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[The Blog of Phileas Fogg: 1883 onwards] October 5th 1884

From: Harry Hayfield <harryhayfield~at~googlemail.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:47:00 -0700 (PDT)
To: jvf~at~gilead.org.il

I am pleased to report that we are all back on our feet (in a
figurative way) following our little fainting spell yesterday.
Passepartout was the first to recover his senses and immediately
checked on me. However I was still out cold and so concerned for my
health gave me slap across the face. Now, I know that this would
normally be means for dismissal but it did the trick and I woke up
straight away. A little woozy but awake. Passepartout apolgised most
profusely and when I was fully compis mentis said that he had nothing
to worry about. All of which left Mr. Barbicane who after five minutes
had still not roused. I checked his pulse and breathing and noted that
they seemed normal so suggested that Passepartout have a little look
around for a container of water.

I have to say this, the people who built the Columbiad did a fine job.
Everything we could possibly need is readily to hand so it only took a
minute or so for Passepartout to find me a bottle of water. I undid the
top and held it over Mr. Barbicane. I was rather suprised to see that
the water didn't flow as I was expecting and glancing at my box of
tricks I could see why. The gravtional pull on the Columbiad was
weakening, it was now only 1.6 times normal but it was still enough to
make the water stay in the container. So I shook the bottle and the
water came spilling out and woke Mr. Barbicane up. "Why you...!" he
growled as he shook his head and it was clear that Mr. Barbicane was
back to his usual self.

As we all recovered from the force that had made us all black out, the
box of tricks chimed that the force of gravity was now 1.0 times. "A
cause for celebration no?" said Mr. Barbicane and a few moments later
three bowls of cold soup were poured out for us and we sat down to
supper. During supper two issues were discussed. The first of which
related to the actual launch, namely. why did we feel the force of
gravity pushing us down instead of a loud bang? Mr. Barbicane was at a
slight loss as was myself so I decided to see if this box of tricks
could shed some light on the issue. Based on the data that this box had
been generating since we launched some twenty five minutes ago, within
seven seconds of launching we were already travelling in excess of 742½
mph. You may ask what this has to do with anything. Well, that's the
speed of sound. In other words, we were travelling so fast, so quickly
that we actually outran the sound generated by our launch (hence no
sound of the explosion)

Having solved that problem, I was just about to compliment Passepartout
on the soup when a small bubble of soup lifted out and started to hover
in front of my eyes. I stopped and stared in amazement and suddenly
noticed that the same thing was happening to Passepartout's soup and
Mr. Barbicane's soup as well and not only that we all seemed to be
hovering a few inches above our seats. We all looked at each other
trying to figure out what was going on when the box of tricks announced
that the force of gravity was only 0.1 that of Earth and that's when
the penny dropped. We were experiencing what I supposed called be
called microgravity and as such the force was so low it couldn't
prevent us floating around the Columbiad (which made sleeping that
night an interesting affair!)

Today (well, the current diurnal period seeing as we see a sunrise
about every two hours or so), Passepartout discovered a section that
looked different from the rest and asked what it was. "Ah" said Mr.
Barbicane, "our window" and with that he pulled a lever and the section
moved away and a revealed a porthole. I looked out of the porthole and
gasped. And when you saw what I saw you can see why.



"Gentlemen" I announced, "We are witness to something that no man has
ever seen before. Might I suggest that we honour this view with a
moment's silence" which I thought matched the occasion.

--
Posted By Harry Hayfield to The Blog of Phileas Fogg: 1883 onwards on
7/17/2009 07:44:00 PM

Received on Fri 17 Jul 2009 - 21:47:10 IDT

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