They Reached For The Moon
By William Oberfield
The major problem in achieving space flight lay in
overcoming gravity. That had been done and men had
reached the Moon. But strangely, they never returned!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
November 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
They took a thousand days to build the great, gleaming monster, and another two hundred to groom it for its trip around the moon. All this they did with an air that made a trip to the moon seem quite natural and sure, even though three other rockets had gone before and not one had returned.
"This one will," they said, as though convincing themselves.
But they were not sure. They were stubborn, perhaps proud, but not sure at all. All the world had watched three other such rockets, with men in them, go screaming off moonward. All had waited for them to return. And all had seen nothing come back down from the sky. Not even a small scrap of metal. This one might return, and, if it did, the men in it just might be alive to tell. But that was not being sure.
"A military base on the moon!" the leaders had cried. And that had been that. Robot rockets had gone first. They had landed on the moon. They could do that, but they could not establish the desired base. So men had started on a round trip, around the moon, first to prove that men could do it. The only thing they proved was that whatever goes up need not come down.
Now the fourth rocket waited, leaning over against its heavy launching rack, ready to face whatever unknown danger lay out there beyond.