Race to place first satellite
Even though cooperation, rather than competition, is the keynote of the International Geophysical Year (IGY), scientists would be less than human if they were not speculating which of the artificial Earth satellites 鈥� American or Russian 鈥� will be aloft first.
The Americans have announced that the launching of theirs must be postponed until next year. The Russians until very recently contented themselves with a mere couple of sentences affirming their intention to send up a satellite during the IGY. Now, however, they have communicated in some detail to the IGY central planning committee the nature of the investigations they intend to pursue with their satellite.
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The latest information suggests that, unlike the Americans, the Russians would choose a polar rather than an equatorial orbit. The documentation the Soviet Union has supplied says it will be using upper atmosphere research rockets to launch the satellite along a band between the 50th and 60th meridians east. This takes in Franz Josef Land in the Russian Arctic, passes between the Caspian and Aral seas in central Russia, and orbits above the main Soviet Antarctic station of Mirny near the South Pole.
The main difference between the orbits of the American and Russian satellites is, therefore, that the former is being fired so that its path will be in a generally east-west direction, largely within the tropics, while the latter will pass in a more or less north-south direction over nearly all the inhabited land masses of the globe, and should certainly be observable from the British Isles.
All we await now is the identity of the first nation to launch its artificial satellite. While everything seemingly points towards the Russians gaining priority, until a satellite is actually in orbit the veracity of any prior claims will constantly remain under scrutiny.
From The New 杏吧原创, 18 July 1957
