The Press SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 1972. Apollo 16

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32903, 29 April 1972, Page 14

The Press SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 1972. Apollo 16

The American Apollo programme to put men on the Moon had its beginning 11 years ago in the rivalry of the Cold War: the success of the Apollo 16 mission, the last but one planned in the series, shows the programme ending on a very different note. Five flights have now landed men on the Moon; and the sense of wonder aroused by the first great triumph has given way to an almost matter-of-fact preoccupation with the scientific purposes of the missions. Not that the sense of wonder has departed, even for the space travellers —the crew of Apollo 16 were overwhelmed by the beauty of the Moon—but this expedition delivered more instruments to the Moon, performed more experiments, and collected more samples than .ny of its predecessors. As the scale of the astronauts’ programme was revealed, the layman might well have felt like a child watching an enormous Christmas stocking being unpacked. For the first time there have been astronomical observations from the Moon’s surface with a combination camera and spectroscope which, among other things, used ultraviolet wavelengths to photograph the cloud of hydrogen which surrounds the Earth out to a distance of 50,000 miles. And the first findings of Apollo 16’s geological studies suggest that the Moon has had a “ life history ” quite different from the Earth’s, a reminder of the uniqueness of this planet and its environment which should make all men treat it with increased respect.

Small mishaps which dogged the expedition were a reminder that space exploration is still fraught with danger and uncertainty. Damage to the heat probe being inserted into the Moon’s Surface was the most unfortunate of the mishaps, the result of a human error which could hardly have been foreseen. But altogether it was a remarkable achievement: the whole Apollo system, the most complicated machine ever built by men, with literally millions of parts, functioned almost perfectly. New knowledge about the Moon is being matched by a new readiness by men to co-operate across national and ideological frontiers for scientific purposes in a way hardly dreamed of when the Apollo programme began. Apollo 16 received as much time on Moscow television as the war in Indo-China, a small but significant example of the respect which has developed between the United States and Russia for one another’s space research. As the space laboratory programme supersedes Apollo, the way is opening for increased co-operation. The Cold War space rivals have already agreed to a combined space docking experiment in 1975; if their joint efforts in space point the way towards closer co-operation on Earth, space research may well become the noblest as well as the most spectacular activity of mankind.