Taken as a whole, this book makes interesting, even fascinating reading. Tsiolkovsky’s stories are of tremen­ dous interest and urge us to ponder over the many purely specific problems of space travel. They will, undoubtedly, increase the number of enthusiasts in this branch of science and technology. His “On the Moon”, “Outside the Earth” and other stories afford hours of entertainment and leave a lasting impression.

Illustrated here is the world outlook of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, original thinker, self-taught scientist, founder and keen enthusiast of space travel. Though man is bound by every fibre to his home-planet, Tsiolkovsky argues that he stands to gain immeasurably by gradually con­ quering space. Life in space, where there is no accelera­ tion of gravity in relation to manned spacecraft, or even on such objects as the Moon or the asteroids, where the gravity is negligible compared with the Earth’s, presents tremendous advantages, Tsiolkovsky claims, since with the same effort it is possible there to accomplish an in­ comparably greater amount of work. In addition, in the absence of disease-producing germs and drawing on the Sun’s continuous radiation, it will be possible to cultivate

in artificial hothouses with temperature control and air-con­ ditioning, various kinds of plants, which provide food for a human population and also consume the excreta of animal organisms.