Scrapbook 2: Oct 1962 — Extraterrestrial life, COMSAT, Jodrell Bank

WASHINGTON (UPI) — President Kennedy has named 13 prominent Americans to set up this country’s new space-age satellite communications corporation.

They will set up the private corporation, which will be under government regulation, and make plans for the initial public stock offering.

Press Secretary Pierre Salinger said the incorporators will not be paid by the government. They could vote themselves daily fees while engaged in setting up the first satellite corporation, he said.

All stock in the corporation will be owned by individuals and by such corporations as American Telephone and Telegraph and the Radio Corporation of America. But the government will control the firm’s formation and will have a permanent voice in its operations.

The President will keep the corporation under review.

Named to set up the corporation were Edgar F. Kaiser, 53, officer of Kaiser Industries, Lafayette, Calif.; David M. Kennedy, 57, Chicago, chairman of board and chief executive of the National Bank and Trust Co.; Philip L. Graham, publisher of the Washington Post and Times Herald; Sydney Weinberg, director of several companies, including the Continental Can Co., General Electric Co., Ford Motor Co., F. B. Goodrich Co. and Van Raalte Co.

Also Bruce G. Sundlun, 40, partner in the law firm of Amram Hahn and Sundlun in Washington; A. Byrne L. Litschgi, 42, partner in the law firm of Coles, Himpes and Litschgi, Tampa, Fla.; Beardsley Graham, president of Spindletop Research Inc., Lexington, Ky.; Leonard Woodcock, 51, vice-president of United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Workers of America, Grosse Point Park, Mich.; Sam Harris, 50, with the law firm of Strasser, Speigelberg, Fried and Frank, New York City; George J. Seldman, 58, legal counsel and member of the board of directors of Mastan Co., Inc., as well as practicing law in Boston, Washington and New York.

Also Leonard H. Marks, Washington, D.C., lawyer and partner in firm of Cohn and Marks; John T. Connor, president of Merck and Co., Rahway, N.J. and George L. Killion, 61, president of the American President Lines, Oakland, Calif.

A MODEL of a manned spacecraft is being tested in wind tunnels by the Royal Aircraft Establishment.

The design, I understand, is intended to form the basis of a manned vehicle. It could travel through the atmosphere, manoeuvre in space and return to the ground.

Mr. Amery, Minister of Aviation, referred to such a manned spacecraft last night. He was speaking at the Society of British Aircraft Constructors’ dinner in London on the occasion of the Farnborough Air Show.

He did not mention any of the practical work. But referring to the European Launcher Development Organisation, he said he thought it would be a mistake to think of space only in terms of satellites and boosters.

MINISTRY STUDY

“Opportunities beckon”

He added that the Ministry were already studying the feasibility and implications of such a craft.

“I cannot forecast what the conclusions of this study will be or what judgment the Government as a whole may pass on them, but the industry should bear this possibility in mind.”

Mr. Amery added that the opportunities of space beckoned with a golden finger. Three questions were “How far could we afford to pursue them? How far could we afford to neglect them? What path should we follow?”

“The answers lie mostly in the future, but I for one am convinced that Britain will have to get into space.”

There was speculation at the Air Show that Dr. Barnes Wallis, the British Aircraft Corporation designer, is engaged on the design of a manned space craft. But there was no confirmation. Dr. Wallis designed the “dam buster’s” bomb and the Swallow, the variable geometry aircraft.

Sir Roy Dobson, speaking at the same dinner, attacked the Govern-

The new “oval” telescope for Jodrell Bank, work on the site of which has just started, is to cost £65,000 more than was originally estimated. The new estimate is £301,000. Although construction has been delayed, it is still expected to be finished about the middle of next year.

The new telescope will have an oval reflector dish 125 feet by 83 feet, supported at the ends of its longest diameter. The pedestal and mounting for the dish are almost identical with those of the Goonhilly Telstar aerial, which was designed by the same engineer, Mr H. C. Husband.

The increased estimate is due, according to a Ministry of Works spokesman, to a general increase of 10 per cent. in civil engineering costs since last year, to some parts let on fixed price contracts working out more expensive than expected (especially the computer, which is to cost an additional £13,000) and to a number of improvements in design.

Costs criticism

The increases will give some satisfaction to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research which was severely criticised for overspending on the first Jodrell Bank radio-telescope.

As a result of this criticism, the D.S.I.R. now employs expert departments, such as the Ministry of Works, to handle its large contracts. For this service, the Ministry of Works charges 15 per cent. on the gross sum involved, or exactly two and a half times the standard fee of the consulting engineers employed on the project.

PRESIDENT KENNEDY aims to put an American on the moon by 1970. Since Russia has already sent a camera satellite round the moon, the propulsion problems can obviously be mastered. American and Russian scientists have sustained human life in the thin outer envelope of the earth’s atmosphere, and with Cdr. COUSTEAU setting up a villa under the sea, some kind of “prefab” for moon wardens is conceivable. What practical uses will result? A Russian Nobel prizewinner has suggested that the moon could become a site for nuclear power stations harnessed to the earth. In theory, anything is possible. It would be instructive to see first whether man could survive on its surface long enough to make the pioneer surveys for a moon colony.

There is much of absorbing interest to be learned from fossil specimens of the plant and other life that existed before it became separated from the earth. Man will probably lead a cramped existence for years, comparable with Adml. BYRD’S hutment life at the South Pole, or camp life near the summit of Everest. Mr. KENNEDY’S proposition is feasible. Questions in doubt are which nationality will land there first and whether the moon can provide scope for man’s restless energies. After hoisting on it a flag of resistant fibres, and fixing his cosmic instruments, man may end by leaving it again, like the many peaks and wastes that he has “conquered” on earth.

DOES it pay to be in the space race? For the Soviet leaders as they look down on the wildly cheering crowds in Moscow this afternoon, or as they read their telegrams of congratulation, the answer can only be that it most certainly does. Whether the good people of Moscow, as they wend their way home past understocked and overcrowded shops, will continue to feel quite the same way about it is perhaps questionable. But that the Americans are prepared to spend £10,000m. to complete their Apollo project, to put a man on the moon by 1968, is proof enough, if proof is needed, that the two Governments at least hold very much the same view.

Moreover, it is not just the Russians and the Americans who are in the space business on a national basis. The French, the Italians and the West Germans are all planning their own projects, even if on a smaller scale. It is only when one comes to Britain that a different picture emerges. Both Britain’s main space interests, the Anglo-American satellite programme and the European Launcher Development Organisation, which plans to make use of Blue Streak, are essentially international affairs. It is difficult to judge whether this position has been reached by design or accident. There is certainly little to suggest that a firm hand has been guiding the evolution of our space policy to this point. But, now we are here, it would be encouraging to know in what direction and, more important, on what principles we are to proceed.

It is arguable that the ideal course to take would be to press ahead with space development at a European level, although in close co-operation with the Americans, on a much more ambitious scale than hitherto. But is there a danger that while we pursue the ideal our European neighbours will calmly proceed with their national projects to the detriment of British technology? On the whole, fears of this kind are probably exaggerated. As long as we remain well and truly involved in various forms of space development, there is no particular reason why it should be confined within a purely national framework. If others care to pursue elusive national glory this way, let them. We have always been served better by hardheaded commonsense and co-operation wherever it pays.

LIFE may have started, not on earth, but far out in space, and it may be older that the earth, Prof. J. D Bernal said at the British Association meeting last night. Academic as might appear the study of the origins of life, it could be of the greatest practical importance in making food for man of the future.

The course of evolution may have taken longer than the time physicists would allow for the existence of the earth. Before the evolution of living creatures the fundamental materials of life, the enzyme which were the catalyst of life, must have evolved.

In the beginning there must have been simpler materials than the complicated ones which seemed to have been stabilised in living creatures for millions of years.

“If life pulled itself together from simple molecules it must have done it in a very simple way,” Prof. Bernal continued. “If it is an easy thing to do, we should be able to do it ourselves.” A start on this had already been made in laboratories by the production of certain fundamental materials.

He was now slightly prejudiced against the view that meteorites contained fossils, which would be evidence of life in other parts of the universe. At one time he had been slightly in favour of it.

The reason for his present view was that it was unlikely that life existed on the small asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, from which the meteorites most probably came.

On the other hand, he could argue against himself “by pointing out that these small bodies might once have been hot because of radio-activity with a temperature ranging from 2,000deg. in the centre to the temperature of outer space on the outside.

“Somewhere in between there would be the right temperature for life, between nought and 100deg.,” he added. “So in these places life might have existed on the ground.”

Trapping Mars microbes

BY A SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT

A device that will throw out sticky strings to trap Martian life is proposed for Mariner B, the American spacecraft intended to land instruments on Mars during 1964. The strings will be wound back into the spacecraft and tested for microbial life.

Life is considered more likely to exist on Mars than on any of the other planets. The life detector in Mariner B will be based on a radio-active tracer method. The two 50ft. strings ejected from the spacecraft will be impregnated with a nutrient broth containing radio-active carbon-14. Any microscopic forms of life adhering to the strings will turn some of the carbon-14 into radio-active carbon dioxide which will be detected with a Geiger counter after the strings have been reeled back into the spacecraft.

Mariner B, will look for microscopic forms of life rather than larger organisms because if there is life on Mars these are likely to be far more abundant. It is also quite possible that bacterial life could exist without larger organisms, but larger organisms could hardly exist without bacteria.

Conditions on Mars do not appear to be very favourable for life. The average temperature is well below freezing point, and the atmosphere, which is very thin, may contain no oxygen. But the United States Air Force had shown that some microscopic forms of terrestrial life can survive in simulated Martian conditions.

Twenty unidentified satellites have been launched by the US Air Force since November. Among these have been six Samos reconnaissance satellites, one Midas missile warning satellite, and 12 others containing Midas and Samos equipment. They have been launched under conditions of military secrecy.

This information is given in an issue of “Flight” published today. It comes after the two Soviet spacemen had returned safely to earth.

Major Nikolayev (64 orbits) and Colonel Popovich (48 orbits) landed yesterday within six minutes of each other south of Karaganda in Kazakhstan. Both were officially reported to be well. Tass stated that they had withstood excellently the conditions of being put into orbit, the long flight in space, and the return to earth.

Sir Bernard Lovell, commenting at Jodrell Bank on the Russian achievement, said that she now had “a clear space superiority in the military, if not in the scientific, sense.” The Soviet exploit “has added a new and agonising dimension to the world’s troubles.”