Aug 24 1974
From The Space Library
A probe into the next 50 yrs was the subject of a series of articles in Saturday Review/World. Soviet atomic scientist Andrei D. Sakharov envisioned flying cities-artificial earth satellites with important industrial functions. The satellites would hold nuclear and thermonuclear installations with radiant cooling of heat exchangers, to avoid heating the earth, and would also serve as cosmic research laboratories and way stations for long-distance flights. Sakharov also foresaw greater attempts to establish communication with other civilizations by searching for and transmitting interplanetary signals on all known wavelengths and searching outer space for space stations of extraterrestrial civilizations. Powerful telescopes set up on the moon would permit scientists to see planets orbiting the nearest stars.
Apollo 11 Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong said that in 50 yrs every interesting crater and cranny of the moon would have been visited and revisited and lunar exploration would be replaced by lunar exploitation. Underground lunar colonies, protected from extreme temperatures, would consist of pressurized compartments connected by tunnels. One day man might want to build an atmosphere on the moon to avoid the inconveniences of living in a near vacuum, but in the nearer future the use of the moon's vacuum for activities such as materials processing was a major reason for being there. Craters on the dark side of the moon, always facing away from the earth, could hold radio and x-ray telescopes for transmissions, unadulterated by earth noise, to and from outer space. Deep craters, which received no sunlight and had temperatures nearing absolute zero, would be ideal for low-temperature laboratories where scientists could investigate the point where molecular motion nearly stops. Lunar agriculture would be underground under lights in modified lunar soil fed with a nutrient solution. Although by 2024 the only extraterrestrial colonies would be on the moon, men probably would have visited Mars and a few selected celestial bodies. Men exploring space might well use a miniaturized heart-lung machine, circumventing the need for breathing and spacesuits.
Dr. Wernher von Braun, former Marshall Space Flight Center Director, predicted a worldwide satellite search would be started for additional deposits of metal ore, coal, oil, shale, and natural gas. Satellite data would also provide key data for a badly needed worldwide food supply management system. Von Braun predicted nuclear lasers in geo-synchronous orbit would handle millions of TV channels simultaneously and billions of telephone conversations and would lead to worldwide video-telephone service. Advanced meteorological satellites would pro-vide accurate two-week weather forecasts and disaster warnings, saving millions of dollars in property damage. (Saturday Review/World, 24 Aug 74)
Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky (U.S. Army Air Corps), aviation pioneer, died of a respiratory ailment in New York at the age of 80. Maj. de Seversky had begun his career as a pilot in the Czarist air force in Russia during World War I. After coming to the U.S. in 1918 he contributed to military and commercial aviation, helping to develop the first fully automatic synchronous bombsight, gyroscopically stabilized flight instruments, inflight fueling techniques, and a variety of landing gear for seaplanes and aircraft. He also led the effort to design, build, and test an all-metal fighter aircraft, the P-35, the first aircraft to fly faster than 480 km per hr. In 1931 he founded the Seversky Aircraft Corp., the fore-runner of Republic Aircraft Corp.
During World War II de Seversky became one of the country's leading advocates of strategic air power, saying that the U.S. could not win a "limited war fought with traditional forces." He argued that "the whole military philosophy must be changed or we shall forever trail the rest of the world not only in conventional aircraft, but in intercontinental ballistic missiles and even in man-made earth satellite development." (Fraser, NYT, 26 Aug 74, 32; AP, Orlando, Florida, Sentinal Star, 26 Aug 74, B4)
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