Chariots of the Gods

Chapter Eleven - The Search For Direct Communication

At 4 a.m. on 1 April, 1960, an experiment began in a lonely valley in West Virginia. The big 85-ft radio-telescope at Green Bank was trained on the star Tau-Ceti, 11.8 light years away. The young American astronomer, Dr Frank Drake, who enjoys considerable fame as a scientist and acted as leader of this project, wanted to tune in to the radio transmissions of other civilisations in order to pick up signals from unknown intelligences in outer space. The first series of experiments lasted 150 hours. They passed into history as project OZMA, although it was a failure. The experiment was broken off, not because some of the participating scientists expressed the view that there were no radio transmission in space, but rather because it was realised that at the time there was no apparatus sensitive enough to reach the desired goal. OZMA will not be the only experiment of its kind. Possibly a radio-telescope will be erected on the moon that will be able to scan the immeasurable spaces between the stars for radio signals, free from terrestrial interference.

However, it must be asked whether the search for radio signals really helps our space research and whether it might not be more practical for us to do the sending of radio signals into space. Of course, we cannot expect unknown intelligences to understand Russian or Spanish or English and to be sitting there waiting to be contacted.

There remain three possibilities by which we can make ourselves known: mathematical symbols, Laser beams and pictures. The first of these seems most likely to succeed. In order to send such symbols we shall have to discover and fix Intergalactic wavelengths that stand a good chance of being received throughout the cosmos. 1420 megahertz would provide such a frequency, for that is the radiation frequency of the neutral hydrogen that results from the collision of hydrogen atoms. Since hydrogen is an element, this radiation frequency could be known throughout the universe. Besides, 1420 megahertz lies outside the over-crowded scale of terrestrial wavelengths. The possibility of errors and interference factors would be reduced to a minimum. In this way radio impulses could be sent into space and if unknown intelligences exist they would recognise them.

In this connection a news item from Die Zeit for 22.12.67 is most interesting. Under the headline 'The moon will be bombarded by flashes' we read:

'The distance of the moon from the earth is known to the nearest few hundred yards, but astronomers refuse to be satisfied with that. So astronauts on one of the first flights to the earth's satellite will take mirrors with them and set them up there. These mirrors—like the corner of a room— will consist of three reflecting planes standing at right angles to each other and will have the property of returning any light that strikes them back to the source of the light.

'This mirror system will be bombarded from the earth by a Laser emitting flashes of light each lasting for a hundred millionth of a second. The Laser will be used in conjunction with a telescope with an aperture of 1-50 metres. The light reflected from the moon will be picked up by this telescope and led to a photo-copier.

'The distance of the moon can then be determined to one and a half metres from the known speed of light and the time taken by a Laser beam for the journey there and back.'

The same kind of thing is also conceivable in reverse. Radio waves have been traversing the universe for a very long time. If my hypothesis is correct, isn't it credible that unknown intelligences are also announcing themselves to us? For example, the radiation energy of CTA 102 suddenly increased in the autumn of 1964; Russian astronomers informed the world that they had possibly received signals from an extra-terrestrial super-civilisation. This radio star CTA 102 was listed under catalogue number 102 by radio astronomers of the California Institute of Technology—hence its name.

The astronomer Sholomitski said in the lecture-room of the Sternberg Institute in Moscow on 13 April, 1965: 'At the end of September and the beginning of October 1964 the radiation energy from CTA 102 was much stronger, but only for a short time, then it diminished again. We registered this and waited. Towards the end of the year the intensity of the source suddenly increased again; it reached a second peak exactly 100 days after the first record was taken.' His chief, Professor Shlovsky, added that such fluctuations in radiation were very unusual.

Meanwhile the Dutch astrophysicist Maarten Schmidt has found out by exact measurements that CTA 102 must be about 10 milliard light years from the earth. That means that if the radio beams originated from intelligent beings, they must have been radiated 10 milliard years ago. But according to the calculations of present-day research, our planet simply did not exist at that time. This realisation could mean a kind of coup de grace to the search for other living beings in the universe.

But if the search for life in the universe had no chance of success, astrophysicists in America and Russia, at Jodrell Bank and at Stockert near Bonn in Germany would not be concentrating their research on what are known as radio stars and quasars with enormous directional antennae. The fixed stars Epsilon-Eridiani and Tau-Ceti are respectively 10.2 and 11.8 light years away from us. So radio waves aimed at these 'neighbours' would be about 11 light years under way and an answer from them could reasonably reach us in 22 years. Radio communications with more distant stars would take correspondingly longer; civilisations situated at distances reckoned in millions of light years are quite unsuitable for making contact with by means of radio waves. But are radio waves our only technical means of making such attempts?

For example, we could also make ourselves optically noticeable. A powerful Laser beam directed at Mars or Jupiter could not remain unnoticed, provided that intelligent living beings are in existence there. ('Laser' is the abbreviation for 'Light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation'.) Another, somewhat fantastic-sounding possibility would be to cultivate vast areas of soil so that tremendous colour contrasts appeared which at the same time represented a geometrical or mathematical symbol of universal validity. One audacious but perfectly realisable idea: a gigantic equilateral triangle would have its 600-mile-long sides sown with potatoes; in this enormous triangle a circle would be sown with wheat. In this way a vast yellow circle, surrounded by a green equilateral triangle, would appear every summer. Incidentally, a most useful and productive experiment! But if there are unknown intelligences that seek us as we seek them, the colouring of circle and triangle would be a hint to them that these shapes were no freaks of nature. As I have said, that is one possibility. Someone or other has also advocated erecting a chain of lighthouses which radiate their lights vertically. The resultant sea of light should be arranged to have the shape of a model of an atom. There are all kinds of suggestions.

All the suggestions are based on the premise that someone somewhere is watching our planet. Are we tackling the problem the wrong way by limiting ourselves to the kind of means suggested above?

However sceptical or antipathetic we may be to everything occult, we cannot avoid looking into some as yet inexplicable physical phenomena, for example the thought transference between intelligent brains that is proved on a broad scientific basis but not yet explained.

In the para-psychological departments of many important universities previously unexplained phenomena such as clairvoyance, visions, thought transference, etc., are being investigated with accurate scientific methods. In the process all ghost and bogey stories from dubious occult sources or inspired by religious mania are separated and rejected. In this field of research, which was absolutely taboo until quite recently, we have made important advances.

In August 1959 the Nautilus experiment came to an end. It not only demonstrated the possibility of thought transference, but also showed that mental communications between human brains can be stronger than radio waves. This was the experiment:

Thousands of miles away from the 'thought transmitter', the submarine Nautilus dived several hundred feet below the surface. All radio communications were interrupted, for even today radio waves do not penetrate to any appreciable depth. On the other hand, mental communication between Mr X and Mr Y did function.

After such scientific tests one asks oneself what else the human brain is capable of. Can it make mental communications faster than light? The Cayce affair, which has passed into the annals of scientific literature, stimulates such suppositions.

Edgar Cayce, a simple farmer's son from Kentucky, had no idea of the fantastic capabilities that were hidden in his brain. Although he died on 5 January, 1945, doctors and psychologists are still busy evaluating his actions. The strict American Medical Association gave Edgar Cayce permission to hold consultations, although he was not a doctor.

Edgar Cayce fell ill in his early youth; he was wracked by cramps; high fever was consuming his body; he fell into a coma. While doctors were trying in vain to bring the boy back to consciousness, Edgar suddenly began to speak loudly and clearly. He explained why he was ill, named some remedies which he needed and told them to prepare a paste from certain ingredients and smear his spine with it. Doctors and relatives were astounded because they had no idea where the boy had got this knowledge from and the words which were quite unknown to him. Edgar got progressively and visibly better after treatment with the medicaments he had named.

The incident was the talk of the state. Since Edgar had spoken in a coma, many people suggested that he should be hypnotised in order to 'entice' suggestions for cures from him. Edgar would not have this at any price. Not until a friend of his fell ill, did he dictate a precise prescription using Latin words which he had never heard or even seen before. A week later his friend was better again.

If the first case was soon forgotten as a minor sensation, that was not to be taken seriously scientifically, the second incident caused the Medical Association to set up a commission which was to make reports if anything of the kind happened again and to put down in writing every single detail. In a sleeping state Cayce had knowledge and abilities which would normality only be the result of much consultation.

Once Edgar 'prescribed' for a very wealthy patient a medicine that could not be procured anywhere. This man put several advertisements in widely circulating newspapers, including international ones. A young doctor wrote from Paris (!), saying that his father had made this medicine years ago, but that production had long been discontinued. The composition of this medicine was identical with the detailed ingredients supplied by Edgar Cayce.

Later Edgar 'prescribed' a medicine and also named the address of a laboratory in a town a long way away. A telephone call showed that the preparation was only just being developed. A formula had been worked out, they were looking for a name, but it was not yet on sale to chemists.

The commission of professional doctors were no believers in telepathy; they investigated soberly and objectively, verified what they observed and knew that Edgar had never had a medical book in his hands in his life. Besieged on all sides and from all over the world, Edgar gave two consultations a day, always in the presence of doctors and always without accepting fees. His diagnoses and therapeutical prescriptions were accurate, but when he came out of his trance, he could not remember what he had said. When doctors on the commission asked him how he arrived at his diagnoses, Edgar supposed that he could put himself in contact, with any brain required and gather the information he needed for his diagnosis from it. But as the patient's brain knew exactly what his body lacked, it was all very simple. He asked the brain of the sick person and then he sought out the brain in the world which could tell him what should be done. He himself, declared Edgar, was only a part of all brains.

An astonishing idea, which—transferred to the realm of technology—would look something like this. In New York a monster computer would be fed with all the known data on physics. Whenever and from wherever the computer was interrogated, it would give its answer in fractions of a second. Another computer might be in Zurich with the whole of medical knowledge stored inside it. One in Moscow would be stuffed with all the facts about biology, another in Cairo would have no gaps in its astronomical knowledge. In short all the knowledge in the world, arranged by branches, would be stored in various centres in the world. Connected by radio, the computer in Cairo, if asked for medical information, would pass on the questions to the computer in Zurich in the hundredth of a second. Edgar Cayce's brain must have functioned in much the same way as this perfectly credible and already technically feasible computer link-up.

I now put forward the bold speculation: what if all (or even only a few highly trained) human brains have unknown forms of energy at their disposal and possess the ability to make contact with all living beings? We know frighteningly little about the functions and potentialities of the human brain; but it is known that only one tenth of the cortex functions in the brain of a healthy man. What are the remaining nine-tenths doing? The fact that men have recovered from incurable diseases by will power and nothing else is well-known and scientifically documented. Perhaps a 'gear' unknown to us has been engaged and set an additional tenth or two-tenths of the cortex working? If we assume the fantastic idea that the strongest forms of energy operate in the brain, then a strong mental impulse would be noticeable everywhere simultaneously. If science succeeds in making such a 'wild' idea demonstrable, it could mean that all intelligences in the universe belong to the same unknown structure.

Let me give an example. If a strong electrical impulse is released at any point in a tank full of millions of bacteria, it is felt everywhere and by every species of bacteria. The surge of current is perceived everywhere at the same moment. I quite realise that this comparison is imperfect, for electricity is a known form of energy and dependent on the speed of light. I am concerned with a form of energy that is available and effective everywhere simultaneously. I imagine simply an as yet unidentified form of energy which will one day make the incomprehensible comprehensible.

In order to give a semblance of probability to the extraordinary idea, I shall quote the report of an experiment carried out on 29 and 30 May, 1965. In its scope and nature, it must be unique. On these two days 1,008 people concentrated at the same time, indeed at the same second, on pictures, sentences and groups of symbols, which were 'radiated' into the universe by them with concentrated power. The fact of this mass experiment is not the only astonishing thing, the results are strange, too. None of the participants knew any of the others; they lived hundreds of miles apart. Yet 2-7 per cent of the participants answered on ready printed forms that they had seen a picture, namely the model of an atom. Since collusion on the part of the 'guinea-pigs' was impossible, it is surprising that as many as 2.7 per cent should have seen the same 'mental picture'. Telepathy? Hocus pocus? Chance? Admittedly, the whole thing is a science fiction subject, but the experiment, organised by scientists, did take place. It is quite obvious that we don't know everything yet. The result of an experiment by a group of physicists at Princeton University is equally inexplicable. While investigating the disintegration of electrically neutral K mesons, they reached a result that was theoretically impossible because it contradicted a long established principle of nuclear physics.

One more extraordinary example. One part of the relativity theory says that mass and energy are only different forms of one and the same phenomenon. (E=mc<2>.) Put simply, mass can literally be produced from the void. Supposing a strong beam of energy is shot past a heavy atomic nucleus, then the beam of energy disappears into the strong electrical field of energy of the atomic nucleus and an electron and a positron appear in its place. Energy in the form of a beam has changed into the mass of two electrons. To the mind that has not been trained scientifically the process seems crazy and yet it takes place exactly like that. There is nothing to be ashamed of if you cannot follow Einstein; one scientist called him the great solitary because he could only discuss his theory with a dozen or so of his contemporaries.

After this excursion into the still unexplored fields of thought transference and the functions of the human brain, let us turn back to our theme again.

It is no longer a secret that in November 1961, in the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, West Virginia, eleven authorities met at a secret conference. Here, too, the theme of the conference was the question of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. The scientists, among them Dr Giuseppe Cocconi, Dr Su Shu Huang, Dr Philip Morrison, Dr Frank Drake, Dr Otto Struve, Dr Carl Sagan, as well as the Nobel Prize winner Melvin Calvin, collaborated at the end of the conference on what is known as the Green Bank Formula. According to this formula there are at any moment in our galaxy alone 50 million different civilisations which are either trying to get in touch with us or waiting for a sign from other planets.

The terms of the Green Bank Formula take into account all the aspects in question, but in addition the scientists allotted two values to each term; a normal value admissible according to our present state of knowledge and an absolute minimum value.

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In this formula:

R+ = the average annual number of new stars that are like our sun.

fP = the number of stars with possible living beings.

ne = the average number of planets which orbit the ecosphere of their sun and so have adequate premises for the development of life by human standards.

fi = the number of planets favoured in this way on which life has actually developed.

fi = the number of planets which are populated by intelligences with their own ability to act during the lifetime of their sun.

fc = the number of planets inhabited by intelligences that already have a developed technical civilisation.

L = the life-span of a civilisation, for only civilisations that were very long lasting could encounter each other given the vast distances in the universe.

If we take the lowest possible figures for all terms in this formula, we get:

N = 40.

But if we take the admissible maximum value, we get:

N = 50,000,000.

In other words, in the most unfavourable case the fantastic Green Bank Formula calculates that there are forty groups of intelligences in our Milky Way who are seeking contact with other intelligences.

The most audacious possibility gives 50 million unknown intelligences who are waiting for a sign from the cosmos.

All the Green Bank calculations are based not on present astronomical figures, but on the number of stars in our Milky Way since it existed.

If we accept the formula of this scientific brains trust, civilisations with more advanced technologies than ours may have existed hundreds of thousands of years ago—a fact that supports the theory put forward here of visits by 'gods' from the cosmos in the dawn of time. The American astrobiologist Dr Sagan assures us that according to statistical calculations alone the possibility exists that our earth may have been visited by representatives of an extra-terrestrial civilisation at least once in the course of its history. Fantasy and wishful thinking may be concealed in all the deliberations and suppositions, but the Green Bank Formula is a mathematical formula and enables us to determine the number of stars on which life is possible.

A new branch of science is in the process of formation— what is known as exobiology. New branches of science always find it difficult to achieve recognition. Exobiology would certainly find it harder to find acceptance if recognised personalities were not already devoting their work to this new field of research which tackles extraterrestrial life with complete impartiality. What better proof of the seriousness of this new science than a group of the names which subscribe to it:

Dr Freeman Quimby (Chief of the NASA exobiological programme), Dr La Blei (NASA), Dr Joshua Lederberg (NASA), Dr L. P. Smith (NASA), Dr R. E. Kaj (NASA), Dr Richard Young (NASA), Dr H. S. Brown (California Institute of Technology), Dr Edward Purcell (Professor of Physics at Harvard University), Dr R. N. Bracewells (Radio Astronomy Institute, Standford), Dr Townes (Nobel Prizewinner for Physics, 1964), Dr I. S. Shklovsky (Sternberg Institute, Moscow), Dr N. S. Kardashev (Sternberg Institute, Moscow, Sir Bernard Lovell (Jodrell Bank), Dr Wernher von Braun (Head of the USA Saturn Rocket Programme), Professor Dr Oberth, von Braun's teacher, Professor Dr Stuhlinger, Professor Dr E. Sanger and many others.

These names arc representative of many thousands of exobiologists all over the world. The desire of all these men is to break through the taboos, to tear down the walls of lethargy which until now have always surrounded the desert areas of research which are specifically singled out in this book. In the face of all the opposition exobiology exists and one day it may become the most interesting and important field of research.

But how can a proof of life in the universe be produced until someone has been there? There are statistics and calculations that definitely favour the idea of extraterrestrial life. There is the evidence of bacteria and spores in space. The search for unknown intelligences has begun, but has not yet produced results that are measurable, demonstrable and convincing. What we need are verifications of theories —are proofs of suppositions still disqualified as Utopian today. The NASA has a research programme ready that is intended to produce evidence of unknown life in the cosmos. Eight different probes, each one as unique as it is complicated, are to show evidence of life on planets in our solar system.

The following are the probes planned:

Optical Rotary Dispersion Profiles

The Multivator

The Vidicon Microscope

The J-Band Life Detector

The Radio isotope Biochemical Probe

The Mass Spectrometer

The Wolf Trap

The Ultraviolet Spectrophotometer.

A few hints as to what is hidden behind these technical tides that are double-dutch to the layman:

'Optical Rotary Dispersion Profiles' is the name of a laboratory probe with a rotary search light. Once landed on a planet, this light begins to emit beams and search for molecules. Molecules are well-known prerequisites for every kind of life. Once of these molecules is the large spiral-shaped DNS molecule, which consists of three chemical combinations arranged next to each other: a nitrogenous organic alkali, sugar and phosphoric acid. When polarised light strikes a sugar molecule, the search beam is interrupted, because the nitrogenous alkali adenin in chemical association with sugar has an 'optically active' effect. Since the sugar combination in the DNS molecule is 'optically active', the search beam of the probe has only to encounter a sugar-adenin combination to produce an immediate signal that, automatically sent to earth, would provide proof of life on an unknown planet.

The 'Multivator' consists of a probe weighing barely 1 lb which is carried by a rocket as light baggage and ejected when near the planet. This miniature laboratory is then in a position to conduct as many as fifteen different experiments and transmit their results to earth.

The 'Radio Isotope Biochemical Probe' is the official name of a probe developed under the nickname 'Gulliver'. It is intended to carry out a soft landing on the surface of another planet and immediately afterwards to shoot out three 45-ft-long sticky ropes in various directions. In a few minutes these ropes will be automatically withdrawn into the probe; whatever stays clinging to the ropes—dust, microbes or any kind of biochemical substances—will be immersed in a liquid culture medium. A part of this culture solution is enriched with the radioactive carbon isotope C 14; the micro-organisms introduced would logically have to produce carbon dioxide, C02, through their metabolism. The gas carbon dioxide can easily be separated from the liquid culture and led to a measuring apparatus which measures the radioactivity of the gas containing C 14 nuclei and radios the results to earth.

I should like to describe one more apparatus which the NASA has developed for the search for extraterrestrial life: what is known as the 'Wolf Trap'. This mini-laboratory was originally called 'Bug Detector' by its inventor, but his collaborators re-christened it 'Wolf Trap' because their chief is called Professor Wolf Vishniac. The Wolf Trap is also supposed to make a soft landing on another planet and then extend a vacuum tube with a very fragile tip. When the tube touches the ground, the tip breaks and soil samples of all kinds will be sucked into the vacuum created. Once again the probe contains various sterile culture mediums which guarantee every kind of bacteria a rapid growth. This multiplication of the bacteria makes the liquid medium cloudy and the pH value of the liquid also changes. (The pH value is the degree of acidity of an acid.) Both changes can be easily and accurately measured—the cloudiness of the liquid with the help of a beam of light and a photo-cell, the change in the acid content by an electrical pH measurement. These results would also enable us to make conclusions about existing unknown life.

Millions of dollars will be spent on the NASA programme and co-ordinated research for the investigation and proof of extraterrestrial life. The first bio-probes will be sent to Mars. Undoubtedly man will soon follow the mini-laboratories which are the forerunners. The senior officials of NASA are unanimous in saying that the first astronauts will land on Mars by 23 September, 1986, at the latest. This precise date has a reason. 1986 will be a year with little solar activity Dr von Braun supports the view that men could land on Mars as early as 1982; the NASA does not lack the technical resources, but only an adequate and unbroken financial grant from the American Congress. In addition to all the USA's current responsibilities two money swallowers such as the war in Viet Nam and the space programme are a heavy burden even for the richest nation in the world.

The plan for travel to Mars exists. The Mars space-ship has been designed. It 'only' needs to be built as well. A model of it stands on the desk of an unusual man in Huntsville—stands in front of Professor Dr Ernst Stuhlinger. Stuhlinger is Director of the Research Project Laboratory, which is part of the George Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama. He employs over a hundred scientific collaborators in his laboratories. In them they experiment in plasma-, nuclear and thermo-physics. The scientists also occupy themselves with the basic research for projects pointing into the future. The research for the electric rocket motor of the future is for ever linked with the name of Dr Stuhlinger. He is the designer of the Mars space-ship which will carry men to the red planet in our century.

Dr Stuhlinger was brought to the USA soon after the Second World War by his friend Dr Wernher von Braun; in Fort Bliss they made rockets for the American Air Force. Accompanied by 162 fellow-countrymen, the two rocket pioneers moved to Huntsville after the outbreak of the Korean War, in order to conjure up a project such as even America, accustomed as it is to gigantomania, has never seen before.

In those days Huntsville was a small sleepy nest on the edge of the Appalachian Mountains. With the arrival of the rocket men the little cotton town turned into a circus. Factories, rocket-testing platforms, laboratories, giant hangars and corrugated iron offices shot up from the ground breathtakingly fast in a few years. Today more than 15,000 people live in Huntsville; the little town has woken from its sleep and the Huntsvillites have become enthusiastic space fans. When the first Redstone rockets thundered away from the testing platform, many Huntsvillites ran down into their cellars in a panic. Nowadays, when a Saturn rocket is tested and a roar fills the air as if the world was coming to an end in the next second, nobody takes any notice. The Huntsvillites always carry their earplugs with them, just as Londoners carry their umbrellas. They call their town simply 'Rocket City' and if Congress will not grant the hundreds of thousand of millions of dollars demanded for space travel, they get bad-tempered and start agitating.

The Huntsvillites have every reason to be proud of their 'Germans' and the NASA, for Huntsville has grown into the biggest NASA centre of all. Here the rockets that make headlines all over the world are thought up and designed, from the little Redstone to the gigantic Saturn V. Up to now the USA has invested around 10 milliard pounds in the Moon programme. 15 Saturn V rockets have been commissioned for £54,000,000. At launching the tanks are filled with some 880,000 gallons of highly explosive fuel, which develops a propulsive force of 150,000,000 horse power. The giant rocket weighs almost 3,000 tons. In Huntsville some 7,000 technicians, engineers and scientists of related disciplines are working under Wernher von Braun towards the great goal, the conquest of space. In 1967 around 300,000 scientists of all kinds were working on the USA's global space programme. More than 20,000 industrials firms are working for the greatest research undertaking in history.

The Austrian scientist Dr Pscherra told me during a visit to Huntsville that the research groups constantly had to develop new 'articles' which had never before been produced anywhere in the world.

'Look here!' he said and showed a large cylinder from which came a humming, rumbling noise. 'In there we are conducting lubricating experiments in an absolute vacuum. Do you know that we cannot use any of the countless lubricants produced in the world? They lose all their lubricating qualities in space. With available lubricants even a simple electro-motor stops functioning after at most half an hour in airless space. What else could we do but invent a lubricant which works perfectly even in an absolute vacuum?'

A terrible groaning and whining came from another room. Two tremendous vices, firmly anchored to the floor, were trying to pull a 4-in.-thick sheet of metal to pieces.

'Another series of experiments that we would willingly dispense with,' said Dr Pscherra, 'but our experience has shown that existing metal alloys do not stand up to the stresses of space. So we must find ones that meet our requirements. That is the reason for these tensile probes and fatigue experiments under every conceivable kind of space situation. We also have to develop new welding techniques. The welded joints must be subject to cold, heat, vibration, tensile-strength and pressure tests, so that we can find out the limits at which a welded joint breaks.'

The hostess who accompanied me looked at her watch, Dr Pscherra looked at his watch, everyone was looking at their watches. The NASA personnel, of course, don't notice it any more; the visitor finds it curious at first, but he soon gets used to it, for looking at one's watch is a standard gesture of the NASA personnel at Cape Kennedy, Houston and Huntsville. They always seem to be making a countdown: four ... three ... two ... one ....ero.

Rides and walks through the halls, corridors and doors led, after many more security controls, to a Mr Pauli, who also comes from German-speaking Europe and has been working for NASA for thirteen years. I had a white helmet bearing the NASA symbol crammed on my head; Mr Pauli took me to the testing platform of the Saturn V. The simple words 'testing platform' mean a concrete colossus that weighs several hundred tons, is several storeys high, has lifts and cranes leading to it, and is surrounded by ramps in which a bewildering network of many miles of cables is installed. Once it is ignited, Saturn V makes a din which can be heard 12 miles from the launching ground. The testing platform, deeply anchored in rock and concrete, rises as much as three inches from its base during such trials, while 333,000 gallons of water per second are pumped through a sluice for cooling purposes. Merely for cooling trial rockets on the testing platform, NASA had to build a pumping works that could easily supply a city the size of Manchester with drinking water. A single firing test costs a cool £500,000! Space does not come cheaply.

Huntsville is one of the many NASA centres. The reader should note them because later they may become the departure stations for space flights:

Army Research Centre, Moffet Field, California.

Electronics Research Centre, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Flight Research Centre, Edwards, California.

Goddard Space Flight Centre, Greenbelt, MD.

Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

John F. Kennedy Space Centre, Florida.

Langley Research Centre, Hampton, VA.

Lewis Research Centre, Cleveland, Ohio.

Manned Spacekraft Centre, Houston, Texas.

Nuclear Rocket Development Station, Jackass Flats.

Pacific Launch Operations Office, Lompoc, California.

Wallops Station, Wallops Island, VA.

Western Operations Office, Santa Monica, California.

NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.

The space-ship industry has long overtaken the automobile industry as a pace-setter in the market. On 1 July, 1967, 22,828 people were working at the Cape Kennedy Space Centre; the annual budget for this station alone amounted to 475,784,000 dollars in 1967!

All that because a few crazy people want to go to the moon? I think I have already given sufficient convincing examples of what we owe research into space travel today (and these only as by-products), ranging from objects in everyday use to complicated medical apparatus which save people's lives every hour of the day all over the world. The super-technology in the course of development is truly no scourge of mankind. It is carrying mankind into the future which begins anew daily with seven-leagued boots.

The author had a chance to ask Wernher von Braun for his opinion of the hypotheses put forward in this book:

'Dr Von Braun, do you consider it possible that we shall find life on other planets in our solar system?'

'I consider it possible that we shall come across lower forms of life on the planet Mars.'

'Do you consider it possible that we are not the only intelligences in the universe?'

'I consider is extremely probable that not only plant and animal life, but also intelligent living creatures exist in the infinite reaches of the universe. The discovery of such life is a most fascinating and interesting task, but considering the enormous distances between our own and other solar systems' and the still greater distances between our galaxy and other galactic systems, it is doubtful whether we shall succeed in proving the existence of such forms of life or getting into direct communication with them.'

'Is it-conceivable that older, technically more advanced intelligences live or have lived in our galaxy?'

'Up to the present we have no proof or indication that older and technically more advanced living beings than ourselves live or have lived in our galaxy. However, on the basis of statistical and philosophical considerations, 1 am convinced of the existence of such advanced living beings. But I must emphasise that we have no firm scientific basis for this conviction.'

'Is there a possibility that older intelligences could have paid a visit to our earth in the dim mists of time?'

'I won't deny this possibility. But to the best of my knowledge no archaeological studies have so far provided any basis for that kind of speculation.'

Here my conversation with the 'father of the Saturn rocket' ended. Unfortunately the author could not tell him in detail about all the remarkable discoveries, the absurdities, the old books handed down to us as unsolved puzzles —the countless questions that archaeological finds force upon us when considered with space eyes. But Dr Von Braun awaits the documentation of this book.

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