People: Feb. 9, 1968

Gloomy words from Rocketeer Dr. Wernher von Braun, 55, darkened the tenth-anniversary celebration of the first U.S. satellite, the 31-lb. Explorer 1. Budget cuts, warned Von Braun at a National Press Club luncheon, were "dismantling the high competence" of the U.S. space effort and supplying funds "too low to maintain progress and momentum." All the same, noted Dr. William H. Pickering, 57, head of Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it has been a zingy decade—notably in the space race with Russia. Pickering's box score: 500 satellites, 13 successful moon missions, 2,000 hours of manned...

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