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commissioned for £54,000,000. At launching the tanks are filled with some 880,000 gallons of highly explosive fuel, which develops a propulsive force of 150,000,000 horse power. The giant rocket weighs almost 3,000 tons. In Huntsville some 7,000 technicians, engineers and scientists of related disciplines are working under Wernher von Braun towards the great goal, the conquest of space. In 1967 around 300,000 scientists of all kinds were working on the USA's global space programme. More than 20,000 industrials firms are working for the greatest research undertaking in history. The Austrian scientist Dr Pscherra told me during a visit to Huntsville that the research groups constantly had to develop new ‘articles' which had never before been produced anywhere in the world. "Look here!" he said and showed a large cylinder from which came a humming, rumbling noise. 'In there we are conducting lubricating experiments in an absolute vacuum. Do you know that we cannot use any of the countless lubricants produced in the world? They lose all their lubricating qualities in space. With available lubricants even a simple electro-motor stops functioning after at most half an hour in airless space. What else could we do but invent a lubricant which works perfectly even in an absolute vacuum?' A terrible groaning and whining came from another room. Two tremendous vices, firmly anchored to the floor, were trying to pull a 4-in.-thick sheet of metal to pieces. ‘Another series of experiments that we would willingly dispense with,' said Dr Pscherra, 'but our experience has shown that existing metal alloys do not stand up to the stresses of space. So we must find ones that meet our requirements. That is the reason for these tensile probes and fatigue experiments under every conceivable kind of space situation. We also have to develop new welding techniques. The welded joints must be subject to cold, heat, vibration, tensile-strength and pressure tests, so that we can find out the limits at which a welded joint breaks. The hostess who accompanied me looked at her watch, Dr Pscherra looked at his watch, everyone was looking at their watches. The NASA personnel, of course, don't notice it any more; the visitor finds it curious at first, but he soon gets used to it, for looking at one's watch is a standard gesture of the NASA personnel at Cape Kennedy, Houston and Huntsville. They always seem to be making a countdown: four ... three ... two ... one .. . zero. Rides and walks through the halls, corridors and doors led, after many more security controls, to a Mr Pauli, who also comes from German-speaking Europe and has been working for NASA for thirteen years. I had a white helmet bearing the NASA symbol crammed on my head; Mr Pauli took me to the testing platform of the Saturn V. The simple words 'testing platform’ mean a concrete colossus that weighs several hundred tons, is several storeys high, has lifts and cranes leading to it, and is surrounded by ramps in which a bewildering network of many miles of cables is installed. Once it is ignited, Saturn V makes a din which can be heard 12 miles from the launching ground. The testing platform, deeply anchored in rock and concrete, rises as much as three inches from its base during such trials, while 333,000 gallons of water per second are pumped through a sluice for cooling purposes. Merely for cooling trial rockets on the testing platform, NASA had to build a pumping works that could easily supply a city the size of Manchester with drinking water. A single firing test costs a cool £500,000! Space does not come cheaply.