10 B
MONDAY. MARCH 25. 1963
MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD. OREGON
pacecraft lesigners Oontinually Plagued with f roblems
By JOSEPH L. MYLER
United Preu International
Washington - HJPD - There
must be days when a space
craft designer wishes he had
got into some other line of
work.
There seems to be a law
operating out there which
says that whatever you do,
you may wish you hadn't.
For example, if you shield
against one kind of radiation
danger, you may increase vul
nerability to another.
Streaking through space at
speed approaching the veloc
ity of light are nuclear par
ticles which make a clean
wound, so to speak, when they
pierce a human body.
Unless they course through
particularly sensitive tissue.
like that of the brain, these
fantastically energetic projec
tiles from outer space do rel
atively little harm.
Tinv Bullets
But suppose a. spacecraft
designer wanted, lo take no
chances whatever. Suppose
he built shields around his
craft which would be abso
lutely impervious to these
tiny bullets.
The shielding would be so
massive that no rocket ever
Imagined could possibly lift
it off the pad
If the spacecraft designer
compromised with a shield
that would merely slow down
these high speed particles, he
would be compounding the
danger.
Shooting through the body
at reduced speed, the nuclear
projectiles would have more
time to spread their energy
around and thus would do far
more damage.
They also, upon collision
with atoms in the shield,
would trigger so-called secon
daries whose effect might well
be disas'rous.
Atomic warfare suggests an
analogy. An exploding A
bomb might not knock down
a reinforced concrete build
ing some distance away. But
the blast might create a host
of secondary projectiles in the
form of shattered glass, chip
ped concrete and other loose
or loosened objects wnicn
would kill or wund every
body in the building.
Indirectly Delected
Recently a primary particle
from a distant galaxy was
indirectly detected by a re
cording station installed by
the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology on a mesa top in
New Mexico. ,
This one particle was so
tiny that if you inflated it
trillions of times it still would
be invisible to the naked eye.
But it also was so powerful
that when it hit atoms in the
earth's atmosphere, it trigger
ed a shower of secondary par
ticles which bombarded the
entire mesa, an area of several
square miles.
The atom smasher at the
Brookhaven National Labora
tory on Long Island drives nu
clear particles at energies up
to 30 billion electron volts.
The particle which invaded
New Mexico had three billion
times that much energy.
Such particles presumably
are rare;, this one was detected
only because a recording sta
tion happened to have been
built at the place where it
arrived.
But space swarms with
other nuclear particles which,
though less energetic, are far
more numerous. .
There are the particles
spewed from the sun when
solar flares erupt on its sur
face. There are the particles
in the natural and artificial
radiation belts around the
earth. .
Fairly Energolic
The particles in the radia
tion belts are considered to be
fairly energetic, for them, if
they pick the equivalent of
more than 100,000 electron
volts.
A particle carrying 100,000
electron volts of energy would
be only on quintillionth (one
over one followed by 15 zeros)
as powerful as the New Mex
ican invader. Hertofore space
craft designers have assumed
that particles so feeble could
be ignored.
Now come Edward Lodi
David Crowther of the Lock
heed Research Laboratories,
Palo Alto, Calif., with news
that 100,000-volt particles also
can make trouble.
Such particles, they report,
can reduce the power output
of solar cells supplying elec
tricity to spacecraft Instru
ments. It has long been known
that particles of higher ener
gy in the radiation zones
would damage unprotected
solar cells.
These higher energy parti
cles lower the cells' capacity
to produce current. The low
energy particles, Lodi and
Crowther discovered, reduce
the cells' capacity to produce
voltage. ' And, of course, it
takes both current and volt
age to produce power.
Frustrating Low
So the spacecraft designer
now must do something about
the numerous low as well as
the high energy particles..This
is where that frustrating space
law (whatever you do may be
wrong) comes in.
If ,you shield against the
higher energy particles, you
can cut down their speed, all
right, and avert the special
kind of damage they do. In
the act, however, you convert
them into low energy parti
cles. The upshot is that, in pre
venting one kind of damage,
you are merely increasing the
chances of suffering another
kind.
Who d want to be a space
craft designer?
Didn't Erase Doubts
West in Skeptical Frame of Mind
At Demonstration of Computer
"OIL TO BURN"
Mobilheit
S & H Green Stamp
MEDFORD FUEL CO.
772-2111
"5 V:-"'' :;v,i:r. ;.:(.:;. .. . - ; . '- - - ' ' , ' :
UNLOADED FROM TRANSPORT - Atlas rockeL 130-D Is
unloaded from transport airplane after flight from San
Diego, Calif. Rocket will be used to boost U.S. Astronaut
Gordon Cooper Jr. on 22-orbit space voyage now planned
for mid-May. Atlas was taken lo hangar and will be Install
ed on launching pad No. 14 in a few days. (NASA photo
via UPI)
r;fi
By DICK WEST
United Press International
Washington-dlPB-Roughly 30
years ago, I blew an entire
week's allowance-roughly 15
cents - on a
ticket to a
tent show that
was billed as
"P r o f e s sor
Moriarity and
and his talk
ing horse."
The memory
of that eve
n i n g still
, weit pains me be
cause I was roundly gulled.
All the horse did was answer
the professor's questions by
shaking his head or stamping
a forefoot. .
I'll concede they were hard
questions, b u t intelligence
wasn't the issue. When I pay
money to see a talking horse,
I expect something more than
sign language.
At those prices, he should
have recited Mark Antony's
funeral oration.
Approaches Show Skeptically
Once burned, twice shy, as
Socrates used to say, and so
it was with considerable skep
ticism that I went to a dem
onstration this week of what
was billed as a "talking com
puter." The computer, called Tele
vox, was developed by the
Teleregister Corp. of Stan
ford, Conn., to serve the needs
of members of the American
Stock Exchange in New York.
When it goes into operation
later this year, brokers will
be able to pick up a tele
phone, dial the computer's
number and hear it recite the
latest stock quotations, which
at times can be even more
eloquent than Mark Antony.
Teleregister staged the dem
onstration here in hopes of
selling a few talking com
puters to the federal govern
ment. A spokesman said they
could be adapted to many
uses, including airline traffic
control.
If radar showed that two
airliners were on a collision
course, he explained, the com
puter would recognize the
danger and warn the pilots.
Causes Some Discussion
This caused some discussion
in the audience as to what
form the warning should
take. ,
I suggested to a fellow sit
ting next to me that the com
puter should scream "look
out!" But he said that might
startle the pilots and cause
them to jerk the controls or
something.
He said it would be better
for the computer to appeal to
Nehru Cities Red
Troop Movements
New Delhi - OJPD - Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru
told parliament Saturday the
Chinese Communists have
moved 2,000 troops up to the
India-Tibet border and said
they may be planning new ag
gression. Nehru, speaking before the
lower house, said Peking had
sent a series of notes to the
Indian government in the past
few weeks and that they
"have become sharp and prot
vocative, some actually scuril
lous." While Nehru spoke Chinese
Communist Foreign Minister
Chen Yi, in a statement broad
cast by the Communist New
China news agency, renewed
the attack on India with a
charge India was stepping up
its war preparations "with
imperialist military aid."
Firemen Called to
Check Smoke Odor
Employees at the Groce
teria Super Food Market at
Sixth and Grape sts. smelled
the odor of smoke near the
meat case and called firemen
at 8:38 p.m. Saturday.
But when firemen arrived,
they couldn't find or smell
anything. The odor had ap
parently dissipated in the
meantime. . .
their reason, telling them
"Come now, fellows, this
won't do."
The computer, whose voice
is a rich metallic tenor, has
a vocabulary of 62 speech
sounds, which is larger than
the vocabulary of many talk
ing dogs and is indisputably
an improvement over Profes
sor Moriarty's horse.
In all fairness I would have
to say that it gave a convinc
ing performance, but it didn't
entirely erase my doubts.
I couldn't help but wonder
if Televox was actually doing
the talking or whether there
was another computer back
stage that was a ventriloquist.
Magician Featured
At Veterans Show
While City - Oregon State
Elks association's regular
monthly night at the Veterans
Administration last week
featured Johnny Eads, ma
gician. Tom Ginn, alternate
Elks representative for Emil
B. Kroeger, presided.
.Ginn introduced Reuel K.
Ryans, newly elected Exalted
Ruler of the Medford lodge.
Eads, ,a disabled veteran
whose rehabilitation came
through the Veterans Admin
istration, is manager of a neon
sign company in Medford.
ELECTED CHAIRMAN
Salem - fUPl) - Rep. Cor
nelius Bateson (D-Salem) has
been elected chairman of the
Legislative Fiscal committee.
86 PROOF ECHO SPRING OIST. CO.. 10UISVIUE. KY.
BOURBON J years old
The success of the "Ages" f I
Li J . i f j
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