Feb 24 1973
From The Space Library
A Baltimore Sun editorial commented on the Feb. 15 press conference on the Pioneer 10 Jupiter probe (launched March 2, 1972) "There was reason to worry for Pioneer's wellbeing, as it traveled the section beyond Mars; so many chunks of rock float along there, on such erratic tracks, that our expensive new-model spacecraft could have inadvertently smacked into something a great deal bigger than itself. Even a sideswipe might have thrown it off course. Happily, it has registered contact only with the sort of fine-grained debris that litters space in general." Pioneer 10 had indicated the existence of more asteroids between the earth and Mars than previously realized and fewer between Mars and Jupiter. "Or is it so new a phenomenon, that the closer to earth's big cities you come, the thicker the traffic gets?" (B Sun, 2/24/73)
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