Scrapbook 2: Aug–Sep 1962 — Brainerd Holmes, Mariner 2
VARNA (Bulgaria), Saturday,
THE sign “Dangerous Radiation” is coming down from the threshold of space. Scientists no longer think that charged particles trapped in the earth’s magnetic field will severely limit the activities of spacemen.
A journey to the moon within the present decade thus becames much less of a thus becomes much less of a thought.
This important change of mind, I learned here to-day, was brought about by Russia’s Cosmos series of Sputniks which have been popped into orbit at regular intervals since last spring.
The eight Sputniks have been carrying out a concentrated survey of conditions outside the atmosphere, some going deep into the extensive radiation belt called the Van Allen Belt, discovered by an early American space probe.
CAREFUL
Analysis
Careful analysis of their findings, I understand, has satisfied the Russians that their manned spaceships can be adequately shielded without substantially adding to the weight.
Indeed it was not until they were satisfied that Soviet scientists permitted Nikolayev and Popovich to make their long orbital flights last month although it was not expected they would encounter dense radiation.
A scientist attending the 30-nations Space Travel Congress which ended here to-day told me that Academician V. I. Krassovsky, in charge of cosmos investigation, had given a personal guarantee that the two cosmonauts would not be harmed.
JERUSALEM, Saturday.
A COSTLY arms race has started in the Middle East following recent Russian deliveries to Egypt of jet bombers and the build-up of President Nasser’s rocket force. Possession of these advanced weapons has upset the military power balance between Arabs and Israel and is creating growing tension.
Mr. Shimon Peres, Israel’s Deputy Defence Minister, and closest adviser to Mr. Ben Gurion, the Prime Minister, said to me in an interview in Jerusalem: “We are determined to establish an effective deterrent to meet this new threat.”
The decision to meet Egypt’s challenge is a bitter blow for Israel’s economy which is now hard pressed in trying to cope with a new flood of Jewish immigrants from North Africa. “There is only one person more depressed than I at this prospect and that is the Minister of Finance,” Mr. Peres commented.
Bitter over U.S. aid
Israeli intelligence reports estimate that so far 14 Tupolev (TU16) 600 m.p.h. jet bombers—similar to Britain’s Valiants and with a bomb load of 10 tons—have been delivered to Egypt and more are on the way from Russia.
They could be over Tel Aviv in less than 10 minutes and have far greater destructive capacity than the French Vautaur fighter bombers in service with the Israeli Air Force. Egypt has also recently received about 40 of Russia’s latest MiG 21 jet fighters.
The TU 16s backed up by MiG 21s are considered by Israel to be a greater short-term danger than the Egyptian V2-type rockets with a range of about 300 miles which were fired last month. Israel is especially vulnerable to air attack with most of her population concentrated along the narrow coastal strip.
The Israelis are bitter over America’s growing economic aid to Egypt which, they assert, has helped Col. Nasser to divert his own funds to the expensive business of rocket production, assisted by highly-paid German experts.
The Israeli Government proposes to make representations to the Federal German authorities to take a stronger line with West German rocket experts and technicians. These are believed to number more than 200, including Nazis.
Israel has already embarked on an expensive programme of equipping its air force with France’s latest fighter, Mirage 3—already understood to be in service. This fighter is considered more than a match for the MiG 21s and the Israel Air Force crews are known to be of a higher standard than the Egyptians.
Plea to Britain
America has refused all Israel’s pleas for arms and Israel is now renewing her appeals to a reluctant Britain to sell her Bloodhound, the ground-to-air anti-aircraft anti-rocket missile. So far Israel’s request for “Bloodhound” has been refused as Britain does not want the responsibility of introducing yet another new weapon into the Middle East arms appeal.
Although Mr. Peres denied that Israel was building an atomic weapon at its secret nuclear station at Dimona, south of Beersheba, he said the Israeli deterrent should be sufficiently powerful and impressive to force the Arabs to hold back.
There is considerable speculation, impossible to confirm in security-conscious Israel, that the Israelis are developing a rocket force of their own. Just over a year ago Israel launched a two-stage solid fuel “meteorological” rocket but no more mention has been made of it.
US TO TRY AGAIN
By an Air Correspondent
The second attempt by the United States to launch a spacecraft to the vicinity of the planet Venus is scheduled to be made from Cape Canaveral next week. The craft is known as Mariner 2 and will be launched by an Atlas Agena launch vehicle.
The first Mariner spacecraft was destroyed in mid-air by the range safety officer at Cape Canaveral on July 22 when its rocket veered off course only five minutes after lift-off. The reason for the off-course swerve was later reported to have been the omission of a hyphen in the guidance equation which controlled the flight of the rocket vehicle.
America plans to regain some lost prestige by making another rocket-shot at Venus with the space “probe” Mariner Two.
The shot was due next Monday, but yesterday scientists at Cape Canaveral were forced to delay it for “several days.”
The small Seacat anti-aircraft guided missile is about to enter service with the Royal Navy after a development programme of five years. The manufacturers, Short Brothers and Harland Ltd, announced yesterday that acceptance trials had been completed and that new export inquiries for the Seacats were still being received. Orders have already come from Germany, Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand.
According to the statement, the Navy’s fullscale firings of the missile have confirmed earlier research results on the best way to guide short-range missiles of this kind. These had demonstrated that a man was a better controller for the weapon after it was launched than the usual electronic equipment. Seacat is controlled by an aimer who trains his binoculars on to it and transmits radio instructions by moving a joystick.
Seacats are the third line of defence for a naval task force. Fighters from carriers do long-range identification and interception, the large Seaslug beam-riding missiles will take the next stage when they reach service, and Seacats are the defender’s final option. When small ships operate without carriers or guided missile destroyers, Seacat will be their only air defence.
ONE of the nine new American astronauts who were named on Monday could be the first man on the moon. And if it is an American boot that makes the first imprint on the dusty surface of the dead planet, most of the credit will be due to a brilliant engineer named Dyer Brainerd Holmes.
At 42 Holmes is the chief engineer of Apollo, the moon project, and he is pretty confident that he will land Americans on the moon and get them back safely by 1967 with luck, and certainly by 1970 without luck.
The programme will cost £7,000 million at least and perhaps £14,000 million (more than the entire British defence budget).
SO BRIGHT
HOLMES is acutely conscious of his responsibility but is not shaken by it. “No, my job doesn’t frighten me. I am not bright enough.”
Actually Holmes is so bright that he is dazzling. He is probably the free world’s most brilliant engineer.
He toys with a rocket-shaped china piggy bank on his desk and says: “This is to keep me thinking about the tax-payers’ money.”
Holmes emphasises people rather than machines. He is in charge of tens of thousands of employees and says: “In the last analysis it will be men who do the job.”
President Kennedy hired Holmes last November. He sees the President regularly. In ten months of intense activity the Brooklyn-born Holmes has performed prodigies.
When he took over the moon plan seemed lagging and disorganised and today there are still scoffers as distinguished as Dwight Eisenhower who call the plan madness. But Holmes is unperturbed.
SO TOUGH
HE says: “When a great nation is faced with a technological challenge it has to accept or go backwards. Space is the future of man and the U.S. must keep ahead.”
His massive job gives him pleasure and pride although he gave up a position with the Radio Corporation of America which was netting him about £25,000 a year for the space job which brings him only £7,000 a year.
Money doesn’t mean much to Holmes, nor to his wife, Dorothy, and their two daughters, another Dorothy, 17, and Katherine, 13, who live in a little house in Washington.
One of their few luxuries is a sail boat called the Flying Scot and every Sunday Holmes and his family go racing in Chesapeake Bay.
Holmes keeps fit with physical exercises every morning before leaving for work. He looks fit, a tough 5ft. 10in. tall, weighing just over 12st.
The moon man could pass as a business man in the City. He always wears dark, conservative suits, uses horn-rimmed glasses when reading, and his short-cropped brown hair is touched with grey.
He is without boast or swagger, but he was pleased with an article in the New York Times which said: “Wanted—a strong man to do a $20,000 million job that may take till 1970. Must have impeccable references, dogged devotion to duty, sharp eye for detail, and intolerance for anything less than perfection.”
Holmes got the job. He has all the qualifications.
VENUS ATTEMPT POSTPONED
ROCKET FAULT
From Our Own Correspondent NEW YORK, Sunday.
A new attempt will be made tomorrow morning to launch a Mariner space craft to the vicinity of the planet Venus. The space craft was to have been launched to-day, but trouble developed in the Atlas-Agenda rocket last night during the count-down.
A spokesman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the problem was not serious. He declined to give details.
NEW YORK, Wednesday.
PRESIDENT KENNEDY declared to-day that America’s lead in the world’s drive into space was so vital that no effort must be spared in the interests of peace and security. He demanded a “bold, daring and unflinching effort to land a man on the moon before 1970.”
Speaking at Rice University, Houston, on the second day of his tour of space centres, he made it clear that he regarded the effort to make the United States the world’s leading spacefaring nation as among the most important during his term of office.
Mr. Kennedy said: “We cannot shrink from it now.” Although America was behind Russia in manned flight there was no intention of staying there.
The President referred to “the nation’s conscience,” which required the effort to fulfil its obligations as a first-class country. “Whether space science will become a force for good or evil,” he declared, “is up to men to say.
“Only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this great new ocean will be a sea of blessed peace or a terrifying theatre of war.”
PLEDGE ON SPENDING
Mr. Kennedy gave this promise to critics of the space programme on the grounds of cost: “The Government will invest money only when greater returns were guaranteed. Space expenditures will soon rise—from forty cents (2s 10d) to more than fifty cents (3s 7d) per week for every man woman and child.”
The President said that about 40 satellites which had circled the earth were made in the United States and were “far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.”
Mr. Kennedy made his significant speech appropriately in Houston, the manned spacecraft centre from which the rocket to the moon will be launched.
WASHINGTON, Wednesday.
AMERICA still hopes to beat Russia to the Moon, said Mr. James Webb, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, at a Press conference to-day.
Mr. Webb was asked to comment on Sir Bernard Lovell’s statement that the chance of America catching up with Russia in the next decade was remote. He said: “We have under way a large, on-going, fast-paced programme.” It would bring results.
“I think we will make a manned lunar landing and return before the Russians,” he said. His deputy, Dr. Dryden, said America had seen no evidence that Russia had developed a booster rocket of the power required.
America is developing a rocket called Saturn C-5 which will produce 7,500,000lb of thrust in its first stage. It will not be ready until 1965.
7,500,000lb THRUST
Rocket plan for 1965
It is at that stage that America hopes to catch up and overtake Russia. In the meantime, Mr. Webb conceded that Russia would continue to lead.
“The Russian flights have demonstrated a very real technological capacity,” he said. It was probable that Russians would be the first to make manned journeys round the Moon.
Other spokesmen contended that a higher degree of accuracy would be needed for a manned flight to the Moon. “The guidance problem for a Moon shot has not yet been solved by anybody so far as we know,” one official said.