The New Moon

As Explorer whirled overhead, a sigh of relief that was almost audible swept the free world. AT LAST, proclaimed a banner headline in the Buenos Aires Herald, AN UNCLE SAMNIK!

"U.S. honor has been saved," said Tokyo's Yomiuri Shimbun, "its dignity and prestige recovered." An Italian official put the same sentiments differently. "We say simply magari," he told an American friend, adding: "In rough translation, that means, 'Thank God, you finally went and did it.' " The British press, most of which had hooted in cheery derision at the flop of the Navy's Project Vanguard, now cheered. Wrote the London Express: "The moon's signal is a high-pitched, continuous wheeee. And that can be translated as, 'Cheer up, America. We're in the heavens, all's right with the world.' "

In Manila, Philippine President Carlos Garcia described the launching as "the best proof of the free world's claim that in the field of technology as well as elsewhere it can and has maintained its leadership." West Germany's Welt am Sonntag observed that "space no longer belongs to the Soviet Union alone. America has caught up with the Soviet Sputnik lead." It added, with pardonable local pride, that the achievement was "a personal triumph for Wernher von Braun and his German colleagues."

From Moscow, generous congratulations from Russian scientists came in by phone and cable. Explorer also produced some interesting if unexpected results from the Russians: within four hours after Explorer was in orbit, Moscow telegraphed the International Geophysical Year headquarters in Brussels that data on its own satellites, carefully guarded for the past four months, would be airmailed immediately for all to read.

Back in November, Nikita Khrushchev had observed condescendingly that America would inevitably have a Sputnik of its own before long. "We are waiting for it," he said. "There will be a community of Sputniks." In Rome, the Communist daily Paese Sera indicated it had noted Khrushchev's remarks and filed them away for future guidance. "The American baby moon," the paper said, "is now wheeling in the sky along with Sputnik II. We are sure Sputnik II has welcomed its young companion, saying: 'You are small, but you will grow.' Not even John Foster Dulles can keep the American baby moon from coexisting with Sputnik."

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