Tag Archives: science fact

Science / Space Race

[June 30, 1961] Reaping the Harvest (June 1961 space science results)

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June was a busy month for space travel buffs, especially those who live in the Free World.  Here's an omnibus edition covering all of the missions I caught wind of in the papers or the magazines:

Little lost probe

The Goddess of Love gets to keep her secrets…for now.  The first probe aimed at another planet, the Soviet "Venera," flew past Venus on May 19.  Unfortunately, the spacecraft developed laryngitis soon after launch and even the Big Ear at Jodrell Bank, England, was unable to clearly hear its signal.

The next favorable launch opportunity (which depends on the relative positions of Earth and Venus) will occur next summer.  Expect both American and Soviet probes to launch then.

X Marks the Spot

Just as planes use fixed radio beacons to determine their position, soon submarines (and people!) will be able to calculate where they are by listening to the doppler whines of whizzing satellites.  Transit 4A, launched by the Navy, joined the still-functioning Transit 2 on June 29 (#3 conked out March 30, and #1's been off the air since last July). 

This Transit has an all-new power source.  Instead of batteries or solar panels, it gets its juice from little nuclear reactors.  These aren't aren't like the big fission plants you see being established all over the country.  Rather, they are powered by the heat of radioactive decay.  These energy packs are small and much simpler than solar panels.  Expect to see them used quite a bit on military satellites.

The Navy gets extra points for making their rocket do triple-duty: Also boosted into orbit were Injun 1 and Solrad 3.  The first is another University of Iowa particle experiment from the folks who discovered the Van Allen Belt; the latter a solar x-ray observatory.

Along a dusty trail

Contrary to popular belief, outer space is not empty.  There are energetic particles, clouds of dust, and little chunks of high-speed matter called micrometeorites.  All of them pose hazards to orbital travel.  Moreover, they offer clues as to the make-up and workings of the solar system. 

Prior satellites have tried to measure just how much dirt swirls around in orbit, but the results have been vague.  For instance, Explorer 8 ran into high-speed clouds of micrometeorites zooming near the Earth late last year corresponding with the annual Leonids meteor shower.  Vanguard 3 encountered the same cloud in '59, around the same time.  But neither could tell you precisely how many rocks they ran into; nor could previous probes.

NASA's new "S(atellite)-55" is the first probe dedicated to the investigation of micrometeorites.  It carries five different experiments — a grid of wires to detect when rocks caused short circuits, a battery of gas cells that would depressurize when impacted, acoustic sounding boards…the whole megillah.  It is one of those missions whose purpose is completely clear, accessible to the layman, unarguably useful.

Sadly, the first S-55, launched today from Wallops island, failed to achieve orbit when the third stage of its Scout rocket failed to ignite. 

It's a shame, but not a particularly noteworthy one.  The Scout is a brand new rocket.  We can expect teething troubles.  Every failure is instructive, and I'll put good money on the next S-55, scheduled for launch in August.

Worth the Wait

Speaking of Explorer 8, Aviation Week and Space Technology just reported the latest findings from that satellite.  Now, you may be wondering how a probe that went off the air last December could still generate scientific results.  You have to understand that a satellite starts returning data almost immediately, but analysis can take years. 

I'd argue that the papers that get published after a mission are far more exciting than the fiery blast of a rocket.  Your mileage may vary.  In any event, here's what the eighth Explorer has taught us thus far (and NASA says it'll be another six months until we process all the information it's sent!):

1) The ionized clouds that surround a metal satellite as it zooms through orbit effectively double the electrical size of the vehicle.  This makes satellites bigger radar targets (and presumably increases drag).

2) We now know what causes radio blackouts: it is sunspot influence on the lower ionosphere. Solar storms create turbulence that can cut reception.

3) The most common charged element in the ionosphere is oxygen.

4) The temperature of the electrons Explorer ran into was about the same as uncharged ionospheric gas – a whopping 1800 degrees Kelvin.

This may all seem like pretty arcane information, but it tells us not just about conditions above the Earth, but the fundamental behavior of magnetic fields and charged particles on a large scale.  Orbiting a satellite is like renting the biggest laboratory in the universe, creating the opportunity to dramatically expand our knowledge of science.

Air Force discovers Pacific Ocean

The 25th Discoverer satellite, a two-part vehicle designed to return a 300 pound capsule from orbit, was successfully launched June 16.  Its payload was fished from the Pacific Ocean two days later, the recovery plane having failed to catch it in mid-descent.  I recently got to see one of those odd-tailed Fairchild C-119 aircraft that fly those recovery missions; they're bizarre little planes, for sure. 

As for the contents of the space capsules, it's generally assumed that they carry snapshots of the Soviet Union taken from orbit.  This time around, however, the flyboys included some interesting experiments: three geiger tubes, some micrometeroid detectors, and a myriad of rare and common metals (presumably to see the effects of radiation upon them). 

You may be wondering what happened to Discoverers 23 and 24 (the last Discoverer on which I've reported was numbered 22).  The former, launched on April 8, never dropped its capsule; the latter failed to reach orbit on June 8.  Unlike NASA, the Air Force gives numbers to its failed missions.

Next Mercury shots planned

Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom is set to be the next Mercury astronaut in late July.  His flight will be a duplicate of Alan Shepard's 15 minute jaunt last month.  If all goes well, astronaut John Glenn will fly a similar mission in September.

I don't think the Atlas is going to be ready in time this year for an orbital shot.  That means there will be several tense months during which the Soviets could upstage us with yet another spectacle. 

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Science / Space Race

[June 6, 1961] America’s Answer to Lunik: Project Ranger

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by Lawrence Klaes

[The Space Race continues to run at an ever-accelerating pace.  To keep up with all the new developments, I've tapped my friend and fellow professional space historian to tell us a very special program that just might score for the United States in the next inning…]

President Kennedy declared three weeks ago before Congress that America shall make the bold step of “sending a man to the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” before the end of this decade.  This has given a much needed – and quite literal – boost to the American space program. 

It couldn’t have come at a better time.  Since that day in October of 1957 when our geopolitical and space rivals, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR for short, lofted that 184-pound silvery sphere they called Sputnik 1 into Earth orbit, the Communists have handily outpaced us on virtually all key fronts of the Space Race.  First animal in orbit.  First man in orbit.  First probe to Venus.  First victories in the race to that big golden prize in our night sky, the Moon.

In one year alone, 1959, the Soviets sent the first space probe flying past the Moon and on into solar orbit.  This was followed by the first manmade vehicle to impact another world, with their Luna 2 littering the lunar dust with pennants engraved with the Soviet Coat of Arms.  The USSR rounded out their lunar triumphs of 1959 with a circumlunar imaging mission that revealed the hitherto unseen lunar farside.

So which Superpower will be the first to orbit the Moon?  The first to land, with robots and then with manned spacecraft?  Experts in various fields might understandably side with the Soviet Union, including those in the West.  In a mission-by-mission comparison, America’s efforts at exploring and conquering the Moon pale.

All of the first three Air Force Pioneer lunar probes fell short of their celestial goal.  Of the next two, made to order by Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena, California (JPL), Pioneer 4 alone escaped the confines of Earth’s gravity and headed into interplanetary space in March 1959.  Unfortunately, the small conical craft was many thousands of miles too far away for its scientific instruments to examine the Moon and slipped on to join its Soviet counterpart, Luna 1, in solar orbit.

Then it was STL’s turn again with their advanced Atlas Able Pioneers.  All four of them failed.  Spectacularly.

And so, back to JPL.  They have a new robotic lunar exploration program that they are confident will return some of NASA’s prestige in space and ensure that one day soon the Stars and Stripes will be standing tall on the lunar surface — before the Hammer and Sickle.  Named Ranger, it is actually a three-step program of increasingly sophisticated species of spacecraft: what the space agency calls Blocks.

The two Block I machines will fly this year.  Looking like an oil rig with two long solar panel “wings” at its base and a large high-gain directional dish antenna beneath, the first two Rangers will initially enter an Earth parking orbit and gradually be moved farther out into space until well beyond the Moon.  There the controllers at JPL will put the probes through their paces to see how they handle the cislunar environment to improve upon the next blocks of Ranger missions.  These won’t just be engineering flights; each Block I Ranger it will also fly a suite of scientific instruments. 

Now, JPL thought these science Rangers were good enough to make good Venus probes, too.  Their intention was to launch these modified Rangers using the Atlas-Agena B combination of rockets. 

NASA rejected this plan, instead asking JPL to develop a more ambitious planetary probe labeled Mariner A, which would use an Atlas rocket with the powerful Liquid Oxygen Centaur second stage.  The Centaur booster has a more powerful payload lifting capability, which translates into sending their Mariner A concept with more scientific instruments to either Venus or Mars.

However, the Centaur has had a number of technical issues during its development.  There is genuine concern that the new booster will not be ready in time to send a probe to Venus during the 1962 launch window.  A delay would mean waiting for the next launch window over two years hence.  NASA officials and others are quite certain that the Soviets could have their own Venus probes on their way to the second world from the Sun by next year.  A successful exploration of that planet would bring yet another space victory and political glory to the communist nation.  Thus the Ranger bus option to flyby Venus and see what dwells under its mysterious bank of clouds remains a plausible alternative.

Back to the Moon: the first Block I Ranger is scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida atop an Atlas-Agena B for late July, 1961.  Its sister probe, Ranger 2, will follow into space aboard a similar rocket sometime in October.

Ranger Block II will be the first Moon missions.  Scheduled for 1962, three probes will fly through the airless void to make a direct hit on the Moon.  The original proposal called simply for each Ranger to carry a TV camera to map potential landing sites.  But, just as nature abhors a vacuum, scientists abhor minimum missions.  Thus, some of the sky science experiments from Block I will make their way to Block II — over the protests of engineers, who abhor complication. 

The neatest bit is the MoonQuake detector.  It is hoped that the Rangers will not be completely destroyed at the end of their missions: Each probe carries atop its main bus a thick sphere of balsa wood.  At the very center of each ball is a seismometer which will determine if the Moon produces quakes just as they occur on Earth.  The balsa sphere will protect the sensitive geological instrument upon impact with the lunar surface.  Six silver cadmium batteries will power the seismometer for up to one month after the rough landing. 

Just as with earthquake science here on Earth, the Ranger 3 through 5 science packages should teach us much about the composition of the lunar interior and if the Moon is still geologically active or not.  Although most scientists now accept that the vast majority of lunar craters were caused by ancient meteor and comet impacts, it may be that some of them are actually the calderas of volcanoes.  Scientists want to know if any of them may still be active. 

Finally, we have Ranger Block III.  As with their predecessors, the robot probes of Block III will also be sent plunging into the Moon.  While these mechanical explorers will not survive their high-speed impacts with the lunar crust, they will nevertheless return thousands of increasingly detailed images of particular regions of the Moon in real time using a bank of onboard television cameras.  These images will help scientists understand the finer details of the lunar surface both for geology as well as assisting NASA with future locations for soft landing missions, including manned vessels.

The manned program that will benefit from the findings of the Ranger program is Project Apollo.  The space agency had already planned Apollo as a follow-up spacecraft to Mercury with goals including a circumlunar flight or even a lunar orbital mission.  With President Kennedy’s new mandate to place a man on the Moon by the end of this decade, NASA has already begun to expand Apollo to include the ability to land astronauts on the lunar surface.  Whether this will involve using the entire Apollo craft and the powerful Nova rocket currently on the drawing board or perhaps an alternate concept of a separate Apollo craft and lander will be decided after much study and debate.

One thing from all this is certain, though: The Soviet Union has clear ambitions for the ultimate high ground of space.  Should the Soviets come to dominate Earth orbit and our neighboring worlds, especially if they include nuclear arms in this mix, the American way of life will be under a greater threat than ever before since the end of the last World War and the start of the Cold War. 

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Science / Space Race

[May 31, 1961] First from the sun (The planet, Mercury)

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For many of us, the motivation for reading science fiction is the opportunity to explore worlds beyond our own.  Only in fantasy can we fly to faraway planets and see the unusual sights they afford us.  But, as I try to convey in this column, science can also reveal places every bit as interesting as the those that are the fruits of imagination. 

For instance, there are eight planets besides the Earth whirling around the sun, each of them a wildly different orb from ours and each other.  Moreover, while we are still on the eve of a new era of observation, utilizing space probes like the recently failed Venera and the ambiguously targeted Pioneer 5, yet the progress of technology has revolutionized even ground-based observation.  Our conception of the planets has evolved significantly in the last half-century (to say nothing of a full century ago).  It boggles the mind to imagine what we might know in another fifty years.

Let me show you these worlds, as we know them today, and as we used to know them.  I've written about Venus, and I've written about Pluto.  Today is Mercury's turn.

Mercury was known to the oldest civilizations.  It was named after the swiftest of the Roman gods because, being the closest planet to the sun, it completes its trip around the star in the shortest time.  A hundred years ago, we knew very little about this little world, in large part because it is usually lost in the sun's glare; from our vantage, Mercury never strays far from its parent star.  We knew its period (year): 88 days.  We had a rotation (day): slightly longer than that of the Earth.  The latter was a guess – it seemed that some vague features could be resolved on Mercury's tiny disk, and since they did not move much from day to day, it was thought that Mercury's day must be similar to ours. 

We knew that Mercury has no moon.  This actually makes it harder to determine the size and mass of the planet; luckily, Mercury is occasionally visited by Encke's comet, on which it exerts a measurable pull.  From that and optical observations, it was guessed that Mercury was just over 3000 miles across, about fifteen times less voluminous than the Earth.  This made it by far the smallest planet in our solar system.  We knew nothing of the planet's tilt, and there was speculation that, if the seasons were severe enough, that life might survive at one of Mercury's poles.  The relative dimness of the planet, even taking into account its size, suggested that it didn't have much of an atmosphere – at least, not a reflective one. 

And that's it!  Not a big scientific haul for a planet that was closer to Earth, on average, than Mars.  Even the early science fictioneers had little to say about the planet: Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martians knew that Mercury, which they called "Rasoom," was inhabited by an advanced race, but nothing more.

Now we move to the present day…and we still don't know a whole lot about Mercury!  We do now know that Mercury must be airless or nearly so.  It would be hard for a planet so small to hold onto the energetic gases that make up an atmosphere, particularly a superheated one.  Additionally, whenever Mercury has crossed the disc of the sun, in an event known as a transit, observers have spotted no telltale halo that would betray the existence of air.  The romantic notion that life could exist on the planet seems forever excluded even from the realm of science fiction, though it should be noted that some mid-century polarimetry observations (measuring how sunlight scatters off of things) suggest that there is some Mercurian atmosphere. 

We still don't know much about the surface of the planet, but it is assumed that it mimics that of Earth's moon.  It has a similar color, and the difference in the density of light reflecting depends on Mercury's phase (both of the planets closer to the sun than the Earth exhibit phases, of course – from new, to crescent, gibbous, then full, and back again); this suggests that the planet's surface is rough.  Imagine giant Mercurian craters, jagged mountains, deep canyons, all more outsized than we generally conceive thanks to Mercury's light gravity.

And that 24-hour Mercurian day?  Well, there is another rotation scheme that fits the evidence even better.  If Mercury doesn't rotate at all, presenting one face to the sun at all times, as the moon does to the Earth, this also is consistent with its unvarying surface features over the span of several days.  In fact, given Mercury's proximity to the great gravitational pull of the sun, it is likely that Mercury is "tidally locked". 

Thus, one side of the planet is forever being broiled with terrific intensity, hot enough to melt lead!  Then you have the back side that never sees the sun.  It may well be the coldest place in the solar system – even more frigid than faraway Pluto.  Imagine an eternally dark landscape so cold that there could be lakes of hydrogen.  The dimmest of shadows would be cast by the rugged Mercurian mountainscape in the meager Venus-light.  Talk about bleakly exotic!

And at Mercury's ring of unchanging twilight, perhaps there is a temperate zone where life could yet flourish, especially if there is, though evidence be against it, a measurable atmosphere on the smallest of our solar system's worlds.  I suppose there may yet be stories to write about the first planet from the sun…

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Movies, Science Fiction/Fantasy, TV

[May 27, 1961] RED STAR, BLUE STAR (May 1961 UK Fandom report)

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[Ashley Pollard is back with this month's report on the space and sci-fi scene across the Pond!  Yes, I did use the term "sci-fi" advisedly…]

Last month a Red Star rose in the East.  This month a Blue Star rose in the West as Alan Shepherd became the first American in space.  He was aboard the Freedom 7 Mercury capsule launched atop the Mercury-Redstone 3 booster — showing it's possible to reach space without getting to orbit. While this may be seen as a bit of disappointment, it clearly demonstrates American caution in testing systems before clearing them for flight.  Something I’m sure the astronauts approve of, as they sit atop what is a potential bomb if things go wrong.

I understand that there’s another flight using the Redstone booster in July to look forward to, but my friend Gerry Webb, a member of the British Interplanetary Society, informs me the larger Mercury-Atlas booster is required to propel a man into orbit.  However, I’m sure it won’t be long until an American astronaut orbits the Earth as both the Russian and American space agencies strive to be the first to achieve the next new record.  I will be following the action as the Space Race hots up.

Meanwhile, at the last Thursday night’s London Circle meeting, once one had gotten through the frothing going on about memberships cards and the current fan feud that rolls on, we sat down and discussed the lamentable state of the British space programme.  I braced myself with a Gin & Tonic, with ice and a slice, for the lamentation of the space geeks.

To summarize Great Britain’s role in space, we lag far behind both United States and the Soviet Union, our government having cancelled Blue Streak early last year, which was a medium-range ballistic missile that would’ve made a good basis for a British rocket.  It was being tested at the Woomera Rocket Range in Australia (named, aptly, after an Aboriginal spear throwing aid).  Woomera has plenty of room to fire rockets into space, unlike the Home Counties or anywhere else for that matter on the British Isles.

Shortly after announcing the cancellation of the Blue Streak our government changed its mind and said it would develop a two-stage rocket called Black Prince: using Blue Streak for the bottom stage and our Black Knight missile for the top.  Gerry tells me that the names are generated from the British government’s Rainbow Code that uses a colour and a randomly generated word for aerospace projects.  Unfortunately, for British fans of space rocketry, our government then went and cancelled the Black Prince project for being far too expensive.

I’m afraid that only leaves us the fictional British rocket programmes to fly the flag for us in space.

We start with the "British Experimental Rocket Group" from Quatermass by Nigel Kneale (the television show which wrapped up almost a decade ago, but which spawned two sequels).  As space projects go, it can’t be said to have been a complete success for two very good reasons.  First was the loss of ship on landing, and then there was the small matter of the crew dying and the mutated survivor wanting to chomp down on the inhabitants of the City of London.

However, that still leaves us with Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, which I haven’t mentioned before.  He is the eponymous hero of the Eagle comic’s lead strip.  Dan Dare is the lead test pilot of the "Interplanet Space Fleet", whose adventures in space are still delighting its readers after ten years of weekly installments.  The series was created by Frank Hampson who consulted Arthur C. Clarke on the comic strips' science.  While lots of spaceships have been lost, favourites like Dan Dare’s own Anastasia fly around the Solar system rescuing those in need of help, and defeating the various nefarious plans of enemies like the Mekon: large headed green alien overlords from Venus (and I expect you thought I would say Mars – still green though).

And finally we have UNEXA, the "United Nations Exploration Agency."  This organization launches space missions and is the creation of Hugh Walters who has written a series of children’s science fiction that starts with Blast Off at Woomera.  Ah that Woomera, which is no longer the centre of British aspirations in space.  Sometimes fiction is better than fact.

Needless to say, most of those around the table with me had that look on their faces I always see when I mention something that’s considered off piste in polite science fiction company.  And don’t get me started about the furore it causes if one dares to use Forrest J Ackerman’s term for our genre: Sci-Fi . I can only hope that in the future that people who enjoy reading and watching SF, including comics, will be accepted as fans like the rest of those who only read books and magazines . Besides I like pronouncing Sci-Fi as Skiffy, because skiffy rhymes with spiffy.  Moreover, I think that reading SF is a smart thing as the world around us transforms from steam and steel into space and computers.

The other topic du jour has been George Blake née George Behar who was sentenced to 42 years in prison for being a spy for the Russians.  Spying has become a topic of interest in my circles because of the link to secrets, and the nature of those secrets were the topic of a long discussion.  Featuring prominently were atomic bombs, which were up until a few years ago the sole purview of those science fiction types who like to fantasize about going into space.  I only comment about the spying, because as I said last time I’ve been watching the TV spy show The Avengers, which has just finished being broadcast for the season.  As has Supercar for that matter.

I note that there are a lot of what would have been considered quite science fictional elements in Avengers.  Perhaps not overtly showcased, but covertly in the use of science McGuffins to drive the stories forward.  It should come as no surprise to hear the show being called Spy-Fi, which underscores my point.  Language evolves, and as long as terms are not used to denigrate a genre, then I really don’t mind if you call what I read or watch Sci-Fi.

So, we now live in a world where science fiction can no longer be denied yet, we are still able to start endless bickering over whether it’s called science fiction, SF, Sci-Fi or even speculative fiction, a term I encountered when used by Robert A. Heinlein, though I understand he wasn’t the first to coin the expression.  The point being is that I prefer to imagine a future where we can all be the best of what we can be, and that we live being non-judgemental and have unconditional positive regard for our fellow human beings whether they be right or wrong.  Now isn’t that a science fictional ideal worth pursuing as we blast off into the Final Frontier.

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Magazine, Science / Space Race

[May 16, 1961] The Fourth Revolution (the next step in communication)

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Why read science fiction?  To act as your headlights as you hurtle faster and faster down the but dimly visible road to the future.  Reading through this month's Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy (June 1961), I found Dr. Isaac Asimov's article particularly thought-provoking.  I'd like to get your thoughts.

It's called Four Steps to Salvation.  The Good Doctor attributes the success of our species to a series of revolutions in communication.  They are:

1) Speech.  Some tens of thousands of years ago, humans developed the ability to communicate via verbal language.  Before that, conveyance of art and technology was limited to imitation — monkey see, monkey do.  The creation of sophisticated tools, the taming of fire, the evolution of artistic technique was impossible before we could talk to each other.  After all, how sophisticated can a skill get when it must be reinvented from scratch every generation?

2) Writing.  Per Asimov, oral tradition only has a lifetime of about four generations (the longevity of Homer's epics notwithstanding).  Written language was the revolution that made civilization, literally the creation of cities, possible.  So goes his contention, anyway.  I'm not convinced that civilization sprang from writing; rather, I think writing was a technology made necessary by civilization.  Nevertheless, there is no denying the wonders a set of representative squiggles called the alphabet allowed.  Knowledge could now be stored indefinitely to the advantage and delight of engineers, musicians, and countless bureaucrats.

3) Printing.  Everyone is familiar with the tragedy of the Alexandrian Library's burning.  That was just one event of many — in fact, a comparative handful of classical works made it out of late antiquity owing to the paucity of books and the indifference toward their storage.  When composing a codex involves weeks of painstaking work, particularly when literacy is at a premium, the distribution of written works is necessarily quite limited.  This makes any single work vulnerable.

Gutenberg changed all that.  Suddenly, books became commodities, available to everyone.  Ideas could no longer be suppressed,.  The ability to read spread and flourished.  Scientific growth exploded now that everyone had access to everyone else's works.  It is no exaggeration to say that books powered the Renaissance.

Fast-forward to today: 1961.  I've heard that there is more information generated by our species in a single decade than was created in all the years of history prior.  Not only is impossible for one person to know everything there is to know (the last time for that was around Dante's time in the early 14th Century), but in fact, it is impossible to know everything about just one discipline of science. 

This is Asimov's concern: the current methods of communication are simply too slow and restricted to facilitate dissemination of all of humanity's knowledge.  The whole system of science will eventually, he asserts, collapse under its own weight of data.  Here we are on the verge of a whole new age of invention and we are in risk of losing it all for our inability to build upon it.  What's required is a new, fourth revolution in communication.

And he doesn't know what it is.

'Is telepathy the answer?' Asimov wonders aloud (knowing full-well that there's no such thing, at least not naturally).  He suggests microfilm and punch cards but then quickly dismisses them as insufficient solutions.  He then, almost plaintively, turns the question over to his readers.  That's how I got involved.

I'm an optimist.  I believe the human race will always fox its way out of a pickle no matter how daunting.  As for this puzzle, I can't say I have a concrete answer either, although the very phrase "fast-forward,," a newish term referring to the practice of speeding ahead on a magnetic tape medium, suggests a potential course. 

These days, it is true that computers get much of their input from punch cards, little pieces of cardstock with holes in them that represent the digital alphabet understood by machines.  But they also can read tape now, dramatically increasing their storage capacity.  One wonders if there might be some kind of ultimate computer some day, an OMNIVAC with terminals in every home, such that we can all access the sum of human knowledge, stored on tape, with the press of a few keys?  Throw in those visiphones that have been a staple of science fiction since Dick Tracy, a few of those Arthur C. Clarke communications satellites to facilitate cross-ocean broadcast, and WHAMMO!  You've got yourself a global knowledge network, up to the task of keeping all of humanity in touch and up to date.

That's just one solution, of course, and the fact that no one seems to be talking about it suggests it's unfeasible.  On the other hand, they say that technological advance is the result of taking tools that already exist and putting them together in a new way.  One way or another, I think we're on the verge of that fourth revolution. 

What do you think?

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Science / Space Race

[May 6, 1961] Dreams into Reality (First American in Space)

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I've been asked why it is that, as a reviewer of science fiction, I devote so much ink to the Space Race and other scientific non-fiction.  I find it interesting that fans of the first would not necessarily be interested in the second, and vice versa. 

There are three reasons non-fiction figures so prominently in this column:

1) I like non-fiction;
2) All the science fiction mags have a non-fiction column;
3) Science fiction without science fact is without context.

Let me expand on Point 3.  Science is different from all other philosophies because of its underpinning of reality.  My wife and I had this debate in graduate school many years ago with our fellow students.  They felt that, so long as their systems were logical, their views on how the universe worked were just as valid as any others – certainly more valid that lousy ol' science, with its dirty experiments and boring empiricism.

They're wrong, of course.  Religion and philosophy have discerned little about the natural universe except by accident or where the practitioners have utilized some version of the scientific method.  The fact is, there is a real universe out there, and it pushes back at our inquiries.  That "friction" is what allows us to experiment as to its nature.  It's why we have wonders like airplanes, nuclear power, the polio vaccine, the contraceptive pill. 

Similarly, science fiction is nowheresville without an underpinning of science.  Science fiction is not make believe – it is extrapolation of scientific trends.  Even fantasy makes use of science; ask Tolkien about his rigorous application of linguistics in his construction of Elvish.  It is important that my readers keep abreast of the latest science fact so they can better understand and appreciate the latest science fiction. 

And it goes both ways – the science of today is directly influenced and inspired by the dreams of yesterday.  Without science fiction, science is a passionless endeavor.  Jules Verne showed us space travel long before Nikita Khruschev. 

Thus ends the awfully long preface to today's article, which as anyone might guess, covers America's first manned space mission.  Yesterday morning, May 5, 1961, Commander Alan B. Shepard rocketed to a height of nearly 190 kilometers in the Mercury spacecraft he christened "Freedom 7."  His flight duplicated that of chimpanzee Ham's February trip: a sub-orbital jaunt that plopped him in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.  He flew for just 15 minutes.

The flight was so short because Shepard's rocket, the same Redstone that launched the first American satellite into orbit, was simply too weak to push the two-ton Mercury fast enough to circle the Earth.  The Redstone is an old missile, made by the Army in the early '50s.  It is significantly weaker than the Soviet ICBM that hurled the first cosmonaut into space.  It looked embarrassingly undersized compared to the Mercury it carried – like a toy rocket.

We have a booster comparable to that which launched Vostok, the ICBM called Atlas, but it's not ready yet.  In fact, a test shot of the Atlas-Mercury combination (MA-3) failed miserably just last week on April 25, and before that, the Atlas failed in four out of four unmanned Moon missions.  It is likely that we won't see an American in orbit until 1962.

The flight of "Freedom 7" might have impressed more had it before occurred the Soviet orbital shot that made the headlines on April 12.  In fact, a Mercury-Redstone did go up on March 24, a full three weeks earlier.  It carried an unmanned boiler-plate Mercury capsule; the main purpose of the mission to make sure the Redstone was truly ready for a human passenger since it had been a little balky during Ham's flight.

The flight of "MR-BD" went perfectly.  Had MR-BD been a manned mission, Shepard would have been the first human in space. 

And so the Soviets scored yet another first in the Space Race.  But does it matter?  NASA is already soliciting designs for its "Apollo" series of Moon ships, scheduled to launch at the end of the decade.  The Russians announced a similar program on May Day.  If this is going to go on for the long haul, I prefer a measured, safety-conscious space program over a reckless one.  The tortoise beat the hare, and I predict Shepard's flight is just the first tentative step toward a permanent American presence in space.

The Mercury capsules are proven.  Our astronauts are proven.  All that's left is the Atlas.  Let's do things right the first time rather than repeat the failures of the Air Force's Discoverer program and the Soviet Vostok program.  I want all my astronauts back safe and sound; this is a marathon, not a sprint.

And at the end of it, all those space travel stories we've enjoyed for decades will at last become reality.  A triumph for science fiction and science.

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Science / Space Race

[April 28, 1961] Newies but goodies (April space round-up!)

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They say "You're only as old as you feel," which explains why Asimov pinches co-eds at conventions.

I've been asked why someone of my advanced age is into the bop and rock and billy that the kids are into these days, when I should be preferring the likes of Glenn Miller or Caruso.  Truth be told, I do like the music of my youth, the swing of the 30s and the war years (no, I didn't serve.  I was 4F.  My brother, Lou, was in five Pacific invasions, though.) But there's something to today's music, something new.  Lou's kid, David, really turned me onto this stuff – the Cubano and the Rock n' Roll.  Music beyond whitebread and Lawrence Welk. 

It makes me feel…young.

I've got a full month of space news to catch up, in large part because I was remiss around the end of last month thanks to Wondercon.  And then Gagarin's flight eclipsed all else in significance for a while, but there is more to off-planet exploration than men in capsules.

Like dogs in capsules.  Gagarin's flight was preceded by Sputnik 10, launched March 25.  In retrospect, it is clear that it was a test flight of the Vostok spacecraft, and it carried a mannequin cosmonaut and a dog, Zvezdocha ("Little star" – a charming name).  Both passengers returned safely to Earth. 

The fact that Sputnik 9, Sputnik 10, and Vostok 1 all launched in such close succession is a testament to the robustness of the Soviet space program.  It is clear that they have plenty of boosters and capsules to fling into space.  One has to wonder if their second manned space shot will precede our first (currently scheduled for May 4.)

Also launched March 25 was the diminutive and short-lived Explorer 10.  Its brief lifespan was intentional.  The little probe was sent on a eccentric orbit that took it nearly half-way to the Moon.  For just 52 hours, the craft returned data on the magnetic fields in cislunar space, well above the energetic Van Allen Belts.  It may seem a waste to send a satellite up for such a short time, but solar panels are heavy, and the Thor Delta that boosted it can only throw so much into space. 

Some of the results are straightforward — it confirmed the speed and density of solar flare protons.  As for the magnetospheric results, well, their interpretation depends on the answer to one question: did Explorer 10 probe into a realm beyond Earth's magnetic field (thus measuring the sun's field) or just its outer reaches? 

Columbus' first trip returned inconclusive results about the New World; so it will take several more satellites to properly map the high electromagnetic frontier.

Speaking of seeing the unknown, many humans (yours truly included) have some degree of color-blindness.  That is, there are wavelengths of the visual electromagnetic spectrum that we cannot distinguish from others.  For all intents and purposes, those colors don't exist to us. 

All humans are subject to another kind of color-blindness, one caused by the atmosphere.  You see, while the sky seems perfectly clear to us, at least at night, in fact the air blocks a good many wavelengths of light that we'd be able to detect if it weren't there.  Not with our eyes, to be sure, but with equipment. 

X-Rays, for instance.  High-flying sounding rockets have found tantalizing evidence that the Sun emits those high energy waves.  Explorer 7's and Vanguard 3's X-Ray detectors were swamped by the radiation of the Van Allen Belts.  Solrad, equipped with a magnetic sweeper, was humanity's first eye in the sky that could see light in that spectrum, though only in a crude fashion, counting the photons as they struck its photocell.  Perhaps the upcoming Orbital Solar Observatory will see more.

Even more elusive are the extremely energetic gamma rays, normally only detected as radiation from natural and artificial nuclear reactions.  Logic would suggest that these rays are emitted by stars, but there is no way to be sure from the ground.

Enter Explorer 11, launched on one of the last Juno II rockets (thankfully, it worked; these neglected boosters have a mere 50/50 chance of success.) It looks to my eye like the early Explorers, which makes sense: the body of the probe is the little Sergeant rocket that makes up the fourth stage of both the Juno I and II.  This little guy is the first satellite that can detect light in the gamma ray end of the spectrum.  Again, it isn't a camera, but it will detect the number and direction of the rays that hit its sensors.  Who knows just what it will find!

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Science / Space Race

[April 12, 1961] Stargrazing (the flight of Vostok)

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The jangling of the telephone broke my slumber far too early.  Groggily, I paced to the handset, half concerned, half furious.  I picked it up, but before I could say a word, I heard a frantic voice.

"Turn on your radio right now!"

I blinked.  "Wha.." I managed. 

"Really!" the voice urged.  I still didn't even know who was calling. 

Nevertheless, I went to the little maroon Zenith on my dresser and turned the knob.  The 'phone was forgotten in my grip as I waited for the tubes to warm up.  10 seconds later, I heard the news.

It had happened.  A man had been shot into orbit.  And it wasn't one of ours.

Last night, Major Yuri Alekseyivich Gagarin blasted off from the Soviet Union in his Vostok spacecraft (Vostok means "East" in Russian, and it is in that direction that the rocket flew).  He circled the Earth once before landing with his vehicle.  Protected only by steel walls and a space suit, he made it to orbit and back.  I had to sit down, so dizzying was the news.

I've now had a few hours to think about this event and determine just what it means for all of us.

For ages, humanity has dreamed about journeying to outer space.  We have now finally taken our first shuffling steps off of our world. 

Half a century ago, a Russian named Tsiolkovsky determined the first practical way to get there — at the tips of rockets.  So it is appropriate that the first human to traverse the regions beyond our atmosphere was a Russian. 

For the Communists, it is yet another victory in a race that as yet has no finish line.  A demonstration of their superior rocketry, or perhaps a greater willingness to gamble with a person's life. 

For the Americans, it is a challenge to meet, not a discouragement.  "It doesn't change our program one bit," said Marine Colonel John Glenn, who may well be the first American in space.

For science fiction fans, the impact is tremendous.  We have been writing about space travel for decades like a virgin writes about intercourse: avidly, but without experience.  Just the other month, there were published stories involving the predicted psychic and physical dangers of space, too horrible to be surmounted.

And yet, Gagarin did it.  If he can, others will.  Space may not be safe, but it is survivable.

Soon, we will have a flood of new data, and our s-f stories will change accordingly to accommodate.  I expect we'll have fewer tales of astronauts who jaunt out in their rocket as if they're out on a Sunday drive, more stories of space programs and the thousands of engineers who make up the bulk of the logistical iceberg. 

Some have opined that the more we explore the frontiers that were once solely the province of fiction, the less magical we make our world.  I must disagree.  This new frontier has hardly been touched, and even when we have thoroughly mapped the regions of low orbit, there is then high orbit, the Moon, the planets, the stars.  Each frontier is a gateway to the next.

Today, science fiction is fact, and the domain of science fiction has broadened.  I've never been more excited.

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Fashion, music, politics, sports, Science / Space Race

[March 31, 1961] Real-world round-up for March

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Here's an end of March, real-world round-up for you before we plunge into the science fiction of April:


http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/Archives/JFKWHP-AR6454-B.aspx

President Kennedy devoted a good deal of time to the civil war in Laos at his fifth press conference, March 23.  This three-cornered fight between the nationalists (propped up by the United States), the Communist Pathet Lao (backed by the Soviets and the North Vietnamese), and the neutralists has been going on since the end of last year.  The US Navy Seventh Fleet was recently dispatched to the region along with a contingent of troops.  For a while, it looked as if we were looking at another Korea.

I'm happy to report that both Kennedy and Premier Khruschev have now proposed plans for peaceful solutions to the crisis that involve the invading North Vietnamese disarming and going home.  I fervently hope that this means Southeast Asia won't be the site of war in the 1960s.

Speaking of Kennedy and war, the President recently asked Congress for a significantly bigger defense package.  This would see the United States armed with 1200 nuclear-tipped missiles by 1965!

On the dove-ish side of the coin, Kennedy also asked for an increase in the NASA budget for development of the mighty "Saturn C-2", which would facilitate manned flights around the Moon by 1966.

On the subject of space, NASA pilot Joe Walker took the X-15 spaceplane to a record height of 31 miles above the Earth yesterday, more than five miles higher than anyone has flown the craft before.  During a good portion of his 10-minute flight, the plane's stubby wings and control surfaces had nothing to "bite" into, the atmosphere being so rarefied at that altitude.  For all intents and purposes, it was a flight in space, down to the unwinking white stars that filled the daylight sky. 

And he only got halfway to the rocketship's expected maximum altitude!

Meanwhile, the Air Force failed to get into orbit the 22nd in their Discoverer series.  These probes are ostensibly for orbiting and returning biological samples, but they really test components for their Samos spy satellites.  There was supposed to be a monkey on this one, but I haven't read any reports about it.  Perhaps the fly-boys were merciful and just stuffed the spaceship with non-perishable hardware.


http://photos.clevescene.com/28-vintage-photos-karamu-house/?slide=9&children-look-through-a-telescope-at-karamu-house-1961

Now let's look ahead at April.  There will, of course, be the three magazines, IF, Analog, and Fantasy and Science Fiction, the monthly The Twilight Zone round-up, and perhaps a trip to the movies.  I have Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Door Through Space on my bedside table, but it hasn't gripped me yet.  We'll see.

We'll also see more of our new regular columnist, Rosemary Benton, and along those lines, I've got another surprise for you 'round mid-month!

S'okay?  S'alright.

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Science / Space Race

[Mar. 10, 1961] Dog and Puppy Show (Sputnik 9)

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We are definitely not far away from a person in space.  The Soviets launched another of their five-ton spaceships into orbit.  We're calling it Sputnik 9; who knows what they call it?  On board was just one dog this time, name of Chernushka, who was recovered successfully after an unknown number of orbits.  It is pretty clear that the vessel that carried Chernushka is the equivalent of our Mercury capsule, and once the Russians have gotten the bugs out of the ship, you can bet there will be a human at the controls.

This is not to say that the American program is standing still—one of our astronauts may go up on a suborbital jaunt as early as next month.  But the Atlas booster, the big one that can put a man in orbit, won't be ready until the end of the year, at the earliest. 

By the way, if you're wondering how the two dogs who went up in Sputnik 5, Strelka and Belka, are doing, you'll be happy to know that they are alive and well.  Strelka's given birth to a litter of six!  Anyone want to adopt a space puppy?

Meanwhile, closer to home (but not that much closer), NASA sent its X-15 spaceplane on its fastest flight yet.  I explained not too long ago that the X-15 has got a new engine, one designed to propel it to unprecedented heights and speeds. 

Sure enough, the powerful XLR99 engine pushed the spaceplane and pilot Major Bob White to a height of 77,000 feet and a record speed of 2,650 mph (Mach 4.43).  That was nearly 400 mph faster than White had managed using the weaker XLR11 engines—and he didn't even open the throttle wide open!

"I felt no sensation of speed except for the explosive thrust when I first lighted the engine.  That was about double the acceleration of the smaller engine used in earlier flights," White said after the flight had made the Major the fastest man alive. 

While the X-15 will never propel itself to orbit (at least, not without some kind of booster-assisted help, plans for which have been drafted), it will fly as fast as Mach 6 and up to 300,000 feet.  At that height, the sky is black and the limb of the Earth is round; one could argue that it's close enough to Space to count as Space by any measure that matters.

Stay tuned for the rest of this month's Galaxy!

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