Radiation Should Not Endanger Astronaut

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29819, 11 May 1962, Page 13

Radiation Should Not Endanger Astronaut

<N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) WASHINGTON, May 10.

The next American astronaut, LieutenantColonel Scott Carpenter. has no need to worry about radiation from the nuclear test shots in the Pacific if he makes his projected trip into space in May or early June, according to space scientists.

Officials said yesterday they felt there was nothing sufficiently serious in She conflict ot testing and Carpenter’s orbit. But if tiis launching set tentatively for May 17 or 22. ran into delay the ’ests might force a lengthv postponement of his flight.

The nuclear shots are now being exploded in the atmosphere The radiation from them trapped in the atmosphere. will remain fat below the orbiting Mercury craft, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials said Test observers on the ground will be stationed close: to the test shots than Carpenter would be in passing overhead To get into the radiation area—if he makes his space flight as planned in mid-May—Car-penter would have to make an unplanned landing in the

Pacific on the first orbit, the only time he would be directly over the nuclear test site

But should Carpenter's launching date slip into midJune, the effort probably would have to be postponed because of the high altitude nuclear tests planned for late June and July

The nuclear tests have priority over Project Mercury, NASA said, and the high-altitude shots would throw deadly radiation into the path of a low-orbiting satf’ite.

Yesterday the United States exploded another nuclear device in the atmosphere rver the Pacific, its seventh in the current series of tests. It was dropped from an aircraft and was in the intermediate range, the equivalent of between 20.000 tons and one million tons of TNT Carpenter “Not Afraid”

Carpenter said in an interview with the “Denver Post” yesterday that he was “acutely aware" he might die in his attempt to orbit the es h. but he was not afraid

Carpenter said: “There were times when I thought I would be afraid. But not now. because of conditioning “You can’t be afraid when you have such great expectations—what you are about to see and about to experience —it is impossible to be afraid. f’m looking forward to the most awesome experience in a man’s life.” Carpenter, who is married and has four children, did not graduate from college

because ne failed a course in which he is now an expertheat transfer. Heat transfer concerns a critical function of the heat shield in the Mercury spacecraft. which absorbs or deflects the enormous heat caused by re-entry into the earth's atmosphere. Balloon Behind Capsule

The operations director of Project Mercury (Mr Walter Williams) revealed today that Carpenter’s space capsule might streak around the earth trailing a coloured balloon and a cloud of particles behind it. Mr Williams said that Carpenter also would carry a small tank of water so tha: scientists could observe the behaviour of water under conditions of weightlessness. The balloon, 30 inches in diameter, would be deployed behind Carpenter’s space capsule on a lOOft-long cable when the space craft was about to begin its second orbit of the earth and passing over Cape Canaveral The object of the balloon, with panels of orange, silver, yellow and phosphorescent green, would be to measure the density of the atmosphere 100 miles or more above the earth—almost negligible but still measurable. Mr Williams said.

Carpenter will also make a determined attempt to clear up the mystery of the "space fireflies,” which LieutenantColonel John Glenn reported seeing each dawm as he flashed over the Pacific on his three orbits last February,

Glenn attempted to photograph the tiny particles which streaked past his observation window, but without success. Carpenter, whose flight is being designed to give him more time for observation, will concentrate on getting coloured photographs of the "fireflies" with a hand-held camera

Carpenter's spacecraft might release a cloud of particles in an experiment designed to shed some light on the mysterious “fireflies," sources said in Washington.