Astronautics

Up over tiny, bleak Wangeroog, easternmost of Germany's crumbling chain of East Frisian Islands in the North Sea, one day last week shot a five-foot model rocket plane. Up it went with a fearful roar, faster & faster, higher & higher until its noise was inaudible; higher still until the projectile was invisible; up, up, four, five, six miles--higher than any model had ever flown. Long minutes later it drifted into sight again, gliding this way & that on wings which had sprouted automatically at the peak of its ascent. Five miles from where it had been shot off, the model slid gently to rest.

A smile of satisfaction spread over the wide face of a German who watched. He was Reinhold Tiling, 35, War flyer, one of Germany's most promising rocketeers. Besides making an altitude record this test convinced him that, even using powder instead of liquid explosive, he could make his model take off without a destructive jerk, gain speed gradually. How he achieved that important result, Herr Tiling did not divulge.

The descent-mechanism of Herr Tiling's craft is not entirely new. Last April at Osnabrikk, where he directs a flying school, Herr Tiling shot both "passenger"' and "mail" model rockets to 6,000 ft. The passenger type descended on wings which unfolded as soon as the craft headed downward, as in last week's test. Supposition: A pilot would maneuver it like any glider, to considerable distance if he chose. The mail type descended vertically, supported by three revolving winglets like the vanes of an Autogyro. A pilotless rocket with mail cargo might be set off with just the amount of explosive to carry it over a specified point, where the wings would ease it down.

Herr Tiling, one of the few important rocketeers who still use powder for propulsion,* is aware that before contemplating long distance flights he must apply a system of liquid explosive, for reasons of weight and control. Liquid fuels can be stored in less space, can be fed more accurately, pumped into the combustion chamber under pressure. Many experiments in liquid fuels have been undertaken, notably by Germany's Dr. Paul Heylandt and his colleague Max Valier, who was killed last year when the fuel container of a rocket-car exploded; and by Professor Hermann Oberth and lately by Fritz von Opel. Commonest liquid fuel is a mixture of liquid oxygen & gasoline. Other combinations are liquid oxygen & alcohol, liquid hydrogen & liquid oxygen. Dr. Robert Hutchings Goddard of Worcester, Mass., foremost U.S. rocketeer, works with liquid oxygen and an unnamed hydrocarbon.

While Germany is far in the lead in rocketeering experiment (her German Interplanetary Society has 1,000 members, including many leading scientists), France points with pride to Robert Esnault-Pelterie. A student of space-travel for 25 years, he recently established with his friend Andre Hirsch the Rep-Hirsch Fund which awards 10,000 francs annually to the author of the most original contribution to ''astronautics." Russia has her Professor Nikolas Rynin. In the U. S. the only important practicing rocketeers are Dr. Darwin O. Lyon and Professor Goddard. Professor Goddard is now working on experiments at Roswell, N. Mex. under patronage of the Smithsonian Institution and a Guggenheim fund. His magnum opus is a proposed turbine rocket ship by which the exploding gases will drive propellers while the ship is in lower atmospheres, change to direct rocket action in the upper strata where propellers lose efficiency.*

Also in the U. S. are a large number of students of space-flight who have formed the American Interplanetary Society. At their meetings they discuss current experiments, also proposed flights to the moon, to Mars, to Saturn, and regular passenger service across the Atlantic at 30 mi. altitudes in three hours, two hours, even a half hour. Most working rocketeers (unlike the superenthusiastic Esnault-Pelterie who foresees a trip to the moon in 20 years) are wary about making predictions.

Among astronautical problems: fuel perfection; discovery of an alloy light enough for flight yet strong enough to withstand the tremendous outward pressure above the atmosphere; discovery of alloys which will hold their strength at the terrific heat of explosion and the terrific cold of liquid gases; pumping fuel for combustion; steering & braking; stability; protection of ship and occupants against stratospheric conditions.

*Fritz von Opel worked with powder, but has lately been inactive.

*At Dessau, Germany, the Junkers factory is completing its first "stratosphere" plane, a low-wing monoplane of 40 ft. wingspread with a sealed cabin and a special air compressor to permit the engine to operate at altitudes greater than 7 mi. Claimed speed: 1,000 m.p.h

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