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Show Amateurs make contributions to America's space programs transmissions of the Soviet cosmonauts were translated into in-to English at the station by a local priest of the Russian Orthodox Church. During the summer of 1958, a group of serious-minded high school boys visited the station and asked to join the project. The scientists accepted their help. One student developed a computer program which has since been distributed to scen-tific scen-tific journals throughout the world. He also designed a satellite sat-ellite tracker which replaced older equipment. Other youths were soon preparing pre-paring highly scientific theses on space exploration and satellite sat-ellite tracking some beyond the knowledge of the scientists themselves. As the students went on to college and graduate studies, several kept i up their work with with Project Moonbeam. Three or four high school recruits re-cruits are now chosen each year from the dozens who apply, ap-ply, and observers feel that the lab has become a training ground for some of the area's ' The scientists and students have obtained a radio telescope and a tower, and are working together to fashion a system whereby they may be among the first to watch, on a television tele-vision receiver, man's first probes and exploration of the moon. An amateur satellite-tracking station begun as a hobby hob-by is making important contributions to . America's space program. Among other achievements, it has been able to determine the weight of orbiting satel-ites. satel-ites. This will help make possible pos-sible the ferreting out of any secret Soviet 'spy in the sky" satellite. Project Moonbeam, as the station is known, began in 1956 with a group of scientists at an oil research laboratory in a Cleveland suburb. Wanting Want-ing to build their own tracking track-ing station, they asked permission permis-sion to use the company's laboratory lab-oratory facilities. What they lacked in cash, they made up in ingenuity, reports re-ports the current issue of Petroleum Pe-troleum Today. Working on their own time, they used idle or outmoded equipment to build an antenna system. Electronic Elec-tronic equipment was improvised impro-vised or purchased from government gov-ernment surplus. As the project pro-ject progressed, the company contributed a small grant and area firms provided additional materials. The scientists had their station sta-tion ready by January 29, 1958 just 48 hours before the launching of "Explorer I." News of the successful tracking track-ing of this satellite by Project Moonbeam was quickly spread by news media, and the station sta-tion has served as a source of accurate information about other sattellites ever since. The scientists have accur-rately accur-rately tracked scores of satellites, satel-lites, including Russia's twin space ships, "Vostok III" and "Vostok IV". Clear voice |