Medford mail tribune., September 30, 1962, Image 39

The space age began five years
ago on Oct 4, 1957, when the
Russians launched their first Sput
nik. Yet most Americans haven't
the slightest idea where we stand
in the battle for mastery of space.
The truth is: the United States is no
longer behind the Russians but slightly
ahead of them in the over-all race and
when it comes to the next big goal in space,
a manned trip to the moon, we have a sur
prisingly good chance of achieving it be
fore they do.
Soviet successes deserve respect, but .
they do not merit the frightened reaction
of some Americans. Too few of us are
aware that the Soviet Union has orbited
only about one-fourth as many satellites
as the United States.
Russia's "firsts" were memorable the
first earth satellite, the first animal in
space, the first man in space, and last
month's simultaneous orbiting of two men
but they all bore an unmistakable tinge
of propaganda.
The simultaneous flights of Andrian
Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich were sta
tistically similar to the earlier flights of
Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov. There
was nothing new about the space craft
used or the technique (even the Russians
admitted that the twin cosmonauts did not
rendezvous in space).
While America's "firsts" have not been
as spectacular (or as well-publicized), they
have been far more valuable scientifically.
Only with the start of the Cosmos series
of satellite shots this year have the Rus
sians indicated that they are launching
any sort of program to study the radiation,
meteorite threats, and solar-flare problems
that man will have to deal with in space.
This is information the U. S. space pro
gram has been piling up ever since it
launched the first Vanguard, Explorer, and
Pioneer satellites.
From a Russian viewpoint, an even
darker side of the picture is the matter of
hard, cold cash. Both nations must spend
a great deal more money if they are going
to be successful in reaching the moon. The
rockets that the Soviet Union used to put
Gargarin, Titov, Nikolayev, and Popovich
into orbit are far too small to send men to
the moon. So are the ones we used to orbit
John Glenn and Scott Carpenter. We are
now building much bigger ones. But can
Russia, a country much poorer financially,
afford the extra burden of competing
in a race that will take years to show any
dividends other than propaganda gains?
Ironically, Russia's lead in costly "spec
taculars" during the early years of the
space age may result in its defeat in the
race for the moon. The Russian philosophy
of rocket design called for bigger and big
ger vehicles whose sheer size and power
made early orbiting possible and gave the
Soviet Union her early lead.
'V'" " 'V 1 ' ti-SSJ
L jfM -
5 J817 HIW
The
SPACE RAGE:
Are We
Winning or
Losing?
Claims and counterclaims have most
Americans confused; here are the
facts in a report by an insider
By ALVIN B. WEBB, JR.
Cape Canaveral Bureau Chief or United Press International and
author of "Countdown: An Insider's Story of Our Men in Space"
Gemini, boosted by this Titan II, will carry
2 astronauts, test rendezvous method.
Meanwhile, the United States was tack
ling the problem in exactly the opposite
way through miniaturization. Our use of
smaller, rockets and capsules has put us
at a distinct propaganda disadvantage.
But to get to the moon, such small com-'
ponents are absolutely necessary.
No one including the Russians has
yet contrived a rocket or fuel that can
shoot a gigantic payload to the moon.. And
before anyone can do it, the United States
will land a small, but manned, payload
there. We don't need Russia's huge capsule
components, but they do need and lack
our miniaturized ones.
When will we land men on the moon?
By 1967 at the latest And that isn't
just a guess; it is the estimate of James
E. Webb, head of the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration. The nation's
top space scientist, Wernher von Braun,
hopes to do it even sooner by 1966.
To pave a safe road to the moon, NASA
is going to pepper the skies with some 260
satellites, manned and unmanned. Then it
is going to put into action superboosters
that will make the 360,000-pound thrust
of the Atlas look puny.
Successful test shots already have been
. made with a colossus called the Saturn, a
rocket with 1,500,000 pounds of thrust.
After preliminary exploration by the Sat
urn, an advanced version of it called the
C-5 will orbit crews of spacemen. The next
step will be the Apollo, a spaceship that
will ride atop one of these behemoths and
will take its pilots to the moon.
The rendezvous method probably will be
used in the initial U. S. moon trips. This
method calls for crews and a mother space
ship to be launched into orbit around the
moon. A two-man "bug" will then make a
lunar landing. The landing crew will be
able to maneuver the bug back into a lunar
orbit and rendezvous with the mother ship
for the voyage back to earth. The rendez
vous technique will be relatively easy
owing to weightlessness.
On the basis of all the information avail
able to NASA (including secret intelli
gence reports), Webb concedes that Russia
probably will score two more "spectacu
lars" before the United States can. These
will be : a multimanned orbital flight and a
multimanned flight past the moon. The
Soviets can do this because they perfected
their heavy boosters before we did.
Nevertheless, in view of our astronautic
advantages, Webb, von Braun, and Robert
Gilruth, director of Project Mercury, all
are confident that we will accomplish a
lunar landing before the Russians. They
believe that the first cosmonauts to land
on the moon may well be greeted by Amer
ican astronauts.
family Wnkly, 5)ttmbr JO, ml