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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (April 16, 1961)
Recently fired into orbit, America's first camera-equipped Samos has one aim, that of keeping enemy territories under close watch. Its name is SAMOS which is the name of a Greek island, but also stands for Satellite Mis sile Observation System. Formerly known as Sentry, it also is being called the "spy in the sky." It's a U. S. camera-carrying satellite, and its pur pose is exactly the same as that of the ill-fated U-2 airplane flights: to take pictures of what goes on behind the Iron Curtain. The first Samoa satellite successfully launched took off from Point Arguello, Calif., on Jan. 31. Others will follow. ' : - ; ' . - Remembering Nikita Khrushchev's summit busting tantrum over the U-2 affair, you may won der why a satellite system that will eventually do everything the U-2 could do, and do it better, can possibly be described as a "satellite of peace." There may well be another. Khrushchev tantrum over Samoa maybe before these words are in print yet in the end Samos may turn out to be more of a peacemaker than a provocation. To un derstand why, let's take a closer look at Samos. All the Samos satellites will be fired into polar orbits; they will circle the earth from pole to pole while our planet revolves beneath them. Each sat ellite will complete a full circuit of the earth every 95 minutes (about 16 times each 24 hours) at heights varying from 300 to 350 miles. , Since the Soviet Union and Soviet-occupied ter ritory sireicnes aunosi nauway arouiiu use giuue in the Northern Hemisphere, each Samos will pass over the Soviet area on about 50 percent of its cir cuits. By late 1962 or early 1963, it is expected A 1 J! ( V SAMOS Satellite ol Peace ? there will be enough of these space-flying cameras to keep the whole Soviet expanse under continu ous and comprehensive scrutiny. While details of the Samos photographic equip ment are closely guarded, it is expected that tele vision or still photographs can be radioed back to earth (or ejected in a recoverable capsule) with sharpness equal to what the human eye can see at ' a distance of 100 feet! The cameras are so sensitive that good pictures can be taken even by starlight The reason we need Samos is the same reason we needed the U-2: because Russia is building long-range missile bases from which nuclear war heads could be launched against targets in U. S. territory. In order to take necessary defensive measures, . we need to know how many such ; launching sites the Soviets have and where. The Soviets, of course, have counted on having the' great advantage of being able to keep the loca tion of their missile sites secret. They expected to be able, at will, to attack our missile sites by surprise,- since in free America such massive con structions cannot be hidden, while we could not hope to knock out their missile bases because we couldn't pinpoint the targets. That, of course, was why the U-2 bothered Khrushchev so much. The uproar he created about it had just one basic purpose: to make sure we stopped the ' U-2 flights and kept them stopped. But now comes Samos to replace U-2. And now, too, we are rapidly building up our force of Polaris-armed submarineswhich give-us missile sites whose location cannot be pinpointed. So the hardheaded Soviet bosses may soon be asking themselves whether it makes sense for them to go on spending vast sums on weapons they can use only at the cost of certain self-destruction. From such reflections it is only a step to the " question: why not agree to the control of nuclear weapons by international agreement, with the in spection which the West has always demanded and the Soviets consistently refused? ', With Samos, we will have inspection anyway. The Soviets are realists. Perhaps they will say to themselves: "By agreeing to inspection on West ern terms, we're not giving away much more than these people can get by their own means. Why not take credit for being peacemakers?" . ' It's called a "spy in the shy" and a missile-age U-2 but it could help end the cold war By GEORGE FIELDING ELIOT Don't start throwing up your hats and cheering just yet There doubtless will be hard words and hard bargaining before the Russians agree to any disarmament controls. They may even experiment with an antisatellite satellite and try to shoot down Samos as they claim to have shot down the U-2. They've already hinted they have such a weapons system,, or soon will have. But our own progress along these lines doesn't indicate that a successful satellite-interception sys tem is likely to be ready for some years; and Samos is an orbiting, tangible fact now. The result may be a war of satellites in outer space. But it just could be a long step toward nuclear arms control right here on earth, and a step toward peace and security for everybody. COVER: Jack Lemmon, photographed by Gene ' Trindl, is a top movie star, a generous friend, a devoted father yet few people know Mm. To find out why, turn to page 6. April IS, JM1 LEONARD S. DAVIDOW I'rnidetlt and Ptblithrr WAITER C DREYFUS Viet Prnident PATRICK E. O'ROURKi Adrerli.mg Director MORTON FRANK Director of PMUher Relation! Send all advertising communications to Family Weekly. 153 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago 1, III. Address all communications about editorial features to Family Weekly, 60 E. ttth St., New York 22, N. Y. Board of Editors ERNEST V. 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