SPACE: Bringing Them Back Alive

It was the Russians who last week achieved the greatest advance yet made in man’s venture into space. Belka and Strelka, two female dogs in a Soviet space capsule, rounded the earth 17 times while Russian scientists watched them on television, and then, at the Russians’ electronic command, glided down to earth alive.

In the space race, the Russians clearly won last week’s lap (see SCIENCE), as the Americans won the previous week’s. Earthbound spectators checked off their score cards: ¶Space vehicles launched: U.S. 26, Soviet Union 8. ¶Vehicles still in space: U.S. 16, Soviet Union 3.

¶Still sending data to earth: U.S. 9, Soviet Union 1.

¶Capsules recovered from space orbits: U.S. 2, Soviet Union 1.

The Russians were far ahead in the ability to send up payload weights. The Russian “space menagerie” weighed 10,143 lbs., twice as much as the heaviest U.S. load put into space. The menagerie’s capsule was big enough for two or three men. The U.S. appears ahead in refinement of miniature instruments, but Russia achieves plenty of sophistication with its bigger devices. And by their own claims, the Russians are ahead in accuracy: their space menagerie, they said, landed only six miles from the target point (undisclosed).

In Washington the Administration saluted the Russians for “a fine job.” And a fine job it was, aiding not merely the Russian standing in the space race but the longer-range human adventures of science and exploration. Every lap completed in the space race, by whichever competitor, adds to the sum of mankind’s knowledge and carries him closer to the stars.