THE U.S. IN SPACE FROM BEHIND, TO A LEAD IN THE RACE FOR THE MOON

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31224, 23 November 1966, Page 20

THE U.S. IN SPACE FROM BEHIND, TO A LEAD IN THE RACE FOR THE MOON

(Bp DR.

ANTHONY MICHAELIS

in the "Daily Telegraph," London)

(Reprinted by arrangement >

Gemini XII brings to an end an almost unbelievably successful series of 10 American manned space flights. In March of last year, when I reported the first, Gemini 111, from Cape Kennedy, the programme was 18 months’ behind schedule. Gemini XII was six months ahead. “If our luck holds,” one of the senior officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, told me in Washington recently, “and if the preliminary Apollo flights are as good as the Gemini flights have been, the first American may well set foot on the moon by 1968.”

Thanks to this series of regular, safe and troublefree Gemini flights, manned space flight is now taken for granted. It is still regularly reported in the world's Press but only briefly: and television from take-off to splashdown is watched by only a few. When caught off-guard American scientists have blamed the lack of Russian manned space flights for this penalty of success. The last Russian manned flight and Leonov’s walk in space were in March last year, and for the time being the “space race” has practically disappeared. Fight For Funds The penalty which N.A.S.A. must now pay for this success is the ever-stiffer fight in Congress for next year’s budget and the reluctance of the present Administration to give space expenditure the same priority as the war in Vietnam. Yet America is rich enough to pay for it all: to do the maximum amount of cancer research with the biologists and doctors available; to give extensive aid to the new and developing countries; to turn belatedly to her own slums; to fight a war in Vietnam and support the space effort, which costs about £2060 million a year. The whole Gemini programme cost £465 million. Russian economists no doubt envy America and weigh up the relative importance of racing to the moon against military commitments. Today it is even more difficult to judge Russian space plans than I found it when writing 18 months ago. The only new item has been an announcement by Colonel Nikolai Kamanin, Commander of the Russian Cosmonaut Corps, who as I foretold said that Russia would follow the advice of her great space writer Tsiolkovsky, at the beginning of the century, by putting a manned space station in orbit round our planet, refuelling and launching her manned lunar spacecraft from there.

Colonel Kamanin explained in September, 1965, that future manned Russian spaceflights would be devoting much time to extra-vehicular activity (E.V.A.), the essential preliminary to building

a space station orbiting our planet. But there have been no space flights. The Apollo Project The Russian plans to reach the moon are therefore entirely different from the American Apollo project. The Apollo rocket will take off from Cape Kennedy, orbit our planet once or twice, reignite the third stage booster rocket and coast direct to the moon. There the three components will orbit the moon and one of them will detach itself and land. After 24 hours it will take off again, reunite with the two sections in orbit and return to earth. This is an exceedingly complex space manoeuvre, but having tested many of the preliminary requirements during the Gemini programme, American space engineers are now confident that it can be done. The first Apollo flight, circling the earth for about a fortnight, is scheduled for January, 1967.

The Russian plan foresees the building of a manned orbital station round our planet as the first step. This is a very expensive proceedure as it costs the Americans £lBO to put lib weight into earth orbit and I doubt whether the Russians can do it much cheaper. The construction of an earth orbital station made up from several spacecraft requires many rendezous manoeuvres and a great deal of E.V.A. Then the lunar spacecraft must be erected there for its flight to the moon. If the Russians adhere to these plans it will take them many space flights before they are practised in these skills. Hours Logged It is E.V.A. that shows clearly the American superiority. Leonov spent 10 minutes outside his spacecraft, and this is the sum total of Russian experience. America’s Gemini astronauts have now amassed four hours. Equally impressive are the total man-hours in space: America, 1800: Russia, 507. America has done nine rendezvous manoeuvres in space and Russia none. America has achieved four space dockings but Russia none. America’s Gemini spacecraft has proved fully manoeuvrable both

during landings and when linking with the Agena target rocket. Russia’s nearest linkup in space, about three miles distant was done by purely ballistic means on July 16, 1963.

I believe the American achievements are due to a combination of features. First, perhaps, the teutonic thoroughness of some of the men in charge of the American space programme. Dr. Wernher von Braun and Dr. Kurt Debus. Secondly the staggering resources of American industry and the almost unselfish way in which these have been thrown into space technology. *

Industry gets well paid- for these development projects, but the devotion of scientists, engineers and contractors is not conditioned only by monetary' awards. To them America’s success in space has become an article of faith and working around the clock to meet target date is common. 1 doubt if the Russians are similarly inspired, but 1 may be wrong. Initial Handicap America started with a desperate handicap nine years ago when the first Russian sputnik bleeped from space. With only very small rockets available, the Americans were forced to improvise and miniaturise to get anything into space at all. Now that larger and more powerful rockets are available, these techniques are paying high dividends—the whole field of miniaturised electronics, from which radio, television and computers are reaping such a rich reward, was brought about by the American space effort.

Another comparison is between America’s Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter and Russia’s Luna and Zond spacecraft, all of which went to the moon. The Russians could certainly claim a number of firsts, but the time difference between comparable achievements (for example, the soft landing on the moon) is now down to an insignificant one or two months. But what really matters is the scientific quality of the photographs. The last pictures sent back by Surveyor 1 showed such detail that one might have thought they were taken on earth. Equivalent Russian photographs which I have seen are far poorer in their details. The American spacecraft Mariner 4 sent back from Mars the first detailed series of photographs of the surface of that planet. Telecommunications Telecommunication satellites are so far the only space successes which have excited hard-headed businessmen on both sides of the Atlantic. Russia, with her two MOlniya satellites, was not far behind the Americans in developing this branch but falls far short of American achievements. The two Russian telecommunication satellites orbit in a highly elliptical path and are therefore available for transmissions only at certain hours of the day. The American synchronous ones work 24 hours a day. To achieve such an orbit at 22,400 miles above the earth, and to place a satellite on a precisely given point on the orbit, show the most complete mastery yet attained. I have no doubt that something has seriously gone wrong with Russia's space effort but what it is remains a mystery. K. W. Gatland, vice-president of the British Interplanetary Society, whose book, “Astronautics in the ’Sixties,” gives probably the best non-secret description of Russian space technology, can also come to no firm conclusions.

Russia still has the powerful rockets with which she achieved her original successes. With these she could have launched one man into space, flown him round the back of the moon and brought him back safely to earth. Why this space spectacular has not been attempted we do not know. Flights Monitored I have discussed with American space scientists the possibility of Russian deaths in space but it is thought none has occurred. The Americans assure me that all Russian flights are carefully monitored through America’s world-wide tracking stations. Russia will have developed a second generation of space rockets, even more powerful, similar to, or even larger than, the American Saturn. If they had proved successful we would have seen their achievements. They might, of course, be launched tomorrow. As things stand today I still put my shirt on an American astronaut being the first to walk on the moon and come back safely to tell us about it.