LOOKING AT THE SATELLITE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 950, 25 October 1957, Page 4

LOOKING AT THE SATELLITE

A cross-section of opinion from New Zealanders-specialists and laymen-on the first

POLITICAL SCIENTIST

WAS not surprised to hear about the satellite. Nobody who had followed the build-up of scientific and economic power which preceded it could have been surprised. Soviet technological achievement in recent years has been of a very high order. Scientists of the U.S.S.R. were the first to generate electric power from nuclear energy. They

devised a more efficient hydrogen bomb — if you can call that progress. And they were first with

an _ inter-continental ballistic missile, partly I think because they ignored the Germans and their ideas about liquid fuels. The Americans employed most of the leading German rocket scientists after the war, but the Russians worked out their own ideas.

All this was well-known. To build up morale in the United States the facts may have played down for the public, but U.S. policy-makers must have known abcut the power of the U.S.S.R. And it must be assumed they made their policy accordingly. Therefore I cannot see that U.S. policy is likely to change. Soviet policy, of course, has been unchanged for many years, and is likely to remain so. What the satellite iaunching and its implications will do is to confirm the neutrals in their neutrality. They will see even less reason than before for

invasion of space. joining either of the two main power blocs. And some allies of the United States, especially those with strategic bases in their territory, may become restless. They would probably be devastated first in any conflict between the Soviet Union and the U.S., and must be concerned by that probability. I think for that reason we can expect to see the United States entering a period of greater isolation in the international lineup. She is not isolated at present, but she may find her allies trying to avoid closer commitment in the future.

GEOGRAPHER

* 1OW there'll be no holding those careless writers for whom even the old-fashioned full moon rises in the west. Life becomes more complicated every day. I see that the Mullard Laboratory at Cambridge made its cal-

culations for the first two days’ without allowing for the curva-

ture of the earth, and my department too must abandon its long-cherished motto: "The earth is flat." One thing that will particularly interest geographers is the coming ability of artificial moons to photograph the earth from very great heights. I don’t expect much from photographs of land and sea, but there should be an enormous fund of information from the cloud patterns, which should reveal something about weather distribution in a way never possible before. Of course, once we get instruments outside this cushion of air which prevents us from being bombarded by meteorites or shrivelled by ultra-violet light we will be able to see the universe more clearly than ever before-but that’s for the astronomer rather than: the geographer. It’s obvious too that man will soon be able to shoot things away into space for good. When New Zealand .gets to doing this, I hope to its first space rocket it will attach the Ranfurly Shield. With that. out of the way we might begin to re-discover the fact that Rugby is a game.

D. W.

McKENZIE

Senior Lecturer in Geography, V.U.C. nis :

HOUSEWIFE

\ ‘ELL, of course, I was very excited at first. You couldn't help being excited at this first man-made world to circle in space. But about a day later my reaction changed and I began wondering, "What good has it done mankind?"

My husband said that was just like a woman, asking what good it

would do. He supposed a woman has

said that to every invention that man ever made. I think it is the feminine reaction, to wonder how much it affects human happiness. I suppose the satellite could have some effect if it makes scientists from all countries come together-I hope so. The whole prospect of rockets and missiles is so terrifying that perhaps this latest development will force peoples to co-operate with each other. Women just don’t get wildly excited about these events, being much more interested in people than things. I’d be quite interested to see the satellite if it wasn’t too difficult, but last night I was playing scrabble with a friend and she said, "Shall we go out and look for the satellite?" and we both agreed that it was much too cold to stand and wait. It’s a very poor attitude, I know, but I think it’s typically feminine. Baffles me anyway-how we can see it at all, since it’s only 22 inches in diameter and it’s 500 miles up. I don’t understand it. My husband says when he has a free hour he'll explain it to me, but he hasn’t done so yet. =

PHILOSOPHER

'M as willing to lay down the law about it all as the next man, though I feel the need of a glass of beer in one hand and a bar under the other elbow. My first reaction? The widespread, slightly malicious one. ."‘Some people have been taught not to count their chickens too loudly, too long before they’re hatched." Then I began to wonder whether it means that the period of

American supremacy is slowly coming to an end. If so, how

much easier it will be to remember the many, many admirable and likeable things about American life which tend to get forgotten when American’ efficiency is rammed down our throats.’ Does it make me afraid? No, I don’t fear the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, even if I wouldn’t care to live there. From a philosophical point of view? I suppose that ought to mean something about wisdom. Well, surely, it’s the sort of ¢ase that brings us up sharply against the difference between wisdom and knowledge. A trip to Mars won’t add to our wisdom, unless in the unlikely event of our meeting people there who are wiser than we are. (They had better also be more powerful, or theyll go the way of the wiser but weaker.) Without any accession of wisdom, I suppose we may be forced into relatively sensible behaviour by the sheer increase in our power to make a mess of things. That Would be a good thing, but as far as wisdom is concerned I think I look

rather to psychology, the social sciences, and the philosophical clarification of ideas. With all the many faults of these undisciplined studies, they seem to talk about-or +help-us to talk about-the im4 t things, namely us. os see how Space Travel. can make our vital tasks any éasier. I feel as if it would make them harder; as if someone were lowering back-cloths of steadily increasing inappropriateness behind the human actor, like the Marx Brothers in A Night at the Opera, However, I expect this is all prejudice and nonsense. Space Comics would still be silly fantasy even if the world were brought into correspondence with them, a , fortunately, I suppose it can’t aren’t...go' to. be turned into Cartoon characters, and’ they are a part of the world, when all is said and

done.

J. M.

HINTON

Lecturer in Philosophy, V.U.C, fin

ENGINEER

\ SPEAKING as an engineer one’s immediate reaction is praise for the, scientists and technicians who worked it all out, and some surprise that it has happened earlier than had been forecast. As a spectator it is difficult to know the reaction of the American engineers to all this, but from the quoted comments

of their spokesmen _it appears that national pride is somewhat hurt.

I can’t help feeling though that these comments have been most unwise and -also most unfair to the American technician. That Russia won the race is hardly surprising. A couple of years ago Sir , Winston Churchill gave the figures that tell the whole story. Russia has some 50,000 engineering graduates a year, United States 25,000, and Britain only 1,800. And the Russians recently advertised their intention to train four million engineers and their technical assistants and craftsmen in five years, No one, I gather, is paid higher or starts higher in the social scale in Russia than an engineer. This is not so in the West. In a society which is predominantly agricultural the farmer is the most important member of the community; in our present type of society the engineer should occupy this position, Where you have vast sums of money spent on the training of technicians you can’t help but have rapid technological progress. This is a strong plea for the recognition of the engineer as an important member of any society that wishes to hold its own in the present world race for supremacy. While I personally have no leaning at all towards what we understand as the Communist Way of Life, there is little doubt that in the production of a vast army of scientists and engineers it is responsible for putting Russia where she is today. It is up to the West to appreciate this reason for this change in the balance of power, ‘and to take whatever steps it can to accord the engineer facilities, and encouragement, in his work, +

THE LAW

Y first reaction was a rather mean pleasure that the Russians had beaten the Americans, and without nearly so much talk, My second was a ceftain amout of concern that we in the West are a bit soft in the competitive race. Russian education, for instance, applies much tougher standards . than we are prepared: to allow for our

‘ children: "Life is real; life is earnest."

We don’t want to live in that ruthless way, but we may pay for it by

doing without the advances that scientific development makes possible. The satellite’s launching shows clearly that we have been rather led up the garden path concerning the technical ability of the Russians. 5 I wonder, all the same, if this event is not just another grandiose human device for dodging more important problems. We find it a great deal easier to experiment in science than to attack problems like the world food supply or how to live at peace. The legal aspects are most interesting. Our property law, like that of ancient Rome, is based on the principle, cuius est solum, eius est usque ad eaelum et ad inferos-ownership extends from hell to heaven. In other words property rights extend from the centre of the earth outwards into infinity. Legislation has. modified this for private property. For instance, you can’t complain if N.A.C, flies aeroplanes over your piece of land, though they are absolutely liable if anything should drop on you, But in international law the sovereingty of national states is based on the undiluted principle. If an aeroplane flies over another country without permission it is an intruder. There has never been any dispute that a nation is entitled to complain of such trespass. Hungary imposed an enormous fine on the crew of a U.S. aircraft forced down by their air patrols, and the fine was paid, though under protest. It is agreed in the West, however, that shooting down is going too far. Although this Roman Law principle is accepted in international law, .

nobody knows to what altitude it applies. It can be assumed to extend at least to the greatest height reached by piloted aircraft, but there is still a big gap between that and the pre‘sent satellite. I think the purpose of the law is to ensure that a country’s territory is free from unwanted observation and from potential at-

tack-yet nowadays how is anyone to know when these é@onditions apply? We are not even certain whether or not the present satellite is capable of taking photographs. Of course, in this case, any trespass on territorial air could probably be justified on the ground that general interest constitutes tacit consent. Any long-term solution of the legal problems could only be a result of international agreement. I think what we are likely to get is agreement on a conditional open-space rule, which may be coupled with international inspection of satellites and their equipment. It may even be the beginning of a break-through in policies of scientific secrecy. There are a couple of interesting sidelights. One is that the scientists apparently are not perfectly sure the satellite and its rocket will burn up on reaching thicker air. The Sydney businesshouse which has ensured against damage with Lloyds may yet collect. If it did, I should think the underwriters might have a legitimate claim against the Soviets as owners of the falling objects, Another aspect is that in war an intercontinental ballistic missile may cross neutral territory, Now, to remain neutral, a country must not permit passage of troops or munitions. The question may arise: Should every neutral country be obliged to maintain fleets of antimissile missiles in order to prevent such massage and maintain its neutralitv?

E. K.

BRAYBROOKE

Senior Lecturer in Jurisprudence, V.U.C. i-,

x E had known four or five months ago that the Russians had started _construction of a_ satellite so the

launching was not a complete surprise. What was. surprising was that they succeeded so quickly, and so much in advance of the United States. We can no longer be complacent about Russian scientific capacity. But the satellite wasn’t put up there just for the fun of showing how clever we are. It was for the International . Geophysical Year,

ASTRONOMER

The Americans plan to pack their satel lite with instruments, and no doubt the Russians have done the same, so

we should learn a lot about the structure of the earth

among other things. My particular hope is that we can now get some measure of the radiation from the sun. Our atmosphere cuts out much of the ultra-violet region of the spectrum, but instruments in a satellite will not be affected. On the sun there are flashes of exploding hydrogen gas-almost like lightning-which cover huge areas. Radiation from these affects our ionosphere, which in turn affects the transmission of radio waves. We don’t know, but we suspect it is the ultra-violet radiation that does the affecting. The satellite could check on that. The cosmic ray "showers" we get on the surface are thought to be secondary effects of the rays which hit the iono-sphere-a kind of chain reaction down-wards-and the sphere ought to measure these things and give us an idea of the nature of the primary rays. These studies of the ionosphere are important for radio, of course, and it may be that in future we’ll be able to broadcast the most dreadful programmes over much greater distances. We have not yet got the eee for it, but if we could get a photograph in deep ultra-violet light the stars may well look quite different. Some that are quite faint here may look blindingly brilliant from outside the atmosphere. We suspect that they are. It would have to be by photograph, though, because ultra-violet is invisible to the human eye, besides being very damaging. It would not do to look directly at the stars from a manned satellite. _ I have not looked at the satellite through our telescope-there is too little time, and it would only be from persenal curiosity. Our main interest at this observatory will be in the solar outbursts and their subsidiary effects. It will take time, of course, for information to become availablé, but it could he of creat use to us. shee Hangin

I. L.

THOMSEN

Director of the Carter Observatory, Wellington:

UMBRELLA MAN

|™ intrigued to find that the newspapers refer to this thing by its Russian name of sputnik. "The English language has welcomed a new’ word, just as it welcomed the word blitz, Now whether this silly thing goes round circling the globe for a month or a

year I don’t really care: I have cofsulted my physical, ‘spititual and financial well-being and

found it makes no differencereat all, At the same time, when I "heard that signals from it had ceased, a»loneliness struck. Somebody had removed an umbrella that I had never had before. I understand that over 100 of these things are to be projected beyond my own immediate orbit. ow this makes me feel less lonely, eat if the rocket and the stick are 0 stay out there in space -w and round faster than [S@an’ ride a bicycle-it rather milif "> against Brick Bradford, scrum-cap™ or not, projecting himself into his usual

enormities. .

DENIS

GLOVER