PIONEER LACKED EXTRA PUSH —Pioneer, man’s first space probe, came within a fraction of the 35,250-foot-per-second velocity needed to put it into an orbit around the moon. It reached a maximum velocity of 34,400 feet per second. Even though the vehicle burned up in the earth’s atmosphere, its successful flight to a distance of 79,316 miles from the earth’s center showed the chances are good for hurling a rocket around the moon very soon.… Dr. T. Keith Glennan, administrator for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, stressed the international value and significance of Pioneer, and said that all scientific information gathered by it would be made available to all nations, “completely, accurately and quickly.”
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