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Kennedy Offers Nikita Plan For Effort In Space Joint Space, Planetary Exploration Is Target

By RAYMOND LAHR For UPI

WASHINGTON - (UPI) - President Kennedy has invited Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to cooperate in five immediate space projects and eventual joint exploration of the moon and the planets.

The offer was made in a March 7 letter to Khrushchev made public Saturday by the White House.

The tasks are so challenging, the costs so great, and the risks to the brave men who engage in space exploration so grave, that we must in all good conscience try every possibility of sharing these tasks and costs and of minimizing these risks," the President wrote.

The White House said Khrushchev had not replied.

The President's proposal was a followup to a letter he wrote Khrushchev Feb. 22, saying he had asked U. S. space officials to prepare concrete proposals. This was after Khrushchev himself had suggested cooperation in the wake of Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn's orbital flight.

Kennedy's specific proposals:

—Joint establishment of a weather satellite system. The United States would launch one satellite and Russia another in near-polar orbits in planes approximately perpendicular to each other. These satellites would photograph cloud cover and provide other meteorological services to all nations.

OPERATIONAL TRACKING SERVICES

-Establishment of operational tracking services by the United States and the Soviet Union, in each other's territory. Thus the United States would provide the equipment for a tracking station in Russia and train Soviet technicians to operate it. The Soviet Union would provide equipment and train technicians to operate a tracking station in this country.

A project to map the earth's magnetic field in space by using two satellites, one near the earth, the other in a more distant orbit. The United States would launch one and Russia the other. Both would permit distribution of the information obtained to the world scientific community.

-Russia was invited to join in a project already started by the United States, with cooperation from other countries, in experimental communications by satellite.

-Pooled efforts and exchange of knowledge in the field of space medicine in connection with manned space flights and insuring man's ability to survive in space and return safely to the earth.

"Beyond these specific projects, we are prepared now to discuss broader cooperation in the still more challenging projects which must be undertaken in the exploration of outer space," the President told Khrushchev.

He said U. S. officials had developed detailed plans for manned and unmanned flights in space exploration; that U. S. and Soviet plans would no doubt provide possibilities for scientific and

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