even with today's rocket engines, says the Air Force's Singer, a moon-based team could send a missile from moon to earth in considerably less than two days. "The improvements in space and missile technology that will be required actually to put a man on the moon will perforce include the means for reducing moon-to-earth transit times to the order of hours...
...this world as the moon itself. Its airless environment and its fantastic temperature range make an ideal laboratory for high-vacuum and cryogenic (refrigerants) research; the vast amounts of solar energy, if properly harnessed on the moon, might be used to affect or control the earth's weather...