U.S. House of Representatives Report 'Review of the Soviet Space Program'

U.S. House of Representatives Report 'Review of the Soviet Space Program'

U.S. House of Representatives report compiled by the Science Policy Research Division of the Legislative Reference Service Library of Congress for the Committee on Science and Astronautics. The report was produced in 1967 for the U.S. House of Representatives 90^th Congress under the leadership of Dr Charles S Sheldon II. It formed part of a series of public, factual reports produced by the Library of Congress to keep the U.S. Congressional Committee informed of developments in space.

The 1967 report was focused on a review of the Soviet space program with comparison data from the United States space program. It is of particular note that there is a reference to the Kettering Grammar School ‘North of London’ having had the distinction of highlighting the existence of the Plesetsk Soviet launch site. Plesetsk was a new launch site that had been kept secret by the Russians, who didn't officially admit to its existence until 1983. Although the CIA was aware of Plesetsk, they chose not to release any information about it. As the report states, the honour of publicly declaring its existence was taken by the ‘British School Boys at Kettering Grammar School’.

Geoffrey Perry and Derek Slater had been tracking Soviet space activity using basic equipment at the Kettering Grammar School, using students to assist them. During the course of tracking Cosmos 112 and Cosmos 129, Perry discovered that these two satellites must have been launched somewhere other than the previously used Baikonur Cosmodrome. He managed to pinpoint the location to the south of Archangel at Plesetsk and revealed this information through two letters he sent to the UK magazine Flight International.

Despite this fact, when the CIA vetted Sheldon’s 1967 report, they asked him to remove references to Plesetsk due to its classification as ‘Secret’. In response to this Sheldon tipped off the Washington Post about the existence of Perry’s letters to Flight International, which lead to Perry and the Kettering Grammar School becoming a global news story.

With the information about Plesetsk now in the public domain, Sheldon was able to include it in this ‘Review of the Soviet Space Program’ report of 1967, duly noting the achievement of Kettering Grammar School.

The report also contains a pink ‘Legislative Reference Service’ slip acting as a bookmark for the reference to Kettering Grammar, stamped by Dr Sheldon offering his ‘Personal regards’.