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Wednesday, Oct. 4, 1967 Griffin Daily* New* By RICHARD C. LONGWORTH MOSCOW (UPD—Ten • years ago, a Russia just emerging from the long night of Stalinism dazzled and frightened the world by breaking the gravita tional grip that tied man to his planet. The vehicle was Sputnig-T a ball of metal no bigger than a toy balloon and no heavier than a kitchen sink. It hurtled around the Earth at 18,000 miles per hour. The launching put a new word In the language—“sputnik” be came a synonym for “satellite." It meant that the Soviet Union had won the first lap of the race for space. Most important, it served notice that the Russians owned a sophisticated science equal to —and in this case clearly superior to—anyting in the West. Traumatic Experience For the United States, the experience was traumatic. The sound of the Russian “bleep bleep-bleep” In the skies over head galvanized American edu cators and physicists and made the launching of Sputnik-1 a national watershed. For the Soviet Union, the experlnce was euphoric “I remember waking up that morning and hearing the news on the radio,” one Muscovite recalls. “There was no dancing in the streets, of course. But there were handshakes, and FOR SERVICE ON ALL MAJOR COMMODITIES Call or visit: Mr. Carl L Kelley THOMSON & McKinnon Members New York Stock Exchange 113 West Taylor St. - Griffin, Ga. Telephone: 227-1335 xajilv * / Z ''i \ Z ' 1/ K \ f / ' /X > 'guSPB \ 'W'/ / !® K jM \ JML -www ( \ K ' V ■ /Sw. 1 t f\ nlWtk I ; \ I \ \J I 1 ’ \ O\\ W ■i# * * \ 'I I ||fe/\ x f SWii / \ A 1' z\\~- _ -m v ViWvJAJ Jr L. - '"CT \\\Xx wk <„ ' ' x 'wSiliili Choose from three popular types SEAMLESS NYLONS Sheer demi-toe mesh, forced heel and toe or teenager demi-toe mesh. Rosetone, suntone, cinna- mon, smoketone. 9-11. tleg. pr. YOUR MONEY’S WORTH MOM AT 1 WOOLWORTH'S Russia Started It With Sputnik Space Age Is 10 Years Old kissing, and backslapping. Most of all, I remember a tremen dous feeling of pride—that we had done it—and that we were first.” On that day—Oct. 4, 1957— President Dwight D. Eisenhow er was in the White House, Just starting his second term. Nikita S. Khrushchev ruled with new strength over the Kremlin, having Just crushed the "anti party group” that sought to oust him. Cape Kennedy was an empty sand spit called Canaveral with barely a motel to its name. Its Russian counterpart, Baikonur, was a desert town northeast of the Aral Sea known only to geographers. Predictions Outdated The great names of the space age—Glenn and Gagarin, Titov and Tereshkova, Shlrra and Shepard—were only unsung Items on a pilots* roster or a classroom list. So were those of the martyrs—Grissom, White, Chaffee and Komarov. The advances of the next 10 years were, quite literally, undreamed of. Those who are impatient with the pace of space progress should recall the predictions—scored by many as pipe dreams — that preceded Sputnlk-1. In 1954, an American expert said the first unmanned satellite was at least 15 years away. A Russian scientist said 10 years was more like it. Sputnik-1 came within three years. In 1956, a Russian predicted an unmanned rocket to the Moon by 1966. A Soviet rocket actually got there by 1959. Another Soviet scientist fore cast manned flights to the Moon by the year 2000. Both Russia and America may do it by 1970. Early Autumn It was early autumn and still warm In Moscow on Oct. 4, 1957. Tass, the government news agency, made an impor tant midnight announcement: “The world’s first man-made Earth satellite has been con structed . . . and successfully launched in the USSR.” It was 4 p.m. in New York. By dinnertime, Sputnik - l’s “bleep-bleep” poured from ra dios across America. Reaction was swift In Wash ington Sen. Stuart Symington called Sputnik-1 “a technologi cal Pearl Harbor.” “A most disastrous blow,” said Sen. Richard Russell. Sen. Styles Bridges called on America to 24 -x Jr- JBB tsHB ■' Jf! ■ 11 F * ■ j-k, ■ sKs I r «nl - kwwlw fit. - 1 r -Jill re Amor-ifMH c nm - A * or the three manned-flight projects—Mercury, Gemini and Apollo—have American Space Capsules grown | arger while ho | ding t 0 a gencra | configuration. At left, technicians suited up as astronauts are shown with the one-man Mercury and the two-man Germni capsules. At right, pioneer astro nauts Scott Carpenter, John Glenn and Walter Schirra check out an early mockup of the three-man Apollo. ndv '£• 1- A EsBHHBmbBI 3 Soviet Space Capsules inc,ude the one-man Vostok «•- raft, left, photographed at a Moscow exhibition, and the two-man Voskhod, < shown being prepared for launching. Yuri Gaga rin made the first manned flight in a Vostok April 12,1961. give “blood, sweat and tears.” Educational Revolution Russia’s achievement,” a British reporter wrote, “has accomplished more in a few weeks to wake up the American public and officials to the importance of scientific re search and development than anything else has been able to do in as many years.” President Eisenhower found it necessary to give two reassur ing televised speeches on science and national security. Nonetheless a great popular demand arose for a national drive toward scientific excel lence. Crash science programs bloomed in colleges and high schools. Backyard astronomers proliferated. Alarmed commen tators called for more physics and less football. Sputnik-1, a 184-pound orb carrying only a radio and a battery on a trip 560 miles high, lived a short, noisy life. It made 1,367 orbits, traveled 43 million miles and burned up Jan. 4, 1958, when the Earth’s gravity pulled it back into the atmosphere. By that time Russia had a new and bigger satellite up— Sputnik-2 This weighed 1,120 pounds and carried a passenger, the famous dog Laika, who suffocated in orbit. America’s “Project Va n guard” had been postponed, to public disappointment. until 1958. The United States began the long race to catch up when it orbited Explorer-1, a 31-pound satellite, on Jan. 31, 1958. In the decade since Sputnik-1, the two most powerful nations on Earth have been engaged in an expensive, leap-frogging space race. Russia orbited the Sun, hit the Moon and photographed the far side of the lunar surface in 1959. The Soviets brought back animals from space—the dogs Strelka and Belka—in 1960, one pet DMtrtWMM ikimwuiio -^<* i *** - * *!*% i ? ji ggJC I"4KBM - fc: ' ' Tested hMk |. J 23 times aK?Twß|j| for qualityTLXWß| Pour the one w you're sure 0f... Pet Fresh Milk W week after the U.S. had retrieved a satellite from orbit. In 1961, Russia won the second lap of the space race. A shy young test pilot named Yuri Gagarin made one orbit to become the first man in space. On his return, he was enshrined as a national hero, but banned from doing the one thing he wants most—making another trip into sapce. Triumphs and Tragedies Russia held the lead in manned space travel through March, 1965, when Alexei Leonov made the first “space walk” by spending 10 minutes outside his orbiting spaceship, Voskhod-2. After Leonov’s flight, the Kremlin decided to scrap the rest of the “voskhod” series of spaceships, apparently for budg etary reasons, and go straight to the multi-manned “Soyuz” series. It took time—two years and by the time “Soyuz-1 was ready, the United States had jumped into the lead in every category with its “Gemini” series. To cite just one area, U.S astronauts logged 259 minutes of spacewalking, compared to Leonov’s 10 minutes. In the meantime, unmanned exploration forged ahead. Rus sia crashlanded a rocket on Venus. The U.S. photographed Mars. Both nations probed the soil of the moon and pronounced it fit for a manned landing. Nothing seemed impossible. Every venture, no matter how difficult, seemed assured of triumph. It wasn’t that simple. The 10 th year, 1967, demonstrated that the conquest of space will be costly in lives as well as money. Three American astronauts died on the ground, trapped in a flash fire inside the Apollo spacecraft. Russians were sym pathetic, knowing that it could happen here, too. Three months later, it did. Vladimir Komarov, the first Russian to make two trips into space, piloted Soyuz-1 into orbit on orders to link up with a six man spacecraft to be launched later. He ran into trouble, began tumbling, apparently righted himself, then was ordered to cut short his trip and re-enter the atmoshepre His spaceship tangled in its parachute cords and plunged four miles to the Ural Mountains below. Soyuz-1 had an ejector seat but, through choice or necessity, Komarov elected to ride it down. He died instantly. Shrouded In Secrecy What of the future? Russia has won the first two laps of the space race. The third lap a manned moon landing—is any body’s race. The task of predicting what course the Soviet space pro gram will take is still more art than science, due to a maze of contradictory official state ments, wishful thinking or special pleading by unofficial spokesmen, rumors, the Soviet mania for secrecy—and proba ble indecision in the Kremlin itself about this nation’s long term space aims. • For instance, Khrushchev publicly said in 1963 that Russia had dropped out of the man-on the-moon race. If the Ameri cans make it by 1970, he said, “I wish them success.” There is evidence that Khrushchev also ordered substantial budget cuts in Russia’s man-in-space pro gram. Khrushchev’s successors rev ersed his policy. There is no question now that the Soviets are out to beat America to a manned moon landing, and many experts give *them a chance to get there in late 1969 or 1970 possibly before U.S. astronauts. There is considerable differ ence of opinion over how the Soviets plan to get there, what their immediate plans for space exploration are, and where they will go after the moon. A study LOANS ON • FURNITURE • AUTOMOBILE • REAL ESTATE $19.00 to $2,500.00 UP TO 24 MONTHS TO PAY CONFIDENTIAL - QUICK COURTEOUS SERVICE SINCE 1938 DIAL 227-2561 h GRIFFEN FINANCE & THRIFT CO. G. K. ROBINSON, MGR. 11l South Hill Street — Griffin, Georgia of Soviet statements and American analyses, however, form a blurry blueprint. Komarov’s depth threw the Soviet space program off schedule by at least six months Western analysts believe the Soviet investigators have decid ed it was an accident. When the Soyuz spaceship flies again, it is expected to carry few modifica tions. The Soviets have said their manned flights to the moon and the planets will leave from a space platform circling the Earth in a parking orbit. But so far, Soviet cosmonauts have never achieved an orbital docking—a key step in construc tion of a platform. Spacewalker Leonov has said that exchange of crews on a "permanent satellite” would precede any manned moon landing attempt. In this, Soviet priorities differ from the American plan of a direct trip to the moon. A space station is central to Soviet moon ambi tions. Anatoli Blagonravov, Russia's leading space scientist, has said a successful manned landing will be followed quickly by the establishment of a “permanent research station on the lunar station.” Most Soviet cosmonauts seem highly qualified and well trained. The United States just now is getting around to matching the Soviet practice of sending doctors and scientists into orbit. But at least one manned—or womanned —launching here ap peared to be mostly propagan da. That was the 1963 space trip by Valentina Tereshkova, still the world’s only cosmonette. At the time, Russian propa ganda made much of the fact that Miss Tereshkova—now the wife of cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev—was almost com pletey untrained in space flight. The point was that (1) Soviet women are equal on land and in space and (2) space travel isn't so tough—any good Russian can do it. “Orbital Missile” Doubtful It can be argued that any Today venture Into space has military applications, that a scientific satellite — either Russian or American—which can carry a telescope can also carry a bomb. Soviet military men have encouraged this conclusion with speeches boasting about a Russian "orbital missile” that can go into orbit and descend on any spot on Earth on command. As Khrushchev said, “If you lock the door, it comes in the window.” The conclusion of most experts here is that this claim Is more bark than bite. “It’s Inefficient and damned difficult,” one Western scientist explained. “Such a rocket demands delicate guidance to bring It down at just the right time. An ordinary rocket fired from a silo is easier.” The Kremlin also has signed International treaties banning bombs In orbit and the use of space for military purposes. Short of a war situation, these are pledges it cannot afford to violate too flagrantly. The Soviet use of space for scientific purposes resembles, In many ways, the American program. There Is one major difference, however. Inventions by American space scientists for space flights have been adapted regularly and quickly by U.S. Industry for new and better consumer goods. Russian Industry, however, has benefited little from Russian advances due to the excessive secrecy surrounding the Soviet space program. And while the American space program has been a spur to the U.S. economy, the Russian program has meant sacrifices to the U.SS.R. Americans often ask: Why do the Russians put up with it? The easy answer is that they have no choice, but there is more to it than that. Soviet citizens are used to making cooking up something I SPECIAL (SAVE X | 20% 1 \ ION AU FALL W \ S MERCHANDISE I I ALSO SPECIALS SEE I FOR V> &Vi price \ THUR. FRIDAY / ® / & SAL Ol ( / ALL SALES FINAL | NO EXCHANGES S'l M I NO REFUNDS 11 Sf j\ ffll || lIfJERRIE !S 1 and W I DON’S 111 I JUNIOR SHOP I I M 128 South HOI Street Bl Griffin, Ga. 30223 Phone 227-2973 a A B sacrifices, to putting the state’s interests first. Also, Soviet strides in space are a source of immense pride. They also know that space flights have vast military possibilities. Twenty million Russians died In the fight against Hitler, and few of the survivors are likely to quibble about money spent to make sure this never happens again. Still, a manned sace flight costs SSOO million—and that is a lot of shoes, or cars, or wheat. The younger generation wants better products on the consumer market, better food, fewer sacrifices. The Soviet govern ment, faced with “a revolution of rising expectations” and a new relationship with its people, may be forced to lower its sights from the stars to more immediate problems on the ground. Or it may decide to forego groceries for glory. NONAFFILIATED Several U. S. presidents were not affiliated with a spe cific church. Thomas Jefferson attended Unitarian services in Philadelphia but never joined; Lincoln attended Presbyterian services in Washington, but was not a member; Hayes at tended the Methodist Church, but never joined. One High STflnDfißU •/ J?ftriee to /JU Haisten Funeral Home ••IWIM MOM 3231 *92l*