Feb 22 1964
From The Space Library
First Soviet-American space communications experiment, with British cooperation, was conducted successfully at 2:00 a.m. Moscow time, Tass reported. Radio signal sent from Jodrell Bank Experimental Station bounced off ECHO II balloon satellite and was received by Zimenki Observatory near Gorki. Tass said, "This marks a success of the first experiment in super-long distance international cosmic radio communications on ultra short waves." (AP, Wash. Eve. Star, 2/22/64)
Published reports about the SST study prepared for the White House by Eugene Black and Stanley deJ. Osborne had failed to mention the report's strong endorsement of SST development, Evert Clark reported in New York Times. According to Clark, letter transmitting the report, still not officially released, said development of SST was "of great economic importance to the nation. . . . Failure to do so might well leave our important airline and aircraft industries in potentially dangerous competitive situations." (Clark, NYT, 2/22/64, 1)
Sir Bernard Lovell, Director of Britain's Jodrell Bank Experimental Station, advocated international controls on space experiments. In Saturday Evening Post article, he said: "It is now time for concern about the ethical standards which man must apply to embryonic dangers which are not obvious. We cannot afford to wait until the dangers become practically apparent, since some experiments may create an irretrievable condition. . . ." As an example, he described the ozone layer, and continued: ". . . it happens that zone is rather easy to destroy. And if it is intentionally or accidentally removed, then the ultraviolet radiation would penetrate to earth. If this happened for a sufficiently long period, then human beings might suffer severe sunburn and possible sterilization. Further, the temperature distribution in the atmosphere could be radically altered and, in the state of our present knowledge, no one could predict what climatic changes might occur. "It is not difficult to estimate that a few tons of suitable contaminant, deposited in the atmosphere 25 miles above the earth, would destroy the ozone over several miles for a few hours. . . . a rocket launched from earth to land a man on the moon might burn up 2,000 tons of fuel in its passage through the earth's atmosphere...[and] the launching of one such rocket a week might well lead to a permanent transformation of the conditions in the high atmosphere," according to recent study by the Advanced Research Projects Agency. 46. . . when one turns from the contamination as an accidental by-product to an intentional act, an ugly array of possibilities is revealed. To begin With, specially selected substances could be deposited in great quantities at precise altitudes. . .. The American [ARPA] report states that 25 tons of fluorine would be sufficient to depopulate the ionosphere of electrons and so blot out all long-distance radiotelephony. The deposition of large quantities of gases like carbon monoxide at an altitude of 25 miles might radically alter the temperature distribution and the climatic conditions by absorbing some of the sun's infrared radiation. . . . "The human race therefore faces a critical situation in the next few decades, because there is at the moment little evidence of the moral and legal controls which must be enforced if man's continued life on earth is not to be jeopardized by the accidental or intentional results of space research. There are large areas of uncertainty, so that it is not yet possible to assess whether various other space activities may affect man more directly than in the inhibition of his study of the cosmos. It is a vital necessity of our age that the political decisions on these problems should be based on the judgment of the international scientific community, and that this judgment should govern the future space launchings of the world." (Sat. Eve. Post, 2/22/64, 10, 14)
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