IN the early 16th century's age of discovery, maps of the world were exciting reading for up-to-the-minute Europeans. They changed every few years as new lands were discovered and old lands settled into their proper places. Map viewers gradually learned what latitude and longitude meant, and that a straight line on a map (Mercator's projection) is not always the shortest distance between two places on it.

The null century is a new age of discovery, this time of space, and the world's educated public is learning a new geography of orbits and gravitational fields, a new jargon of escape velocities and soft landings. Space is not the surface of a sphere as Columbus' ocean was. It is three-dimensional, its lands are in rapid motion, and its snuggest harbors are more dangerous than the earth's most hostile coast. Its ships are finned and flame-tailed, guided by gyroscopes and coded signals.

To survey and map the new, strange face of space, TIME correspondents interviewed leading astronomers for the latest news about the undiscovered lands that circle in the solar system, talked to astronauts for instruction in the sailing directions of man's new element. For a guide to this new geography, see SCIENCE, Push into Space.

ONE of the new age's ironies is that the exploration of space is inescapably tangled up with the momentous struggle called the cold war. Some of the talented scientists helping to shape U.S. space policy in Washington seem to think that by labeling outer space a "civilian" domain they can keep it free of the contaminating struggle. For a down-to-earth look at this wistful illusion and its dangers, see NATIONAL AFFAIRS, On Pain of Extinction.

NO medical preparation has been launched on its lifesaving career under a more brilliant spotlight than the Salk vaccine against paralytic polio. This very glare has made it harder for some to see certain essential facts--the vaccine is not always effective, and its potency is not assured. Now Dr. Jonas E. Salk (TIME Cover, March 29, 1954) has searchingly reviewed his vaccine's potency and performance. See MEDICINE, Calling the Shots.

WHEN the world's most successful peasant, Nikita Khrushchev, talks about one of the world's most successful capitalists, Cyrus Stephen Eaton, he beams. And vice versa. Last week this odd international friendship brought the capitalist a unique gift and an unusual visit. Who is this man who enjoys living like a baron of old, and thinks of himself as a philosopher of the new? See BUSINESS, Khrushchev's Favorite Capitalist.

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