Scrapbook 1: 1962? — Private space, missiles, spy satellites, Saturn, Apollo, romance, Discoverer

PRESIDENT KENNEDY today revealed to Congress details of his plan to sell a chunk of Space to private enterprise.

He wants to form a […] corporation. Shares in it will be sold to the public and to communications firms in America and abroad. It will launch satellites for a world-wide statem of television, radio and telephones. And to prevent domination of the corporation by any single stockholder, no investor will be able to own more than fifteen per cent. of the total share issue. Total foreign ownership can amount to one-fifth.

Kennedy’s idea is that more than one billion dollars—about £350,000,000—of voting stock should be offered to the public and communications companies at not less than a thousand dollars a share.

Launchings would be handled by the Government but the new corporation would pay for the rockets, satellites and so on.

Profits—small at first but huge eventually—would be made from leasing satellite channels to firms and organisations all over the world.

The scheme is already causing misgivings here. Even in profit-conscious America people are uneasy about handing over such a project to private firms.

• I think that this is a case where the US Government should remain solely in control.

THE United States Air Force has asked American aircraft, electronic and equipment manufacturers to submit proposals for a new type of ballistic missile with an outstanding performance. The fact that the weapon is also intended to be suitable for NATO forces suggests that a sales drive will be promoted to obtain acceptance by NATO countries generally.

This is of considerable significance because it indicates the possibility of a change in the United States policy of discouraging independent control of nuclear warheads by NATO countries.

Mr. McNamara, American Defence Secretary, is reported to have said the weapon would be “much more accurate and much cheaper” than the Polaris missile fired from submarines and already in service in the United States Navy. In fact, the new missile would be the land-based complement of the Polaris.

The weapon comes within what is known as the mobile medium range ballistic missile category. It is to have a range of between 2,000 and 3,000 miles. A main feature is that it will be capable of being transported on lorries and of being fired within a short time after arrival at any position.

SIMPLER SYSTEM

Two-stage rocket

This is expected to be made possible by a guidance system called “stellar-inertial.” The relative position of stars and the movement and changes of direction of the missile would be used to set it on its correct trajectory after it has left the ground.

This would eliminate the need of the precise launching position being set in the guidance system before the missile is fired. The first technical details of the weapon also suggest that it will be powered by a two-stage rocket and will be about 20ft long.

The United States Air Force’s request for firms to study such a weapon is, however, three months later than expected. At this early stage there appears to be some uncertainty about its feasibility and future.

Dr. H. Brown, director of Defence Research and Engineering at the Defence Department, has said that the department has reservations about the technical aspects. The extent to which there is a real military requirement for the missile and whether it is more of political significance has been questioned.

Two firms are already studying the guidance system on contracts under the advanced technology programme. The United States Air Force has asked for £36 million for 1963 for development.

WASHINGTON (UPI)—Two top civilian space agency scientists said the Pentagon’s “go-slow” approach on a program to map the earth with satellites could hurt America’s chances of placing a man on the moon before 1970.

The criticism of the Defense Department came during a House Space Committee’s investigation of the Project Anna winking satellite. Dr. Harold Brown, director of defense research and engineering, told the subcommittee he was opposed to beginning work on a full scale Anna program until the results of the first mapping satellite had been evaluated.

The United States failed in an effort to launch the first Anna satellite last week. A second attempt is scheduled later in the year.

Homer E. Newell and John D. Nicolaides, both top officials in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s office of space sciences, agreed that Brown’s position “could slow down” the timetable of the manned lunar landing.

Center of Gravity

The winking satellite, in addition to giving geographers more accurate maps, will also tell scientists the location of the earth’s center of gravity.

Subcommittee Chairman Joseph E. Karth, D-Minn., after hearing the testimony, urged NASA to develop a proper mapping program “inasmuch as it has rather great significance for the successful completion of the manned lunar programs.”

Newell said the United States must learn a great deal more about gravitation before it goes ahead with plans to rendezvous spaceships in orbit around the earth.

NASA has indicated the rendezvous method may be used to send astronauts to the moon rather than a direct assault from the earth.

Nicolaides said the United States should immediately begin plans to launch six winking satellites in different orbits around the earth. He said such a program would cost between $15 and $20 million a year for four or five years.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Wednesday.

UNITED STATES space scientists to-day created a synthetic thunderstorm in outer space. An electrical discharge took place when 95 tons of water were freed from a Saturn rocket 65 miles out in space.

This was the second successful firing of a 162ft Saturn, the world’s largest known rocket. After it Dr. Werner von Braun, head of the Saturn development team, said the test augured well for the first manned flight aboard a Saturn-launched Apollo, expected late in 1964.

To-day’s test involved the first or booster stage, a cluster of eight engines producing a total of 1,300,000lb of thrust. The upper two stages have not yet been developed, so they were simulated with dummies containing 95 tons of water ballast.

CLOUD OF ICE

This water ballast was released to observe the effect upon the ionosphere. The first and second stages were destroyed by explosive charges, and the resulting cloud of ice flakes, eight to 10 miles across, looked to watchers on the ground like a white parachute.

Spotter planes, including a Royal Air Force Comet from Patrick Air Force Base, noted a small flash of lightning, which was also detected by ground radar and radio. Dr. Stuhlinger, one of the Saturn team scientists, said the amount of electricity involved was as large as that found in natural thunderstorms.

LAUNCHING TO-DAY

The ice particles, whose movement created the electricity, dispersed at a speed of 1½ miles per second, nearly twice the speed of the rocket and much faster than expected.

Meanwhile the countdown started early to-day for to-morrow’s planned launching of the Anglo-American satellite S-51, postponed for a fortnight because of a technical fault in the launching rocket. The weathers is good and the launching should occur some time after 7 p.m., British time.

AMERICA’S “sky spy” policy is branded today as being “brinkmanship in Space.”

This view, put forward by Britain’s top aviation and Space journal, Flight, is bound to raise tempers and blood-pressure in the Pentagon, America’s defence headquarters.

The Flight argument is this. The United States, it says, pleads through Mr. Adlai Stevenson, at the United Nations for open-handedness in Space research, with all nations giving all the facts about the satellites they launch, and the results they get from them.

Yet at the same time, the United States Air Force regularly blasts “Peeping Tom” satellites into orbits that take them over the whole of the Soviet Union.

Six

And America gives little, if any, information about how high they go, or what they do.

Since November 22 last year six of these “Space spies” have been launched.

In each case, basic facts about them have been held back. Says Flight: “The lesson of the U-2 it seems, has not been learned.”

The journal says America’s secrecy is of doubtful military value, because the satellites can be observed from the Soviet Union.

“And this secrecy represents a double standard, which is not tenable.

“For world science and world politics the American attitude is dangerous.

‘Blasted’

“The 1960 Summit meeting preparations were blasted by the ill-timing of the U-2 affair. Now, a satellite carrying observation equipment is launched on the day following Mr. Krushchev’s suggestion of co-operation in Space.

“This is not what Mr. Stevenson calls ‘good international conduct.’ This is brinkmanship in Space.”

The United States cannot expect the Russians to hand over all their Space secrets while the Americans themselves parcel out some and pop others in the top-secret drawer.

• Where they make a mistake is to shout loud for open-handedness and, at the same time, practise an underhanded policy. They can’t have it both ways.

CRYING OUT FOR THE MOON

THE next time you want a sum like £1,000 for some project in which you are particularly concerned, spare a thought for the chief accountant of America’s Apollo plans.

He will be spending £2,200m. in the next two years alone on the one project. By the end of the decade he will have spent, even at present estimates, between £7,000m. and £11,000m. on Apollo.

Admittedly, Project Apollo is fairly grandiose, in that it entails putting three Americans on the moon and getting them back alive.

Even so, the amount to be spent is a colossal sum by any reckoning. I always find it difficult reckoning in millions, for the sum is too big to add up to anything I can comprehend.

So let it be compared with the annual budgets of some items of British science.

In next accounting year Apollo will spend £1,100m. During the same time the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority will consume, on peaceful ideas, £68m.; the entire Department of Scientific and Industrial Research will get through £18m.; the Agricultural Research Council £6.5m.: the Medical Research Council £5.8m.; the Nature Conservancy £590,000; and the British space programme in all its aspects £500,000.

Thinking Big

These are the six departments coming under the Minister for Science. They represent almost the entire British scientific effort that is not tied to the universities, the Ministry of Defence, and the benevolent foundations. The total of their annual budgets for the forthcoming year is almost exactly £100m.—but only a tenth of what Apollo will get in the same time.

Naturally, there has been a lot of talk recently in the United States about who will get how much of what contract. So far, North American Aviation is leading with a main contract of some £1,500m. This is a considerable sum for any firm, even one doing the amount of business that North American does, though it won’t all come their way for quite a proportion of the work has to be subcontracted.

Americans are always telling themselves to “think big.” They have certainly done so with Apollo. Yet the sum is no bigger than might be imagined when the immensity of the task is considered.

For the first time men will land somewhere else in the universe, probably by 1968. No wonder the cost is so great. Put that sum another way round and it represents £10 a day for 3m. years.

The American space plans are frequently criticised by those who think the Americans should spend the money on more earthbound problems, such as starving children. But these problems are big enough to dwarf even the huge Apollo budget.

Assume that two-thirds of the world needs aid. That means over 2,000m. people. That means only £5 each spread over the rest of the decade if Apollo were scrapped.

No romance. . . . This order will be given to men and women who voyage through Space to colonise the planets, says a report published yesterday.

Only couples willing to agree not to have children during the voyages, which may last many months, and during their stay on distant worlds, will be allowed to go.

There will be room for women on Space ships to Mars, Venus and beyond, says the report, “Outer Space—the Prospects for Man and Society,” published by the Institute for Strategic Studies.

But there will be neither room nor facilities for babies to be born and cared for on the long voyages.

Worries

The report is being studied by seventy delegates from fifteen nations attending the International Space Conference organised by the institute at Brighton.

The report knocks down the idea that Earth’s overpopulation worries will be solved by sending men and women to other planets.

Says the report:

“If, as is likely, 75,000,000 babies are born each year by the year 2000, it would need 500,000 Spaceships, each 150 people, to leave the Earth at the rate of one a minute to break even with the rate of increased population.”

I HAVE been talking to the man responsible for getting an American on to the Moon.

He is Brainerd Holmes, 42, a greying, round-faced man with a gentle voice but a tough reputation for getting things done.

He perfected the ballistic missile early warning system—which will be complete next year when the station on Fylingdales Moor, Yorkshire, is ready.

Holmes told me there will be more one-man orbital missions like John Clenn’s until all seven astronauts have “orbital time.”

Then each astronaut will serve as captain for longer missions of days and weeks in Space aboard two-man Gemini Spaceships. The first of these will be tested next year.

Hoping

Will the present astronauts be too old for a Moon trip?

Said Holmes: “Each man is hoping to be on the first Moon team.”

He went on: “A man who doesn’t have all the physical endurance of youth may be able to go. It might be very worthwhile to get his additional experience and knowledge.”

Glenn himself is outstanding proof of the fact that Space adventure can begin at forty.

Search

But Holmes said the search would start soon for new talent to train as “Moon men” and crew the giant 40-ton Apollo three-man moonship which is at the moment on the drawing boards.

One thing is definite. No one will be blasted to the Moon on a one-way trip—even if they volunteer for this.

“That has been definitely ruled out,” said Holmes. “The thought of expending a man at any stage is not a part of our programme.”

Plane nets capsule in mid-air

By RONALD BEDFORD Mirror Science Editor

AMERICAN missile scientists yesterday began studying “Space spy” photographs of Soviet rocket bases.

The Space spy is a Discoverer satellite with high-precision cameras aboard.

It spent four days last week whirling over Russia’s main military Installations.

Vehicles

And its cameras are so powerful that the photographs—provided there is no cloud—can show parked aircraft and vehicles from 300 MILES UP.

One thing United States scientists want to check is the possibility of another Soviet Space launching. Preparations for such a “shot” will show up on the photographs.

The United States Air Force, in a brief statement issued in Washington, yesterday admitted that a transport plane snatched a package of Instruments—ejected from the satellite—in mid-air over the Pacific.

The satellite was launched last Tuesday from the base at Vandenberg, California—on an orbit that took it repeatedly over Soviet territory.

Then a radio signal, beamed to the Discoverer as it passed over Alaska, fired braking rockets in the satellite.

The plane, waiting over the Pacific, scooped up the satellite’s instrument capsule.

It was caught in a giant “butterfly” net trailing behind the aircraft. For the Space spy—mission completed.

The terse Air Force announcement shows that America is taking an increasingly tough line with Russia.

For it follows President Kennedy’s week-end warning that America intends to resume nuclear tests in the ATMOSPHERE unless the Russians agree to a test-ban treaty.

Freed

America has been flying spy satellites over Russia since the U-2 spy plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, came down over Soviet territory in 1960.

Powers was released by the Russians last month after serving eighteen months of a ten-year jail term for spying.