The sphere and boom are electrically insulated from the rocket. A variable radio frequency voltage is then applied to the equipment. When the frequency passes through the "critical frequency" (the frequency below which radio signals will be bounced back to earth from the ionosphere) the experiment will register a sharp change in current. The standard Langmuir probe normally requires up to three-fourths of a second to get such a change in current. However, the Japanese device is able to measure this critical point-of importance to longdistance communications-at a much faster rate. The Japanese have worked on their experiment for nearly three years. An arrangement was made some months ago to fly the instrumentation on U.S. rockets in order to compare techniques. This portion of the payload of the Nike-Cajun rocket was prepared in Japan while the other half was prepared at Goddard Space Flight Center. "The Japanese experiments arrived in this country just two weeks ago for the mating and check-out," Mr. Bourdeau said. "It attests to a fine program of mutual cooperation that we are now ready to test flight the experiments in so short a time." Dr. Kunio Hirao, Chief Scientist, Radio Research Laboratory, Tokyo, and Mr. Toshio Muraoka, scientist with the Yokohawa Electric Co., Tokyo, will be present at Wallops Island for the firing. Gideon P. Serbu is Chief Scientist for the Goddard Space Flight Center experiment. Telegram From the British Minister for Science (Hailsham) to the Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Webb), April 26, 1962 1 1 I send you my fullest congratulations on our first joint satellite. We owe you a great debt of gratitude for this opportunity; it will add immensely to the warmth of Anglo-American relations, and sets an example to the world in international cooperation in scientific space research. Finally, on behalf of the Ambassador, I would like to extend the Embassy's warmest congratulations to all concerned in this highly successful venture and in Shakespeare's words, to salute Ariel: "Then to the elements be free, and fare thee well." News-Conference Remarks by President Kennedy, May 9, 1962 2 [Extracts] [THE PRESIDENT said:] We have exchanged correspondence with Mr. Khrushchev about two months ago about our willingness to provide for the cooperation in space. We have thrown our space program open, maintained chiefly under civilian control and, therefore, under 1 NASA Facts (C-62), p. 4. Ariel, the first international satellite, was launched by the United States and the United Kingdom on Apr. 26, 1962, at Cape Canaveral, Fla. It was named for the sprite in Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Designed to study the ionosphere, the Ariel satellite weighs 132 pounds and measures 23 inches in diameter and nearly 11 inches in height. It orbits the earth once every 101 minutes at an apogee of 760 miles and a perigee of 244 miles. 2 Stenotype transcript of press conference, May 9, 1962, Department of State files. For President Kennedy's letter of Mar. 7, 1962, to Premier Khrushchev, see ante, p. 242. 91298-63- -18 peaceful control, and we are maintaining on every level, cultural exchanges and all the rest, to see if it is possible in these two different worlds to let them live together without destroying each other. But I believe we shall always have to do more and we shall continue to do so. But it really requires a response in order to have peace, and so far we have not been able to evoke a response of sufficient force. Q. Mr. President, it has been the stated policy, as you said earlier, for this Government to restrict outer space for peaceful objectives only. Will not the proposed H-bomb explosion 500 miles up jeopardize this policy and objective? THE PRESIDENT. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. There has been disturbance about the Van Allen belt, but Van Allen says it is not going to affect the belt. But it is a matter which we are--I have read the protests and it is a matter which we are looking into, to see whether there is scientific merit that this would cause some difficulty to the Van Allen belt in a way which would adversely affect scientific discovery, and this is being taken into very careful consideration at the present time. But I do-I think-so that I want you to know that whatever our decision is that in regard to the Van Allen belt it will be done only after very careful scientific deliberation, which is now taking place, during this past week, and will go on for a period. In regard, generally what we are attempting to do is to find out the effects of such an explosion on our security, and we do not believe that this will adversely affect the security of any person not living in the United States. Vice President Johnson's Address to the Second National Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Space, May 10, 1962 1 1 Since the time when earliest man looked cautiously beyond his immediate surroundings, he has had vastly different visions of the worlds around and above him. The world nearby was evil, dark, and dangerous. The world above was somehow purer, freer, closer to God than the earthbound existence that imprisoned our ancestors. The shackles of Earth are being broken and the resulting freedom will affect us all. As this fair promises, Century 21 will be an outer space era.2 But so, ladies and gentlemen, is our own century. We in the United States find the dawn of the Space Age a particularly exciting time. Moreover, we are the first nation to realize the power of space to affect every aspect of our daily lives. SPACE BENEFITS Our probings into space have taken many forms and will return a host of benefits. Space science and technology are already working vast changes in our dynamic, free society. Revolutions are occurring 1 Proceedings of the Second National Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Space, Seattle, Washington, May 8-10, 1962 (NASA publication SP-8; Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1962), pp. 29–32. 2 Century 21, the World's Fair, was held at Seattle, Wash., during 1962. in our industries, in our systems of education, in our hiring policies, in the realms of science, law, medicine, and journalism. Because the Space Age is here, we are recruiting the best talent regardless of race or religion, and, importantly, senseless patterns of discrimination in employment are being broken up. Because the Space Age is here, a U.S. weather satellite was able to track a hurricane and help save thousands of lives and millions of dollars of property along our Gulf coast. Vital weather information so obtained is being relayed by us to the other nations of the Earth. And because the Space Age is here, we will be able to develop new products, improve old ones, and discover answers to yet unsolved problems. For example: Research in the medical problems of men in space will lead to cures for man's most serious illnesses. The development of miniature electronic parts for spacecraft will give us pocket-sized television sets and radios the size of a pearl. New batteries developed for space will lead to automobiles being powered by plants no larger than a coffee can and to the bringing of the Sun's power to desert areas. These new sources of power will be used to operate new machines that will drill deep to recover water and scarce metals from places now inaccessible. Someday, we will be able to bring an asteroid containing billons of dollars worth of critically needed metals close to Earth to provide a vast new source of mineral wealth for our factories. These are only a few of the endless number of new treasures that we can already foresee. Many others cannot even be guessed at today. COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM I want to make special mention of one such beneficial project in which our efforts are nearing final success: I refer to a communications satellite system that will instantly bring together and transmit the words and pictures that pour forth daily from every corner of the globe. Congress is currently considering a bill proposed by the President and developed through the mechanism of the National Aeronautics and Space Council. It proposes a corporation with widespread private ownership to be regulated by the Government in the public interest. This will assure the program's speedy development; will prevent control of the corporation by any single, special interest; will utilize the genius of private competitive enterprise; and will provide the world with greatly expanded communications service at low cost to our Government. Such a system will do more than improve all-weather message capacity. It will reshape our lives in ways difficult to predict today. Worldwide patterns of radio, television, and telephone services; face-to-face meetings of world leaders a great distance apart; worldwide systems of industrial and scientific computers; the ability to transmit quickly the entire contents of a great library to an underdeveloped countrythese are merely some of the probable gifts this communications satellite system will bring to the world. COST OF THE SPACE PROGRAM I mention all these things to show what we have already gained from this new era and to indicate what is to come. To achieve all this, we have spent about $6 billion so far. This is a large amount of money, but it is only slightly more than the $5.3 billion we took in last year alone from the Federal taxes on alcohol and tobacco. Our entire space program now costs each American 30 cents a week. During the next few years, we plan to spend about 50 cents a week per person on space. This will amount to no more than 1 percent of our gross national product. Furthermore, our space program and its by-products will stimulate a sharp increase in the Nation's productive output, which in turn will increase our gross national product, our income, and the Federal Government's tax intake. The space program is a profitable investment-not a waste of the Nation's resources. SPACE AND NATIONAL SECURITY This program is not viewed in military versus nonmilitary terms. Our capacity in space will contribute to keeping the peace; and it will help us to live better in peace. A number of space programs contribute directly to the Nation's security as well as to the well-being of mankind. Among these are: mapping, surveillance, identification, navigation, communications, and weather projects. Progress in manned flights, spaceship propulsion, in rocketry, medicine, and metallurgy-all of these support our national objectives. It is, therefore, a unified program that emphasizes peaceful purposes and is ready to meet peace-keeping needs. COOPERATION IN OUTER SPACE It would be arrogant of me to come to a meeting at a World's Fair merely to boast of our Nation's accomplishments. I am proud of what the United States has done in the Age of Space, but I am not satisfied. It is necessary that we continue to talk and to explain the importance of our space efforts. But it is even more important that we turn words into acts; we must see to it that the United States carries out its national space program with a feeling of urgency based not on any political conflict, but on the benefits to be gained by this country, as well as other nations of the world. Furthermore, the United States does not intend to act alone. We are encouraging other nations to cooperate in space and to use the new age as a catalyst to release long-dormant energy. Our efforts have already yielded the first fruits of success. U.S. launching rockets have sent forth exploratory instruments designed by Canadian, British, and Japanese scientists. We have cooperated with many other nations in sending up sounding rockets; in constructing tracking stations to follow space flights; and in observing weather phenomena in conjunction with our TIROS weather satellites. NASA has established a fellowship program to train foreign scientists in space research in American institutions. But the responsibility to cooperate also lies heavily on another great space power-the Soviet Union. At this time, I am able to tell you in a spirit of cautious optimism that the Soviet Union appears to realize that-in outer space, at least there may be something to be gained by cooperating with the rest of humanity. The United States introduced and the USSR supported a resolution that was unanimously passed last December by the Political Committee of the United Nations General Assembly. This resolution urged the member nations to extend the rules of international law to outer space, to refrain from claiming territory there, and to cooperate in its exploration. This action was followed by an exchange of letters between the President and Premier Khrushchev, and meetings between American and Soviet space scientists to explore some technical aspects of cooperation. So far, no specific agreement has been reached, but the atmosphere is encouraging.1 I say this even though the United States was recently forced to resume nuclear testing, following the failure to reach agreement with the Soviet Union on nuclear disarmament with adequate safeguards. The breakdown on one front will not affect our efforts to achieve cooperation on the other. Without ignoring the admitted differences that still exist, and without revealing anything vital to our nation's security, we are hopeful of achieving fruitful cooperation with the Soviet Union in such fields as communications, weather forecasting, mapping the Earth's magnetic fields, and space medicine. We feel that cooperation in outer space may establish a firm basis for greater mutual understanding-which in turn will help in our efforts to obtain disarmament. We are hopeful because we are going through a new Age, and on into outer space. I know that the American people are thrilled by this, and I hope that the other peoples of this planet will come along into outer space with us. A great new outlet for human energy has been discovered. I pray we will be exalted by this so that nations will want to abandon their dreams of earthly conquest and so that the people of the Earth, by exploring the stars, will discover in themselves the means of finding peace and happiness in a world of decency and prosperity. News Release by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on the United States - Japanese Space Probes, May 12, 1962 2 The second of three planned joint U.S. and Japanese experiments for the scientific exploration of space is scheduled for launching on a Nike-Cajun sounding rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia, no earlier than the evening of Tuesday, May 15. The third and final launching in this series of ionospheric probes would occur during the following day.3 1 See post, pp. 273-277. 2 National Aeronautics and Space Administration news release 62-116, May 12, 1962. 3 The second and third probes were launched on May 16, the latter being a night shot. The second rocket probe reached an altitude of 76 miles; the third attained an altitude of 80 miles, |