Dimensions of a new age; Weather developments in the space age

This is. All of us newly arrived in the age of space and we have come so quickly swirling about us are powerful influences likely to have upon our lives the most productive impact known to mankind in the last 500 years. Yet we can barely grasp the magnitude of these social forces. We can only guess at their meaning. What does it signify for us to live in a world of such a suddenly extended proportion. Toward the answer. Radio television. The University of Texas has prepared this recorded radio series produced under a grant from the National Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters.

We present it now here as our moderator. Thanks to continuing experiments in the age of space we shall be able to talk with far more validity about a subject we are bound to discuss anyway. The weather. Just how potent a place these advances have in the history of mankind will be pointed out later in the broadcast. In a message from Dr John P. Hagen of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. But first let's look at some of the current weather developments in the space age with Dr. Henry Wechsler director of meteorological research for the United States Weather Bureau. The atmosphere is extremely massive. It may come as somewhat of a surprise to you to know that each human being on earth were assigned a hunk of atmosphere to watch over he'd be responsible for about two million tons of it at all. And the meteorologists have never had and don't have to this day an awareness really of what's going on in all parts of the atmospheric model now forecasting for

Texas. You don't have to know this forecasting for the next few days. You don't have to know what's going on in the whole atmospheric. It's sufficient to know what's going on for three or four thousand miles radius from Texas. But if you're trying to predict several days in advance all week or so in advance you bet you know what's taking place in Northern Hemisphere if you're going beyond that several weeks months or longer periods. You've got to know what's happening in the anti atmosphere because things conceivably occurring off the coast of Antarctica could affect Texas weather in several weeks. Meteorologists have tried to piece together what's happening in the atmosphere by observing weather at spots on earth sending up balloons taking temperatures pressures and so on. Most of the earth as you know are two thirds of is covered by ocean. It's very expensive to set ships up in places we don't have islands and the islands are not always located in the best manner for meter logical observation. For the first time now

meteorologists have an observing platform however which is comparable to the global extent of the atmosphere namely an Earth satellite. And it appears as if this is going to give meteorology one of the greatest boost forwards it's have ahead in its history. A preview of the space age in meteorology a kid 12 years ago when by rockets released from White Sands pictures were taken of clouds from about 100 miles up extending from White Sands to the Pacific to the Gulf of California showing a bird's eye view of clouds that meteorologists only observe you might say from a woman's eye view from the ground. And here the clouds indicate a degree of organization which meteorologists really did not suspect from the scattered observations below. There was no storm at this particular time in fact the rocket people deliberately chose to launch their vehicles in absence of Saddam so they could have

visual contact. However quite by chance several years later 1954 such a picture was taken and when the Naval Research Laboratory scientists put that picture together Carr called me up and said What's this about a hurricane in Texas I must have been a hurricane there judging from the clouds and I looked at the weather maps and I was in a hurricane in Texas October 30 54 years of scattered showers and squalls you know hurricane if you come on over look at this picture which I did and I look at that picture I said my goodness that's so it does look like a hurricane if you wanted miles across and has a typical Hooley arms going into it. And we looked again and I weather maps and we came to the conclusion there was indeed a hurricane it was not however at the ground but some this is a public one. So this is one really good example of a storm. The first example of a full fledged storm that was located by means of a device or platform looking down from above the storm rather than looking up from the surface into the storm.

Well this occurring in 1954 encourage us to push for more rocket photograph pictures we've since developed in cooperation with the Navy. A means of taking rocket pictures of hurricanes which recent months has succeeded in giving us another picture of a storm of the Atlantic coast. Now after the first cloud cover satellite which was launched February 17 1959 instrumentation developed by the US Army Signal Corps under the jurisdiction of NASA and this is a photocell two photo cells at the opposite end of a diameter 45 degrees from the spin axis of a satellite. And as the satellite spins around its axis it gives you a strip of cloud. Now this offers a very immediate practical benefit in forecasting because uphold the pole but the satellite will give us a global coverage and storms have characteristic signatures I mention the Hurricane as a characteristic whirlpool signature cold fronts have long stride added

clouds extending many thousands of miles in which may be embedded thunderstorms and other invective sudden activity involving 20 or perhaps. Fair weather area will be characterized by little or no cloud. Extra tropical storm the main storm of middle latitudes of the enormous things perhaps of a hundred two thousand miles across with characteristic cloud patterns. So that meteorologist relying on cloud pictures alone could draw a fairly good world weather. Not in great detail he would just know roughly west don't you still need the conventional network of balloons taking temperature pressure with it to get the fine detail. Right now our network is so loose over oceans that storms can reside in these areas for days without anyone being aware and so with storms such as hurricanes which read over the tropical oceans we can have an early warning of these things and let airplanes fly into them to pick up more detail information

so that they will be a very immediate practical benefit of space work informing that like you know logical is a risk to humanity in general about means of following storms by means of the cloud pictures. Now the next experiment goes into more fundamental basic study of the atmosphere namely the radiation received by the sun which energizes the atmosphere and actually creates winds and weather and the radiation sent back from the earth to space. Now if you're an equal heating of the earth that creates whether the tropics receive more heat than they can use in the polar regions receive less and this unbalance of energy leads to wind which we try to practice about and never does because you have it or the continuous pouring of radiation from the Sun in an unequal manner and in turn the earth must send back to space over a long period of time about the same amount of energy otherwise the earth would get hotter or

it may be doing so although we don't really know at the present time with the earth as a whole is warming or cooling. So this satellite just call it heat balance satellite has various types of seizures with different colors and materials to separate out three different types of radiation streams. First the direct solar radiation coming from the sun the reflected radiation which clouds the surface and atmosphere sends back to space as you might say the sort of unusable radiation which doesn't do any work at all and then the third stream will be the infrared a long wave radiation radiation which the earth an atmosphere sends back to space to restore some sort of an equilibrium. These data then coming in the global matter will give us the fuel distribution which energizes the atmosphere creates weather gives us give us day by day a running account of how much energy is accumulating in the tropics how much is being lost the polar regions how much that must be transported by the wind a given quality and therefore creating weather and

storms to do this but I'll do more than this. It will give us the heat balance of the earth as a whole. It will tell us over a long period of time is the Earth any more radiation from the sun and send it back to space as well nomad portion of the earth's surface are warming up the most dramatic areas are in the polar regions around Spitsbergen Iceland Greenland. Where are the winters. Perhaps 20 degrees Fahrenheit warmer now than 50 years. Well we know these are true in certain regions particularly in polar regions we do not know if this is true for the earth as a whole the only way really of telling this is by means of heat balance experiment of this type which will keep a book keeping account of the energy we receive the energy we throw away so that over the years we can perhaps anticipate climatic trends which are extremely important for the future man. For example at the last ice age most of the ice melted between 15000 years ago and 7000 years ago during which oceans went up by two hundred twenty feet. Because it was probably a vice that still exists a circle of potential

oven melted ice and had a lot of green earth is warming up in the hall. This conceivably could melt would take hundreds of years for this to take place. But there is this potential this sort of Damocles hanging over future generations and scientists should know what the trends are as regards this melting of ice so as to take proper measures. This can be done. Dr. Wexler has described two main experiments in satellite meteorology. One of these the cloud cover experiment has been included in tyros the first successful meteorological satellite tyros was injected into space on April the 1st 1960 and is now in orbit. A joint project of RCA the army and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration tyros gathers cloud pictures by television rather than by the photo cells of the first cloud satellite cloud pictures are then interpreted and analyzed by the United States Weather Bureau concerning the nature frequency and limitations of the Tyros messages.

Dr. Wexler says we conserve power by only having a terrace if things during daylight and winter addressing things we are logically going our attire observations will be very good. And interpolating and extrapolating weather maps in areas where we have very few observations over oceans and polar regions and so on and giving as a new look at objects even over densely populated areas and depicting structure that we might not suspect. Now this throws open a great possibility of cost of detecting hurricanes over oceans where we don't have any other observations and then having no known that they're there then we would want to send in airplanes to get more quantitative information because Tyra's really is not a substitute for a crash weather reports we do not get the quantitative information from tyros that we get from aircraft we don't get temperatures pressures humidities and so on and winds which we really need to put into a mathematical prediction service using computers. But it certainly is no substitute for conventional observations rather it is a supplement.

Now we have cloud pictures along but this is essentially qualitative information and hard information it will be of most most use in day to day forecasting interpolating areas and so on. It will also be good climatologically to find out what the average cloudiness of the earth is how it changes seasonally whether any long period secular change is involved with and climatic changes. In fact one of the favorite theories of climatic change is an increase of decrease in cloud is one of these days when we had a system weather satellites working communications involved. We would like to have some sort of a painting on a world map of clouds almost immediately as they were observed by satellites some sort of retentive screen image so you could take pictures and not have to go through this very laborious data processing that we don't have to do. And that's the way space scientists work always with an eye on the future and the future frequently is not long in coming as Dr. Wexler indicates. Now a system of satellites which would really keep a continuous watch of each and every major storm would involve six satellites going on a pole a pole of a

different Meridian and an equatorial satellite going from west to east around the equator to take account of tropical storms. This would be extremely important for areas which Morant oceans where observations are few and far between Pacific Coast of the United States southeast coast to the Gulf Coast where hurricanes coming. Then I would be some stationary satellites having a 24 hour period located 22000 miles high. Which would serve primarily for communication link Salo and exhilarate use could be the meteorology because I would hope for a one spot and they would detect everything that's taking place below that spot. But their prime purpose with the communications which is a very important problem for meterology since we are logical data to be of use that must be put in the hands of meter all of us analyze predictions made it back to the public before the weather races. Now right now a national mineralogical Center in Washington. Half a million. Weather

words come in a day of weather we're being highly compressed. A numerical code of five digits half million come in each day based on weather mostly over North American I just think of how this would increase if you had global weather if you had seven satellites sending in a great volume of information. It would increase the load tremendously. And our communication channels could eventually want to clog up. The communication satellites off is our great hope for taking the weather information from all the satellites. Transmitting it to the communications satellites which are then relayed from one to the other and then coming to various will weather centers of which Washington would be one I'm sure for speedy analysis by electronic computers and then sent back sent back by the same channels to the users. This involves a great problem of international coordination. Fortunately we do have a World Meteorological Organization which prizes 100 nations which has been in existence under different names for the past century. Now it's affiliated with the United Nations

where weather problems are what it is. But you can see the coordination because they're required because of all the Soviet satellites the cloud cover off of India and the U.S. satellites the cloud cover up where they were supposed to have different sensing a sensitivity of different optics. Other characteristics and one country said well you have to worry about that clout. Nothing to the other so it's a very serious storm. We've got to make sure that when different satellites of different countries see the same star they see it in the same manner. So that false reports will not go off to using countries. So you can see this is a great opportunity for countries to help other countries in their weather prediction because India for this great frontage on the Indian Ocean tropical countries where the observations are sourced past all the tropical oceans will rely very heavily on reports coming from illogical satellites. I'd like to close by speaking briefly about two more items in which space developments are happening around you want to observe atmospheric patterns on other planets. Not

that this will affect the rate they are forecasting but rotating planets which have atmospheres will have certain basic characteristics which will probably be in common with the Earth's atmosphere and others which will be different. It'll be very interesting to to see the similarities and contrast to learning more about the basic properties of planetary atmospheres. And last but not least I'd like to say a few brief words about weather control which is much in the press these days. And by weather control of course we mean a large scale weather control not just a small scale food orchard of fire dispersal sort of thing which has been around for years. But large scale control which conceivably with our grass. Have big energy resources and bigger ones in the future will be with an man's scope. But you really have to do this intelligently not the trial and error manner we must know more about the atmosphere and how it behaves you must explain the present climate which you really can't explain in any objective rational means. And

hearing the satellites by their global coverage of the atmosphere will give us basic information of the energy that goes into the atmosphere the clouds the storms which will help us understand that of the atmosphere so when the time comes that man wants to experiment on a large scale with weather control and his day will surely come. We all know better how to do this. We want to go at this in a slap happy manner perhaps achieving a result cure that might be worse than the ailment. So in summary the advent of space developments particularly the Earth's satellite really give us meteorologists for the first time an observing tool comparable with a global extent of a problem. And often the most revolutionary advance in meteorology but the size of a city. Those are some of the weather developments of the space age as described for us by Dr. Henry Wechsler of the United States Weather Bureau. Weather observation no longer means a trivial reading of the back porch of the monitor. It can signify a major milestone in the progress of

humankind and it is in this latter larger context that the observations of the space age are viewed by Dr. John P. Hagen assistant director for program coordination of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration who has for us an important message. Briefly stated it is there. That we are in the midst of a revolution and that tarries not the Soviets are determined to contain us. I'm last enlightened man of science who along can foresee a tremendous potential for human gains. I do see them and do give their strong support. We may well sail to achieve our revolution. What is this revolution. It's the one baton by our entering the age of space. It means that man for the first time can rise above the murk

of the atmosphere and use his instruments to study the universe in its full spectrum. A man from the beginning has had to interpret the rest of the universe from the information carried through the atmosphere in a narrow part of the electromagnetic spectrum. That is the visible region to all other parts. The infrared. The ultraviolet and beyond the atmosphere is OK except for a region in this short wave radio spectrum. As a further hindrance to our knowledge the light rays coming to us from the heavenly bodies are refracted in a rapidly changing fashion by the atmosphere much in the same way as the light is refracted coming over a hot stove so that what we see we cannot see

clearly. To partially avoid this difficulty we locate our great observatories high on my own. But even then the turbulence is so great in the upper atmosphere that it rather than the diameter of the telescope objective determines the optical resolution. It's fair to say I think that except on rare occasions the effective resolution of even the greatest telescope is no better than that of a three inch objective which you might have in your backyard. The advantage to be gained from these tremendous telescopes comes from the light gathering power. To escape from the atmosphere or the escape from the atmosphere that has now been achieved and which will allow us to make a sudden great gem in our acquisition of knowledge of the universe and its process. This

is the beginning of the revolution. I defined earlier. But no one really knows what progress the revolution will be bring. One thing however is certain the rapid expansion of our knowledge of the universe and its process is bound to accelerate our understanding of the physical processes here on Earth. With this better understanding will come applications of the new knowledge that will improve the standard of living of all mankind. Our present knowledge allows us to see things clearly out of Justin's. Once we get above the atmosphere. But the next our second step. Is to conquer the distance barrier by carrying our measurement instrument instruments closer to the body being studied then the surface features can be seen in more detail

fields the electromagnetic and magnetic can be measured and atmospheres sampled. It may even be possible to descend to the surface of these bodies collect samples and bring them back to the earth for study and observation. The third step is the travel of man himself and space. Man will only go when instruments alone no matter how complex will not suffice. His journey will be fraught with danger but it will be a mighty step. Now that we know travel in space by men can be accomplished men will not rest until it is achieved. This is the nature of man. It's one of the characteristics that differentiates him from an animal and it is perhaps the one outstanding characteristic that explains the progress of our civilization. It is this bending of nature to

his ways that has led him to abandon his cave for the hot and abandoned the hut for the house. I might say a word here about fantasy. Unfortunately a few fanatics have fed us a lot of fantasy which I need not here describe a fantasy about spacemen conducting peculiar unproductive and unrewarding antics. But please don't believe them. There are now only two principals in the space revolution. The Russians and ourselves. Both are dead serious about the effort. In both cases the programs are in the hands of responsible people. And each will progress toward its goals in a logical and orderly fashion. In the frenetic days following the Russian's early success. We

floundered about a bit with one improvisation after another. But as I was shown later acquitted ourselves quite well and in the process made some very real steps forward toward our goals. I've told you about the revolution. Well now who are the tarries. Unfortunately the most effective segment of the Tories are men of science. The argument of the scientific Taare is as follows. The human race is plagued with disease. Our agricultural pressies are primitive and efficient. Our understanding of the atom and the nucleus is imperfect. We must learn more about the properties in the use of materials. Our communications systems are beginning to saturate. We do not understand and much less control the weather and so on and.

We must therefore use all our resources to attack all these things. And forget about the fantasy of space. When I am in closing I might say that the scientist has so far found space a very rewarding medium in which to work. The fund of human knowledge has already been increased in a significant way. It's interesting here to note again that the not of the knowledge already gained in the space effort and has been largely of an unexpected nature. Man is not a mission however he tends to think that he is and so he resists the expansion of knowledge. Scientific Exploration however has made this a better world. And can further improve our state of being. We have here a frontier in the best sense of the world. And it behooves us as a nation and as scientists to be in the forefront

of those who explore this front here. Thank you Dr. John P. Hagen assistant director for program coordination for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Dr. Higgins remarks served to underscore the importance of the Space Age weather developments described earlier for this broadcast by Dr. Henry Wechsler director of meteorological research for the United States Weather Bureau. This is the fifth in a series of programs concerned with interpret ing the advances of the age of space with assessing the dimensions of a new age for significant advances in communication systems. We invite you to listen at this same time next week to Mr. R. MegaCon doyen vice president for communications research of the International Telephone and Telegraph laboratories at Mr. Edmund A La Porte manager of communications engineering for the Radio Corporation of America. These authorities will consider the immense problems and promises of world

communications in the space age. These programs were produced and directed by Roderick the rock miner who serves as moderator. Coordinator and writer. And their idea Benjamin the series was under the supervision of Robert F. Franklin. Gemara speaker. Dimensions of a new AIDS was produced and recorded by radio television and the University of Texas under a grant from the National Educational Television and Radio Center into operation with the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the Radio Network.