i i
One doesn't have to be a prophet to predict that
within the next few years men will travel in
various orbits around the earth. It is quite certain
that about six years from now there will be a
permanent, manned, artificial satellite most likely
two: one American and one Russian. And there
will be the first attempts to get a manned rocket
ship to loop around our natural moon without
landing there.
Project Mercury, as you know, aims at putting
a man into orbit around the earth in a capsule.
But what follows after the Mercury capsule has
carried a man into space and back?
It is necessary to realize that the man in the
Mercury capsule is more a passenger than he is
a pilot. Of course, he will be kept busy with vari
ous experiments, observations, and assignments,
but actually he won't have to do a thing for the
successful completion of the trip. For example, he
will throw the firing switch for the retro-rockets
which make his capsule slow down for re-entry.
But if for any reason he can't do this, it will be
done for him by remote control.
The next step after the Mercury capsule, then,
is evidently a space flight in which the pilot unc
tions as a pilot.
A plan for such a flight has existed for more than
a year. Called "Mrs. V" (from the initials of
Maneuverable and Recoverable Space Vehicle),
the idea was to have an airplane-shaped space
vehicle which would re-enter the atmosphere,
slow down mainly by taking advantage of air re
sistance, and finally land on a runway in the same
way a fast jet docs.
While this plan was developed by one group of
scientists and engineers, another group built some
thing that, with some modifications, could be called
"Mrs. V," namely the X-15 rocket research plane.
The so-called "final flight" of the X-15 is going to
be a gigantic arc 400 miles long, with its highest
point 100 miles above the ground, terminating in
a landing on a conveniently located runway.
Today, space scientists tend to return to the
thinking which was taken for granted by the pio
neers of rocketry some 30 years ago. Both the Mer
cury capsule and the current X-15 are designed
for just one man. But after Mercury has done its
job, the goal will be to put entire crews into space
rather than a single man!
The reasons are easy to see. The flight of the
Mercury capsule has been carefully planned so that
the man inside will be there for not more than
about nine hours. But for a mission lasting 36
hours, we obviously need more than one man.
Somebody has to sleep awhile to be rested and
alert for the difficult re-entry.
This sounds simple, but there are many hidden
problems, the most important of which centers
around the word "sleep." Eating and drinking
should be possible under weightlessness because
in these functions medical researchers know pre
cisely which muscle does what
But in the case of sleep, we don't know. And
since we don't know just what being asleep de
pends on, we can't make a good prediction, except
that apparently a man falls asleep when he is tired
enough, no matter what goes on around him.
Our hope is to replace" the "Mrs. V" project
(which still had a single-seater ship in mind) with
Project Apollo, which will accommodate three men.
The Apollo may be considered the first full-fledged
American spaceship. For with a Saturn rocket as
the first stage, Apollo could not only go into orbit,
it could fly around the moon. For this trip, it would
first go into orbit around the earth, then acceler
ate into an orbit which would carry it toward the
spot where the moon will be when the spaceship
gets there.
To make sure that the ship does not hit the moon,
or pass it at too great a distance, so-called "mid
course corrections" will be needed. This means that
the ship must move in the right direction with pre
cisely the right velocity. This can be established by
a combination of radar tracking from the ground
and astronomical observations by the men aboard.
The problem will then be fed into a computer (on
the ground), and the ship will be given the nec
essary guidance.
When near the moon say not farther than 1,000
miles away the moon's gravitational pull will
bend the ship's path into a hairpin curve. The crew
may wish to circle the moon, taking pictures. In
that case the ship would have to reduce its speed
when near the moon so that it is "captured," as
astronomers call it.
" Just as a capsule has to "do something" to break
out of an orbit around the earth, the spaceship
would have to use rocket power to break out of
its lunar orbit It would have to accelerate in or
der to get back into an orbit which would bring
it back to earth.
All this is an easily foreseeable development But
whether this ship will be a rather drastic develop
ment of the present X-15, or be derived from the
Mercury capsule, or be a completely new design
cannot be predicted so easily. The odds favor the
last possibility, however.
In any event, we can count on the fact that after
Project Mercury it will no longer be "man in
space" but "crews in space."
COVER:
Artist Gordon Johnson's male bowler seems
depressed and with good reason. Take a
look at the score sheet and you'll learn why.
How does the average lady bowler compare
with her male counterpart? See page 10.
family
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WAITER C. DREYFUS I'iir 'rro'ifrnf
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