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Magicians of
Monmouth

Saturday Evening Post
by Shalett, S.

Aug. 23, 1952

pages. 34-35, 58, 62, 64, and 66 

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Evans scientists plan...

Evans scientists plan an entirely new type of moon experiment in the near future.  They want to be able to track the moon as it moves, rather than merely nail it with a fixed beam, and they want to know a lot more about the travel back to earth.  “All this,  you may rest assured, is not idle curiosity or a mere celestial parlor trick,”  Doctor Zahl explained.  “The ionosphere hangs over the earth like an electrically charged mirror or prism, and it does strange things to radio waves.  It is very necessary to know exactly what does happen to radio waves of all frequencies as they pass through this outer periphery of the earth’s atmosphere.”

 What SCEL scientists do not stress is the knowledge of the nature of the ionosphere is a necessary long-range preliminary to the Buck Rogersish dream of space ships and man-made satellites whirling in gravity.  If space ships ever are perfected, it may be necessary to use the moon as a target from which to check, deflect or aim the beams that will control them.  Such talk is sternly subordinated at Monmouth to less fanciful topics such as field wire that the hogs won’t eat or germanium-speckled television sets.  However, if this country ever does produce, say, a missile that will whiz through space, guiding itself on a preset course by means of a celestial sextant, or by radio communications.  And somewhere on that radio equipment there will be tacked a little brass plate, saying: “Made at Monmouth.”

THE END....


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