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distant dream. (There have been many occasions over the last few weeks when I am sure Lemmy, at least, wished it had remained so.) Mitch I met at dinner during my first night in Luna City.
    I think I would have recognised him as an Australian anywhere. He was tall and slim and looked older than his thirty-six years. He had that casual, nonchalant, patient air, so typical of many Australians, particularly those who have spent most of their lives away from the cities.
    Mitch was born in the outback, his father being a cattle rancher and a very successful and prosperous one, too. Steve Mitchell senior had served as flight mechanic in the second world war and flying was an obsession with him. Small aircraft, including helicopters, were as common on his cattle station, said to be the largest in Queensland, as jeeps were on others.
    Young Mitchell had inherited his father’s love of everything to do with aircraft and aircraft engines. From the ranch he went to an engineering college in Sydney where he took his degree and afterwards joined the research department of a jet aircraft-manufacturer.
    He did not remain with them long for he had developed a keen interest in atomic power and was soon offered a remunerative post with the Royal Australian Navy for whom he helped perfect the first atomic motor for use in warships. Three years later a smaller type for submarines was given its trials with most encouraging results. And then came a big change in Mitch’s life. His father died. Mitch put the cattle station into the hands of a manager and took a long vacation to take stock of the future.
    He decided he had had enough of ships and felt a strong desire to work in aeronautics again or, better still, astronautics. Astronautics was the new science. The aircraft company for whom he had first worked built many of the research rockets fired at the proving ground at Woomera. Mitch had modified the motors of a number of the liquid-fuel rockets then in use, rendering them more economical in fuel consumption and, in consequence, more efficient in performance.
    But liquid-fuel motors had about reached their limit and further development along that line was pointless. It was then that the idea of designing a light atomic motor occurred to him.
    The more he thought about it, the more the idea appealed. He resigned his post with the Navy and set to. His drawing-office was the converted living-room of his father’s ranch house. There he spent long hours of the day and night bent over his board. When he grew tired or felt in need of a mental refresher, he saddled up a horse and rode out on cattle round-ups with the stockmen, living in the open with them for days at a time. At last, some eighteen months later, his plans were complete. He had, he was convinced, found the answer to space travel. Now all he had to do was find an organisation willing--and rich enough--to build the ship to prove it.
    But it was soon obvious that no single organisation, private or official, could possibly stand the cost. His only hope lay in persuading a large number of organisations, both governmental and commercial, to share it. He travelled to every corner of the British Commonwealth with a trunkful of plans and a strong line of talk, and succeeded in founding the greatest Commonwealth co-operative effort ever undertaken in peacetime.
    Every major aircraft and rocket company contributed towards the cost which, with the building of the rocket and the launching ground, and the personnel to man it, was phenomenal. The Australian Government, beside providing a grant in hard cash, also supplied the site for the launching ground.
    The result was Luna City, where every race and tongue of the British Commonwealth of Nations was to be seen and heard. And what a friendly, happy, enthusiastic crowd they were; as an American, I felt it was a great privilege to be a principal member of this team.
    Sitting at the same dinner table as Mitch, and hearing him speak in his broad