Word: spaceships
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Less romantic than cosmic rays is the problem of food and air for space voyagers, but Dr. Nello Pace of the University of California considers the problem no less interesting. A normal man has a water turnover of about 5 Ibs. a day. Since the spaceship must conserve every possible ounce of weight, this water must be recycled: condensed from the air and extracted from urine and feces. Food cannot be recycled without making the spaceship a flying farm, and Dr. Pace is not even sure that preserved food will be satisfactory for a long voyage. No preserved ration...
...spaceship's atmosphere is a problem too. Its oxygen will have to be replaced as it is consumed, and the carbon dioxide from the crew's lungs will have to be disposed of. Both jobs can be done at the same time by green plants, which separate oxygen from carbon dioxide. With this system in operation, the spaceship would be a miniature of the parent earth, where plants and animals, acting together, recycle the atmosphere...
Science fiction teems with spaceships, but in real life they do not exist. No man-carrying craft has even approached space-yet. Now, after a two-year study, the Office of Naval Research and Douglas Aircraft Co. (builder of the supersonic Skyrocket) have decided that an "inhabited" rocket airplane can be built that will soar to 750,000 ft. (140 miles) and land on the earth safely. It will not be a spaceship in the strictest sense, but the air that it will traverse at the top of its flight will be as thin as a laboratory vacuum...
...different times of the lunar day will indicate whether the sun's rays are being scattered by tiny dust particles or by solid surface. "Within two or three months we should know definitely," says Professor Zdenek Kopal, who will take charge of the experiment. Meantime, says Cosmologist Gold, spaceship pilots are advised not to land on the lunar plains...
...Force statisticians went solemn ly to work gathering every detail about all "sightings," including those that were reported from mental institutions. They recorded the date and hour at which the spaceship was allegedly seen, and figured the position of the sun. They noted meteorological conditions, the reliability of the informant and his training. They recorded the color, brightness, speed, elevation, etc. of each "aerial object." They took account of related events, such as balloon-launchings. They noted whether the object had been seen by eye or radar. They put these details on punch cards and ran them through sorting machines...