Rocket Radio" For Moon to Earth Broadcasts Foreseen.-The technical possibility of building a compact "rocket radio" weighing less than IOO pounds and capable of transmitting signals from the'moon to the earth was advanced by Westinghouse scientists commenting on the proposed moon-bound rockets the Army expects to construct within 18 months.
Referring to recent rocket forecasts of the Army Air Force guided missile branch, Dr. J. A. Hutcheson, associate director of the Westinghouse Research Laboratories, declared it now is possible to build a small radio set of sufficient power to send its signal 240,000 miles from the moon to the earth.
"A Ioo-watt transmitter capable of beaming ultrashort waves from the moon to the earth would weigh less than 50 pounds," he said. "Its power supply, consisting of several batteries the size of automobile storage batteries, would require only an additional 50 pounds thanks to wartime improvements in battery construction.
The whole set could be enclosed in a cabinet about three feet in length and one foot in depth and width."
Dr. Hutcheson pointed out that the set would have to be hermetically sealed in order to operate in the near vacuum of the ionosphere and from the surface of the moon itself. At an altitude of 60 miles above the earth where the ionosphere begins air pressure approaches only one-billionth that of normal atmosphere.
"Assuming a rocket speed of 4,000 miles per hour," Dr. Hutcheson continued, "it would require about 60 hours to reach the moon. If the rocket radio were operating all this time it would apply too heavy a drain on the batteries. Therefore, we could use an electric clock mechanism to turn the batteries on for one minute out of each hour. This would give sufficient battery life to provide hourly broadcasts while the rocket ascended and for several days on the moon itself.
"Such hourly broadcasts not only would report the progress and landing of the rocket but also might be used to record temperature changes on the moon," he said. "Since resistance of wire changes according to the temperature, this change could be made to vary the frequency modulation of the radio transmitter and change the tone of the signal which would be received on earth.
'Station M-O-O-N might also help us discover many facts which now are largely a matter of conjecture.
It generally is assumed that there is no moisture on the moon because we can see no evidence of atmosphere in the form of clouds and haze. Instruments aboard the rocket could check on this fact and relay the answer to earth by radio."
The problem of landing a 4,ooo-mile-an-hour rocket on the moon without smashing delicate radio equipment was explained by the Westinghouse scientist.
"The proximity fuse developed during the war holds the key to providing a 'soft' landing for moon-rockets," he declared.
"When the rocket approaches the moon, a tiny radio set weighing only a few ounces would detect the fact. This automatically would turn on reverse rockets and turn off the forward rocket power. Such tiny radio outfits in anti-aircraft shells produced during the latter part of the war detected the proximity of airplanes and exploded the shell at the right moment.
By starting reverse rocket power at the right moment in this application, these proximity radio sets would make possible rocket landings without damaging delicate instruments." R. H. 0.