U.K. Satellite Attempt Next Year

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29336, 15 October 1960, Page 15

U.K. Satellite Attempt Next Year

(W-Z. Press Association —Copyright; LONDON, October 13. Britain will attempt to put a rocket into orbit next year, the British Minister of Science (Viscount Hailsham) said today.

“Next year there will be three British experiments based on the American Scout rocket,” he told the Conservative Party’s annual conference at Scarborough today. He gave no indication of where the rockets would be launched. “We are in this business and, as far as I am concerned, we are in the business for good,” he said during the party’s space debate. He said that when the Scout rocket experiments were fully instrumented and prepared “no doubt the scientist will come to us again and ask us to sanction a further series of experiments based on a rocket capable of a larger payload, or a larger and more remote orbit.” Lord Hailsham gave delegates a preview of a possible international space club which “could bring great political, international and scientific advantages.” By an overwhelming majority the conference adopted a resolution saying Britain should remain in space research and devote a reasonable proportion of the national income to it. The Earl of Home, the Foreign Secretary, warned the conference today that great vigilance would be needed to stop Russia from renewing her attempt to extend her influence in Africa. He said the Russians, in directing their efforts to the Congo, had been utterly careless of the future of the Africans, and intended only to extend

their influence into this new continent “I am glad to say that for the time being they have been thwarted in that ambition, but it will need great vigilance to prevent them renewing that effort. "So long as the Communists act on the doctrines of Stalin with force as a legitimate instrument of foreign policy, then communism must be militarily contained,” he said: He "rejected absolutely” the conception that if Britain got too close to the United States she would “inevitably be dragged along behind them as a dog was dragged on a lead. “Wharever' the United States and the United Kingdom can act together, we double the impact of our policies upon the future of the free world,” he said.