Travel Between the Planets

The nuclear-powered space ship shown here in a dumb-bell design as often proposed by Arthur C. Clarke, ex-Chairman of the British Interplanetary Society, is the ideal design for travel between planets. The nuclear reactor contained in the heavily shielded smaller sphere is sufficient to propel the space ship in orbit-to-orbit journeys to and from the various planets. Here, two space taxis from the space ship are seen moving to the surface of a great asteroid (or planetoid) orbiting about the sun between Mars and Jupiter.

From the book "Worlds in Space"
by Martin Caidin
illustration by Fred L. Wolff
(1954)

First Trip to Our Moon

The first trip to our moon will be without landing, in a ship designed to travel in space only, taking off near the Space Station and returning to it. Here the round-the-moon ship is some 240,000 miles from earth, 50 miles above the lunar surface. The large crater is Aristillus (diameter 35 miles); the other crater is Autocylus; the distant mountains are the lunar Apennines.

painting by Chesley Bonestell
from Across the Space Frontier
edited by Cornelius Ryan
1952

We interupt this program . . .

Preview for the upcoming movie

"The Day the Earth Stood Still" Movie Trailer