LAUNCH !

Captain's Log - Day 1

The hour arrived. I watched the chronometer ticking off the seconds to launch time.
Cowgill released the valve and the cyclotrons began to flow into the anti-gravity engines. A hum resonated throughout the hull as the engines vibrated. Then the ship rose smoothly up into the atmosphere. The pressure inside the cabin grew as we curved in a long arc through the stratosphere. At 140 miles altitude I ordered the engines to be cut and we found ourselves in a weightless environment. We were now in orbit around the earth. It is a beautiful sight - Areas of green and brown land are interspersed with large tracts of bright blue ocean.

Cowgill and Professor Hismouth are taking readings through the naviscope to determine the optimum moment for our departure from orbit to begin the journey to the moon.

It has been calculated that our journey will take about two weeks. During this time I intend to describe the day-to-day events, and some history of the work that the dwarfs have been doing on the Moon during the last forty years.

For entertainment I have brought with me Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon and H.G.Wells The First Men in the Moon . I am not a great fan of Science Fiction - I much prefer factual science and I find writers of this material rather fanciful in their predictions of the future. It is, however, quite amusing to see how wrong they all were.

I must admit,though, that Mr Wells was extraordinarily prescient in his creation of the anti-gravity metal, Cavorite.

It is was not so far-fetched and is similar in principle to our own discovery - the cyclotron particle.