Rockets to Moon, Atomic Power Are Impossible--Marks

Lionel S. Marks, Gordon McKay Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Emeritus, and perhaps the dean of American mechanical engineers, yesterday warned that "another general war will plunge the economic conditions of the world to such depths that the masses will be re-living the Dark Ages."

While Professor Marks points to the amazing impetus which war research has given to scientific progress and cites the "extensive possibilities" which could render further wars disastrous to humanity, he voices irritation at highly colored press representation of technological advance.

"We will never live in a world of inter-planetary rocket ships and atomic power," he asserted. "Just because those experts who once said Man would never fly have been proven wrong, it does not follow that the range of science is unlimited."

Belittles Flying to Moon

An expert on rockets and a student of them for many years, Professor Marks expressed his pleasure that leading rocket-ship fans have given up their ideas of reaching other celestial bodies. "It's about time," he remarked. "Man will never achieve such a feat as flying to the moon."

Professor Marks, 73-year-old native of Birmingham, England, and editor-in-chief of the Mechanical Engineer's Handbook, standard reference for mechanical engineers throughout most of the world, is generally recognized as one of the great authorities on jet-propulsion. In November, 1943, he predicted that Germany would use robot bombs, and since his retirement in 1940, he has addressed audiences in all parts of the United States on Hitler's secret weapons.

Hits Exaggerations of Robot Bomb

Stressing the exaggerations about the robot bomb, Professor Marks states that "it is a jet-propulsion airplane which substitutes for the gas turbine a device tried out as early as 1908 in the early stages of gas turbine development and which was abandoned then because its efficiency was only about two and one-half percent.

"The low efficiency of the device," he went on to say, "limits the range of action of the robot. Nevertheless, it has the great advantage of avoiding the use of machinery, and in that respect it functions like a rocket although it takes the air required for combustion from the outside."

Minimizes Helicopter's Possibilities

"Another good example of exaggeration," Professor Marks continued, "is the popular notion that the helicopter will replace the automobile in the post-war decade. The helicopter will always be more hazardous than the automobile, and it is absurd to think that the housewife will use it for shopping. Perhaps business-men who live in suburban communities may find it convenient--but its popular possibilities have been greatly-overrated."

"Similarly," he commented, "jet-propulsion will not affect the airplane in its present civil uses. Due to jet-propulsion's excessive use of fuel, it will have only minor supplementary uses for special purposes."

Professor Marks received the degree of B.S. from the University of London in 1892, and of M.E. from Cornell University in 1894. He became instructor in Mechanical Engineering at Harvard in 1894