My Weekly Reader Oct 12, 1959 "Flight of the Mysterious X-15"

Another "space" article but really about the X-15 and it's possible future as a space vehicle.

"The rocket ship is expected to carry the first man into space, perhaps in 1960."

"The flight will pave the way for sending a man in orbit around the earth."

"My Weekly Reader" Oct 5, 1959 "The Weather is Changing."

Oct 5, 1959

A few more space related issues of "My Weekly Reader".  This article is in celebration of Earth Day on April 22.

I recently acquired a few more issues of this "ephemeral" school newspaper.  I get consistent comments about how they are both difficult to find and bring back the "space race" many of us experienced. 

So here is an article from late 1959.

In a topical way this article is still current since it is about climate change. But back in 1959 it also discusses how someday we might control the weather with satellites.

 I do appreciate this quote: "Today the weather picture is changing faster. Man is 'helping' nature change the weather."

But more interesting in a look back from 2017 is this: "Carbon dioxide is a gas found in the air. Living things need a little carbon dioxide. Soon, there may be too much...Carbon dioxide acts like a heat trap. It is making the earth warmer."

So the fact that climate change is occuring is not a new idea, even in the late 1950s something was changing.
..."automobiles and smokestacks are changing our weather much faster than H-bombs."

Luna 9 (1966)

Yuri's Night is April 12th, commemorating the flight of Vostok 1 in 1961, the first man in space.

For this year's posting I wanted to point out another Russian space milestone, the Luna 9 soft landing of a probe on the Moon on Feb 3 1966. To the Russian people this was a very big deal in showing their lead in the space race.

They issued a commomorative book collecting the coverage of this historic event. So here is a little space history that you may not have known. Again this was not a children's book but still a popular book at the time I am sure was in many homes and libraries.

They have a large number of editorial cartoons from the newspapers in this book but this one really says it all how exciting it was.  The number 1 event was a man in space, number 2 the sputnik launch, but the first soft landing on another planetary body was viewed as number 3 in the firsts the Soviet space program had accomplished.

A big part of the excitement was that it was able to send back pictures from the surface of the moon. It was like there was now a direct communication line with a body in the sky and many cartoons commented on this:

There was also world-wide press about the event:

It seemed to touch a nerve that this was the future of space exploration and the book included a couple of futuristic illustrations to suggest what might be next: