Red Flag Over the Moon

time of war. At the very outbreak of hostilities it could be blasted from existence by one easily aimed H-bomb warhead rocket (since its orbit would be but a few hundred miles from Earth). But the moon, old Luna, cannot be knocked out of the sky no matter how many H-bombs we plaster its surface with. It is a permanent station in the sky. If shelled from Earth, the occupants have merely to set up their posts on the other side of the moon, the side forever turned away from Earth, and they will be safe from all that Earth-stationed enemies can do.

In his book Stine outlines with great ingenuity and enthusiasm the plan for the construction of this space platform. This is basically the one originated by Darrell C. Romick. It calls for the construction of this city in the sky by the piecing together of hundreds of thousands of small sections, each transported up to orbit by means of huge three-stage rockets. It would call for the construction of these rockets in mass quantity—about as many as an automobile plant can turn out cars! The cost would be in the billions and the task would take about four years to complete.

Four years to complete, billions in costs, and not worth a single cent in wartime! No wonder the Russians are smiling today. They have stated their objective—the moon itself. They are driving for it in the most direct fashion.

Their plans call for the furtherance of multi-stage rockets capable of delivering a cargo-head vast distances. They claim to have already produced the ICBM, and their claim includes an invention that will deliver it with precision on any target they name. The fact that their present rocket strength is sufficient to lift an object of 184 pounds a height of five hundred and sixty miles, and impart to it a speed of 18,000 miles per hour, proves that they have the ability. It is simple mathematics to figure out what the same rocket power could do in lifting an object that might weigh only five or ten pounds. Considering that each pound of payload calls for hundreds of pounds of fuel, obviously this rocket is quite capable, as it now stands, of delivering an object—a tiny one—to the moon itself. Or around the moon. Or on its way to the planet Venus.

Such are actually their announced plans. They will first send robot rockets around the moon for observation. Then they will send one or two on to Mars and Venus. Next they will start landing bits of cargo on a selected spot on the lunar surface—parts of stations, necessary equipment. When all is ready, they will deliver a man to put the stuff together and set up their station. With a high priority drive they can do all this within five years. Certainly they could drive a missile to the moon's surface right now—if they haven't already done so by the time his magazine is in print.

But G. Harry Stine, in advancing the case for the artificial space platform, was only supporting what happened to be the most advanced American thought about our own space rocket capacities in 1957. Our plans for an earth satellite one weighing only twenty pounds, had been announced originally for the fall of 1957. But they had been vague and were finally set back six or eight months. Doubtless these plans ar being hastily revised, but the fact still remains that America does not have the ability to put a satellite of Sputnik's weight up there. We can't do it.

Stine was exceedingly aware of the menace of space, of the desperate need for getting up there first. His book is a vigorous and fearless examination of the vital importance to America of our space operations and our space defenses. He pointed out how the decline and fall of the empires of the past, from the Persian and Roman to the British, was in each case due to the failure of these empires to keep up with technical developments outside their frontiers. Let the United States fail to keep its technical lead and we face the same historic fate.

Let’s face it, we were caught flat-footed. Our projects were tied up in arguments between builders as to which design was the more ideal. Our Project Vanguard was lingering for lack of sufficient cash and manpower. The leaders of our country had their heads buried in the sands of golf courses, hoping like the ostrich that what they weren't willing to see would therefore cease to exist. A week after Sputnik had electrified the world, too many of these leaders were already busy trying to stick their heads back in the golf traps—denying the obvious, shrugging it off, pretending we had bigger plans all the time, and so forth. Such leaders would do well to study the last days of the Roman Empire and meditate on them. What can the rest of us do, especially those of us who, through science- fiction, know how real and vital space flight is going to be to the human future. We can do something—we can do our utmost to sway public opinion behind a new crash program for rocket engineering and space flight.

In spite of the fact that America has more science-fiction magazines and science-fiction readers than any other country in the world (and here again Russia is a close second), we have always been shy of publicly-admitting belief in space travel. Buck Rogers may be a household word, but serious people smile when they hear it. When the first American society of space-travel enthusiasts was formed back in 1931, it took the name of the American Interplanetary Society and called its journal Astronautics. But as soon as it grew large and began to attract practical engineers to its ranks, it embarrassedly changed its name to the conservative American Rocket Society and its magazine to Jet Propulsion. To this day rocket engineers would rather talk in public only about ballistic missiles, jet planes, and cargo rockets, and avoid public references to any “wild” ideas of moon-flight.

It is this curious reluctance to admit publicly what is actually the heart's desire of every rocket man that has helped to hold back our progress. Mention moon-flying to a congressman and he'd think you crazy. Instead talk about V-2s and missiles. That sounds more businesslike.

This sort of nonsense has got to stop. Rocket men must speak out and name their objective boldly and clearly. We want the moon! We want it now, and we want it for the free world! We have the means, we have the will—give us the money and we will give you the universe!

That's the way the Russians talk. They state their objectives without blushing. They never hesitated to put pictures of space rockets on the covers of even the most sedate of science journals. Their government bureau in charge of rocketry is boldly called the Ministry for Interplanetary Communication!

Science-fiction readers should speak out plainly. We can collar our acquaintances, write our congressmen, put letters in the newspapers, come out openly. Stop the nonsense, clear the decks, build the space-ships now.

If we don't, then in a few years we are going to be able to stand out in our back yards and look at a real new Soviet Satellite. It's going to be a big white sphere in the night sky with very familiar features. It's going to be called Luna; there'll be a red flag stuck on a mast in the middle of the Sea of Serenity and another on the top of Tycho. And the Man in the Moon will be broadcasting down to Earth every day—in Russian.

That's the way it's probably going to be.

THE END