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On 30 January 1927, this appeal went out:

"The Interplanetary Section of the Association of Inventors calls your attention to an exhibition which will be held on 10 February 1927 at the Association of Inventors Building, 68 Tverskaya, Moscow. This is the world's first exhibition of models and mechanism of interplanetary vehicles constructed by inventors of different countries. The Association knows of your work on the problem of cosmic flights and believes you will not refuse to participate in our exhibition by submitting copies of manuscripts or published works in addition to sketches, models, diagrams and tables. Many inventors have already sent us material, among them the esteemed K. E. Tsiolkovsky, and from abroad we expect to hear soon from Robert Goddard of the United States, Esnault-Pelterie of France, Max Valier of Germany, Hermann Oberth of Rumania and [Ernest] Welsh of England. We would appreciate your material well in advance of the opening, but if for some reason this is not possible, please notify us."

Mr Ernest Welsh, a resident of North Ferriby, East Yorkshire, could hardly be included among the ranks of Tsiolkovsky, Goddard, Esnault-Pelterie, and Oberth, since he had neither devised a peaceable spaceship nor conceived a theoretical advance in space travel. Instead, he had invented a terrifying "death rocket" that would throw out a shower of molten metal pellets against attacking air forces. The rocket, he claimed, could climb to a height of 8 km (5 miles), and records indicate that it was successfully tested before the British authorities at Hull in the summer of 1924. The British were impressed, as were the French and Americans; an American Chemical Warfare service officer, Major Atkinson, was present for the trial launch, and promised to transport one of the smaller rockets back to the United States via steamship.

However, Atkinson met with difficulties in persuading the vessel's owners to transport such a dangerous cargo, and the purchase had to be cancelled. Nothing further ever was heard of Welsh's "death rocket", though the Russians did manage to obtain a model of his supposed "rocketship", proposed in 1922 and propelled by melonite detonating in compressed air. This was proudly displayed at the 1927 exhibition in the Association of Inventors building on Tverskaya Street, but apparently with no hint or indeed any clue that it was actually a functional ground-to-air weapon rather than a concept test prototype for an interplanetary vehicle.

So then, what if Major Atkinson had managed to convince a cargo vessel to transport one of Ernest Welsh's "Death Rockets" to the United States, and managed to impress the military brass back in the USA enough to start producing them? Or if the British and/or the French had been convinced to invest in Welsh's anti-air flak rockets, or if the Russians had actually found out that the rocket which they had on display at the 1927 exhibition was actually the world's first functioning SAM and confiscated it for their military? How big an impact could Welsh's Death Rockets, and any subsequent developments of new standardized designs following on from them, have potentially had on the course of history?
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