The Nome Nugget

Russians Hurl "Space Traveler"
Towards the Planet of Venus

By Preston Grover

MOSCOW (AP) - A 1,148-pound Soviet "Space Station" hurtled toward a mid-May rendezvous with the planet Venus today after a spectacular piggy-back launching the United States does not expect to achieve for another 18 to 24 months.

The space traveler should reach the area of Venus when earth's sister planet will be about 26 million miles away, the Soviets said.

The latest Soviet space shot- second in eight days was aimed at investigating conditions on and around the planet, whose perpetual mantle of clouds has made it a mystery to scientists.

The aim is either to hit Venus or to have the ship pass closely enough to send back detailed studies.

The space ship has a radio transmitter believed capable of sending messages across millions of miles of space, but it has not been announced whether the vehicle carries equipment to relay photographs back to earth.

Hailed as Greatest Space Feat

Scientists and officials on both sides of the Iron Curtain hailed the Venus shot as the greatest space feat since the Soviet Union orbited her first Sputnik three years ago. It adds to the Soviet Union's other claimed accomplishments, which include hitting the moon with a rocket, photographing the far side of the moon and orbiting the sun.

The Soviet announcement indicated the Venus launching was an extreme complex operation. It said a multistage rocket carried a Sputnik into orbit, another rocket was launched from the Sputnik and the second rocket fired off "an automatic interplanetary" station with the intent either of hitting Venus or going into orbit around it.

There was no indication of the rocket's present speed. But the first announcement said that at noon Sunday the space station already was 126,300 kilometers - 75,780 miles - from earth.

Some British observers viewed the Soviet feat as a military warning to the West.

"If the Russians can hit Venus 26 million miles away," said the Tabloid Daily Sketch, "it would be child's play to pinpoint earth targets from only 100 miles out in space."