Scientist Predicts Space Observatory

If the Defense department gives scientists a green light, inter-space travel could be a reality in a period of five to ten years, said Fred L. Whipple, professor of Astronomy, in an interview last night.

Whipple is a member of a panel of five world-famous scientists chosen by Collier's to contribute their opinions on how man will conquer space. The findings of the panel appear in the current issue of Collier's as a series of five articles on various aspects of the problem.

One of the nation's outstanding astronomers, Whipple is an expert in the behavior of meteorites, and in his section of the five-man survey, he speculates upon the fascinating possibilities open to the astronomer if scientists once succeed in putting a satellite space station out of the earth's gravitational field.

Familiar sights may look entirely different to us when viewed from a telescope mounted beyond the earth's atmosphere, which cuts down a great many high-frequency wave lengths and causes distortion on our photographic plates.

Whipple expressed tremendous enthusiasm for such a project when questioned yesterday. "Heaven only knows what we will find out there," he said, "but I think the results may be beyond all expectations. With technology advancing the way it is, I think a space station is very possible and could be in the reasonably near future."

Whipple says that man will be faced with a rain of meteorites that will constantly pelt the space station. The great majority of them will be smaller than a grain of sand. Large ones would be very rare, but meteorites range in size up to "flying mountains."

Whipple suggests that almost all meteor damage could be eliminated if rockets and space stations were sheathed with a thin layer mounted slightly away from the projectile's skin. Such a layer, especially if filled with certain types of dense, plastic-like gases, would cut the velocity of the smaller particles and prevent them from damaging the rest of the ship.

Other scientists in the Collier's project are Dr. Wernber von Braun, German rocket expert and present U.S. Army guided missiles chief: Dr. Joseph Kaplan, professor of Physics at U.C.L.A.: Heins Haber, of the Air Force's department of space medicine; and Willy Ley, a founder of the pre-war German Rocket Society.