Gemini Test Has Military Facet

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30930, 10 December 1965, Page 17

Gemini Test Has Military Facet

(N.Z. Preu Association—Copyright) HOUSTON, December 9. American astronauts slept tonight as Gemini VII entered its sixth day in space.

Earlier, James Lovell peered through a telescope directed at Cape Kennedy in an experiment that has farreaching implications for the military in space.

“We just passed over the Cape and we could see them with the telescope, * Lovell reported, referring to workers

on the Gemini Six pad. “Very feverish activity, isn’t it?” Mission Control asked. . "Roger,” Lovell answered. The Defence Department, although not sponsoring the experiment, is greatly interested in the results because of its orbiting laboratory space programme.

“It is patently obvious that if he could see what he did with the telescope power, then what might be seen with higher power would be phenomenal,”. a spokesman said. He added that “optical devices,” of reasonably high power were planned for military spaceships. The telescope that Lovell and Frank Borman have aboard Gemini Seven.is only six inches long. It has a variable magnification of from two to 10 and cost 4500 dollars. It weighs only one pound and is one and threequarters of an inch in diameter.

. Man’s ability to see small details on earth from space without the aid of a telescope has amazed experts, who said at first it would be impossible to see anything but the largest of objects such as factories or stadiums.