An Artist's Conception of a

World-Wide Conflict
of Nations
a Century
Hence

Rnbol Pntrol With Movie Camera

A Machlne-Gun Soldier a Hundred and Sound Recorder.
Tears From Now.
tire. Doctors were notoriously insuffi-
•pHE cable despatches the other day cient in the. World War, and they found
I announced that a robot air- their tasks unpleasantly dnngcrous. In
I plane had demonstrated its prac- the future, Mr. Nitsche thinks, war ro-
tical value at the Royal Air Force Air- bot doctors will attend to the injuries
drome, Famborough, England. of robot soldiers. There will also be
This remarkable r o b o t airplane, hospitals where all Ihe equipment will
christened "The Queen Bee," responded be mechanical, reeking no more of
perfectly to every order given by an of- blood and antiseptics but of machine
ficer on the ground by means of the oil.
radio. Soldiers need music on the march
It was controlled from a small wooden and to hearten them at other times.
cabinet fitted with seven plain whit'e One good band is all that woud be
keys. The plane's engine started into necessary in robot times. A robot
actio/i at the touch of a switch and the equipped with twenty-five tubes, im-
machine rose into the air as if by proved receiver and a loud speaker
magic. From time to time an officer could pick up the marches and what
shouted:1 not from the central station and pro-
"Lift! Dive! Sight! Level!" vide music for a whole regiment. He
A technician pressed the proper key could n o t , of cout'.se, extemporize
in the control cabinet to transmit the verses like the thousand and one of
order, and a light flickered on and off Mademoiselle from Armenlieres, ns
as the apparatus obeyed the officer's our boys did in the war. But no Made-
will. The plane carried a machine gun moiselle would appeal to a robot.
which could also be operated by radio. Combats infinitely beyond the pow-
The hardest test came when the ers of human fighters will be made
order was given to land. The officer easy by robot development. For ex-
gave^ the command, "Glide!" .When ample, the robot planes will be able
the plane was at 2,000 feet altitude she to fight each other in the stratosphere,
went into a smooth glide with the en- where any conceivable speed can be
gine Just ticking over. She seemed to obtained, and where the air is too rare-
be coming down at a steeper angle than fied to sustain human life. By using
was safe, but at a certain height an au- this region one* nation can strike at
tomatic device came into operation, another on the other side of the world
which speeded up the engine for a time in two or three hours.
and allowed the machine to make a. Whatever goes up must come down,
safe landing.' and undoubtedly a number of air ro-
At least fifteen Queen Bees have A Robot's Fall From an Airplane. X-Ray Picture of a Bullet in the Robot's Heart. bots will do so. Mr. Nitsche draws a
already been built. They can be cata- tear-impelling picture of the fall of one
pulted from ships as well as despatched pean artist, has looked into the future them, t h e r e is a fire. He c r a w l s camera and sound recording machines, of these poor creatures, flopping down
from land. Their range of control is of a century from now and has made a s t e e l encased forward, h i s hu- could dart, and hover over the enemy beside a peaceful picnic party. It is,
ten miles from the radio station, but series of remarkable prophetic pictures m e c h a n i s m . The Twenfy-five-tube Radio Military man masters miles with no danger to human life—and indeed, pathetic.
with greater power this can be in- of a war fought solely with robot sol- most important or- Band. away, striving to bring back vastly more accurate ob- Nevertheless, it is a good idea. Tho
creased indefinitely. diers. The majority of them were gan to the machine direct the deadly servations. When a human soldier gets only trouble is that it will probably
That is a real war-making robot, one drawn exclusively for The American gunner, without which his hands would stream into the mechanical vitats of a bullet in his heart, or in his liver or take humanity at least thirty more
of a great variety of robots with Weekly and appear on this page. be useless, are his eyes. Nitsche's robot the enemy's robots. has himself partly blown to pieces, that centuries to become so humane. And
which many experts believe war will be Instead of the human machine gun- machine gunner's head is the gun it- Patrol work was desperately dan- is the end of that soldier. Not so with when they have done so, there will be
almost entirely conducted in future. ners, crouched in their emplacements, self. His eyes are in the heads of those gerous in the last war. But a flying the robot. A new heart can be put in no more war—and therefore no need of
Erik Nitsche, a distinguished Euro- waiting for the mangling shell to end who by television and radio direct his robot, equipped with motion picture him as easily, almost, as changing a robot fioltiicrs.

Hospital for (he Repair of Robot Soldiers. A Fiplit in the Stratosphere,

© I95o, bj , In?. Oral BrlUIn RI;M.5 Br.'«ir>I.