In the same story, Romans used a swell device to get the ship off the earth. He used a mile-long tube, composed of circular magnets. It was a magnetic g*n. Each magnet pulled the ship towards it, and then, as the ship passed it, the magnet's poles were reversed, and made to repel the ship. With each magnet at maximum charge, either pulling or pushing the ship, according to whether it was in front or behind the latter, the same erupted from the tube with the necessary 7 M.P.S. velocity of escape, and so was off on the way to the moon. What's wrong with the idea? I dunno.
John W. Campell (Jr.) used to have brainstorms: in fact, he invented two of THE BEST WAYS TO GET AROUND. One, in the first of the ARCOT, MOREY, and WADE stories, "PIRACY PREFERRED", was that of molecular motion. All the li
