Gemini 3 Displays Maneuverability; Moon Race Discounted by Scientists

Molly Brown, a companion to Russia's man-in-space, successfully maneuvered through three orbits around the earth yesterday. During the flight she practiced movements which will be necessary to rendezvous and dock in space.

In the first orbit, command-pilot Virgil T. Grissom and pilot John W. Young employed rockets to decrease the speed of the Gemini 3 capsule, causing it to descend into an orbit closer to the earth. The next time around, the pilots engaged rockets to push the Gemini 3 from side to side across the plane of the orbit.

Over Hawaii in the third orbit, Grissom slowed the ship for re-entry. Though Molly Brown missed her landing target by 53 miles, officials were pleased with.

Fred L. Whipple, director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, said that the USSR and the U.S. are engaged in two concurrent programs, both of which are "going beautifully."

He said that yesterday's achievement as well as the Russians' flight last week is a necessary step in any program aimed at landing a man on the moon. But Russia and the United States have chosen to take these steps in a different order. The Russians have put a man in space, but their capsules have not exhibited the maneuverability achieved by the Gemini.

C. Stark Draper, director of the instrumentation Laboratory at M.I.T., agreed with Whipple. He compared the U.S. and the USSR to two horses running on separate tracks. They are not competing against each other and, therefore, they cannot be compared.

Neither man would comment on whom he thought would reach the moon first. However, Whipple has a $1000 bet with a Viennese scientist that someone will land on the moon and return alive by 1970. An expensive guess.