Wednesday, October 11, 1961: 'Space Flight Report to the Nation'

From The Associated Press:

If your children are eager to go rocketing into space, tell them to start saving their money. Commercial manned space flights could be a reality by 1975-80, a space researcher predicted today. Space transportation techniques are expected to develop rapidly in the next 20 years, greatly reducing the cost of a round-trip from earth into an orbit, or to the moon, said H.H. Koelle of the George E. Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Ala. This could be the timetable, Koelle told the space flight report to the nation sponsored by the American Rocket Society:

* Large, orbiting space stations carrying men in 1968-1969.

* A permanent, manned station on the moon, 1970.

* A lunar settlement by 1975.

* Manned expeditions to other planets starting in the 1972-74 period.

* Round-trips from earth to low altitude orbits involving 5,000 men every year by 1975. Several men would be involved in each trip.

* About 500 annual man round-trips from earth to moon by 1975.

* Commercial manned space flights developing in the 1975-80 period.

"It will be witnessed by the middle-aged generation of today, with the younger generation of today taking an active part in it," Koelle suggested. His prepared paper did not estimate the cost of the round-trip ticket into orbital flight or to the moon.

* "Show Window for Space Progress in New York" (video from www.britishpathe.com): @

* "Free Enterprise v. the Moon" (Time magazine, October 20): @

* "The American Rocket Society Story -- 1930-1962" (from Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 1980): @

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