Evening star., 1961-09-19

Medical Center, he would
like to see the space pro-
gram get away from a vol
unteers-only basis. You have
odd motivational problems
when you work exclusively with
volunteers" he says. MY feel
ing is that when a professional
military pilot has all the tech
nical qualifications for astro-
nautics, he should be brought
into the space program"
/ Will Be Younger
! There is a broad agreement
that the next crop of astro-
nautS should be a little younger
than the Mercury seven. On
a long-term program of 8 or 10
years duration, young men have
a way of getting middle-aged,
and middle-aged men old, be-
fore the job is done. A strong
proponent of younger recruits
is the Mercury Astronauts' own
chief medic, 1t. Col. Stanley
&c. White. 1t is unlikely that
the Apollo Astronauts will be
as young as Cosmonauts Ga
garin and Titov. however.
(They were 26 and Is, respec-
tively).
i Most experts believe the pres
ent Mercury Astronauts will be
too old for the lunar landing
mission; at the end of this dec
ade their ages will range from
AZ to 49,. They may well be
senior crewmen on preliminary
flights like Apollo-A and Apollo
B, however. Their principal
duty in connection with Apollo
&c will probably be to train
the men who will make the
trip.
Training aids used in the
Mercury program have proved
their value in the flights made
by AStronauts Alan Shepard
and Virgil Grissom, says DR..
Robert C. Voas, training
psychologist on Project Mer-
curry. In one way or another
simulators have proved able to
provide realistic equivalents of
everything in space except pro-
longed weightlessness and ra-
diation. The former cannot be
duplicated on earth, and the
latter is never used needleSSly.
AS far as weightlessneSS, or
"zero-g", is concerned, early in
dications are that it will not
be as much of a problem as
some persons had feared.
Zero-g is the sensation one gets
when released from the gravi-
rational domination of the
earth. The human record for
time in zero-g is Titov's 25
hours in orbit last month. Titov
spoke of slight and passing dis
comfort, but he apparently sur
vived the trip without adverse
gross effects.
Potent "SOlar Flares"
The radiation question-par-
ticularly as it relates to "solar
flares getting a lot of at
tention. Solar flares are sudden
big storms on the surface of
the sun that spew out vast
clouds of energetic particles
into interplanetary space. Most
of these are hydrogen-atom
nuclei, called protonS, charged
with millions or even billions
of electron volts of energy.
No one is sure how much of
a hazard solar flares will be,
and there is some concern
about Operation Moons pres
ent schedule, because a peak
period of solar-flare activity is
predicted for the late 1960s.
Much attention will be focused
on solar-flare radiation-par-
ticularly on how to predict
such flares-before mems lives
are risked on trips into deep
space.
The other types of radiation
to which lunar astronauts will
be exposed are the trapped
particle radiation of the Van
Allen belts around the earth,
and the cosnic radiation of
deep space. The former can be
evaded by agile rocketeerinc. on
takeoff and re-entry, and the
latter is not regarded as much
of a peril because of the rel
atively small number of high
energy cosmic particles.
But Solar-flare radiation per-
sists as a major worry. At the
School of Aerospace Medicine
such authorities as Col. John
Pickering, director of research,
believe men will be able to take
pretty heavy doses of radiation
in emergencies. Work with
monkeys has shown practically
no physical damage even after
frequent and heavy exposure to
penetrating rays. Col. Pickering
says permissible levels of ra-
diation for spacemen will
have to be set much higher
than the maximums allowable
on earth.
Data From Discoverer |
One of Col. Pickering's as
SociateS, DR., George w CraW-