Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1957-11-04
Observation-Disclosures
InMoon, Hagen Believes
By the Associated Press

by thC AoeoSAatcb NANoo
Russia's launching of what
seems to be a bigger and better
earth satellite came as no sur
prise to American scientists
today.
DR.. John P. hagen, director
Of Project Vanguard, the
United States earth satellite
program, recalled that the
Russians had indicated some
time ago second satellite
would be ready for launching
and he added:
I'VE assumed the second
would exceed the first in size
and we knew it would exceed
the first in the completely Of
their experiments"
DR.. Alan T. Waterman. di-
rector of the National Science
Foundation, said, 1T is now
clear, as we have anticipated.
that the Russians have been
working with great determine
ton on a planned series OF
satellite undertakings"
They again deserve credit
for a difficult engineering &C
complishment," DR.. Waterman
said. adding:
by these and other sched-
uled excursions into earth's
outer space during the Interna-
tional Geophysical Year we
shall gain valuable knowledge
concerning the environment of
our planet earth which will be
of great significance to science
and to mankind"
Not Impressed by Weight
DR.. Hagen said it was too
early to draw any firm conclu-
sions from MoScow's announce
ment that Sputnik II weighs
1.120 pounds.
Their announcement indi-
Gates the satellite itself was not
detached from the third stage
rocket casing" DR.. Hagen said.
1T doesn't surprise me-" he
added, that they were able to
put that weight in orbit since
they must have done the same
thing before with their first
satellite and the casing and
the satellite were detached. The
weight itself is not great sur
prise but until we know how
the weight is being used it in
terests us very much.
1.-THE thing is, we don't know
how much of all their weight
represents The third stage
rocket casing alone and how
much of it represents the sa-
tellite and its scientific equip
ment."
DR.. Hagen told reporters
there was no way of saying yet
whether this is a tremendously
different thing than the orig
inal satellite"
Using Old Rockets
He said, "the presumption
here-and it's a proper one
is that the rockets they have
used in launching their satel-
lites were not developed speci-
fically for this purpose. They
seem to be using some old
hardware they have on hand.
I'VE can't tell whether the
rockets were designed to carry
20-pound satellite or a 100
pound satellite. There seems
to be no relationship between
the rocket design and the
rocket payload. For this reason
we can't say that if they
double the size of the payload
they must have doubled the
size of the rocket"
DR.. Hagen was asked if it
was possible that the newest
Russian satellite could be
carrying a TV camera.
IF it is" he said with a grin,
they're not telling us about
it. You could list a whole mess
of things that the Russians
could have sent up in the
satellite; just what they are
we, of course, don't know"
Expects Further Display
DR.. Hagen said he had no
knowledge of any formal re-
sports that the Russians may
have submitted. even on the
original Sputnik which they
launched a month ago. He
didn't appear optimistic that
they would act any faster in
reporting officially on the de-
;ails of Sputnik II.
The scientist said they have