Medical Benefits From Space Projects

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30961, 18 January 1966, Page 2

Medical Benefits From Space Projects

Many discoveries made in space programmes, when adapted to medical use, will be of tremendous benefit to the human race, according to Mrs Elizabeth Finley, a liaison engineer working on the American project for landing men on the moon.

“New X-ray equipment, for instance, has been developed for checking outer space instruments with only onethirtieth of the radiation hazard of standard X-rays,” she said in Christchurch recently. “The advantages of this are obvious. “New discoveries .in radar will be adapted to help the blind. The miniturisation of electronic equipment is another example of space science being adapted in the medical field. Doctors are already using it to stimulate body organs in the treatment of diseases,” she said. A really permanent paint, which had been evolved for vehicles kept in outer space, was now available in the

United States “Imagine the saving in maintenance costs when this paint is used on buildings,” she said. “Endless Possibilities”

The possibilities were endless. Discoveries, undreamed of at present, would continue to be adapted for the medical field and be used for the betterment of the human race, she said.

Mrs Finley is employed by the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, New York, the prime contractor of the lunar excursion module for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

This module, known as LEM, is the vehicle that will carry two astronauts from a lunar-orbiting mother ship (the Apollo command module) to the moon’s surface and back. On its ascent from the moon, LEM will connect in space with the mother ship for the astronauts’ return to earth. The excursion module

will be left behind in lunar orbit.

Mrs Finley is one of a team working on contractual details for this part of the project. “Mine is primarily paper work,” she said. Closely associated as she is with the historic probe —scheduled for 1970 —she has no ambition to be the first woman to land on the moon. Mrs Finley does not discount the probability of life on other planets. “To me it is inconceivable that this tiny earth of ours is the only place in the vast universe that has creative beings of some sort, whether or not they think as we do,” she said. Nor does she scoff at the possibility of these beings having space vehicles of their own—“flying saucers” and the like. “There have been many phenomena reported, but no satisfactory explanations,” she said.

Although on a vacation to Australia and News Zealand, Mrs Finley has been asked by her employers to publicise Project Apollo during her travels and carries with her diagrams, photographs and brochures on the work.

In Melbourne and Sydney she will address branches of the Royal Aeronautical Societies and will appear on television in Melbourne.

A vice-president of the Soroptimist Club of East Nassau, New York, Mrs Finley was entertained by the Christchurch club during the weekend.