Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1958-02-02
Let's Reach for the Stars

Americans everywhere have reason
to join today in congratulating Major
General John B. MedariS, DR.. Wernher
Won Braun and all the other dedicated
men associated with the successful
launching of our country's first earth
satellite. Like the Soviet Unions earlier
Sputnik and Sputnik II, this little arti-
ficial moon represents great scientific
achievement, and in some respects
such as Instrumentation may be more
advanced, even though much lighter,
than either Of its Russian predecessors
in space.
Moreover, as Army spokesman have
indicated, the modified version Of our
Jupiter-C mediate-range ballistic
missile probably will be employed soon
again to send another American satellite
orbiting around the world. AT the same
time, despite its past failure, the Nays
Vanguard Project is expected to succeed
in carrying out the launchingS 1t has
planned for the International Geophysi-
cal Year. So the prospect is that Nikita
Khrushchev's recent invitation to us to
join 1.-THE commonwealth of Sputniks"
will be answered not Just once, as 1t has
now been answered by our Explorer, but
several times by a succession of even
more fantastic space vehicles,
One effect of all this, of course, is
that 1t should do much to restore the
International prestige we lost when the
Russians beat us into space with their
satellites, another of which may 60 up
at any moment. Further, our Explorers
advent in the high heavens serves to
demonstrate to the world that our coun-
try, although 1t still appears to be lag
ging behind the Soviet Union in certain
phases Of the art Of rocketry, already
wherewithal- 1t works hard and with
sufficient sense Of urgency-to make up
for lost time in the development of its
intercontinental ballistic missiles. This,
too, should have wholesome influence
on opinion abroad, at least to the extent
of offsetting some of the gloating and
rather threatful propaganda put out by
the Kremlin in recent weeks and months.
But the chief significance of Ex-
plorer and its coming SucceSsors-RuS-
sian and American alike-is that it
serves to remind the whole of humanity
that man has really begun to climb at
least the first few lower steps of the
stairway to the stars. He is no longer
earthbound. In the years Immediately
ahead, he himself will ride vehicles into
the far reaches Of space, will send ma
chimes to the moon and bring them back,
will build equipment-perhaps within
the next five years--that will orbit him
around the earth on returnable basis.
Fantasy? Not at all. We are rushing
into an age, almost willy -nilly, in which
the once fantastic is becoming about as
real as an automobile or Tv set.
This age is the age of outer space.
1t is full of potentialS compounded Of
both enormous good and enormous evil.
The SputnikS and our Explorer are but
the beginnings of tremendously revo-
lutionary era in which the human race
will either learn to control the works
OF its genius or travel higgledy -piggledy
toward total extinction. That is why
the United States has proposed to the
Soviet Union extraordinary international
measures to insure that earth satellites
and the greater fantasies yet to come
be used exclusively for peaceful purposes.
IT this is done, men will be able to reach
for the stars with confidence. Otherwise
the outlook for our world will be terrify-
ing indeed.