Scrapbook 2: Sep 1962 — Telstar, Gus Grissom, missiles
ADELAIDE, Australia (AP)—The largest rocket ever launched in Australia was fired at Woomera.
The two-stage Knight rocket reached an altitude of 380 miles. Fragments of the rocket reentering the atmosphere made a brilliant display visible for more than 100 miles.
Minister for Supply Alen Fairhall said the experiments would give information on the composition and properties of the ionosphere, a vital factor in long range radio communication.
WASHINGTON, Tuesday.
Mr. McNamara, Secretary of Defence, conceded at a Press conference to-day that Russia was “substantially ahead” in certain space developments, particularly large rockets. But he said the Kennedy Administration was determined to overtake Russia.
With Titan III, available in three years, America would be able to carry payloads into space “far in excess of anything demonstrated by the Soviets to date.”
Professor Sir Bernard Lovell will shortly announce the most important achievement yet by his team on the 250-foot radio telescope at Jodrell Bank—discoveries related to the clouds of hydrogen scattered between the stars in our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
These invisible clouds emit weak radio waves, first picked up in 1951, which allow astronomers to “see” through heavy dust clouds towards the all-important hidden centre of the galaxy.
A MINUTEMAN missile, destroyed eight seconds after blast off, spread blazing chunks of metal over a wide area and started a fire which extensively damaged a Jupiter missile on another launch-pad at Cape Canaveral last night.
A cameraman received cuts and bruises when he fell off a platform while seeking shelter.
Officials said the full extent of the damage to the Jupiter missile was not known, but it was unlikely ever to be fired. The Minuteman, which has a range of 5,000 miles, veered off-course immediately after being launched on a test from an 85-feet underground silo.
There are 15 Jupiter type United States missile bases in Turkey which, though not yet out of date, will soon become obsolescent. It is understood in London that these sites rank as N.A.T.O. bases and are Turkish-manned, but have American technical staff attached.
Their use would be determined by the so-called “two-key system.” Under this both the Turkish Government and the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, acting in conjunction with President Kennedy, would have to give previous approval.
MARS TRIP IN 1970s
Dr. Glenn Seaborg, chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, said in Vienna yesterday that America would send a manned nuclear-driven space ship to Mars in the 1970s. He said “a couple of men” would be sent to Mars and stay there about a month. The trip would last about a year.—Reuter.
CAPE CANAVERAL (UPI)—The U.S. Air Force fired its mightiest rocket, the Titan II, 5,000 miles across the Atlantic Friday for its fourth success in six shots.
The launching was called a “full success” for the 103-foot rocket, which will be able to hurl a giant nuclear warhead halfway around the world when it becomes operational.
The Titan II has been tabbed as the booster for the two-man Gemini space capsules, scheduled to be launched into orbit around the earth starting late next year.
Within 30 minutes after launching the nose cone had plunged into its planned target area near Ascension Island, off the west coast of Africa.
VARNA, Bulgaria, Sunday.
Forty countries will take part in the 13th annual congress of the International Astronautical Federation which opens at Varna, Bulgaria, to-morrow. This is the first time the meeting has taken place behind the Iron Curtain.
Major Titov, the Russian astronaut, arrived in Bulgaria to-day. He is expected to appear at the congress to-morrow.
NEW YORK, Friday.
AMERICAN delegate Mr. Francis Plimpton produced a 14lb. piece of Sputnik 4 from a cardboard box at the UN today and offered it to the Soviet delegate as a “concrete gesture of co-operation.”
The Russian, Mr. Platon Morozov, had just finished another speech in the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, denouncing U.S. policy.
He made no attempt to accept the gift and said severely: “These dramatic means are utilised here to divert our attention from great and important issues.”
Mr. Plimpton said the piece landed in an empty street in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, on September 5.
A hole
It was taken to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Laboratory in Washington, where scientists cut off a 6lb. piece for study.
When they left the chamber Mr. Morozov called the incident “a circus trick.”
Mr. Plimpton said: “We might have a claim against the Soviet Union, as it made a hole in the street.”
NEW YORK (AP)—Launching of a second experimental Telstar communications satellite has been delayed until at least the end of the year. It may not be launched at all.
This was reported by the American Telephone & Telegraph Co., sponsor of Telstar.
Two factors enter into the situation.
First, AT&T has made its rocket booster available to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to orbit before the end of the year a satellite that will study a radiation belt caused by a hydrogen bomb the United States exploded last July.
The booster would not be available for a Telstar until after that time.
Secondly, AT&T executives are weighing in the meantime whether it would be feasible to spend about $3 million to launch Telstar II on an experimental basis in view of the vast amount of scientific information already gained from Telstar I.
The question is whether enough additional information would be gained to warrant the cost. A decision has not been reached, officials said.
No Income
A spokesman for AT&T stressed that the question of commercial feasibility was not involved. He said the company derived no income from Telstar I, nor would it from Telstar II, because both are in the experimental rather than commercial category.
Telstars will be sent aloft later on a commercial basis under a new law creating a combined government-private corporation for control of a Telestar communications.
NEW YORK (UPI) — James E. Webb said here, “We seek space power as a deterrent to any potential adversary who might attempt to exploit space as an avenue of aggression against us.”
Webb, chief of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), told the Explorers Club here, “We are mobilizing our national resources—material, physical, and intellectual—to make us first in space.”
He said mastery of space, whether by this country or Russia, “will not be determined by any single achievement—even one so advanced as exploration of the moon.”
This will be determined, he said, by scientific knowledge and technical ability. He said the United States is striving to accumulate such knowledge and ability.
NEW YORK, Saturday.
Hopes that the United States would be able to test-launch her first two-man space ship next spring will not be realised. The flight will probably take place in 1964, it was disclosed in Los Angeles last night by Mr. Robert Gilruth, director of the manned space centre at Houston, Texas.
A method by which rich countries could relay television programmes to poor ones was outlined in London yesterday at an international conference on satellite communication. It would involve the launching of television relay stations which would hover permanently over under-developed but well-populated nations.
In this way, and by the use of one orbiting transmitter which would have been placed there by a rich country’s rocket, the whole area of the poor country beneath could receive its transmissions. The plan was described by Dr. Donald S. Bond, of the Radio Corporation of America.
Education rather than entertainment would be the prime task of this single satellite. To cover an area of three or four million square miles, greater than that of most countries, the satellite would have to weigh about 6,000lb.
To remain stationary above the earth it would have to be at a height of 23,000 miles.
Indonesia says she will establish a flotilla equipped with Russian guided missiles, making the Indonesian Navy one of the most powerful in Asia. Brig. Ali Sadikin, second deputy to Rear-Adml. Martadinata, Naval C.-in-C., said last night the ships would have surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles.
Hundreds of Navy men returned recently to Indonesia from Russia after 18 months training in use of guided missiles, said Brig. Sadikin.—BUP.
UNIVERSITY of Arizona astronomers believe that a moon crater recently announced by the Russians was actually discovered by the German astronomer Julius Franz 50 years ago.
The American astronomers are also questioning pictures of “the Soviet mountains” taken by Russia’s Lunik III spacecraft in 1959. One is quoted as saying: “The photographs were better than the Russians’ analysis of them.”
NATO land forces in Central Europe are having their nuclear potential considerably augmented. These forces, which include the 1st (Br.) Corps, have been equipped with the latest type of Honest John rocket, which is more accurate and has a longer range than the previous ones.
The German Army is raising six battalions to be equipped with the United States 25-85 mile Sergeant guided missile, which is replacing Corporal in the American Army. The first of these battalions should be operational by early summer.
The failure of NATO countries to accept Blue Water, and opt for the inferior Sergeant, which led to Britain’s decision not to fulfil her obligation to replace her Corporal missiles, has led to indecision among others on whether to buy Sergeant.
NEW YORK, Wednesday.
A warrant for the arrest of Capt. Virgil Grissom, the American astronaut, was issued to-day because he failed to pay a £6 speeding fine. “The fact that he has been in outer space does not excuse him,” said Judge Julian Laramore in Marianna, Florida.
Judge Laramore said Capt. Grissom was due to appear in court on Nov. 3. “But he telephoned on Nov. 2 and said he wanted to settle the case. I advised him to mail in a money order immediately. Two weeks went by and I still haven’t heard from him.”
NEW YORK, Wednesday.
Police in Waupaca, Wisconsin, sent a twisted piece of metal to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration last week thinking it might be part of Russia’s Sputnik IV which broke up over Wisconsin on Sept. 5. To-day the association told them it was a hoax.
The metal, about 21in long, was found half-buried in the ground. After getting the association’s report police found the object had been made by a young machinist who planted it in the ground.
6 rocket men killed
THE pilot and six rocket experts were killed when a twin-engined aircraft crashed near Santa Maria Airport, California, last night. The rocket experts were employed by the Martin Company, which builds America’s Titan missiles.
WASHINGTON, Saturday.
NEW data obtained from Telstar satellite has disclosed that the new radiation belt around the earth caused by the high altitude nuclear explosion of July 9 is greater than was originally calculated.
The Defence Department and the Atomic Enegry Commission say in a joint statement today that it will not “constitute any hazard to manned satellite launchings we have planned in the near future.” Its high density section lies above the planned orbits.
The July 9 explosion created a belt of high energy electrons round the earth, similar to, and outside, the natural bands of radiation discovered by Dr. James van Allen. It has, therefore, been called “the little Van Allen Belt”.
BACKGROUND NOISE
It was at first thought that the new belt would decay quickly, and disappear entirely by the end of this year or early next year. The new data shows that the belt’s intensity at its higher altitudes is such that “it may persist for many years.”
At its lower altitude, however, the belt is disappearing, as shown by a continued reduction of radio background noise.
The new belt caused electron damage to the solar cells of three United States launched satellites and put them out of operation.
Telstar, which was designed to operate under high intensity radiation, has suffered no apparent damage.
SYDNEY, Friday.
THE existence of magnetic fields in outer space has been discovered by two radio astronomers attached to the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation. They believe the discovery provides a possible clue to the origin of the universe.
Mr. Marcus Price, an American Fullbright scholar, and Mr. Brian Cooper, of Sydney, found and charted a field in the galaxy Centaurus A. The galaxy is 20 million light years from earth.
The discovery gives strong weight to Prof. Fred Hoyle’s theory of a steady state universe. It was made on the new giant radio telescope at Parkes, New South Wales.
Leading Australian scientists said the discoveries established an Australian lead in radio astronomy, and also the superiority in power and accuracy of the Parkes telescope over Jodrell Bank.
RADIO WAVES
Mr. Cooper and Mr. Price said they found radio waves from Centaurus A linearly polarised. When they varied the frequencies of receiving signals, they found polarisation rotated.
This effect, known as Faraday’s rotation, proved the existence of a magnetic field.
Prof. Hoyle, who is lecturing in Adelaide, spent several weeks with the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation’s radio physics laboratory assessing the discovery and other information from the Parkes telescope.
IMPORTANT ADDITION
Universe theories
A SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT writes: The great controversy of whether our universe is continuously expanding or is at a steady state has certainly received an important addition with the discovery of a strong magnetic field near Centaurus.
One theory has it that all the universe was originally concentrated in one single ball, called the primieval atom by astronomers. This exploded, and showered matter into all directions, and thus we still observe to-day all stars receding from us.
The second theory, of a steady state universe, believes in continuous creation of matter. This means that as fast as the stars recede from us, new matter is being created everywhere in the universe, just at the correct rate to account for the emptying effect of the expansion.
This rate is not very large. It is about one atom of hydrogen per cubic mile of space per year.
Only if matter were created in the universe, and then came together to form new stars, would large magnetic fields be found. But however valuable this new fact is to support the steady state theory, more will be needed before it will be accepted by all astronomers.