galacticjourney

Here's a couple of interesting space news items:

Firstly, a new Explorer (#7) has soared into the sky. This one was launched at the tip of the Juno II rocket, the one that sent Pioneer 4 past the Moon and into solar orbit. Whereas Explorer 6 was known as "The Windmill," the quite different Explorer 7 has been nicknamed "The Gyroscope." Though the craft bears the same Explorer designation as its predecessor, it was actually made by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories, the (somehwhat) friendly rival of Space Technology Laboratories, darling of the U.S. Air Force.



Explorer 7 is a lovely, complex satellite, with a battery of scientific instrumentation. Not only will it probe the radiation and micrometeoric environment of space, as prior spacecraft have done, it also wields a new experiment designed to measure the heat budget of the Earth. Simply, it will help determine how much of the sun's energy is absorbed and reflected by our planet, measuring quantitatively the sun's effect on the Earth. Pretty neat stuff! I will definitely report on the science as it is published.

Secondly, Explorer 6 has finally gone silent, but even mute, it has proven useful. On October 13, the Air Force shot a plane-launched Bold Orion anti-missile rocket at it to test our ability to intercept Soviet missiles in flight. I can't get exact figures, but it got pretty close, apparently. Probably close enough that, if the rocket had a little nuclear bomb on it, it could destroy an enemy missile.



Meanwhile, in the "why bother" department, a piece in the Miami News caught my attention. The first, titled Space Science Called Foolish, has Brown University Professor Emeritus Dr. Charles A. Krause humbugging all over the space program. "There's a lot of nonsense going on in the field of space science," the esteemed doctor opined. "I'm for forgetting this nonsense and keeping our earth science up to date." He went on to say, "Space is a vacuum, void of matter or gas. There is nothing to be gotten out of a vacuum. We can get a lot out of the Earth."

Apparently, Dr. Krause is not aware that the Earth's upper atmosphere and magnetic field, integral parts of this planet, can only be surveyed from space. Moreover, he is blissfully ignorant that there is plenty to be gotten from a vacuum, one far better than any that can be manufactured on Earth. In any event, the Sun, the Moon, the planets, the asteroids, meteors, comets, micrometeoroids, charged particles, solar wind, etc. all exist in space. It is hardly devoid of matter or gas. Understanding how they move and interact perfects our knowledge of Earth-bound physics.

In short, Dr. Krause is a schmuck. And so are the editors of the Miami News.

Oh, and here's another one: Rockets too Puny for Moon. It's less inflammatory, but it is already out of date. The seminal quote is, "U.S. guidance systems are on par with those of Russia. The weight-carrying capacity of our moon rockets is not." The unknown author's point is that, until we get beefier rockets, we can't send guidance good enough to get a probe on the moon.

Given that the new Atlas Able will be launching before the end of the year, this defeatism seems misplaced. I guess we'll see.


Footage from a new TV show, Destination Space


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P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns. While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!








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It's going to be a dreary month, if October's selection of digests is any indication.

Of course, my mood isn't buoyed by the fact that I must compose this article in long-hand. I hate writing (as opposed to typing; and typing on an electric is sheer bliss). On the other hand, I'm the one who chose to occupy much of the next few days in travel, and fellow airplane passengers don't appreciate the bang bang of fingers hitting keys.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning, shall we? As I write, I am enjoying my annual plane trip to Seattle for the purpose of visiting my wife's sister, myriad local friends, and to attend a small but lively science fiction convention. This one is singular in that its attendees are primarily female, and its focus is woman creators. People like Katherine MacLean, Judith Merril, Pauline Ashwell, Anne McCaffrey, etc.

Once again, I get to ride in the speedy marvel that is the jet-powered Boeing 707. San Diego to Seattle in just a few hours is a luxury to which I hope I never become jaded. Although I will concede that the roar of jets is less pleasant a sound than the thrum of propellers.

I made several attempts to read this month's Astounding, but I could find nothing in it I enjoyed. I'll summarize that effort later. In the meantime, I have just finished the November 1959 F&SF, and if you can read my chicken-scratch (I hope my editor cleans it up before publication), I'll tell you all about it.



F&SF often features brilliant stories. Last month, the magazine had an unheard-of quality of 4.5 stars, just under the theoretical maximum of five. This month, we're at the nadir end of quality. It's readable but fluffy, forgettable stuff.

Story #1, The Martian Store by Howard Fast, recounts the opening of three international stores, ostensibly offering a limited set of Martian goods. They are only open for a week, but during that time, they attract thousands of would-be customers as well as the attention of terrestrial authorities. After the Martian language is cracked, it is determined that the Martians intend to conquer the Earth. The result is world unity and a sharp advance in technological development. Shortly thereafter, an American company begins production and sale of one of the Martian products, having successfully reverse engineered the design.

Except, of course, in a move that was well-telegraphed, it turns out the whole thing was a super-secret hoax by that company in order to create a demand for those putatively Martian products. World peace was a by-product. Thoroughly 3-star material.

G.C. Edmondson's From Caribou to Carry Nation is a gaudily overwritten short piece about transubstantiation featuring an old man who is reborn as his favorite vegetable... and is promptly eaten by his grandson. Two stars, and good riddance.

Plenitude, by newcomer Will Worthington, is almost good. It has that surviving-after-the-apocalypse motif I enjoy. In this story, the End of the World is an apparent plague of pleasure-addiction, with most of the human population retreating into self-contained sacks with their brains hooked into direct-stimulation machines. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but the quality is such that I anticipate we'll see ultimately see some good stuff from Worthington. The editor says there are three more of his stories in the bag, so stay tuned.

There is a rather pointless Jules Verne translation, Frritt-Flacc, in which a miserly, mercenary old doctor is given a lordly sum to treat a patient only to discover that the dying man he came to see is himself. Two stars.

Then there is I know a Good Hand Trick, by Wade Miller, about the magical seduction of an amorous housewife. It's the kind of thing that might make it into Hugh Heffner's magazine. Not bad. Not stellar. Three stars.

I'll skip over the second half of Starship Soldier, which I discussed last time. That takes us to Damon Knight's column, in which he laments the death of the technical science fiction story. I think Starship Soldier makes an argument to the contrary.

Then we've got Asimov's quite good non-fiction article, C for Celerity, explaining the famous equation, E=MC^2. I particularly enjoyed the etymology lesson given by the good doctor regarding all of the various scientific terms in common physical parlance. I've been around for four decades, and my first college major was astrophysics, yet I never knew that the abbreviation for the speed of light is derived from the Latin word for speed (viz. accelerate).

James Blish has a rather good short-short, The Masks, about the futuristic use for easily applied nail polish sheets. It's a dark story, but worthy. Four stars.

Ending the book is John Collier's After the Ball, in which a particularly low-level demon spends the tale attempting to corrupt a seemingly incorruptible fellow in order to steal his body for use as a football. Another over-embroidered tale that lands in the 2-3 star range.

That puts us at three stars for this issue, which is pretty awful for F&SF. Given that Astounding looks like it might hit an all-time low of two stars, here's hoping this month's IF is worthwhile reading. Thankfully, I've also picked up the novelization of Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz, and it's excellent so far.

Back in a few days with a convention report and a book review!

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P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns. While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!



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The Soviets have done it again, reaching yet another milestone in space exploration before the Americans.

This time, the goal was the Moon's far side, which had never been seen before. The reason for this is that the Moon is tidally locked in its orbit around the Earth such that it cannot rotate (much as an object floating in water will stay fixed with is heavy end pointing down). As a result, humanity has only seen one side of the Moon for the entirety of human existence. Isaac Asimov once joked, in the form of a medicore science fiction tale, that there is no back side to the Moon--that it's really just a false front movie prop.

But there is a far side. We know this because the Soviets have sent its third "Lunik," formally named Luna 3, sailing around the Moon to take pictures of it. The results promise to be a darn-sight better than what we managed with Explorer 6 and a much closer target.



It is not a surprise that this new and improved Luna is such a capable craft. It weighs an impressive 278.5 kg, which is nearly twice as heavy as the American Atlas Able Pioneers, imminently scheduled for lunar launch. Not only does the new Soviet probe have a real movie camera on board, but it also mounts a slew of scientific experiments designed to probe the magnetic fields and charged particles of cislunar space. I'm really hoping that its measurements will shed light on why the Earth's magnetic field gets so wibbly and wobbly about 70,000 kilometers up; the leading current theory is that it is due to interactions with the sun's magnetic field.

Now, at this point, you're probably wondering why I haven't included Lunik's photos of the Moon. Well, the answer is simple: they haven't arrived yet. As I write, the probe is making its closest approach to the Moon. It will then fly about 70,000 kilometers beyond the Moon before circling back for a close pass by the Earth, whereupon it will transmit its photographic cargo. That will happen in just under two weeks.

Thus, my enthusiasm may be premature. It is quite possible that Luna 3 may suffer a catastrophic error that prevents it from sending pictures home or even taking pictures in the first place. Even if that happens, the Soviets will still have been the first to succeed at a tricky bit of orbital billiards.

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P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns. While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!



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For more than a month and a half, Explorer 6 has been a busy bee, happily conducting the most advanced science in orbit to date thanks to its highly eccentric orbit, taking it several thousand miles above the surface of the Earth, and its battery of sophisticated instruments.

What has this intrepid little fellow reaped in terms of scientific data? A veritable bonanza.

Firstly, let’s look at the most accessible treasure—the first picture of the Earth taken from orbit.



On August 14, 1959, one week after launch, Explorer 6 turned its photographic eye to its mother planet. It wasn’t a camera in the normal sense of the word; such a device would have been too heavy. Rather, it was a simple eye that scanned the sky in strips as the satellite spun around (it rotates for stability). Engineers on the ground then attempted to assemble the strips so that they might piece together into something recognizable as the Earth. It was much like trying to restore a shredded document. As Charles P. Sonnet, head of the scientific team commented, “You have to make the a priori judgment that the Earth is round.”

Apparently, one recent press conference attendee called the photo a “fake.” Chuck replied, “No, it’s not a fake… but it is pretty limited.”


Chuck Sonnet

So as a phototourist, Explorer 6 was a bit of a dud. In other categories, however, Explorer 6 is an unqualified winner. For two weeks, before the probe’s ion chamber broke down, Explorer 6 returned an unprecedented map of the Van Allen Belts of trapped radiation encircling the globe, and results are still coming in, though it is harder to determine the energy of encountered particles. The on-board cosmic ray scintillator has determined that the “solar wind,” the waves of particles emanating from the sun, are not modulated by Earth’s magnetic fields but rather are controlled almost exclusively by the solar magnetic field. Explorer 6’s magnetometer has returned a comprehensive map of Earth’s fields, which conform to theoretical predictions only out to a distance of five Earth radii—after that, they get unexpectedly variable.


Explorer 6's magetometer and the ones who built it: Paul Coleman and George Takahashi

The only field we still don’t have good data on is micrometeorites. Virtually every launched space probe has had an experiment to measure the number and energy of little orbital particles to see if they might pose a significant threat to satellites and spaceships. The data they have returned has not been robust enough to reach any real conclusions. All we can determine thus far is that there are some particles up there, but they can’t be too hazardous since our satellites haven’t been damaged by them!

Explorer 6 continues to return data, not only augmenting humanity’s fund of scientific data, but also proving the efficacy of the first digital telemetry system—a necessity for any interplanetary space shot. It is unknown how long the satellite will last, but there is no question that it has done yeoman’s work to date. It is arguably the most successful orbital probe ever launched, and it is a harbinger of good tidings for the upcoming Pioneer Able launches to the moon and Pioneer Thor deep space probe.

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P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns. While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!



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I had planned on breaking up the rest of this month’s (October 1959) Astounding into two parts, but seeing how there are only four pieces of fiction, albeit long ones, I’ve decided to give it all to you in one blow.

Chris Anvil continues to put out the most mediocre stuff imaginable. These are the stories I’d expect to see in Imagination, if “Madge” were still around. The Law-Breakers is the cover story for this issue, and it really is barely worth the space it takes. Two invaders from a race of extremely humanoid aliens attempt to infiltrate the Earth using sophisticated invisibility technology. All of their predecessors have failed on these missions, so the stakes are high. As it turns out, the Terrans are ready for the invaders, trailing them wearing cloaking fields of their own.

Once captured, the invaders are offered a deal—become citizens and their sentence will be reduced from felony sabotage to a host of petty misdemeanors. Along the way, we get some fatuous smugness about how Earth is better than the aliens because it is a planet of multiple competing civilizations rather than a single, united race. It took me three sittings to finish the story, which is saying something for a 30-page story.

Story #2 is even worse: The Unspecialist, by unknown Murray F. Yaco, features a pilot and co-pilot of a small scout ship accompanied on their mission of reconnaissance by a “Bean Brain,” a seemingly useless fellow who, nevertheless, contributes valuable expertise in a particular pinch. The gotcha of the story (a disappointing trope of science fiction that I thought had died out) is learning the former profession of the unspecialist. Dull, dull, dull.

I was thus rather pleasantly surprised by the third story, Dodkin’s Job, by the old hand, Jack Vance. Somehow, I have a soft spot for dystopian stories with highly regimented societies. Not so much the predestined occupation stories, like Asimov’s Profession, but more the totalitarian tales where people are pigeonholed into horizontal layers of privilege and are constantly trying to climb out.

In this one, Luke is a 40-year old born with ample opportunities, but due to his nonconformist nature, he finds his career a sordid succession of demotions until he finds himself a Level D Flunky assigned to clean sewers. When a new labor directive is passed down to return his shovel to the central office every day, thus wasting three hours of his own time, Luke decides to petition the authorities. Up the ladder he goes, to the very top, and then back down to the prestige-less clerk levels whence the impetus for the decision came. There, he finds the true secret of bureaucracy—that data is power, and it is the presenter of data who really has the power, not the decision-makers who can only make decisions based on the data presented.

It’s a story that kept me up past my bed-time, and, as a person who presents data for a living, a very instructive piece, to be sure!

That leaves us with Part 2 of That Sweet Little Old Lady, by Mark Phillips aka Randall Garrett. As you know, I’m rather predisposed against Mr. Garrett, but I did stick it out through both installments, this tale of telepaths, espionage, FBI agents, and renaissance costumery.

In short, there is an information leak somewhere in America, and it’s up to Agent Malone to find it. Along the way, he teams up with a host of insane telepaths, all of whom are non-functioning with the exception of one who believes herself to be an immortal Queen Elizabeth I. She insists that her entourage dress appropriately, and I now understand why Randy dressed up as Henry VIII for Wondercon—he was really dressing up as Agent Malone (or Malone was designed to look like Randy playing Henry VIII).



Anyway, it’s a flippantly written who-dunnit. It’s not offensive, and I was able to finish it in a reasonable amount of time, but it was the literary equivalent of Saltines—bland and not particularly satisfying. Also, I’m getting rather tired of Kelly Freas—how many wrinkles does an illustrated person need, anyway?

Thus ends another 2.5 star Astounding. This makes the biggest spread between magazines I've seen in a month--compare to 3.5 for Galaxy, 4.5 for F&SF.

That’s that for magazines this month, though I'll do an Astounding Analytical Laboratory stop press in a couple of days. Next month, we’ve got another Astounding, F&SF, and IF. Also, a host of anticipated space shots, probably a movie or two, and a new science fiction/fantasy/horror anthology debuting in about a week: The Twilight Zone.
See you soon!

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P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns. While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!



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The big news this week is Astounding is raising its price from 35 cents to four bits. It's a big jump, but I'm sure it's a necessary move given that Galaxy and F&SF also cost 50 cents (though IF is still at 35 cents).

It is significant that I have nibbled around the edges of the October Astounding, so to speak, starting with the non-fiction articles. I didn't like the first half of That Sweet Old Woman, and I doubt I'll care much for part two. I'll bite the bullet tonight. Probably.

But the non-fiction is pretty nifty. Campbell's editorial, for once, does not stink of psionics. He probably saw the writing on the wall when everyone, but everyone, at Worldcon ribbed him about his editorials and story-selection policy. So now John is openly asking for science articles, and he's hoping to introduce a slick page element to the magazine come the beginning of next year. I'm a science writer, so I'll be interested to see how it goes. Perhaps I'll submit an article or two.

I also liked Bill Boyd's article on obtaining blood-typing reagents from vegetables, Blood from a Turnip. It really sings the praises of basic research to see such a medical boon to humanity come from such a simple, off-the-wall experiment. The price of such reagents has been dropped a thousand-fold, as a result.

Next time, I promise to talk about fiction. Probably.

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In Space Race news, the X-15 rocketplane made its maiden powered flight on September 17 with veteran pilot Scott Crossfield (the man who broke the Mach 2 barrier) at the controls. It was just a 9-minute flight using two underpowered XLR-11 engines rather than XLR-99 engine designed for the plane. The XLR-11 is actually the engine that sent Chuck Yeager past the sound barrier in 1948.

Moreover, the plane developed mechanical problems, and a small fire broke out. Crossfield was able to get the craft down safely, however.



And now to the ballistic manned space program. In a way, the Mercury project, that one-manned space capsule that will carry the first American into space, has already succeeded. Last week, on September 9, a boilerplate spacecraft was launched atop an Atlas ICBM. I’ve written about “Little Joe,” designed for low-level test firings of the Mercury. Naturally, the Atlas missions are called “Big Joe.” The recent mission marks the first time the Atlas has been used in support of the manned space program.

For the capsule, the mission was a complete success. It was lofted to a height of 90 miles, separated from the Atlas, and crashed into the ocean some 1424 miles away from its launching site at Cape Canaveral. The craft was in good shape, proving the sturdiness of its heat shield.

The Atlas, on the other hand, suffered some teething troubles. The Atlas missile has three engines, two of which are supposed to drop away when fuel is depleted. They didn’t. The Atlas also took its time separating from the spacecraft.
The flight was good enough, though. It is my understanding that NASA is considering the cancellation of “Big Joe 2,” scheduled to be launched sometime in the Fall.

So there you have it. Not only are the Americans and the Soviets neck and neck, but it seems that the two American space programs are also competing closely. It's an exciting time for those who bet.



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P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns. While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!



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Statistics are (is?) fun. There is a simple joy to compiling data and finding patterns. Since the beginning of the publishing year, i.e. issues with a January cover date, I have been rating stories and magazine issues in aggregate. This is partly to help me remember the stories in times to come and also to trace patterns of quality. In a couple of months, I plan to have my own mini-Hugo awards; perhaps one of you might help me think of a catchy name.

I use a 1 to 5 star rating system, and until this month, individual issues varied between aggregate ratings of 2.5 and 3.5. But this month, the October 1959 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction broke the curve scoring an incredible, unprecedented 4.5 stars. That’s about as close to perfection as I can imagine, and I strongly urge all of you to get your hands on a copy while they remain at newsstands.

I talked about the first third of the book last week. I’ve since finished the rest, and the quality has not dipped an inch.

To be sure, Charles G. Finney’s The Gilashrikes is only decent. A biologist mates his gila monster to his shrike, and the resulting hybrid, in an attempt to make up for their ignoble provenance, become the town moralists, enforcing virtue to an increasingly annoying degree. I know of Finney from the much raved-about Circus of Dr. Lao, and Gilashrikes has a similar, whimsical quality.



Operation Incubus, by Poul Anderson, on the other hand, is fantastic in both senses of the word. A newlywed magician couple, one a lycanthrope, the other an adept (relearning her trade after losing the maidenhood that was the source of much her power) go on a honeymoon only to run afoul of demonic predators. It’s lyric, tasteful, and impacting. Also very exciting. It also paints a universe much like ours, but with magic more intertwined with our lives. Highly recommended.

Hassoldt Davis’ The Pleasant Woman, Eve is a Garden of Eden story starring God and the Wandering Jew discussing how to get the first humans to make more of themselves independently. It’s very good, but it could have used an extra paragraph. Perhaps space concerns dictated the abrupt ending.

The Pi Man is Alfred Bester’s latest tale of a haunted, pursued psychic. In this case, the protagonist is sensitive to karmic patterns, and he must do good and hateful things, in turn, to maintain balance in the universe. It’s very strangely written, and it took me a few pages to get into it, but I found the journey ultimately rewarding.

Finally, for the short stories at least (and they are all under 16 pages in length to accommodate Heinlein’s serial) is Avram Davidson’s Dagon. I must confess that I did not quite understand this rather ominous tale of an American soldier’s rise to virtual Godhood in post-War China. As the fellow becomes more powerful, he becomes more detached from reality, in the end becoming an intangible viewpoint on the world.--a literal goldfish in a bowl. Perhaps that is the point—with power comes a loss of free will and agency. Or perhaps it was just a comeuppance delivered by a mischievous old Chinaman.

As for the novel, Heinlein’s Starship Soldier, the first half is excellent, particularly in contrast to Dickson’s recent military serial, Dorsai!. Oh, it’s got its share of Heinlein preaching through the mouths of characters, but he has to get it out somewhere. I’ll devote a full article to the story next month.

As a teaser for the next article, I've just learned that the Soviets have launched their second lunar probe. It only takes half a day to get there, so we'll know if it was a success in short order!



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P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns. While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!



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Not too long ago, I lambasted the September 1959 issue of Astounding as the worst science fiction magazine I’d read in a long while. This is not to say that it’s the worst of the bunch—I’m sure there are plenty of issues of B and C-level mags that constitute the nadir of written science fiction, although I don’t imagine there are too many of those publications still around.

I’m happy to report that this month’s Fantasy and Science Fiction may well be the best single issue I’ve ever read.



I asked last time whether folks prefer whiz-bangery in their science fiction or not. The overwhelming response was that gadgets aren’t important; characters, story, and writing are. F&SF typically holds to a higher standard of writing, and this month, they’ve hit a zenith.

The incomparable Theodore Sturgeon has the first story, The Man who lost the Sea. It’s told in a weird and effective 1st/2nd/3rd person style, about an explorer who has come to grief beside what appears to be a vast ocean. As his thoughts become more lucid, it becomes clearer and clearer what has happened to him until we get the powerful reveal. I understand Sturgeon has been making a concerted effort to get into the slicks (non-science fiction commercial magazines), and it’s a travesty that he hasn’t been more successful. Oh well; the mainstream public’s loss is our gain.

Asimov has a great column this month entitled, The Height of Up, in which he discusses the coldest and hottest possible temperatures. Ever wonder why our temperature scales (Fahrenheit, Celsius, Kelvin) have such weird and arbitrary end-points? Dr. Asimov spells it out most entertainingly.The good doctor is definitely finding his feet with this column. It was so good that I read a good half of it aloud to my wife as she put together a complicated piece of electronic equipment (a hobby of hers, bless her).

I was delighted to find that Zenna Henderson has published another story, And a little child… It’s not exactly a story of the People, but it has the same sort of magical feel. The viewpoint character is a grandmother on a two-week camping trip with family, particularly a young girl who can see things that others can’t. Such things are monstrous, living creatures—the hills are alive, quite literally. It’s really quite a lovely piece.

Finally, for today, we have Damon Knight’s compelling and cute To be Continued, about a sword-and-sandals fantasy writer (whose name’s first two thirds are “Robert E.”) who is compelled to write a tale of Kor the Barbarian after reading a work that the author had never written, but which only could have been authored by himself!

Peeking ahead, I see that Heinlein’s newest novel, Starship Soldier, is going to be among his best yet. To accommodate the work, F&SF is a whopping 32 pages longer this month!

With the star-o-meter steadily quivering at 4-and-a-half stars, I’m eagerly anticipating the book’s second half.

However, the next time we chat, so to speak, it will not be about magazines, but about the 17th annual Worldcon going on right now in Detroit. “Detention,” as it’s called this year, will last until the 7th, and I expect to have a full, breathless telephonic report in time for the 8th.

Last year, Worldcon was in my backyard (Los Angeles). This year, Los Angeles is going to Detroit: an intrepid group of Angelinos, organized by the dynamo, Betty Jo Wells, embarked earlier this week on a road-trip across the country, Detroit-or-Bust. I’ve reprinted “BJo’s” ad in its entirety for your entertainment.



"TRAVELCON to the DETENTION -- a different city every day. TravelCon plans are starting to shape up. Latest report from Bjo is that about 20 L.A. fans are already making plans to attend the Detention. Fans in the Berkeley area are organizing a group to join up with the Travel Con In L.A. For information and details, contact Betty Jo Wells, 2548 West 12th, Los Angeles 6, California."

Sadly, I was unable to spare time off from work for this event; it looks like fun.

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P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns. While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!



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Let me tell you the story of a missile, one that should make us (ironically) a bit safer.

Wehrner von Braun and his German team of scientists in Alabama developed a short-ranged nuclear missile called the Redstone back in 1953. It was an evolution of the wartime V-2. Then his team created the Jupiter intermediate-ranged nuclear missile, which has been used to launch a number of satellites into orbit, and which is in the process of being deployed in Italy and Turkey to threaten the Soviet Union.

There was originally an intent to mount the Jupiter missile on submarines. This is the reason for its unusually squat shape--it was supposed to fit inside the tubes of a mammoth submersible ship. The Navy quickly thought better of this idea and developed their own sub-launched missile--the Polaris. Propelled by solid fuels, unlike the liquid-fueled Jupiter, the Polaris was recently test-flown for the first time.

This marks the beginning of a whole new era of nuclear warfare: Submarines are about to constitute the third leg of an atomic weapon triad.



The first leg of the triad is the bomber, which has been a vehicle for nuclear weapon delivery since 1945. Their weakness is that they can be shot down before dropping a bomb, and they take a comparatively long time to get to target. On the other hand, they can be recalled or redirected as needed.



Missiles are the second leg, and have just come on station this year. They include the Thor and Jupiter IRBMs and the new Atlas, Titan, and Minuteman ICBMs coming on-line shortly. Missiles are incredibly fast and cannot be shot down. They also cannot be recalled or redirected.

Both bombers and missiles can be destroyed on the ground by an enemy first-strike. This is a dangerous situation for two nuclear superpowers to be in. It ensures that both countries are always looking for an opportunity to deliver a knock-out punch, which could come at any time. Bomber crews must be ready to scramble at a moment's notice. Missile crews must be trained to launch their "birds" in minutes to get their weapons off the ground before being hit. That readiness to retalliate at the first sign of a radar blip will check the other side's willingness to fire preemptively, but it also means a single mistake could bring about armageddon. Hair-triggers are dangerous things.

This is why submarines are so important. The enemy will never know where they are at any given time, thus they cannot be destroyed by a first-strike. They can fire from almost anywhere, and they can be redirected and recalled like bombers. They provide insurance that, even if the Soviets manage to destroy our missile and bomber forces in a first-strike, we will have a powerful retaliatory force. They will help relieve pressure on the nuclear "button."



Of course, the Polaris isn't deployed yet. For the next few years, we have a window of heightened tension wherein an Alas, Babylon scenario is possible, perhaps probable.

Here's hoping that the world makes it to 1965 without blowing itself up.

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P.S. Galactic Journey is now a proud member of a constellation of interesting columns. While you're waiting for me to publish my next article, why not give one of them a read!



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Addendum:

I almost forgot to report the Analytical Laboratory numbers for this month (reader reviews covering the June 1959 issue)! Per the lab, the breakdown was as follows:

Dorsai Part II by Gordy Dickson: 1.81
Transfusion by Chad Oliver: 2.14
Cat and Mouse by Ralph Williams: 2.35
All Day September by Roger Kuykendall: 4.10
Unborn Tomorrow by Mack Reynolds: 4.46

I would have put the Williams up above the Oliver, and while the Dickson passed the time, it was definitely #4 material for me. I guess Astounding readers love their military science fiction. In any event, seeing this Analytical Laboratory made me nostalgic for the halcyon days when Astounding was not awful. Given that this Golden Age was only a couple of months ago, I'm hoping the coming months show that September was just a quick slump.

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