le of the
rocket. He visions a ship built in the form of a large metal
sphere--110 feet in diameter, weighing 70,000 metric tons and carrying
a crew of sixty and a dozen scientists. A dozen or more cannon would
protrude slightly from the surface, shooting material the rate of 200
miles a second.

A half hour or so before noon and about three days before a new moon,
Stewart would head his ship toward the sun, expecting it to rise
twelve miles in the first six minutes and to soar out of the earth's
atmosphere at 200 miles per hour.

Two hours and 29 minutes after the take-off the firing from the lower
cannon would be stopped with the ship going upward, the professor
estimates, at 190 miles per minute and having reached a height of
13,200 miles. Seventy hours later, crossing the moon's orbit, Stewart
would fire the forward cannon and the ship would coast around the
moon, becoming the temporary satellite of a satellite.

"The rest would be easy," said Stewart, "owing to the lesser gravity
of the moon. The cannon would be fired to cushion the fall to the moon
as the ship was gradually sucked toward the satellite.

"The moon is airless, waterless and lifeless, days and nights are two
weeks long, temperatures range from that of boiling water at noon down
perhaps to that of liquid air at midnight. The men of the ship would
walk on the moon clad in diving suits. Gravity being only one-sixth
that of the earth, a man would carry several hundred pounds of
apparatus for providing air and for regulating the temperature.

"To leave the moon the ship would fire her rear cannon and coast back
to earth. By firing its forward cannon it would cushion its landing on
the earth, which would have to be made on a desert, because of the
tremendous charges the cannon would fire."

_A Meeting Place for Readers of_ Astounding Stories

[Illustration: The Readers' Corner]

_The Author Explains_

Dear Editor:

Am very much puzzled by the several apparent mistakes in two
of the stories in the April issue of Astounding Stories. In
"The World Behind the Moon," Mr. Ernst makes an error so
obvious that it almost makes me believe that it isn't an
error. Like doing a math problem and finding it so easy that
you're sure that you have it wrong. Anyway, here is my
problem; this is taken verbatim from the story: "At two
thousand miles from the Earth there had still been enough
hydrogen trace