Red Flag Over the Moon

The sense here should be self-evident. Stine admits in his book (which is must reading for everyone interested in this space race) that his space station is entirely indefensible in 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.