Scrapbook 2: Aug 1962 — Mercury, Ariel, Freud
Deletion of Periscopes On Spacecraft Studied
BOULDER, Colo. (UPI)—Project Mercury officials are thinking about eliminating the periscope on space capsules to permit them to carry more fuel, Lt Col John Powers said here.
Powers, Project Mercury information officer, made the statement at an impromptu news conference on the porch of the home of University of Colorado President Quigg Newton, where astronaut Scott Carpenter and his party ate dinner.
Double Trouble
Both Carpenter last Thursday, and his predecessor in orbital flight, John H. Glenn Jr., in February, were bothered by rapid depletion of the hydrogen peroxide which the astronaut squirts from jets outside the capsule to stabilize it or change its position in space.
Powers noted that only so much payload can be lifted into orbit. If the fuel is increased, he said, something else might have to be left off.
Stage Fright
“We’re not too sure the periscope is that important,” he said.
Powers also revealed that Carpenter approached his post-orbit news conference with some trepidation despite the fact that newsmen afterward hailed him as a “whale of a reporter.”
Powers also said Alan B. Shepard Jr., who made the first manned American rocket flight last year, also had this “stage-fright” problem. Powers said Shepard once said, “I slept better the night before the flight than I did the night before the press conference.”
Powers said Carpenter made two substantial scientific contributions in his orbital flight. One, he said, was the “fantastic pictures” Carpenter took. The other was the proof that long periods of weightlessness were not a problem.
ARIEL WORKING “OFF AND ON”
SUNLIGHT NEEDED
From Our Own Correspondent WASHINGTON, Wednesday.
Ariel, the Anglo-American satellite, is working only intermittently as a result of the damage to it by last month’s American high-altitude nuclear test, space scientists reported to-day. It goes dead for days at a stretch.
Only when exposed to long periods of sunshine does it come back to life. Scientists had analysed Ariel’s signals in the six weeks since the bomb created an intense but temporary radiation belt round the earth on July 9.
Ariel is not working at present. Its signal went off again last Monday.
Astronauts Confirm Freud Theory
PHILADELPHIA (AP)—The Project Mercury psychiatrist said many of Sigmund Freud’s theories about the human mind have been confirmed by the flights of astronaut Malcolm Scott Carpenter and his predecessors.
Dr. George E. Ruff of Philadelphia said that America’s man-in-space program has especially buttressed Freud’s idea that the external dangers a man faces are less important to him than his own inner drives.
Ruff said in an interview that the perils of blastoff, orbiting and reentry won’t concern a man if what he wants is vital enough to him.
Ruff, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, has just returned from Cape Canaveral. He interviewed Carpenter before and after his three-orbit flight around the earth last Thursday. He headed the team of psychiatrists that originally screened the Project Mercury astronauts. He also examined John H. Glenn Jr., Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom and Alan B. Shepard Jr. after their flights.
“Freud said that external environmental stresses aren’t the things that bother people most,” Ruff said. “He said that internal ones were more important.
“The way the astronauts have responded is confirmation of what Freud said. It’s amazing how their own internal personalities have responded.
“For example, in each case, what they think of things around them is more important than, say, the temperature of reentry.
Fear of Failure
“And, Freud said that was usually true of most people—that the fear of failure is more important than the fear of dangers.
“In everday life, that would mean you don’t become neurotic because of the stress of overwork but because of some internal stress.”
Ruff’s main research interest is stress and its effects on man.
He said the flights also have shown that a person is able to handle a great deal of emotional stress. “We suspected that, of course, but you don’t know for sure until you try.”
Contracts Awarded For Tracking Network
WASHINGTON (UPI)—The space agency has announced a $12 million program to gear its worldwide tracking network for the long manned space flights of the future.
The Goodard Space Flight Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded four contracts for improving the accuracy and performance of the network.
The contracts went to Canogo Electronics Corp., Van Nuys, Calif., $1,045,500; Radiation, Inc., Melbourne, Fla., $1.95 million; Collins Radio Corp., Dallas, $1.725 million; and Electro Mechanical Research Corp., Sarasota, Fla., $7,376,379.
Russia and U.S. make a Space deal
By RONALD BEDFORD
A SPACE partnership has been agreed by America and Russia, the United Nations was told yesterday.
Under it, the two countries will:
CO-OPERATE in the launching of satellites to study the world’s weather.
Chart
CO-OPERATE in Space communication experiments.
CO-OPERATE in the launching of satellites to chart the Earth’s magnetic field.
News of the deal was given to the UN by Mr. Adlai Stevenson, America’s chief delegate.
SATELLITE PACT ANNOUNCED
AMERICA AND RUSSIA
From Our Own Correspondent NEW YORK, Wednesday.
America and Russia announced an agreement in the United Nations to-day to co-operate in the use of artificial earth satellites. Mr. Adlai Stevenson, chief American delegate, and Mr. Zorin, chief Russian delegate, handed the joint letter to U Thant, the Secretary-General
Co-operation involves communication, weather forecasting and mapping the world’s magnetic field. Mr. Stevenson said it was “a practical demonstration that our two nations can, despite political differences, co-operate in a highly important field of human endeavour.”
A Russian spokesman said his country’s scientists were ready to start work as soon as possible.
MISSILE STRIKE FEAR
Injunction sought
PRESIDENT KENNEDY ordered Mr. Robert Kennedy, the American Attorney-General, to-day to seek an injunction under the Taft-Hartley Act against a strike by missile workers of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation.
Members of the Machinists’ Union have returned to work after a short strike, but a dispute over non-union members has not been solved. The injunction would ensure that the men stayed at work for at least 80 days.
SPACE STUDY URGED TO KEEP SCIENTISTS
DAILY TELEGRAPH REPORTER
SPACE research by the Atomic Energy Authority is suggested as one way to prevent the break-up of skilled scientific staffs who are becoming redundant because of reduced defence needs.
The proposal is made by the Institution of Professional Civil Servants. It says compensation offered is a “miserly, tin-plated handshake scheme which evades the nation’s obligations to those scientists who helped to make Britain a nuclear power.”
Mr. T. H. Profitt, deputy general secretary of the Institution, said yesterday that talks on the future of these scientists were being sought with Viscount Hailsham, Minister of Science.
“Our contention is that the Authority should be allowed to be adaptable, either to non-military fields such as space research or to other civil programmes.”
TREASURY BLAMED
The Institution blames the Treasury, not the Authority, for the “miserable” and shocking compensation plan. About 200 of the scientific staff and 2,000 workers are expected to become redundant.
Non-industrial staff, including scientific, technical and professional workers, with less than three years’ service will get no compensation.
Those with three years and more will get two-thirds of a week’s pay for each year of service, but if pension rights are preserved only one-third of a week’s pay for each year.
Mr. Profitt said: “The fact that the whole of the Authority’s staff has played an indispensable part in providing Britain with a nuclear deterrent is of no account to the Treasury.” It was merely concerned to see that compensation should be no more than nominal.
He pointed out that terms for the Armed forces in 1957 were on a much bigger scale. In Euratom, which the Government was negotiating to join, compensation could amount to 60 per cent. of basic salary from the date of redundancy up to the age of 60.
BRITISH SPACE STUDY IN 1963
Second satellite to be launched
BY OUR SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT
BRITAIN’S second satellite is expected to be launched by the Americans in the middle of next year. It is still without a name and is being referred to as S.52.
In the Royal Society’s Council Report, published yesterday, it is also stated that the engineering prototypes of the satellite’s equipment are almost ready for delivery to the United States.
These prototypes will be tested by the Americans in various ways, such as by intensive vibration and temperature changes. When they have been examined thoroughly, the actual instruments to be launched will follow them across the Atlantic.
ARIEL’S SUCCESSOR
S.52 is following in the path of Ariel, Britain’s first satellite, known originally as S.51. Ariel was launched by the Americans in April, 1962.
The information it collected is still being examined by the computers of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.
It is possible that a third British satellite (S.53) will be launched by the Americans. They offered originally to launch three, but it has taken the British scientists quite a time to fill even two satellites with well-built and exciting experiments. In any case, S.53 is unlikely to be launched before 1964.