1999
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1958. *
SCIENCE FACT is more exciting than science fiction. You have only to move back into the past for a minute, and compare it with the present, to see the bounding ad- vance of man. Take 918. Thore were по civil airlines. Motor-cars were still oddities. Film heroines flickered in silonco. Nuclear energy was unnheard of. So what if you
for
You might have waited years this-but Woodrow Wyatt has got
these men talking
step from 1918 to forty-one years from now. What world now about the
awaits? The China Mail has commissioned Woodrow Wyatt,
a distinguished commentator, to talk to the men who today can
VISIONARY WYATT
give a picture of life in 1999 - for they are laying the exciting most exciting news in Britain..
foundations. Wyatt now reports the news of the future.
today:—
London to New York in 45 minutes
Y 1999 major discoveries now undreamed of may have been made,
creating a completely different world from the one we are in now.
BY
But on the basis of present ponents of the steamship must withcut u telescope are in lends we can peer forward to have had great diMculty in aup- the nebula Andromeda. The the turn of the century with porting the economies, when light we see from them left the some degree of accuracy.
comparing the relatively in- nebula 2,000,000 years ago. Take speed, Sir George feient steam propulsion Edwards,
director system managing
and the very chenp Apart from the fact that when of Vickers-Anstrongs (Air labour needed to run a sailing you got there you might find
thirt Andromedu craft)
no longer LAS., fortified himself ship."
existed, the limo nerded to for my questions with graph Dr
reach it would appear to be pro- hibitive- Einstein is right.
frexi опе of his lending
aerodynamics experts. Mr Jetin
The
Hay.
curves (277 the graph showed the inevitability of man's ever-increasing speed.
Forget about the Comet's six-
hour journey across the Atlantic bring fast. Sir George demon strated that by the year 2000 olvil alfines will be travelling at 3,800 miles an hour. London
Reta Shepherd
another development in air travel going beyond vertical Lake-off and type at provments on the
It is airplane we know now, rocket travel.
"But is Einstein right?" I usterd Dr Shepherd. "Don't you think that man will persist in going on till he can go faster "it's not out of the question than the speed of light? Surely that space fight, as ogainal alr in the long run he won't put up fight, might be competitive with anything less than instan- around the turn of the century." taneous travel?"
The Sputne lakes about 40 Dr Shepherd replied: "We have, for Instance, Intuitive ideas that we might overcome gravity. But we don't know,
To New Yurk three-quarters minutes from London to Aus- of an hour.
tralim A pllctless passenger rocket will take a little longer Allowance must be made for the descent and glide.
Even in 20 years' time airline speeds, said Sir George, will be around 1,300 miles an hour. He non-civil exports that by then apeotul type
The airplanes will be approvching 4,000 miles an hour. "It's dimcult to see what CRI stop . Planes have no potenital Ilmit to speed."
In 1999 the world's speed
record for airplanes will be not
for short et 8,000 miles an hour.
"A discovery in the Acid of that gravitation might show
for the it average speed journey will be around 10,000 miles an hour, Londen to Aus- tralia: just under the hour.
London to
The airplane of the future Mars in
thanks Sir George, will be the alender Delta. Mr Hay believes that i will use vertical icke-off. although Sir George is not su sure about that.
* ★
Sir Arnold Hul
eighteen months
There will be no advantage in rocket travel on such short distances as the Atlantic route. America is too close to get up
technical cnough speed. Passengers will director of Hawker Siddeley still have to be content in 1999
is possible to move com- pletely away from the Earth without relying on violent means of propulsion such as rockets or jet engines, (Incidentally that would make vertical inke-off much easier.)
"But you can't speculate until you have something besle to go uz. If not going faster than the speed of light is a law of nature, man cannot alter it--and what- ever may turn out in the field of gravitation it looks at the moment as if the speed of light | Is a law of nature,"
to
Mr Hay attached a nole his graph of man's increasing
and president of the Roynt with old tashioned aircraft speed. A part reads:- Acronautical Society, is also taking an hour. little dubious about the rapid
*W* ·\so And that manned development of vertical laite-off. Elr George Edwards grecs vehick reach the escope "For vertient take-off you that such rocket travel is velocity of seven miles per have to put in three times as possible, but tic is unhappy second in A.D.2020 (that is fast much thrust as ler an ordinary about having no pilot. airplane, ant
"A any clage while I unecontende."
Again, Sir Arnold points out alive I don't want to
4 man in that the advantage of vertical where withou! take-off is that you
can bring front."
this
15
enough. to leave the Earth itself), and that interplanetary cin Alghts aro
fairly common AD.2047.
By any
the
(or
What are the prospects space travel? Again listen 10 "It Dr Shepherd.
the airports into cities, culling out the hour or so spent in travelling to the airport.
But
disadvantages: the would be too noisy. There is no physical chance
in
"Further, we Bad Professor Einstein's followers severely perturbed in the year A.D.2251 when the light barrier s Aryt penetrated in a blinding flash."
And, who knows? Maybe the
by light barrier will be broken
"By the turn of the century of silencing it is virtually certain that mar ulrcraft engines as you can a will have gui to Mars and 1999 and not 2251.
It will take a
car. People
are al saturation landed there.
point zo far as aircraft nots is couple cf days to get to the concerned. Roughly speaking mcon. To gel to Mars, and noise is power, power is weight, allowing for getting back, three so the bigger the aircraft the
years." noister it is."
London to Australia
in an hour
Dr Harold Arnold
In any case, I spoke to no scientist who did not agree that In 40 years' time space travel would be normal.
At its closest Mars is 35,000,000 miles away, at its furthest 63,000,000, Dr "A trip to the moon in a few Shepherd believes that by that years' time will to no more time man will have reached out hazardous than was Columbus's into space further even than the voyage to America," says Shr solar system.
Can there be any bounds to man's travel?
Current scientific thinking
Arnold Hall
"People thought the world was flat and that he would go over the edge. Instead of which Graha, agree with Einstein's propos he discovered America Why
tion that it is impossible to do
shouldn't we get to the moon chlof scientist at Rolls-Royce,
and back?" disagrees. "I am perfectly con- faster than the speed of light.
After the sun the next nearest fident that well before 1999 all
4.4 light years civil aircraft will be vertical star to us is take-off and quite economieni, away. That makes a journey and the noise problem will be to its system a longish one. solved,"
The implications that he seos The furthest objects in the
are terrific. Airplanes will rise universo which
and land, te a lift, at main-
lino plations like Waterloo, or even small enes lilers Derby, Re
inforced concrete platforms will be placed across the lines from one platform to another.
Leave Waterloo at 0a.m. Land at Grand Central Station, New York, and be back in London for lunch.
"The point about railway stallons Is that they already have the facilities needed, By the end of the century aircraft will not be aciseless, but they will not be objectionably nelsy." I agree with Mr Hay and Dr Grits. Once it is accepted that a thing can be done there is always a way of ove.coming all the problems, including the economic.
As Dr L. B, Shepherd, a fores most scientist at Harwell, re- mariced to me about, vertient toke-off: "Imagine someone try- ing 100 years ago to azarts the relativo economics ut sailing Vergela and steamshipe: E
can be seen
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