Scrapbook 1: Apr 1962 — Extraterrestrial organics, Blue Streak, John Glenn, Ranger 4, Kosmos 3, X-15, Ariel 1

FURTHER evidence that life has existed on other worlds in outer space and may still exist there is put forward by scientists today.

After examining meteorites—lumps of stone which have fallen in from space—they believe they have detected the fossilised remains of tiny organisms unlike anything found on earth.

A team headed by Professor Bartholomew Nagy in New York reports new experiments on microscopic spherical objects covered with spines which were found in meteorites.

“They seem to indicate that these are fossilised organised structures,” say the scientists.

Even those scientists who doubt that the objects were ever actually alive admit they represent materials from outer space from which living things could originate. Some of them suspect that life may first have arrived on earth in this way.

A CLASH

Professor J. D. Bernal, of London University, who has examined one of Professor Nagy’s “fossils,” says:—

“Anyone who has seen it under a microscope would be inclined to accept its organic origin. We may have to face the possibility that life is much older than the earth and was brought from some other part of the galaxy or indeed from other galaxies.”

In five research reports in the journal “Nature” scientists clash over how the “fossils” arose in outer space.

After analysing them chemically, Dr. Michael Briggs and Dr. Barrie Kitto of New Zealand report that the world from which they came must have had water on it and an atmosphere.

This means it must have been at least as big as the moon.

THE MOON

After ruling out Mars and Jupiter, Professor Harold Urey—the Nobel Prize winner of California University—suspects that the “fossils” came from the moon itself, but reached there from the earth in the first place.

He suggests that enormous meteorites struck the earth after life had developed on it, sending up such a cloud of debris and water that some landed on the moon.

Small living objects thrown up in the water continued to live on the moon until it dried up. Then bombardment by big meteorites there chipped bits off which landed back on earth with the “fossils” in them.

Professor Urey believes his hunch may be confirmed when the first US robot laboratory called Ranger, lands on the moon and radios back details of analysis of samples of the crust.

BLUE STREAK TO POWER ITALIAN SPUTNIK IN 1966

By ANGUS MACPHERSON

BRITAIN’S Blue Streak rocket will blast an Italian satellite into orbit early in 1966.

And Blue Streak itself will take off for its first 150-mile flight into space from the Australian Woomera range early next year.

The de Havilland-Rolls rocket has been grounded for two years since the Government dropped it as a ballistic missile H-bomb carrier in 1960—only a few months before it was due to be fired.

But now the “Common Market” satellite plan for Europe, using Blue Streak, has been agreed in detail.

Complete

Two “pick-a-back” rockets will be fitted on Blue Streak to turn it into a satellite booster. The second stage will be built by France, the third by Germany.

With the selection of Italy as the satellite builder, the European space club is now complete. Belgium, Denmark and Holland are expected to make the ground stations and radio equipment to guide the rocket and pick up signals.

Aviation Minister Mr. Peter Thorneycroft has thus triumphed in a key assignment, and ensured that the £100,000,000 spent by Britain on Blue Streak will not be entirely wasted.

Even so, by the time Blue Streak boosts the European satellite into orbit, it will be badly out of date. In the same year, the Americans are due to land a three-man crew on the Moon—and the Russians may be there already.

Space ship to land on Britain—in a plane

Express Staff Reporter

FRIENDSHIP SEVEN, the spacecraft in which American astronaut John Glenn hurtled round the earth, is being flown into Britain early this morning.

The capsule, due at Bovingdon airfield, Hertfordshire, in an American plane at 5 a.m., is to go on exhibition at the Science Museum, South Kensington, London, for three days, beginning today.

TWO TONS

It weighs nearly two tons and sped round the earth (with Colonel Glenn inside) at an average speed of 17,500 miles an hour.

Science Museum authorities will open the special exhibition to the public at noon today—so a hustle will begin as soon as the capsule reaches Britain.

‘SURGERY IN SPACE’ BID TO SAVE MOONSHOT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Tuesday.

SCIENTISTS to-day abandoned plans to try to correct a faulty “brain” in the Ranger 4 spacecraft and said the vehicle will crash on the dark side of the moon on Thursday morning.

The complex 730lb. spacecraft, launched from here yesterday packed with delicate instruments, developed the fault 10 or 15 minutes after take-off.

Signals were sent from a tracking station last night in an attempt to correct the trouble with “electronic surgery” but they failed to wake up the Ranger.

Officials said that if Ranger IV held its present course it would travel across the face of the moon at a height of about 900 miles, go “over the top” as seen from earth and destroy itself on the dark side.

Disappointment

It would not eject its instrument capsule as planned or send back television pictures.

The small instrument capsule, cushioned by a balsa wood shell, was to have been landed on the moon and send back valuable information about lunar quakes and meteor activity.

One official here said the telemetry signals arriving were gibberish and remarked tartly: “All we’ve got is an idiot with a radio signal.”

Ranger’s speed, 24,500 m.p.h. at its fastest soon after launching, is gradually decreasing and will be a relatively slow 6,000 m.p.h. by the time it crash lands.

Ranger 4 marked America’s 10th attempt to send a spacecraft to or near the moon. None has been successful.

AT JODRELL BANK a spokesman said their radio telescope hoped to track later the American rocket.

Reply to the dumb Ranger

By RONALD BEDFORD Mirror Science Editor

RUSSIA one up—America one down.

This was the situation in the Space League Division One yesterday.

SOVIET scientists successfully blasted a Cosmos III Spaceship Into orbit round the Earth.

AMERICAN scientists abandoned attempts to persuade their gold-plated Ranger IV Spaceship, which “went dumb” during the early stages of its sixty-hour voyage to the Moon, to obey orders.

Cosmos III, one of a series designed to pave the way for men to spend a week in Space, or for a man to voyage round the Moon, went off like clockwork—according to the Russians.

In January, when the United States sent Ranger III hurtling towards the Moon, the equipment aboard the Spaceship functioned well but the ship went off course.

Now Ranger IV is on course, but the equipment won’t work.

Scientists expect that the Spaceship, designed to send back to Earth close-up pictures of the Moon seen through TV cameras, will crash-land on the far side of the Moon early tomorrow.

The giant radio telescope at Jodrell Bank, near Manchester, failed to pick up any signal from Ranger IV in a four-hour sky search early yesterday.

Up, up, UP . . 48 miles in a jet

AN American pilot soared 48½ miles into the sky above California yesterday—adding more than seven miles to the old height record for winged aircraft.

Pilot Joe Walker put his X-15 rocket plane into its steep climb after being dropped from under the wing of a B-52 bomber.

The X-15 zoomed to 3,650 m.p.h.

Then Joe shut off the engine and “coasted” to the record altitude on the fringes of Space.

Only eleven minutes after take-off, the plane was back.

Experts found that its black paintwork was charred by air friction.

But Joe was “cool and comfortable” in a refrigerated suit.

BRITAIN’S first Sputnik should blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, tonight.

The 132 lb. Sputnik was planned be launched two weeks ago, but a fault was found in the fuel system.

The Sputnik, UK-1, is the first of a series of international satellites which will have a “hitch-hike” trip In the nose of an American rocket. Britain’s Space-knight, Sir Harrie Massey, 54, and other top British scientists will watch the Sputnik being launched.

It will go into an egg-shaped orbit which will hurl it 600 miles from the Earth and then bring it back within 200 miles. The British-made instruments in the Sputnik are designed to glean facts about the ionosphere, an “electric blanket” which begins about 35 miles above the Earth.

• America staged a “Space waterfall” yesterday.

Scientists at Cape Canaveral blasted off a 410-ton Saturn rocket, rated the biggest in the world—with 95 tons of water aboard.

When the rocket was 65 miles above the Earth, they blew it up and the water, which had turned to ice, showered down in crystals.

• America’s Ranger 4 rocket, launched Monday, is expected to hit the moon this afternoon.

But it will not transmit information back to Earth. Its instruments have stopped working.

A TECHNICAL fault last night held up the launching of Britain’s first satellite—UK 1—from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The gold-plated satellite was due to be shot into orbit by an American Thor-Delta rocket. But the countdown was halted.

UK 1 is packed with British-designed and British-made instruments which will probe the secrets of the sun.

Late last night it was said the satellite might be launched today. But some sources said blast-off might be held up for as long as two weeks.

‘HAMS’ ON THE TRACK

by Jack Stoneley

TODAY is count-down for the launching of UK-1 — Britain’s very first Earth satellite.

And from the moment the rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida—it’ll be a job for SUPER-HAM!

All over Britain super-hams — the amateur radio enthuslasts of the Space age—will be operating home-made tracking stations in attics, bedrooms and garden sheds.

There are 8,000 hams in Britain and 300,000 in the United States.

Until the first Russian satellite went into orbit nearly five years ago they were quite happy to chit-chat to each other over the air about ordinary down-to-earth things.

Now the satellites have given many of them a new interest.

AT his home in Kingsley-avenue, Wilmslow, Cheshire — it bristles like a pin-cushion with aerials — super-ham Mr. Oliver Heggs (call sign G3NLR) showed me his equipment — hundreds of pounds worth of war surplus.

He is one of Britain’s best-informed amateurs and has already tape-recorded the bleeps of more than twenty Russian and American satellites.

In Orbit

From the moment UK-1 goes off he might as well be up there in orbit himself as far as his wife is concerned. She’ll see very little of him.

With super-ham Ronald Norris (call sign […]) he’ll spend at least three hours at night listening for UK-1 signals, plotting its course, scheming graphs and pin-pointing the satellite on world maps covering every inch of the walls in Mr. Heggs’s radio “den.”

“There are few ‘professional’ tracking stations,” Mr. Heggs told me.

Potential

“But there are thousands of amateurs who could be called into action. Their tracking potential is tremendous.

“The moment we hear the launching news of UK-1 we’ll be listening in.”

SO useful is the Space research of these super-hams that four months ago Oscar I — a special satellite just for them — was launched at Cape Canaveral.

Oscar II is expected to go into orbit next month.

So ladies, if you’re a “bleep-bleep” widow this week-end—go easy on Dad. He may not be another Yuri Gagarin, but he could be doing a very useful little job up there in the spare room.

SPACE—HERE WE COME!

BRITAIN’S first satellite will be shot into Space from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Tuesday night.

Twice the size of a football, it will bleep around the world, once every 100 minutes for a year.

A model of the £200,000 satellite is pictured above in the hands of Sir Harrie Massey, chairman of the British National Committee for Space Research.

Sir Harrie, leader of the team which designed instruments in the satellite, said:

“They will supply useful information about cosmic-ray activity.”

The satellite will be put into outer Space by a three-stage American Delta rocket.

Another RUSSIAN sputnik, Cosmos II, was put into orbit yesterday. It is circling the world once every 102½ minutes.

By RONALD BEDFORD, Mirror Science Editor

WE’RE in orbit! The first of the Britniks hurtled into Space last night and began bleeping out scientific facts as it circled the Earth.

The Britnik—a set of British instruments in an American satellite—was launched from the Space base at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

It blasted off with a thunderous roar in the nose of a 90ft.-long American Thor-Delta rocket.