Word: spaceships
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...preserve guided-missile secrets, but since nearly all of them were fruits of research done by high-salaried professionals paid directly or indirectly by the Air Force, they gave a good idea of what the Air Force considers worth investigating. Elaborate papers, for instance, figured how to jockey a spaceship through the atmospheres of planets other than the earth. The conclusions were rather vague because too little is known about those , atmospheres, but obviously someone in authority thought that a preliminary survey was worth paying...
This research has not yet produced anything like space flight. There is an enormous difference between an intercontinental guided missile and an "inhabited" spaceship or satellite. But the missiles, nevertheless, are excellent instruments of approach. Their rocket motors, thin-skinned tanks, delicate guidance systems, etc. can also be used for hitting the moon with a charge of flash powder. This is considered less difficult than boosting a heavy thermonuclear warhead-to a city-sized target 5,000 miles away, and some Air Force groups think that it would be worth doing as a demonstration of U.S. spacemanship. It is probable...
...great spaceship shuddered briefly as it went into hyperdrive and headed for the Whirlpool Galaxy. Captain Dart watched the hand of the c-meter. It was close to the speed of light, and, getting closer and closer. He felt no change, of course, but he knew that his personal time was already running slow. Each tick of the clock, each heartbeat took months or years of earth time. How old were his friends on earth? he wondered. How long had they been dead...
...Today's rocket speeds are good for trips in the solar system, but for interstellar voyages they are hopelessly slow. Conservative space enthusiasts accept the speed of light as the absolute speed limit in the material universe, and they know that even at this ultimate speed a spaceship can reach only nearby stars within a human generation. This seems to put a limit on man's interstellar mobility. But some optimistic scientists see hope in "time dilation." If a spaceship cruising toward a foreign star approaches the speed of light, its time, by relativity, will slow down...
...science fiction fans, this story must sound incredible. The popular image of science fiction revolves around such spaceship cowboys as Captain Video or Buck Rogers. A true devotee of the field, however, would deny all connection with such comics. For him, science fiction can be, and often is, not only interesting but also stimulating...