Then the Pentagon announced the U.S. Earth Satellite Vehicle Program,
along with plans for a moon rocket, The artificial satellite is to be
a large rocket-propelled projectile. In its upward flight, it will
have to reach a speed of 23,000 miles an hour, to escape the earth's
pull of gravity. At a height of about 500 miles, special controls will
turn the projectile and cause it to circle the earth. These controls
will be either automatic or operated from the ground, by radar.
Theoretically, once such a vehicle is beyond gravity's magnetism, it
can coast along in the sky forever. Its rocket power will be shut off;
the only need for such power would be if the satellite veered off
course. A momentary burst from the jets would be sufficient to bring
it back to its orbit.

Circling the earth in about two hours, this first satellite is
expected to be used as a testing station. Instruments will record and
transmit vital information to the earth--the effect of cosmic rays,
solar radiation, fuel required for course corrections, and many other
items.

A second space base farther out will probably be the next step. It may
be manned, or it may be under remote control like the first. Perhaps
the first satellite vehicle will be followed by a compartmented
operating base, a sort of aerial aircraft carrier, with other rocket

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ships operating to and fro on the earth shuttle. The moon rocket is
expected to add to our information about space, so that finally we
will emerge with an interplanetary space craft.