Evening star., 1962-02-25

adulation to roll over it. To
yield to such a temptation at
this time, however, would be
dangerous, and most Of the
Nations leaders are aware of
this fact. "The worst thing one
can do with ones laurels,"
somebody once said. "is to rest
on them"
While there is no gainsaying
the greatness and the glory of
col. Glenn's orbital flight. the
Nation would be deluding it
self to believe that a break
through occurred last Tuesday.
The brutally cold fact is that
the United States is still behind
the Soviet Union in manned
space flight, and is quite likely
to remain behind for several
years to come.
There is no question that the
United States is ahead Of Rus
sia in wrestling scientific Sc
crets from the universe, and in
applying space science from
the universe for the common
good. Tiros, the weather satel-
lite, speaks for itself in this re-
spect. So does Echo as an
earnest of things to come in
the communications field.
The Battle Goes On
But Tiros and Echo are be-
side the point. Manned space
flight is where the "sex appeal"
is; the American people them
selves have demonstrated this
conclusively. The propaganda
battle between East and West
will be fought in space, not by
instruments, but by men.
No Echo, no Tiros, no Transit
all genuine space firsts-was
ever able to boost the national
morale one-tenth as high as
the flight of Col. Glenn, which
was not a first at all.
Unquestionably, the flight of
Friendship-7 put Americas feet
on the pathway to the stars.
Now is as good a time as any
to see where that pathway
leads, and how long it will take
to, get where we are going.
Above all, it is an opportunity
to, speculate las knowingly as
a Western observer cam on
what the Russians will be doing
in this same period.
First. it can be accepted as
an axiom that there Is prac-
tically no chance Of scoring a
manned space first ahead of
the Russians in the next five
years. The chance of reaching
the moon ahead of them is
hardly better.
Our own space program -
which must be geared to its
own optimum rate Of progress
as, we'll as to the Russians
pace-setting-probably will not
match the 24-hour Gherman
Titov flight until early 1868.
This will widen the gap to IT
months from the present 10.
New Titan a Key
The next advance after that
will be the Gemini project
two men in orbit for lengthy
periods, conducting space-link-
up experiments. From the prop
aganda point Of view, it will
be the two men in space-not
the rendezvous maneuver-that
will have the primary impact.
How do we stand vis-a-vls the
Russians in this regard?
Our Gemni program proba-
bly will not get off the ground
before 1864. 1t depends partly
on perfection Of an enlarged
Mercury-type capsule, but also
on reliability checkout OF a
new missile-the Titan Il
which has not yet flown.
The Russians, on the other
hand, already have demon
strated the capability of their
boosters to lift Gemini-size
loads. The Titan II-even with
improvements - probably will
not be able to boost more than
about 5000 pounds of usable
payload into orbit. Maj. Titov
and his predecessor, Yuri Ga
garin, each rode spacecraft that
weighed in excess of 10000
pounds.
Much is made Of the fact
that American space hardware
is extremely sophisticated" "
light, compact, skillfully made,
while the Russians use stand
ard hardware. But this is a
case of making a virtue out OF
necessity it is difficult to be-
lieve that a country with the
engineering capability Of the
Soviet Union could not make
delicate, elaborate instruments
If it chose to.
So it must be assumed that
having already lifted half again
as much weight as we will use
for Gemini, they could make a
Gemini of their own and launch
it, with weight to spare. From
this assumption it would be
dangerously self-deluding not
to take the next logical ster
and assume that they are get
ting ready to do just that.
When? Possibly tomorrow
next month, next year, GER
tainly before we will be able te
if they choose to do so. Anc
If propaganda advantage is tc
be gained - perhaps at some
crucial juncture in cold-wal
finagling or United Nations de-
bate-the Soviet Union GER
tainly will do what is called for
A point often made is thai
the free world has relatively
greater regard for human life
than does the communist
world. This Is probably true
IT Is a1Sb true that Western