Scientist Says Moon Strategy Is- Nonsense

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28542, 22 March 1958, Page 13

Scientist Says Moon Strategy IsNonsense

(Rec. 9.30 p.m.) LOS ANGELES, March 21. % Dr. Lee Dußridge, president of California Institute of Technology, said yesterday that it was utter nonsense to regard the moon as the ultimate military base for launching of weapons on earth targets.

Dr. Dußridge, who was addressing the opening session of the 1958 Western Space Age Conference, urged against permitting the United States space programme to develop into a “wild programme of Buck Rogers stunts and insane pseudo-military expeditions.’’

He urged instead “conducting a bold and exciting programme of research and exploration.” Dr. Dußridge listed three main reasons that would discount the military advantages of the moon, in spite of statements to the con-

trary by “some military generals who ought to know better.” These were:

First a hydrogen warhead, plus men and equipment, would have to be transported 240,000 miles “just to shoot it 240,000 miles back to earth- when the target is only 5000 miles away in the first place.”

Second, it would take a warhead five days to reach the earth because of space factors. “The war might be over by then. An inter-continental ballistic missile can reach any target on earth in 20 minutes.” And third: “If we have rockets good enough to land men and equipment on the moon, the enemy will surely have ones good enough to put a hydrogen bomb at the same spot.” ■ Dr. Dußridge, whose jet propul-

sion laboratory at the institute • played a major role in develop- . ing the United States Alpha satellite, said: “Either people will land on the moon for peaceful purposes by mutual agreement.» or else we will surely launch the , nuclear war here on earth, which we are all trying to avoid.” He said he thought that the challenge of the space age was to see “whether we can use the J great new technologies of space travel for peaceful and scientific purposes, conducting a bold and , exciting programme of research and exploration."