7 
S. I. AND OUTER SPACE 
The Smithsonian Astrophysics.! 
Observatory has been assigned 
the task of initiating an obser- j 
vation program for the earth I 
satellite which will be launched I 
next year . I 
"After all the planning, j 
trouble, and expense of placing I 
a man-made satellite in the sky, 
we cannot afford to let it get 
lost," said Dr. Fred L. Whipple, 
director of the Observatory. 
"Our carefully selected sites j 
throughout the world for the 
precise observation of the sat- 
ellite could come to naught if 
a preliminary orbit calculated 
from the observations of volun- 
teer observers around the world 
were not made available as quickly 
as possible after launching." 
Dr. J. Allen Hynek, secretary 
of the American Astronomical 
Society, recently was appointed 
associate director of the Smith- 
sonian's satellite tracking pro- 
gram. Mr. Armand Spitz, director 
of the Spitz Laboratories, has 
been selected to coordinate the 
observations. 
Although the visual satellite 
observer corps will be operated 
on a volunteer basis, the selec- J 
tion of members will be based on j 
the observer's skill and willing- 
ness to accept the responsibility 
for training his instrument sky- J 
ward at specified times while the j 
satellites are aloft. The prin- j 
cipal reward of these observers j 
will be the knowledge that their 
work will have unquestioned scien- j 
tific value. Appropriate recog- 
nition to observers who have 
successfully taken part in the 
program will be made by the offi- 
cers of the Satellite Program so 
that there will be a permanent 
record of their contribution to 
this unique scientific undertaking. 
According to Mr. Spitz, obser- 
vers who wish to be part of the 
program should contact their local 
amateur astronomy organizations, 
which will have received full in- 
structions from central organizations. 
MAKES APPEARANCE 
Frank A. Haentschke, Jr., came 
into the world on March 12. His 
father works at the Freer Gallery. 
BOTANIST RETURNS FROM CUBA 
Conrad Morton, curator of the 
division of ferns, returned early 
in March from a 10-week collecting 
trip in Cuba. He managed to wangle 
the loan of a "munitions carrier" 
from the U. S. Naval Base at 
Guantanamo Bay, a perfect truck 
for negotiating the difficult 
mountainous roads of eastern Cuba. 
Mr. Morton reports that the 
Cuban forests are being rapidly 
destroyed by indiscriminate cut- 
ting and that many of the inter- 
esting endemic plants are in immin- 
ent danger of extinction. 
WE'VE GOT TERMITES 
A collection of 230,000 speci- 
mens of termites, including 1,286 
distinct species of the approximately 
2,000 known in the world, lias been 
presented to the Smithsonian Institution 
