America's space program yields fascinating history
(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of five articles describing the step by step progress of America's space program, due to be climaxed on July 21 with man's first landing on the moon.) SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON (UPI)—More than three years passed between the opening of space age in 1957 and the first human ventures into orbit.
Man had barely rippled the vast, forbidding ocean of the cosmos when President John F. Kennedy boldly proposed in 1961 that the United States land men on the moon "before this decade is out."
Only two space pilots had looked down on their home planet from above its atmosphere. One was the Russian, Yuri Gagarin, the other America's Alan B. Shepard, and both their flights had occurred within the two months before Kennedy spoke. Combined, their flight times totaled only 2 hours 3 minutes.
Hurling unmanned satellites into orbit was still quite an accomplishment. Three times the United States had tried to send small, unmanned spaceships to the moon—and three times it had failed. Man's conquest of space was still in its infancy.
The space age dawned upon a startled world Oct. 4, 1957.
On that morning, a great white
rocket climbed away from the launch pad of South Central Russia and placed a 23-inch diameter, 184-pound ball in an oval path around the earth.
The Russians called it Sputnik 1. Its name meant "fellow traveler of the earth."
Later, millions heard that awesome shrill "voice from space" on American radio and television broadcasts. Amateur radio operators tuned it in. News commentators struggled to explain that the earth now had a new moon, one made by human hands.
Scarcely had the United States—and, indeed, the world—adjusted to the shocks of Sputnik 1 when the second shoe fell. Another Russian satellite soared into orbit 30 days later, on Nov. 3, 1957.
Sputnik 2, weighing an amazing 1,121 pounds, carried a little black-and-white dog named Laika and a self contained artificial atmosphere that kept her alive for seven days. It was the first firm indication that Russia's real space goal was to orbit men.
The Sputnik launches of October and November, 1957, caused consternation and soul-searching in the United States. Some have called it the greatest shock to the nation since Pearl Harbor. Words like "space race" and "space lag" entered a vocabulary already
But it was a month later, on Dec. 6, 1957, that American embassment in the field of missiles and space reached a peak.
striving with "arms race" and "missile gap."
On that dismal day, before scores of newsman at Cape Canaveral, now Cape Kennedy, and millions watching on television, America's first attempt to orbit a grapefruit-size Vanguard satellite failed. The first stage of the rocket exploded on ignition, and the rest of the rocket crumpled on the wet Florida beach sand.
America's first satellite—a little 3.25-pound ball—sent out its plaintive "beep-beep" from a palmetto flat instead of from the realm of space. The failure took on disastrous proportions.
"Overnight" recalls space pioneer Dr. Wernher von Braun, "it became popular to question the bulwarks of our society, our public education system, our industrial strength, international policy, defense strategy and forces, the capability of our science and technology,
"Even the moral fiber of our people came under searching examination."
Against this background of pessimism, Von Braun and his German rocket team which had been transported to the United States after World War II were called
into the breech. They were working for the Army on missile development at Huntsville, Ala.
The comeback was swift. On Nov. 8, 1957, Von Braun had promised to orbit a satellite within 90 days. On Jan. 31, 1958, he did. Explorer 1 streaked atop a Jupiter-C missile into the night sky and soared into orbit, a 31-pound package of instruments.
The next Vanguard and the next Explorer launched failures, but on March 17, 1958, a Vanguard rocket finally sped into orbit. It, too, came up with a startling bit of information—that the earth is rather pear shaped.
During the next three years, the United States moved out to the launch pad 76 times, logging 42 successes and 34 failures in unmanned flights. But Russia was busy, too. In this same period it logged three spectaculars—first probe to hit the moon, first pictures of the lunar backside and a probe toward the planet Venus.
In the spring of 1958 President Dwight D. Eisenhower set up the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), responsible for "space activities . . . except . . . those projects primarily associated with military requirements."
Project Mercury was born. A one-day flight was the goal.
But Russia once more pulled off a spectacular—its biggest yet—when on April 12, 1961, 27-year-old Maj. Yuri A. Gagarin orbited the earth one time inside the eight-foot diameter ball of a Vostok spaceship. His flight lasted 1 hour, 48 minutes.
Perhaps the bitterest disappointment was felt by seven American astronauts who were preparing for one of their number—Alan B. Shepard—to ride a bell-shaped Mercury capsule on a bullet-like trajectory briefly into space and then down into the Atlantic.
Listening to the news of Gagarin's flight at Cape Canaveral, however, astronaut Donald K. Slayton found reason for optimism.
"There's one good thing about Gagarin's flight," he told a newsman. "It proves there is no serious obstacle to a man going into space. Maybe we ought to be happy to know it can be done."
Twenty-three days later, Shepard wedged himself into the Freedom 7 capsule atop his Redstone rocket and shot into the morning sky toward a maximum altitude of 116.5 miles. He splashed safely into the Atlantic 302 miles from the cape 15 minutes 22 seconds later.
Military junta rules Greece
By PHIL NEWSOM UPI Foreign News Analysi
In Greece, the military junta gives and the military junta takes away.
In April, in an apparent move to forestall pressure from Greece's NATO partners for a restoration of constitutional government, Premier George Papadopoulos restored by decree three basic constitutional rights.
They dealt with the inviolability of citizen's homes, the right of association and the right of assembly.
But in late June the regime destroyed the one institution capable of curbing government excesses.
At the same time, the premier also announced some liberalization of press curbs and the government attitude toward exiles and military court convictions.
This was the Council of State, which in effect is the Greek supreme court.
It forced the resignation of the council's president, who held the appointment for life, and announced it would ignore future council rulings which went against government policy.
In the resulting revolt of Greek judges, the government exiled one prominent judge and three lawyers to remote mountain vill-
lages for renewable terms of six months each.
The evidence of continuing and even mounting opposition to the Greek military regime and the harsh measures it must take to remain in power has a direct bearing on the United States and Western Europe.
Late last year the United States agreed to resume shipments to Greece of military aircraft and some other heavy equipment banned after the April, 1967 coup that toppled the elected government.
It refused, however, to send tanks, presumably on the theory that they not only could be used for stricty military purposes but also could be turned against street demonstrations.
The Nixon Administration has reassured the American Congress and expressed directly to the Greek government its concern not only with reports of torture of persons jailed by the regime but also over continued denial of civil liberties.
The dilemma confronting the United States and Western Europe is the key role allotted to Greece in NATO. Neither has yet been willing to face it.
Campus Briefs
New English prof
Michael L. Johnson, a native of Lebanon, Mo., will become assistant professor of English at the University of Kansas in September.
A lecturer in English at Rice University the past year, he earned the B.A. degree from Rice in 1965, the M.A. at Stanford University in 1967, and the Ph.D. from Rice in 1968.
As a senior Johnson won a Woodrow Wilson fellowship for the first year of graduate study and later was named a Ford Foundation scholar.
Wins scholarship
Thomas R. Sheahan, Topeka, has been awarded a $300 Muchnic Foundation Scholarship for the 1969 fall semester in the University of Kansas School of Engineering.
Sheahan, who will graduate in mechanical engineering at the end of January, has a cumulative grade point average of 2.70.
The scholarship was established by the Muchnic Foundation of Atchison to encourage and reward excellent academic work by juniors and seniors in engineering.
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