An announcement has been made of our proposed trip and the interest of the people throughout the world is very high. The date for our takeoff has been set and all arrangements have been made for a round-the-world hookup for radio and television, thus enabling all who wish, to listen in and view our trip with us.
The big day has arrived and the atmosphere is filled with excitement as thousands have gathered at the airport to see us off. It seems as though Mother Nature herself is doing her very best to help us, for man could not desire more perfect weather conditions than we have.
Our ship stands waiting on the runway, glistening and beautiful in the morning sun as if she too is eager to be off on this new adventure. The last details have been completed and we bid our dear ones a fond farewell before going down the ramp and across the airstrip to the ship.
We check with the ground crew who are standing by. Everything is set. We climb in, take our places, close the doors, then start the motors. Their whirring is music to our ears.
The four of us making this trip are: Bob, the pilot; Johnny, the copilot and radio man; George, the navigator; and Dr. Johnston, the scientist.
This is the moment we have been working towards for more than twenty years and we are just as excited as any of those standing out there watching. They aren't sure that they will ever see us again; while we are confident of much accomplishment and a safe return.
The ground crew has given us the signal and we are on our way to the Moon! As we have climbed upward and ever upward, the speedometer has indicated our speed at three thousand miles per hour, then six thousand, then twelve thousand as we kept going up until we reached a steady speed of one hundred thousand miles per hour. Yet with all this speed we seem to be standing still, for the Earth has long since ceased to be anything more than a large disc of light behind us. We are travelling in space with nothing but space surrounding us, with the exception that every now and then a small meteoric ball of amber light whizzes past us as if shot from some invisible gun. These come out of nowhere and look as though they are just getting hot; nothing like the color they have after hitting the Earth's atmosphere. One big fellow would surely have wrecked us had it hit us and we impulsively ducked. But it too missed us.
Other than our instruments, the only thing that let us realize that we are moving at all is that the Moon, being our objective, keeps getting closer and closer. It alone stands out from all the stars in the heavens.
Our radio contact with the Earth has remained clear although it has grown weaker as we have climbed higher.
According to calculations by Dr. Johnston before leaving the Earth, we knew that the gap, or neutral zone, between the Earth and the Moon was not exactly halfway between these two bodies. He figured that it started at the approximate distance of one hundred thirty-eight thousand miles from the Earth and probably was about twenty thousand miles in width, leaving us around eighty thousand miles to travel before reaching the Moon.