Launching of the world's first satellite by Russia "means life or death for us???freedom or extinction of civilisation," Professor Harry Messel said last night.

"It has got me very worried, indeed," added Professor Messel, who is Professor of Physics at Sydney University.

"It is a magnificent scientific achievement. But I have got a dreadful feeling that we are nearing the end."

Professor Messel was talking over TV station ATN, Channel 7, with Eric Baume on the program This I Believe.

He said: "For too long those who should know better have been deceiving the public. We were told Russia would never build the atom bomb by herself, and then, in 1948, off it went. Later, off went the Russian H-bomb which was far superior to ours.

"But a lot of cold water was poured on that and the public was given a false sense of security.

"A couple of weeks ago the Russians announced they had the intercontinental ballistic missile and hardly anyone would take them seriously."

"Now they have launched a satellite.

"And if it can be sent up so can this ICBM go up.

"But nobody seems to be worried about it.

"I think that future historians will look on 1957 as the end of the Renaissance and as the beginning of the technological renaissance. But it might also be the end of the technological renaissance.

"In Australia we have not been listening to anyone and we have been doing nothing.

"We are still in the Dark Ages here scientifically and technologically, and we seem to be proud of it."

Mr. Howard Beale, the Minister for Supply, said last night that a continuous watch for the satellite was being made at Woomera rocket range.

Dr. H. V. Evatt, Leader of the Federal Opposition, said at Sale, Victoria, yesterday, that the launching of the satellite was a challenge to the world, especially the bigger Powers, to make another attempt to disarm.

Weapons could be handled in much the same way as the satellite to cover and threaten vast spaces.

Surprised by red victory

Professor H. C. Webster, the Australian convener for the International Geophysical Year, said in Brisbane: "The launching came as a big surprise to all of us.

"It is an advance in technology rather than in science."

He said the satellite probably would cross Australia 'very roughly ' in the line Wyndham-Alice Springs-Canberra, then out to sea."

Dr. W. G. Elford, joint acting coordinator of the Australian Moon Watch Committee, said in Adelaide the launching of the satellite had caught the moon watch unprepared.

"We were preparing to observe the U.S. satellite next year," he said.

"But the Russian satellite provides a splendid opportunity for training of the moon watch.

Dr. F. J. Jacka, Chief Physicist of the Antarctic Division of the Department of External Affairs and National Auroral Reporter for the International Geophysical Year, said in Melbourne the satellite could be seen with the naked eye if the sky was perfectly clear. It would appear as a pinpoint of reflected light.

He said scientists would be able to determine from the signals the density of the earth at certain points, the density of the upper atmosphere, the density of fine meteoric dust, the intensity of the earth's magnetic field, and the cosmic ray intensity.

Mr. L. D. Bowie, Federal secretary of the Wireless Institute of Australia, who has been receiving reports from Australian "hams," said two definite pointers were:

- The signals were strongest at noon on Saturday and Sunday, indicating it was closest to south-eastern Australia at those times, and

- The signals were received at intervals of about 100 minutes on Sunday, compared with 95 minutes on Saturday.

Mysterious signals heard in N.Z.

Mr. R. S. Unwin, officer-in-charge of the Auroral Radar Station near the Port of Bluff, New Zealand, reported mysterious echoes not connected with the satellite.

He said these echoes from an unknown source had been received for some time, says a Reuter-A.A.P. message.

Radio experts and amateurs all over Australia and New Zealand have picked up signals from the satellite.

Radiophysics experimental officers of the CSIRO working at Sydney University and a team of radio amateurs in Adelaide have intercepted both the 20 megacycle and 40 megacycle beams transmitted by the satellite.

They are plotting its course and trying to work out details of it.

Within hundreds of miles

In Sydney, Mr. Robert White, an experimental officer with the Radio Research Laboratories of the C.S.I.R.O., said "We picked the signals up clearly this morning, but during the afternoon thunderstorm conditions were rather bad. About 11 a.m. when the signals were very strong, the satellite was probably within some hundreds of miles of Sydney."

Mr. Graeme Bowen, a radio amateur at Toorak Gardens, an Adelaide suburb, said last night a team of radio men had been recording and interpreting the signals.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on October 7, 1957