THE MEANING OF THE RED MOONS

Amrine, Michael

The Meaning of the Red Moons by MICHAEL AMRINE THE first thing to say of the new moons created by the new Russia is that it marks a major turn of history. At the immediate time of such events,...

...When it comes to providing the optimum conditions for free scientific spirits to have really new ideas, neither the country of the secret police nor the country of Admiral Strauss and Senators Jenner and Bridges provides the ideal atmosphere...
...They realize that the West faces real competition, in peace as in war...
...This happens to most meteorites...
...Russian negotiators two years ago, for example, informally told U.S...
...Many scientists warned that this relative superiority would vanish, and that when Russia had a basic supply of atomic weapons, neither side could hope for safety through strength...
...For a thousand years war has become steadily more destructive...
...Will she launch those proposals, and again capture the world's imagination, while we prepare more modest proposals to launch next year or the year after...
...But especially in the last two years observers have felt that neither side was interested in real disarmament...
...Russia reports she has now solved these problems and possesses "the ultimate weapon...
...But we should know that even supremacy is not going to be "the answer...
...it will happen to most satellites for a time...
...American scientists are worried, indeed, because the U.S.S.R...
...And people like the president of the Air Force Association, Peter J. Schenk, expressed the conviction that we have "suffered a technological Pearl Harbor...
...3. The "Re-entry" Problem—Intercontinental missiles will have one problem satellites at present do not have...
...But the satellite, the rocket, and the huge accelerator—all are based on scientific theory and computations known for some years, and known the world around...
...the U.S...
...Even Mr...
...Oppenheimer now receives standing ovations on those rare oc-casions when he addresses scientific meetings...
...The Russian H.-bomb admittedly required first-rate theoretical work in physics...
...But the satellite capped these achievements because the rocket which put it up there points to the weapon of tomorrow—the Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM...
...This whole business would have to be done with U.S...
...causes such friction with the air that they burn up...
...American scientists are surprised and impressed with Russian proficiency in this business...
...We wouldn't care for that...
...And supremacy represents an all but impossible goal...
...it will not bring us national security...
...It would seem that a first-class power in the world of today should plan to be supreme in both pure and applied science...
...They go aloft and send out signals for a while, and when they fall back into the earth's atmosphere, their speed of 18,000 m.p.h...
...we, for the present, can match or sometimes surpass her in some fields...
...The time now has come to talk about the U.S...
...The "gun-barrel" o£ a missile which may travel thousands of miles is a guidance system which aims it in the way it should go, and exerts control for some time after it has left the launching site...
...England was first with the jet plane, with radar, with penicillin, and a host of other achievements...
...The new situation requires that we do much better, but it is perfectly clear that neither the West nor the East can reach a "safe" superiority...
...Oppenheimer had been the symbol of the ability of free American scientists to cooperate with the government and achieve unprecedented results...
...World opinion could be wrong if it judged the U.S.S.R...
...in the last ten years it has perfected total destruction...
...There has never been, in all history, a time when so many millions were talking about one thing, and what it means for peace and war...
...finds and trains so many more technicians, engineers, and, presumably, scientists...
...One can only make rough judgments: Soviet medical research is quite impressive...
...The development of the ICBM and the H-bomb means that all cities in all countries are vulnerable to instant destruction...
...The satellites which go 18,000 m.p.h., and the missiles which go somewhat slower or more swiftly, will have an historic impact upon the emotional isolationism of America...
...1. Power—It takes enormous energy, measured in units of foot-pounds, in a form called thrust, to throw a weight up in the sky, fighting every inch of the way against the counter force of gravity...
...The basic judgment is that at any major point Russia chooses, Soviet technology can match ours...
...Soviet chemistry and physics are first-rate...
...This, of course, is what we have expected the Russians to do for years—to negotiate from weakness...
...Russia has already exploited the reaction to Sputnik and no doubt will shortly make dramatic and comprehensive proposals for co-existence...
...when it comes to engineering, at this moment the British hold the world's speed records for planes, for ships, and for automobiles...
...At some points she can surpass England and the United States...
...If American business had thought of the space traveler in terms of world advertising, if that shiny silver ball could have towed a streamer saying, "Drink Coca-Cola," then our satellite would have been up there years ago...
...So this might be an opening assumption: this is the dawn of an era of great change...
...The superiority of our side, it is said, has made us smug, complacent, falsely secure, and given us the sometimes unconscious arrogance of the man on top...
...Public information does not indicate the Russians have solved the control problems of ballistics missiles, which have to be aimed with a somewhat smaller margin of error than that involved in getting a satellite into an orbit...
...Both would have reached the saturation point, at which time either side could virtually destroy the other— and perhaps be destroyed itself in the process...
...For some time the satellites will go up, fly, and burn out—and these tiny falling stars will have enormous impact upon old national habits of navigation...
...Scientists and engineers of defense do not believe any country can build a defense which can effectively intercept missiles and prevent wholesale destruction once the ICBM buttons are pushed...
...but it can not happen to missiles if they are to achieve their missions...
...His survey shows that people consider Sputnik a heavy blow to American prestige and that they were surprised the Soviet Union got to space first...
...Teller said he would feel safer with men like Oppenheimer out of the government...
...and in the last ten months it has come close to world-wide capacity for virtually instantaneous destruction...
...The larger the H-bombs, the finer her guidance systems, the sooner the day when Russia—or the United States—can press the buttons and kill ten million people five thousand miles away...
...Vice President Nixon...
...third set...
...When Teller's friend, Admiral Lewis Strauss, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, instituted the hearings on charges against J. Robert Oppenheimer, Teller's testimony provided the crucial, damning word at the security hearing...
...M Planners of inter-continental missiles have worked for years on three main problems...
...This view does not belittle Russian ability to equal or surpass us in technology...
...Included are many Administration leaders who say Sputnik was just "a scientific trick" (departing Defense Secretary Charles Wil-«on) or a "silly bauble" (Presidential adviser Clarence Randall) or something which added "not one iota" to rOur danger (President Eisenhower...
...then through varying levels of atmospheric density, through thick air, thinner air, no air, thinner air, thicker air . . . TARGET...
...The ballistic missile gets its name because like a bullet it follows a "barrel" for a time, and is thus channelled and guided...
...She graduates many more engineers than we do...
...to be completely abreast of the Western world in science as well as in technique...
...Several years ago his television series, "Atomic Report," won Variety's award as the "best public service program of the year...
...Today both the United States and the U.S.S.R...
...At one end of the scale are those who felt we were not in any kind of race at all...
...The Western nations in combination can not assume any lasting major superiority in any way, qualitative or quantitative...
...Soviet agricultural sciences are said to be a joke...
...ours will...
...We would gain a great deal more in the eyes of the world if we were able to announce a cure for cancer...
...The missile must leave our atmosphere, arch through space, and re-enter the earth's air, proceeding on to the target...
...But a positive approach toward negotiated disarmament today could have results more spectacular—and more meaningful than this tiny step into space...
...But we must stop assuming we can order "great science" by some simple method...
...In the next ten minutes we or they might learn that the fatal birds had started to fly...
...Washington is full of men who "know" details of a Russian super H-bomb larger than any we have made...
...However, Gallup added, most countries still expect the next major advance in science will come from the United States, not Russia...
...Technical authorities do not wholeheartedly accept recent Russian achievements as evidence of world leadership in science...
...have a new view of "open skies...
...Edward Teller, the famous Hungarian physicist who did the basic theoretical work for our H-bomb, more than a year ago said that Russia was certain to overtake and surpass us...
...The human race can read some conclusions into these developments that are not necessarily to the national advantage of any country...
...When Oppenheimer was struck down, every lesser (or less well-known) American scientist knew that he, too, could be struck down if a powerful adversary tried to destroy him...
...The U.S.S.R...
...Radio and radar and other devices are used for these controls...
...But Edward Teller is far from being a spokesman for American: science...
...Minutes after the order was given millions would be dead...
...planes...
...One can not weigh "science" like bombs, nor count out the dollars or the rubles a country has earned in Nobel prizes...
...But that still does not say Russia is or is not our equal or superior in science...
...Technical experts agree, however, upon certain Soviet achievements and certain primary conclusions...
...Since "The Year of the Terror," American scientists are far less easily recruited into government work...
...Now to examine some facts behind the assumption: In the eyes of the world, there is no doubt that Russia has arrived as a technological power...
...The first Russian satellite was ten times as heavy as the model we have yet to send up...
...Eisenhower spoke respectfully of this "thrust" behind Sputnik...
...Is Russia really passing us in a race to lead—and dominate—the material world...
...Still, the United States had a period of actual monopoly and to this day probably has a position of relative superiority, considering all weapons in East and West arsenals...
...No one from Madison Avenue nor on Pennsylvania Avenue was able to see that a satellite in effect could carry a streamer readable in 200 languages, to go around the world in 96 minutes...
...If she has both the ICBM and the H-bomb in production, then now, or in the near future, she can destroy any city in the world, without sending one soldier across her borders...
...She is flying jet cargo planes...
...no nation on earth at present has a ring of defenses which could stop catastrophe if the enemy pressed the button...
...Still, there are some major new aspects of the 1958 power situation as symbolized by Sputnik...
...At home, the aircraft and other technical companies for years have seen the subjects of missiles and space as good for national advertising, to American audiences...
...This is not a novel situation in human history...
...Neither side has really wanted to negotiate a genuine agreement, although at times (generally different times) both sides have put forward proposals which made excellent sense and in themselves seemed genuine...
...It is quite a trip, through several stages: first set of rockets, second set...
...Some time, somewhere, the party on the down end of things is going to have to negotiate anyway...
...Then they were able to use sky-writing for the first time in a world-wide advertising campaign...
...The Russians, it has been said, on the other end of the imbalance, have felt truly insecure, inferior, edgy_ and have been consciously and unconsciously offensive...
...has a much more developed atomic power program than the United States, and she built the world's first stationary industrial reactor...
...Already Senator Styles Bridges has explained that our lag is really the result of a vocal wing of American scientists going "political...
...But now he is going to realize, in his bones, that we can be hit and we can be hurt...
...These conclusions will not incline neutral countries to rush to identify themselves with either "the West" or "the East...
...We should be slow to answer this, on the basis of the evidence now available...
...Soviet psychology is hardly impressive at all...
...Our untested and un-built "birds" have been good copy...
...In the coming months, the American people will be bombarded with advice on how to manage science...
...Perhaps we could not read it, as Sputnik passed over Washington and Little Rock, but it was quite legible in Yugoslavia, Syria, India, and Ceylon—a streamer which said, in effect, "Watch Russia, First in War, First in Peace...
...We have no such photographic reconnaissance equipment as the U.S...
...I am not saying this will happen unless we do this or that, I am simply saying it is going to happen...
...These stars will fall everywhere...
...Is Russia on the way to succeeding the Anglo-American world as the home of the best brains in science, just as we succeeded Germany...
...Gallup is hardly needed, but it happens that he has made a world-wide check on opinion...
...At the immediate time of such events, prophecy is even more perilous than it usually is...
...then we will be more interested in open skies...
...The American voter has had an intellectual appreciation of the shape of the world...
...The obsolescent military mind trained in yesterday's theories continues to mutter that for every offense there will be a defense, but there is no law in nature which says this must be so...
...recapturing the world lead in science, not how to keep that lead...
...Aside from the change in the basic power structure of the world, there is another area in which the Russians have out-paced us at the moment...
...From now on planners of national policy will find it as urgent to listen to free spirits like Oppenheimer as to the Big Bomb Makers like Teller, if they want America to be relatively strong in the future...
...It has been a common assumption in some government circles that this imbalance of strength has contributed to the deadlock in negotiations over disarmament...
...Some of the sputtering over Sputnik sounded as if the United States always had been the best at everything under the sun...
...has out-produced us in military aircraft, and she is far ahead of us in submarines...
...Wait until we can set down at Idle-wild a photographic plane equal to yours, or better than yours...
...it is doubly risky to judge the future when you have just learned it is going to be quite different from the past...
...Apparently there are many fewer men of talent wasted in unskilled jobs in the Soviet Union...
...Qualified American scientists and engineers say we must not assume Russia has been lying when she claims she has the 1CBM...
...We can strain every brain and gut to maintain a perilous parity, but there is no longer any prospect of developing and maintaining a position of superior strength...
...Or else there is but one possible end for this suicidal game of see-saw...
...Her system will not let a good mathematician leave school...
...Around Harold Stassen's disarmament office, however, the first reaction to Sputnik seemed to be that we could not make a new and dramatic offer in disarmament now because we would "appear to be negotiating from weakness...
...A rifle is more accurate than a revolver because of the longer gun-barrel which gives guidance...
...She has the world's largest and most powerful accelerator of atomic particles...
...One wonders if he feels safer today than then...
...That applause is for Op-penheimer's spirit, and amounts to a condemnation of "the AEC spirit...
...In the long run, we must hope that this democratic discussion will be good for science...
...They have had the arrogance of the man who thinks (correctly, in this case) that he is traveling fast on his way to join those on top...
...At the end of World War II, the United States policy-makers felt relatively safe because of their illusion that we would have a monopoly of the atomic weapon for years to come...
...Can the nose of a missile be made of some kind of heat-resistant ceramic that will not burn up on hitting the air...
...One new thing, for many people around the world, is a realization that a Communist dictatorship can in fact produce such leadership in material progress...
...He told the Air Force Association in February 1957: "Within ten years the Soviets will have the best scientists in the world...
...The Communist competition, however, did not throw their un-Ameri-•can know-how into four-color full-pages, but into the gadget itself...
...At the other end of the scale, still another Administration spokesman, who is developing the habit of striking out on his own, warned that "we could make no greater mistake than to brush this event off as a scientific stunt...
...To some extent the U.S.S.R...
...At present we are losing the chance to lead discussion in one of history's few world-wide conversations...
...MICHAEL AMRINE, formerly managing editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, has worked closely with Harold Urey and the late Albert Einstein in the preparation of scientific materials for laymen...
...2. Control—The missiles (and the rockets to guide satellites) have to be guided, at least for the first part of their flight...
...Sputnik showed how well the Russians have solved this problem...
...negotiators on the "open skies" proposal, "Don't you realize the real point...
...Thoughtful observers everywhere realize that if Russia were not spending so much on war, she too, could produce homes, TV sets, and dishwashing machines in great quantity...
...Even the scientists can be wrong about how they should be managed or left unmanaged...
...Can the computers keep up with the varying velocities a missile will have at various stages of the journey...
...satellite itself has been the theme of advertising for months, and the ads have always assumed we were leading the world...
...We should also have a new respect for Russia as an equal and Russia should have a new confidence born of self-respect (always supposing her system does not explode internally...
...In countering such a spectacular, we must use more imagination than to do something in the same league, such as exploding an H-bomb on the moon...
...The fact is that Russia has been matching us not so much in pure science but in fields where we supposed ourselves unbeatable—in "know-how," to use our own phrase, in mobilizing engineering, in production...
...In other words, they have been playing our own game...
...Satellites are destined for a limited life...
...Letting the Russians beat us here, as in the race for the ICBM, would be exceedingly dangerous...
...Much of the informed world now considers her the equal of the West...
...They will have great impact upon the emotional isolationism of India, on China, on Sweden, on Switzerland, and, so far as knowledge is widespread, upon the emotional isolationism of the Soviet Union...

Vol. 21 • December 1957 • No. 12


 
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