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Convincing Demonstration. Lovell is motivated to monitor by his own intense interest in space flight and by a crusading desire to popularize astronomy. More than most other scientists, he has good reason to value public interest in his work. In 1957, while an inquiry was under way into the rising costs of the giant construction at Jodrell Bank, the new radio telescope became the first in the Western world to successfully track and pick up signals from Sputnik 1—a convincing demonstration that it was probably worth the more than $2,000,000 price after all. Later work in tracking U.S. satellites brought Jodrell Bank funds from NASA.
For all the publicity, though, less than 3% of Jodrell Bank's time is devoted to its headline-making monitoring. "We are not basically interested in tracking satellites and space probes," says Lovell. "It just so happens that this particular form of Russian and American space work fits into our normal research problems." The rest of Jodrell Bank's work is done on pure astronomical research —measuring the angular diameter of quasars and other radio sources, determining the hydrogen content of galaxies, pinpointing the location of radio sources by lunar occultation, mapping the Milky Way. Lovell's particular speciality is studying small flare stars that periodically increase in luminosity.
Castigating Russians. Inevitably, Lovell has become best known to the public for his tracking exploits, and he is usually called upon to comment on all significant missions and probes. He obviously enjoys his role of space expert and he has been outspokenly frank—handing out unreserved praise for both Russian and U.S. space achievements while bluntly criticizing what he considers misguided efforts. In 1962 he violently opposed the U.S. hydrogen-bomb explosion in space over the Pacific, and has spoken out against a communications experiment that placed a band of metallic needles in orbit. In both cases he was convinced that the shots endangered other scientific projects and observations. When a Soviet space probe actually hit Venus last month, he castigated the Russians with equal vigor. "This is a regrettable event which has annoyed me considerably," he said. "This landing may have seriously affected a future biological survey of the planet's surface."
Whenever possible, Lovell travels outside Britain to keep up to date on scientific progress in other nations and to promote cooperation among the world's scientists. After conferring with space experts during a 1963 visit to the Soviet Union, he brought back word that the Russians might well have abandoned the race for the moon. It was one of the few times that Lovell's considered judgment has been dead wrong.