Russian Space Prediction

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31345, 15 April 1967, Page 13

Russian Space Prediction

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright)

EL CAJON (California), April 14. The British astronomer, Sir Bernard Lovell has predicted that the Soviet Union would undertake a major space enterprise within a few weeks.

Sir Bernard Lovell, director of the Jodrell Bank observatory, near Manchester, which houses the world’s largest directional radio telescope, made the prediction in a speech at Grossmont College, at El Cajon, Cali-

fornia. “The Russians have launched a whole series of satellites recently,” he said.

“Some of them were extremely heavy. There is every reason to believe Russia is ready to launch a rather big space enterprise, and I expect it before too many weeks. “I would be very surprised if it is not before May.” He was critical of the Soviet-American contest to place a man on the moon. He urged collaboration, not competition. Major competition, he said, has developed in the man-on-the-moon contest “and the cost of the work is out of all reason.

“There is no possible rational scientific reason to land a man on the moon by 1970,” he said, referring to the United States target date.

“It is only an irrational desire to land a man on the moon before the Russians do,” he said.

He would not predict who would be the first on the moon.

“Scientifically, it doesn’t really matter just so long as the information gets back.” He said reports were false that said the Russians did not value the lives of their cosmonauts as highly as Western nations. “In my conversations with the Russian scientists, they said they will put a man on the moon when they are absolutely sure he can be recovered.

“It is my personal opinion they have been much more careful than the Americans in some of the things of the space programme,” said Sir Bernard Lovell.