77 Seconds

Outward bound on a space voyage that might have changed man's whole future, an 88-ft. Air Force rocket roared into the air one morning last week from Pad 17-6 at Florida's Cape Canaveral missile test center. Destination: the vicinity of the moon, 220,000-odd miles away.

If all the intricate calculations proved correct (TIME, Aug. 18), and if all the finely tooled devices functioned perfectly, the three stages of the rocket, a modified Thor-Vanguard hybrid, would carry an 85-lb., instrumented "lunar probe" near enough to the moon to be drawn into a lunar orbit. Revolving around the moon, the probe could report back to earth electronic-eye impressions of the never-seen far side, which has intrigued men's minds for centuries. Even if the probe failed to slip into a lunar orbit at the end of its 2 1/2-day journey--and the odds were steep against such a performance--Air Force spacemen hoped that the probe would at least escape the earth's gravitational embrace and radio back data on regions of space where no man-made object had ever penetrated before.

But something went wrong. Ten miles up, just 77 seconds off the pad, the rocket exploded. "It was one of those random failures," said Major General Bernard Schriever, top Air Force missileman. "It was not fundamental. It will have no effect on our future plans. We are going ahead as soon as we can." Next scheduled try: mid-September.

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