EIGHTEEN months ago (April i, L. 1957), in a cover story on Air Force Missileman Bernard Schriever, TIME reported that Air Force scientists con sidered sending an unmanned rocket to the moon a worthwhile project, and estimated that they could be ready to shoot in 1 8 months. Last week tireless, punctual Major General Schriever and his men sent their rocket -- Pioneer --far out into space. For the story of their hopes, disappointments and accomplishments, see NATIONAL AFFAIRS.

AMID Democratic claims of landslide and Republican counterclaims of strength, TIME'S editors decided to make a searching survey of the area that could be of make-or-break impor tance in deciding the balance in the next U.S. House of Representatives. Washington Bureau Chief John Steele traveled to Kansas and Iowa; Denver Bureau Chief Barron Beshoar covered Nebraska; Chicago Correspondent Ed Reingold moved into Ohio; Chicago Correspondent Jon Rinehart reported on Indiana, Missouri and Minnesota; Chicago Correspondent Mark Perlberg filed on Illinois; local correspondents added their on-the-spot knowledge. For the results, see NATIONAL AFFAIRS, The Midwestern Battleground.

FORGET the care of your children, 1 Peking tells Chinese women; there are now communal nurseries. Feel free at last--to dig ditches and build roads --and approach the status of ants. Such is the bleak present and the formidable future promised in Red China's amazing new revolution. See FOREIGN NEWS, The People's Communes.

BY reason of their strength--and '-' modern medicine--more and more Americans are living beyond the Biblical threescore years and ten, and beyond fourscore. What makes for a long life? What makes a long life livable? And useful? In this week's cover story on Nonagenarian Amos Alonzo Stagg, Medicine Editor Gilbert Cant reports on the medical progress that has prolonged human life. To supplement the story, TIME presents a gallery of U.S. elders, photographed by LIFE'S Alfred Eisenstaedt (who is only 59). "Eisie," who has probably photographed more famous people than any other photographer, carried his autograph book as usual, got a full-page poem from Robert Frost and a fine line from Bernard Baruch: "Oh, to be 80 again." See MEDICINE, Adding Life to Years.

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