Monday, Aug. 27, 1956

The Silvery Moon

The earth satellite that the U.S. will launch sometime during the International Geophysical Year (July 1957 through December 1958) will be as round and silvery as any moon over Tin Pan Alley. The man-made moon will be a shiny magnesium sphere 20 inches in diameter, weighing 21 1/2 Ibs., according to details revealed this week in Detroit by the contractor, Brooks & Perkins, Inc.

Electronic equipment to flash to earth data on such matters as cosmic rays and gravitational pull will account for 80% of the weight. The skin of the hollow ball will be one-fiftieth of an inch thick. Jutting from the sphere's surface will be four collapsible antennas and a coupling device that will release the moon from the last of the three rockets needed to blast it into space (TIME, Oct. 17 et seq.).

After outfitting the moon, engineers will polish it to reduce friction in flight until it resembles the silvery "gazing globes" that decorate many American lawns. "The moon," says B. & P. President E. Howard Perkins, "will be utterly smooth and mirror-bright."

Meanwhile, Navy scientists charged with the operational phase of Project Vanguard were indicating that other blueprints are gradually evolving into hardware. Planning is "about completed" on the first two stages of the rocket that will lift the moon to about 130 miles altitude, says the Navy, and is finished on the final, payoff stage that will push the moon into its orbit. Engines for all three stages have roared through ground tests. Engineers are confident that they will lick one bugaboo: heat damage to the nose of the rocket caused by aerodynamic friction.

At first, scientists thought that the moon would travel in an orbit ranging from 200 to 800 miles in altitude, whipping around the earth every 90 minutes at 1,800 m.p.h. but recent tests indicate that the moon may rise to 1.500 miles in height at the far end of its elliptical orbit, travel at 1,900 m.p.h. As the moon slows in speed, it will dip closer and closer to the earth's atmosphere until, inevitably, it will disappear in a flash of friction.

Some skeptical scientists have wondered if Vanguard would ever get off the ground. Navy specialists are sure the man-made moon will rise as planned. Says Physicist John P. Hagen. the Navy's director of Project Vanguard: "It is fair to say that at the moment we see no problem we cannot solve as scheduled."

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