by Jerry
Professor Banning was a scientific Alexander the Great. No matter how amazing or how stupendous were the feats he accomplished, he was always looking for new worlds to conquer.
To savants throughout the world, Professor Banning was known as the authority on the fourth dimension and non-Euclidian geometry.
The general public, however, knew him best as the inventor of the Spirit of Youth—the first successful space flyer.
You will doubtless recall the intense interest and excitement which was engendered throughout the world several years ago when the Spirit of Youth made its epochal flight around the moon. On that occasion the space flyer, after circumnavigating the moon, had returned to the earth without stopping.
Despite the fact that no landing was made on our satellite, this unprecedented feat demonstrated beyond question the feasibility of interplanetary travel.
The event was all the more notable because the Spirit of Youth was piloted by no less a personage than Colonel Charles Berglin, the most famous aviator that had ever lived. Professor Banning acted in the capacity of interplanetary navigator.
It was somewhat of an accident that made it possible for me—an obscure nonentity—to accompany this famous pair on their memorable journey.
Shortly after he had resigned from his position as Professor of Mathematics at Green University in my native state of Rhode Island, Professor Banning had employed me as a sort of mechanical obstetrician for the inventions which were constantly being born in his fecund mind.
I was selected partly because I was a graduate mechanical engineer, but principally on account of the special work I had done in the more advanced and complex branches of mathematics.
Thanks to what Professor Banning was kind enough to call a rare combination of mechanical skill and the ability to grasp the complicated principles and formulas of pure mathematics, I was lucky enough to get this desirable job.
Professor Banning insisted on placing me under a contract. By its terms I received a very satisfactory salary whether or not there was any work for me to do. But the pecuniary compensation was the least of the benefits I derived from this connection. My close association with the learned scholar, besides being a source of pleasure, was a liberal education in itself.
When Professor Banning had broached to Berglin and me his intention of conducting a second expedition, this time landing on the moon and exploring its surface, Berglin’s answer was characteristically brief and courageous: “O.K. with me, chief. If you feel sure it can be done and you want my help, you can count on me.”
To me was left my customary role of critic and objector.
“Do you really think it is possible to alight on the moon?” I questioned. “How are you going to land without crashing when there’s no atmosphere to support the airfoils?”
“That’s easy,” was the Professor’s come-back. “We’ll use the rocket tubes at the front and bottom of the flyer as brakes. There’s absolutely no reason—either theoretical or practical—why we shouldn’t light as softly as a feather.”
Perhaps I should explain, for the benefit of those who may not have given close attention to the newspaper accounts of its maiden voyage, that the Spirit of Youth combined the principle of an airplane with the addition of rocket tubes, which were used for navigating the airless space between the earth and the moon.
MY second question was: “How about taking off from the moon on the return trip?”
“Again we’ll use the rockets. You probably know that on the moon everything is much lighter than on earth; consequently the hop-off from the moon ought to be the easiest part of the entire trip.”
“But the space surrounding the moon is a perfect vacuum, isn’t it?”
“Hardly a perfect vacuum, I’d say. That the moon has no atmosphere even comparable to the more rarefied air at the tops of the earth’s highest mountains has been proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, but most authorities believe that the moon has a very slight amount of gaseous envelope. The nearest approach to a vacuum obtainable under the bell jar of a mechanical air pump would probably come pretty close to duplicating the atmosphere of the moon.”
“If that’s the case, how could we get the door of our flyer open without losing all the air from inside the cabin?”
“I’m surprised at you—supposedly a mechanical expert—asking a question as stupid as that. Haven’t you ever heard of air locks? Don’t you know it is a simple matter to devise a small chamber with one air-tight door communicating with the cabin and the other with the space outside? Do I need to go any further?”
“No,” was my shamefaced reply. “I’ll have to admit that was a dumb question, but here’s one that I hope you won’t think quite so stupid: ‘If people have nosebleeds, hemorrhages and become violently ill, just from being in the rarefied atmosphere of high altitudes on earth, what would happen to us if our bodies were surrounded by an almost perfect vacuum? Wouldn’t we just blow up and burst—just like the deep sea fishes do when they are suddenly drawn from the high pressures of the ocean’s depths to the relatively low pressure of the earth’s atmosphere?’ ”
“That’s much better, my boy. I’m glad to see you have some intelligence left. It is quite possible that something like that would happen if we attempted to step forth on the moon without adequate protection. But I’ve already designed a species of armor or vacuum suit that will easily take care of this contingency. I’ll tell you all about it later. Are there any other objections?”
The only one I could think of was: “A contraption strong enough to protect a man against the terrific forces to which he would be subjected would have to be pretty heavy, wouldn’t it?”
“Not necessarily, as I shall demonstrate to you shortly. My device ought not to weigh more than two hundred pounds. But suppose it weighs half a ton, what of it?”
“How in the world could anyone but a professional strong man manipulate a weighty and cumbersome contrivance like that without help?”
“If we tried to use such a suit on earth it would indeed be difficult. But don’t forget that everything weighs less on the moon. This is due to the fact that weight varies directly with the mass of the attracting body. The moon has only about one-thirteenth as much volume as the earth. On the other hand, the moon is made of lighter material. Using water as the standard, the density of the earth is five point five three and that of the moon only three point three six. From this you can easily figure out that the force of gravitation on the moon is only about one-sixth as great as on the earth.
“This means that if you, when dressed in full armor, weighed one thousand pounds on the earth, you would find it as easy to move around on the moon as if the whole outfit, including yourself, weighed only one hundred and eighty pounds.
“You weigh a hundred and fifty pounds, don’t you?”
“A hundred and forty-eight.”
“It wouldn’t be much of a job for you to carry a load of thirty-two pounds, would it?”
“Hardly.”
“But you won’t even have to do that. I’m confident that we can make a suit that will do the work and will weigh less than two hundred pounds. That will make you actually weigh about sixty pounds when you start your promenades on the moon. You’ll be more likely to be bothered because you’ll be too light rather than too heavy, or I miss my prognostication.
“And now have I answered all your questions satisfactorily?”
“Yes, Professor. I’m satisfied.”
“If that’s the case there seems to be no reason on earth—or on the moon either—why such an expedition is not entirely feasible.
“And think of the glory! What we have accomplished so far is nothing compared with the honor of being the first men to set foot on the moon!”
The professor’s enthusiasm was so contagious that there was no escaping the infection. The inevitable happened, of course. Both Berglin and I pledged our support to Professor Banning’s enterprise and we immediately started work carrying out the details of his w
ell thought-out plans.
CHAPTER II
The Banning Space Flyer
SINCE the Spirit of Youth had demonstrated its efficiency as a space flyer by completing the round trip between the earth and the moon, I naturally took it for granted that our second voyage would be made in the same conveyance.
But Professor Banning had other plans.
“The Spirit of Youth is a fine machine,” he told me one day. “It was built for a certain purpose and it served that purpose well. But the present task is somewhat different. Our first trip through interplanetary space taught us several lessons and we’d be foolish if we didn’t profit by them. I therefore propose to build a brand new space flyer, specifically designed for transportation between the earth and the moon.”
Constructing a large machine of original and revolutionary design naturally required a lot of time and cost a lot of money, but neither of these items seemed to bother Professor Banning. Thanks to the royalties which for many years had accrued from the sale of his mathematics text books, augmented by the income from a number of sage investments, Professor Banning was independently wealthy.
For building those portions of the ship which were of conventional pattern, such as the fuselage and landing gear, we used the staff of the Bryan Aircraft Corporation at San Diego, which had been placed at our disposal.
Most of my time was spent in working out the mechanical details of the unique features of the flyer.
While built somewhat on the plan of a large airplane of the enclosed cabin type, our space flyer embodied several revolutionary and peculiar features. One of these was the unusually small proportions of the airfoils, which were less than one-third the ordinary size. Theoretically, we could have dispensed with wings entirely, since the rocket principle of propulsion did not require them. The reason why Professor Banning included small wings as part of his design was that by their aid our craft could be handled more easily and at a much smaller consumption of fuel during the passage through the earth’s atmospheric envelope.
The most radical departure from standard airplane design was the elimination of the propeller and of the internal combustion motor. In their place were substituted a system of rocket tubes and combustion chambers which were so simple and so light that they made possible a substantial increase in the pay load.
To the selection of a suitable fuel Professor Banning devoted a great deal of study and research. After he had made hundreds of unsatisfactory tests with various types of gases, volatile liquids and other substances, the problem was solved for him in an utterly unexpected way.
Through a small item in a local newspaper he learned that Captain Frank Sims, one of the world’s greatest authorities on high explosives, was living in Los Angeles. Possibly you will remember Captain Sims as the man who originated BRT, the explosive used in the depth bomb which played much havoc among German submarines during the World War.
Professor Banning visited Captain Sims in the hope of getting some suggestions regarding fuel for his space flyer.
He learned that Captain Sims had recently perfected a new explosive which was over four times as powerful as TNT, and which could be handled even carelessly with absolute safety. It was in the form of a fine powder, and was known as radatomite. At the time of Professor Banning’s call, arrangements had just been completed for the manufacture of radatomite on a large scale.
When he learned of our plans to explore the moon, Captain Sims not only agreed to turn over to us the first output of his factory at cost price, but also collaborated with Professor Banning in inventing an ingenious and remarkably efficient device for exploding the powder and controlling the discharge through the rocket nozzles with safety and certainty.
SINCE this is not a treatise on mechanics, I shall omit a detailed description of the combustion chambers which Professor Banning and Captain Sims invented for regulating the discharges of radatomite through the rocket tubes. Though ingenious beyond comparison, this device was beautifully simple, and for that reason it functioned perfectly, with practically no likelihood of ever getting out of order.
According to the plans of our space flyer, most of the propulsive force was to be directed through four rocket tubes which terminated at the tail of the ship, all of them pointing dead astern. By means of an ordinary hand throttle, the stream of burning Radatomite could be controlled with marvelous exactitude, ranging from a faint fizz like the discharge of a tiny toy rocket to a continuous blast of expanding gases more powerful than the mightiest of tornadoes.
At the nose of the flyer were four more rocket tubes pointing straight ahead. A separate throttle regulated the radatomite discharges through these tubes, which served the purpose of brakes for use when it was desired to decrease or completely neutralize the forward speed of the flyer. They could even be used for flying the machine in reverse.
For steering purposes two tubes were carried to the tip of the right wing and two to the left. One of each pair pointed forward and the other toward the rear.
In the place of the propeller was a vertical beam, the lower end of which just cleared the ground when the flyer was taxiing. At each end of this beam were two more rocket tubes, one pointed ahead and the other astern.
These eight steering tubes were operated by means of a standard type of airplane joy stick. Pushing the stick to the right would produce currents of exploding radatomite through both the tubes pointing to the rear at the left tip of the wing and the one pointing forward at the right tip—thus turning the nose of the machine to the right. To steer in the opposite direction, it was only necessary to move the stick to the left.
The tubes at the extremities of the upright beam took the place of the elevator, steering the flyer upward or downward according to whether the joy stick was moved backward or forward. When the stick was in a neutral position, no gas whatever flowed through the steering tubes. The strength of the currents produced by exploding radatomite shooting through these pipes was determined by the distance which the stick was moved away from the perpendicular position.
Thus far, with the possible exception of the apparatus for controlling the rate of discharge through the rocket tubes, there was nothing original or revolutionary about the design of our flyer. In its general get-up it was quite similar to other rocket planes which had either been described or planned, or worked out in model form by scientists both in America and in Europe.
There was at least one feature of the Banning space flyer, however, which was absolutely original and unique, and that was the four dimensional steering device.
Constructing the mechanical contrivance which made it possible for the flyer actually to be steered into hyper space was the special job assigned to me.
Though I completed this astonishing task successfully, I was able to do it only because of the cooperation and close supervision which I received from Professor Banning.
I shall not attempt a detailed explanation of this complicated device since—to be perfectly frank—I’m not sure I understand it fully myself—in spite of the fact that I made every bit of it with my own hands.
Fortunately, I was present at a time when Professor Banning was explaining the four dimensional principle to Colonel Berglin, and the following transcript of this exposition is much clearer and more comprehensive than I could possibly make it.
CHAPTER III
Professor Banning Explains the Fourth Dimension
RESPONDING to a request from Colonel Berglin to explain the four dimensional steering mechanism to him, Professor Banning said:
“When you fly an airplane you have three different lines of motion to consider: one you call forward or backward, another left or right, and the third up or down.
“On our space flyer, these three lines of direction are well represented by our three systems of rocket tubes. Motion forward and backward is produced by the tubes at the bow and the stern; motion to the right or left is controlled by the tubes at the tips of the wings, and motion up or down is regulated by the tubes at
the extremities of our elevating beam.
“If you imagine lines drawn to indicate these directions, they would be three in number and could be made to point in such a way that any one of them is exactly perpendicular to each of the other two.
“If we measure the extension of our flyer along each of these lines the figure we obtain will represent the three dimensions, length, width and height.
“Further than that the ordinary mind does not attempt to go. But to the trained mathematician it is easy to conceive of a fourth dimension, or line of direction, and to place this line in such a way that it is perpendicular to all of the lines representing the other three dimensions. Is that clear?”
“I think I get what you’re driving at,” Berglin answered. “But I don’t see how it is possible to draw a line in such a way that it will be perpendicular to three other lines at the same point.”
“That’s because you’ve always been accustomed to thinking of things as having only three dimensions. I don’t mean to imply that all the things with which we are familiar extend for any considerable distance in the fourth dimension, but I do know that every object in the universe has at least a small amount of four dimensional extension.
“Perhaps I can clarify this point by making comparison with objects which are commonly regarded as being two-dimensional in character—a piece of tissue paper, for instance. We all know that even the thinnest of materials must have some thickness, yet this dimension may be so small in comparison with the other two that a person accustomed only to thin, flat objects could easily assume that the paper had only two dimensions, namely length and width.
“Now suppose this Flatlander should happen to take a large number of pieces of thin paper and pile them on top of each other. Can’t you see how he could thus discover the existence of a third dimension even if he had previously had knowledge of only two dimensions?”
“Yes, I can see that plainly enough,” Berglin rejoined. “Well, that’s all there is to understanding the fourth dimension. Just imagine a lot of three dimensional objects grouped together in such a way that they extend in a direction that is neither east or west, north or south, nor up or down, but at the same time is at right angles to each of these directions, and you have a clear conception of the fourth dimension.