And in the air, midst the scarlet glare, are more who will never know Peace.
THE BEST WAYS TO GET AROUND
I don't mean socially; I mean off the Earth and between the planets. There are a few really good ways, as invented by perspiring authors in science-fiction magazines. And if I miss any, which is extremely doubtful, remember that I'm writting from memory, that I hadn't read all the scientifiction magazines from 1926 and on, and that I am not going to go researching through the tremendous stacks of old scientifiction magazines that I now have in my possession.
Now, what DO I mean by THE BEST WAYS TO GET AROUND? Briefly, by the word BEST, I mean so pseudo-logical that you could almost leave off the "pseudo". See? (No)
For instance, Jack Williamson's geodesic machinery, wherein he warps space around, appeals to me as being pure fairy tale stuff. He just gives a lot of verbal hocus-pocus, and runs off reams of litterary fertilizer until we throw up our hands in disgust and say; "O.K., O.K., Jack, to hell with that, let's get on with the 'story'. We'll grant you that you can get around."—And we're willing to grant E.E. Smith the same privilege. He DOES get around—anybody disagree? The question is; how? Oh, by useing "X", and the inertialess drive. The same with brother Burroughs. What do we care if dear old John Carter "yearns" himself to Mars? He gets there, and we are happy, or were happy.
So, we exclude all those from THE BEST WAYS TO GET AROUND. They are very nice and convenient to get people places; but, when we run across one of the "BEST WAYS" we often wonder if it REALLY WOULDN'T be possible, provided——. Of course, that word "provided" is the catch—the reason why we really aren't going around that way.
Again—So, way back there, Edmond Hamilton, and a hundred others, have used the idea of light-preasure in an attempt to get away from rockets. But he didn't tell us how, scientifictionaly. In direct contrast to vauge statements made regarding the use of light-preasure as propulsion, I remember the MOON CONQUORS, by R.H. Romans, in a 1931 (I think) (You're right, 4SJ) quarterly. You've seen radiometers. The things with black and white vanes placed in a vacuum. The theory is that the opposite shades cause unbalanced light preasure, so that the vanes go around and around. Romans invented a pseudo-scientifically logical way to use light-preasure, once he got his ship in space. His scientist invented a compound of absolute black. (Which is also obtainable in a darkroom) A small square of darkroom—or, I mean, absolute black painted on the posterior of the ship, and regulated at will, gave the same ship quite respectable speeds. Certainly it won't work outside of a story—but, I'm talking scientifictionally. Romans used his imagination, and we all had fun.
In the same story, Romans used a swell device to get the ship off the earth. He used a mile-long tube, composed of circular magnets. It was a magnetic gun. Each magnet pulled the ship towards it, and then, as the ship passed it, the magnet's poles were reversed, and made to repel the ship. With each magnet at maximum charge, either pulling or pushing the ship, according to whether it was in front or behind the latter, the same erupted from the tube with the necessary 7 M.P.S. velocity of escape, and so was off on the way to the moon. What's wrong with the idea? I dunno.
John W. Campell (Jr.) used to have brainstorms: in fact, he invented two of THE BEST WAYS TO GET AROUND. One, in the first of the ARCOT, MOREY, and WADE stories, "PIRACY PREFERRED", was that of molecular motion. All the little molecules in a bar of metal go madly around in every possible direction. If you could invent, as Campbell did in the story, an electro-magnetic vibration that would force all the mollecules to go in the same direction, then the bar of metals would go in that direction, since it would be them. So Mr. Campbell hooked the thing up to his ship, and off he went to Venus, or some other planet. Well, it would work, wouldn't it, provided (ah yes!) you could make all the mollecules go into one directional flow.