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Danger from Rays. Outside the sheltering atmosphere, many kinds of violence strike at the space ship. Ultraviolet light and X rays from the sun are among the major hazards. Probably still more dangerous are the cosmic rays that come from mysterious sources deep in space. Many of them are heavy particles (entire atoms) with enormous energy. These violent particles never reach the earth's surface, but they would riddle a space ship, passing right through its crewmen. No one knows what damage they may do, for man has had none of them to experiment with. One authority, Nobelman H. J. Muller of Indiana University, believes that they may cause cancer.
The space-planners are not dismayed, however, by the dragons that await them above the blue sky. The Air Force men seemed to take it for granted that manned rockets, even manned satellites and space ships, are being designed already as serious, practical projects.
*Variously defined, but meaning in general the region above the present ceilings of "inhabited aircraft," i.e., above 75,000 feet.