Space Platform

Acknowledgments

This acknowledgment is necessary if I am to say thanks to some experts to whom I am indebted. There is Captain Charles Benjamin, who read over the aviation parts of this book with pursed lips and a belligerent attitude toward questionable statements of fact or observation. There is Dr. John Drury Clark, whose authoritative knowledge of rocket fuels was the basis for admitted but not extravagant extrapolation on my part. There is the crew of a four–engined transport ship, who argued over my manuscript and settled the argument by a zestful, full–scale crash–landing drill—repeat, "drill"—expressly to make sure I had described all the procedure just right. There is Willy Ley, whom I would like to exempt from responsibility for any statement in the book, while I acknowledge the value of personal talks with him and the pleasure anybody who has ever read his books will recognize. And there is Dr. Hugh S. Rice of the Hayden Planetarium, who will probably be surprised to find that I feel I owe him gratitude. They are in great part responsible for the factual matter in this book.

I think I may add, though, that I worked on it too.

MURRAY LEINSTER "Ardudwy" Gloucester, Va.