Scrapbook 1: Oct–Nov 1961 — Ranger 2, Saturn, Schoolboy rocket, Blue Scout, Westford Needles

2 SPACE BIDS THIS WEEK?

NEW attacks on Space by America AND Russia are expected this week. The Americans plan to send a 675lb. robot observatory named Ranger II 500,000 miles into Space . . . twice as far out as the Moon.

The Russians may try a Space “spectacular” for the benefit of delegates to the Communist Party Congress opening in Moscow tomorrow.

America’s Ranger II will not be aimed at the Moon.

It is expected to orbit for fifty days before returning to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Americans also hope to carry out a successful test with their mightiest rocket, Saturn, which has been having teething troubles.

British scientists think the Russians may be planning:

1. To send two men into Space for between three days and a week; or

2. To send a Spaceship on a six-day voyage round the Moon with a robot observatory aboard, and possibly a man as well.

THE United States is about to move into Division One of the Space League.

Until now, the Americans have been outshot all along the line in the Space race.

The mighty rocket-boosters developed by Russia enabled Soviet scientists to snatch Space “firsts” time and time again—first into Space, first to the Moon, first to send animals into orbit and recover them, first to put men round the globe and bring them back alive.

Next week, the Americans’ hopes of catching up will be concentrated on the launching pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, where the mightiest rocket seen in the West will be ready for blast off.

Name: Saturn. Size: Gigantic.

200 ft Tall

It makes the Atlas rocket, American workhorse of Space, look puny.

Saturn is 200ft. tall. Atlas, in its heftiest version, stands 85ft.

Saturn will weigh 520 tons at lift-off. The fattest Atlas weighs around 100 tons.

Saturn is 22ft. in diameter at the base. Atlas is 10ft. in diameter.

Saturn’s cluster of eight engines will pack a blast-off thrust of 1,500,000lb., compared with the 300,000lb. of Atlas.

The bill for the launching devices alone cost £15,000,000. Plus another £200,000,000 for the complete Saturn programme.

NEXT week’s Saturn firing will not be of the complete assembly. Only the booster stage, the bottom deck of the mighty three-decker, will be “live.”

Milestone

The upper stages will be full-weight dummies, without motors. Saturn will fall into the Atlantic.

A successful launch will mark a major milestone in United States history.

For the full-size Saturn could put a ten-ton satellite into orbit round the Earth—a satellite big enough to accommodate three men for a fortnight in Space.

Or it could land a one-ton robot laboratory on the Moon.

The Americans are working hard to bring off a full-scale Saturn firing by the end of 1962.

If next week’s test succeeds, they could achieve a series of Space spectaculars.

Challenge

Meanwhile, the Russians—who have not been idle while the Americans have been developing Saturn—may uncork something shattering.

Such as the blasting into orbit of a 60-ton “Space train,” carrying equipment from which a Space station could be assembled out in the void.

Mr. Krushchev has already hinted that this is the Soviet’s next objective.

If it comes off, the Americans—even with Saturn—will find themselves relegated once more to the Second Division of the Space League.

SATURN . . . America’s giant rocket. Next week the booster stage, bottom deck of the might three-decker, will be tested. The upper stages will be full-weight dummies.

BOYS GIVE THE BRASSHATS A ROCKET

A ROCKET that every child in Britain could envy was blasted off yesterday—Guy Fawkes eve.

The 7-ft. 6-in rocket—made for £22 10s. by schoolboys from coffee tins and fuelled by sulphur and zinc—roared 1,000 ft. into the air before returning to earth.

It was a great success and was cheered by the boys. But it nearly didn’t happen. . . .

Last July the boys, who go to Rossall public school, Fleetwood, Lancs., were stopped by the Home Office from firing the rocket in their school grounds because of the danger.

There were protests . . . and the Air Ministry agreed to allow the boys to use a practice range at Cowden, on the east coast.

Yesterday was the big day. Thirty boys went to the range with science master Mr. R. Bray.

Also present were rocket-experts including one from the Farnborough Research Station.

The count-down was shouted by an R.A.F. officer as Mr. Bray held the bare leads of the firing wires over the terminals of a battery.

On the word “Fire!” he made contact.

For fifteen seconds there was silence broken only by groans from the boys.

Suddenly there was a roar and the rocket shot into the air, a 10-ft. long trail of flame behind it.

As the boys cheered, clapped and shouted the rocket went on climbing.

Parachute fails

Then, as it came down, a parachute which was supposed to bring down a camera, failed.

The whole rocket crashed to the ground. When it was found, 600 yards from the firing pad, the only part showing was the tail fins.

Comment from one of the boffins: “Most spectacular, I’m agreeably surprised. But I think this will be the first and last schoolboy rocket. It was not a popular idea with the powers that be.”

U.S. SPACE ROCKET IS A FLOP

AN American Space rocket, launched yesterday to try to put a satellite into orbit, blew up only twenty seconds after taking off.

The 75ft. Blue Scout rocket—which exploded at Cape Canaveral, Florida—was intended to test the tracking system of America’s man-in-Space project.

But officials said, the flop will not affect the next stage.

This will be an attempt to launch a chimpanzee into orbit three times round the world later this month.

The chimp’s flight is planned as the last test before a man is launched into orbit—possibly in December or January.

TWO top British space experts attacked America yesterday for launching 350,000,000 tiny copper wires into orbit around the earth.

Sir Bernard Lovell, director of the Jodrell Bank radio telescope, said it was not a scientific experiment, but a project to improve military communications.

And he feared it might interfere with future radio observations of space. It was a stain on America’s previously untarnished space research programme, he said.

Professor Fred Hoyle, professor of astronomy and experimental philosophy at Cambridge, said bitterly: “The worst you can say about it the better.

‘An intellectual crime’

“A major intellectual crime has been perpetrated. It is what I have always felt—the scientists are being used as a facade for an essentially military programme.”

Sir Bernard Lovell said the “needles,” which will spread out into a 25-mile wide belt around the earth, would clutter up space and interfere with scientific work.

The belt of needles—each 7/10th of an inch long and only one-third the thickness of a human hair—will be used to bounce radio waves back to earth.

A slight error in the launching could mean the needles bunching together instead of spreading out in orbit.

Then they could seriously interfere with future radio observations of the universe.

They’ll be back

The U.S. Air Force launched the needles despite strong protests from scientists all over the world.

The needles, which altogether weighed only 75 lb., were shot into space by an Atlas intercontinental missile.

It will take the needles about a month to spread out around the earth.

Launched with them was a satellite which will be used to warn of enemy missile firings.

The Americans estimate that the needles will be useful for from two to three years. Then they are to fall back into the atmosphere.

IN MOSCOW, the official news agency, Tass, denounced the experiment as “antiscientific.”

U.S. ‘needle belt’ gets slamming

ONE of Britain’s top space scientists, Sir Bernard Lovell, stepped up his attack on America’s “needle rocket” launching when he appeared on ITV last night.

The US “needle rocket” was sent up on Saturday.

It is designed to release millions of tiny needles which will form a band above the earth from which radio signals can be reflected.

Many scientists—including Sir Bernard, director of the Jodrell Bank Radio Observatory—have long been critical of this project.

On ITV, Sir Bernard said it amounted to a “contamination of outer space.”

The critical scientists believe that the needle belt will hamper astronomical observations.

Despite their opposition, America’s President Kennedy decided to go on with the project.

Russian Space dog Strelka has had four puppies—her second healthy litter since she circled the world in a Spaceship last year.

TESTS on rats have revealed a new and grave danger to cosmonauts hurtling through Space. It is the risk of instant death or blindness if their capsules collide with large specks of Space-dust.

Now Russian and American Spaceships competing in the race to the Moon may have to be provided with special “bumpers.”

Scientists at Texas University, led by Dr. Charles Gell, put rats into a tiny Spaceship, which was then placed in a vacuum tunnel.

Dust particles were fired at the Spageship at tremendous speeds.

The results ranged from instant death for one rat, when the Spaceship was punctured outright, to total blindness for other rats when the dust particles caused a partial explosion inside the Spaceship.

Claim

The scientists claim their studies show that a Spaceman might be in greater danger from a speck of dust than from the atomic radiation belt in Space—if the dust-speck hits his ship.

And they doubt whether, if this happened, existing Space-suits would offer enough protection.

They have sent their report to the American National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the body that controls the American man-in-Space programme.

Studied

And they suggest adaptations of existing Spaceships and Space-suits to cope with the risk of a Space-dust puncture

The report is now being studied by British scientists.