SPACE TRAVEL
A well-known accompany commencing on
the hot stages of this problem requires qualised anglasers with upwards of 20 years of woeful lifa shend and wager to join in plonwering this dresfopment of the sitcraft industry
Applicants should be experienced in schnology, design, or development al dan ne more of the following:
FLECTRONIC AND HIDRAVLIČ NAYO MECHANIS
ARCIATE HYDRALAK BUITEND
ERQUID FYRE ROCKET MOTORE AND FUEL VERŽANG PRESEURI CAREN CONTROL BOUITMENT
ARCHAFI BIBULTUM
BUJORD WEAPONS (REALE PROCLONNE
mil enquieten in Bosa 603, T, O. Seats and Ben, Lad 143-347 Repe Dreet, London, W25, wit be treated in romot
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1956.
--------------|||||
THIS HISTORIC ANNOUNCEMENT
The China Mail believes that this advertisement, firat reported by Chapman Pincher on its publication in the noted scientific Journal Nature, may well be regarded 100 years hence as the real beginning of serious space travel. To mark the moment we will be publishing soon. "HOW NEAR AND HOW FAR," by Chapman Pincher. first read this unusual personal story.
More power-." fully than statistics it gets the scene
But
My Journey to
the
Threshold
of Space
A DESPATCH WITH A DIFFERENT DATELINE
BY TOM POCOCK
Ten miles above the earth, the presture
up,
waistcoat which, the should the airplane's pressurl-a- tion fail at great height, will
0}
give
TRAIGHT
sky is blue-hinek. automaticnfly Inflate Straight down, strength to your labouring lungs Britain is a sketch- until you can dive earthwards.
ap veiled by sun-lit haze,
This is the stratosphere. Desd
threshold of This is the space.
It is strangely peaceful The only sounds are the high, rig- Avot jet 11K
note of the engines and, of inter-com,, the gut, amplified breathing of the Canberra bomber's crew,
A gentle rocking, like that ot a yacht at her moorings, is the only sensation of movenant.
With the pro surised cabin at is mild and plucki as I Victorian thawing roum. Yet,
a few mehes from your face, the Perspex beyond
canopy,
the freezing, airless vuld
vil Trontier
of space.
AL 10 makes above the curth
la aerul explorer has taken
You put on overalls, flying Mac West fe-jacket, slik gauntlets, Iner scarf, gloves, helmet and Oxygen mask and finally the silver, high-domed outer helmet with Its trans- parent anti-glare visor.
Dressed like a spacemun, you follow the pilot and navigator Across the rough turf towards the Canberra
The drowsy Ill of sun- warmed grass gives way to the mbtle, astringent airpinne snell; fuel, rubber, oil, canvas and hot metal.
CHECK
YOUR
OXYGEN
the first step in man's great QQUEEZE through the arrow
drewn Universe.
of voyaging
In the natch and you are strupped lightly to your parachute and inflatable dinghy and then to the airplane elf so that only your arms and legs can move.
The Journey to the strato - sphere has a dreamlike quality Tea is over in the RAF officer's Your pilot glances at his watch and says "Well, shall we go?"
Mess
MY PRESSURE
WAISTCOAT
Y silver Merbes
The
navigator
Behind SILS with his charts and rader. Beside you the pilot, strapped to his ejector seat, check. the controla. The hatch slams and you are ready to go.
At the end of the wide, lyre- scarred runway, the Canberra
IN
.
POCOCK
THE TRAP. PINGS OF SCIENCE FICTION.
it
bulk uway Upward like rockel Layers of thin cloud flicker park. Above, the shy la blue, inviting. Swallow to clear The mounting pressure in your hapel Then, on the inter-com, "Twenty thousand feet coming Check your oxygen.”
The altimeter needle Intras Now
WIN higher yuu Everest---30,000 feci,
than
The sky
clearer. bluer. From now on you cannot gues.. height by eye alone. 40,000 feet.
Check your oxygen.”
Your body and those of the crew are fused with that of the Pilot and navigator Canberra. give eye and brain to the machine. The Canberra gives oxygen to the fungs, warmth to The blood. It's 50,000 feet,
On the Inter-com, loud and harsh. -Your parachute is not automatic If you bale out up here, count 200 before you pull
be rip card,"
"Count 200. ̈* The oxygen
LOOKING LIKE SOME JET MORGAN OF TOMORROW {OM POCOCK WEARS THE HIGH- OOMED OUTER HELMET OF HIS SPACE KIT.
Littlehampton and the Gambols. The altimeter needle turns
Ten miles above the earth. Few By-T haye
higher. been A specially-equipped Canberra has almost reached 60,000 feet.
American experimental from rockel-planes, launched bombers heavy
in the strato- apher have louped briefly, like flying fish, into the upper al- Some say they have maphere retched 90,000 feet. Beyond that men have not yet down.
THE MAP SAYS
• UNKNOWN'
Just
be
will never get really dark. All night a wide band of blue and yellow light will lie seross the horizon where the rim f the Earth masks the suit
You begin to remember your The earth-bound problems, girl with the exciting green eyes no longer seems as unreal and remoto as Cleopatra.
THE INSTINCT
TO CONQUER
AFRICANS FAVOUR MONOCLES
By
WILSON FERBER
THE
THE monocled Englishmen wil soon be no more than a legend, according to leading British opticians. It is estimated that Britain's habitual monocle | wearers number less than 5,000 [—a big decline from the Vic- borlan era, when the single eye- jackage was the hallmark" of "the intellectual and the social mob.
The monoclo fashion haa fallen off steadily during the Icpt 20 years, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the House of Commons. In 1933,
moro
than a score of MPS
pocred at Britain's problems
throughs monocles. Now, there are only two or three.
Of the 5,000 Engilahmen who still wear the distinctive eye- glass, it is doubtful whether any of them is expert enough to flip tus monocle into the air
like a col and catch it in the
Page: 71
1790
SEATHUSTERED TRADE MAREŞİ
SANDEMAN SCOTCH WHISKY
The
King of Whiskies
LANDIMAN SCOICH
WHISKY
eye as it faits, as the Plcadilly Avaliable everywhere $16.50 per Bottle
Johnnies of yesteryear,
supposed to do,
STONY STARE
were Bols Agents: DODWELL. & CO., LTD,
In those days the effect of a stony stare from monocied eye could be as devastating as the hostile Kaze of tea lorgnette--the haughty arrange- ment that women were.
The monocle was a social weapons as well as a visual aid. Today, however, It seems to have all its old terrors
A
All through history, monocles have been associated
with type which, in literature, begins with Sur Andrew Aguecheck and descends through the great to the herves of Dundreary
Wodehouse.
manner, P.G. rather than a hovered about them a lisp, I character, stutter, crowing
chuckle
A
Then, as you seem to be float- ing in space, the earth gives a 'The hard tug at invisible reins Canberra dives and turns seeply and the force of gravity bas you in ita grip.
Helplessly,
lie pressed DACK on turf, you
Bright lights in the crew room.
The into the cockpit, limbs locked, head
thrown
Vision crew's tired, creased faces and buck. blurs. Oblivion stems near. sweat-plastered hair. Utter
weariness of body.
Eggs and bacon in the mess. An cestulle shower-bath
Then, sleep. Merciful, blissful, deep, deepes sleep.
But while monocles are on Your journey to the threshold finding admirers in other parts
the wane in Britain, they
The pressure enses as the Can- berra comes out of the turn.
"That
the You have been remind pilot ed that you still belong to the carth.
'G'"" was
Mys
And "Check your oxygen." MIERE les the frentice that "Feel all right? Good. You see, then, the rasping, metallic voice. TER
pushed outward there's no black magic to this until spaceships can break away high altitude work. Just keep from the Earth's gravity and ft, don't over-eat, don't drink the exploration of space can be
alcohol within eight hours of gin
But
the
take-off. astral
No black magic."
charts must be marked "Unknown." "Here be cosmic rays," "Here be meteors."
now
The mechanism of the Cam- berra functions like a healthy body. There are no violent, herole senelions
for the poet to describe.
•
THE CHALLENGE
18 ACCEPTED
E glittering Universe jooks so inviting. In that infinity of space the imagination finds
no fear.
Beside you, the pilot, his eyes screwed up against the bright
There is no pante-urged long- sun, seems different from the
ing for
Instead, man with whom you discussed there is an instinct us old 03
the earth, und "non U"
over mankind, the instinct to CX- tomato juice before lunch, But
plore. The challenge is there
strains at its brakes us power bolile in the parachute should for those ulert eyes, his body, to accept....
Blows through the gas turbines, keep you alive
the earth.
for the four-
cross the lawn beneath
like yours, is encased in the You pass a
The brakes are loosed and the minute drop to the rich air near trappings of selence-fiction. But hedge, hruvy with the promise distant trees at the end of the
this is science-tion-fiction. Then, there are the
runway rush towards you.
Connection with the hangars and there is the sleek,
Earth sms to be cul. silver Lanberry,
Night is
walling.
In
Copse #elds,
hedges,
the crew room you shed Jacket, church, upturned faces, roads
chors and
e. Struggle into
LIFE
WITH
ALLEN
a
the
A torch flashes over the fuel gouges, It is time to return to earth. The Canberra's Already, the earth secins
wings till and you swoop down Already, your remote, unreal.
down.
down fe on earth seeing 23 inco0- falling and the stars are bright wardis the cities that
shine sequential as that of Maudle and exciting. At this height it softly as glow-worms below.
to-
THE NIGHT WATCH
EEP next Tuesday free," said my wife at breakfast. "Why?" I asked warily. "Mrs Burnes has asked us to baby-sit with little Hugh."
-By-
GERALD ALLEN
mumbled, finishing my break- fast as ran to the station.
On Tuesday evening, Barnes greeted us with enthusiasm.
"Jolly good of you both," he exclaimed. "The boy's fast asleep already, so you'll have no trouble,"
At about half-past ten, we on the radio, That on error of the Arst We should have
lessly, but all was quiet, and we had quite a nice lazy couple, of hours. We had that relaxed, freshened feeling. that опе sometimes gets after storan, We even got round to saying that Hughie was a likable little
and that it was rascal,
only
лау snukepli-but
wife to bear the
sheer on
the natural for four-year-olds to be Jittle shepherded
Hughie's midget's face, I threw in bila boisterous. parents off, and we commenced from Edgar Allan Poe and other our vigil.
masters of the macabre, and the result seemed to please the owliched chlid.
He insisted on some was grisly additions of his own, but magnitude, THE first half-hour was with- achieved a feeling popularity. been on the alert all the time,
our cars to the ground. All suggestions as "Famous last words," I said, lulling ourselves into a false "beddybyes were ignored by When Hughie's parents re-
Jucurity, when there Hughle, however, and a prof- turned at cleven-thing, they was a sinister bumping noise on fered cup of warm milk was were met by a gentle waterfall the Auks. With reckles rejected with such violence that descending the stairs. Angel courage, I opened the door and the liquid dripped from the Child was playing boats with
the his father's bowler hat into the hall, falling celling for "And help full-length
wooden evening.
overflowing bath. "He's a sweet youngster really yourself to anything you want engine, When I regained We then played traingils must have been on ever since
only yesterday the Greys to drink."
I became aware pastime consciousness,
consisting of his wo'd first turned on the radio. were saying what a fine inte
sald, of a malevolent midget silently slamming me on the shins with
We spent two solid hours regarding me.
the the wooden engine, was
By bribing him with the sandwiches, we mopping up, and Mrs Barnes
to inveigle him managed
all my fault, Everybody but
"Is that the little horror
trying to sound jocular. with red hair and a
per-
"Hush{" sald Mrs Barnca manent smirk who banged sharply. "You'll wake him." a drum all last Sunday 7" "You'll And some sand-
Barnes In "He's
bit high wiches," went on .just a spirited," my wife said quickly, sibilant whisper.
chap
well.
he is. The Gunters like brightening.
thanks," 1
out incident, and wo were
Jushed
over
him, too. Even old. Mra Moore Plenty of milk, if you want demon Hughle.
a hot drink," whispered his
likes him." "Beats
me why they're not wife, all lining up to sit with him.
marvellous," grumbled.
my
he's
50
*
"They haven't the time, and MY brightness. foded, “ We're 11's no hardship for us,
"Lemonade, if you prefer and haven't any ties,” It," hissed Barnes, wife answered, with the "Hush! was that Hughie?" smilo
she reserves ID de interrupted Mrs Barnes, monstrate what a lovely nature As a matter of fact, it was my she possesse3,
stomach turning at the thought "It's common knowledge I've of the lemonade, but I didn't nothing whatever to do except like to say so, and we all work like a slave from dawn listened or a minute, 1911
dusk." I said bitterly. Well, we're aď.
"Can't we have an hour to
It
the
rest of
the
The taps
My wife picked up the little playing "Snakes and into never stopped telling me it was
angel,
at which he cheated so blatantly Hughie caught a frightful cold, "Did the silly. man frighten that there is little doubt that he but from the way his mother carried on you'd have thought you?" she cooed.
will go far when he grows up. A balon charge by mounted always provided that the law I'd tried to drown the child. I can't think why the iden pollee wouldn't frighten Hughie, doesn't catch up with him. but he fastened on the words.
hadn't come to me.
"stly men, silly man," he
The only bright spot was that drooled, pointing a small finger,
Hughie frightened his mother "Nasty man!" he added, as on FINALLY, he became drowsy, to death tolling her the story afterthought,
F but managed to summon up I'd told him. "Uncle's a nice man really," enough energy to unlie my We're not really on speaking my wife said hastily, after a shoelaces and hit me on the terms with the Barnose any glance at my face." "Uncle, well head with A plate when I more.
stooped to do them up again. ourselves when I manage to
Apart from half strangling my wife with her necklace when drag myself homo?
"Yes, dear sold my wife she was tucking him in, Hughle only for one evening, Hush! I can't go until I'm firmly, so I did.
was, put back to bed wibout suro baby's right off," hisagd It was a rather complicated further Incident, and it looked after Hughle one evening next "It'd better be. Lucas and I ́Mrs. Barnes. By this time I story, starting off with a high as though Our troubles were wook... both think the Barnes kid will was tired of being hearly, and moral tone, being all about a over.. end on the senfold. Wall, was beginning to dislike Mrs good. Iliffe "boy" and a naughty
Bher hiring reminded me of little boy But not being able to the hall and listened breath-
Once or twice we crept out and to beweing him talt me goodbye, home usual time,”
(COPYRIGHT)
dear."
See you whispered Barnes. "Have a good
timel" we. chorused.
sald Hughle. Bald Uncle.
SUNTER tells me his wife has "arranged" for them to look
sefully. Yooking
abolat it,
I'm
of space has given you more than n sense of achievement. You have experienced the in- stinct that drove the Viking
Atlantic, that urged neross the men to the summit of Everest. You may not live to see men ride out into space but now, deeply and surely, you know that one day they
will.
(CUFYRIGHT)
fixed
Д
le trip in the walk and general ioppiahness and fatuous-
of the world. Consignments have even been sent to West Africa, where society-conscious Africans find they impart on air of dignity.
In America, 100, where the monocle has long been regarded the as the emblem of the top, demand tins doubled since the war.
Delicious full-course meals... a gourmet's delight.
(COPYRIGHTY
Look how B.O.A.C. takes good care of you!
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100 ALUM, HANDLE PAPER FOLDING FANS & SANDALWOOD-ŠILK FANS ETC.
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OVERSEAS AIRWAYS CORPORATION
·BRITISH
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