The Moon

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30982, 11 February 1966, Page 10

The Moon

Sir. —I, for one cannot let you get away with your oneeyed editorial “The Bid for the Moon,” as you call it. You suggest that Russia should give America all the information gained by their last effort and so allow America to catch up some of its lost ground. Do you really believe that if the positions were reversed America would supply Russia with the full facts? I think not. You appear to take

the side of Sir Bernard Lovell, who, I suggest, was guilty of plagiarism in publishing something that did not belong to him and which he had no authority to publish. Whether it came from the moon or not, it was still Russian property. As for America getting any help from the Russians, you can hardly expect them to deserve any when you quote President Johnston as stating that the United States "could not risk being in second place in the space race.”—Yours, etc., PERCY L. McMILLAN. Saltwater Creek, February 10, 1966. Sir, —Millions, and tens of millions, will probably agree with Sir Bernard Lovell, the director of Britain’s Jodrell Bank observatory, when he condemns the “absolute stupidity” of the competition between the Americans and Russians for lunar (or should it be lunatic?) supremacy. How much of the fantastic expense involved might have been saved by co-operation instead of rivalry, goodness knows. Anyway, if the object of the exercise is for the benefit of the human race, does it really matter who gets there first? If, on the other hand, it is all tied up with some sinister designs of nuclear warfare, real or imaginary, it seems about time the rest of the world sat up and took notice of such transcendental folly.—Yours, etc., ILAM. February 10, 1966.