Apr 10 1965
From The Space Library
One of the five F-1 engines on the Saturn V booster was successfully static fired at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center for 1634 sec. (Marshall Star, 4/14/65, 1)
In a speech to the Interact Conference of First Rotary District 696 in Orlando, Fla., KSC's Richard E. Dutton, said: ". . . NASA's major launch facility for space vehicles and unmanned and manned spacecraft [is] the John F. Kennedy Space Center and its new Merritt Island Spaceport, I hope you noticed that I used the term Spaceport, instead of Moonport, as it is often referred to in the news media, We call it a Spaceport because its basic concept is not to exist as a research and development facility for any one mission only; it is being created to function as an actual port, with a space vehicle launch rate that may be some day as high as one manned launch per month, "However, just as important to consider is the spaceport's capacity for growth. It can accommodate launch vehicles with up to 40 million pounds of thrust, 32.5 million pounds more than the Saturn V here can deliver, Because of this, the United States has not invested three quarters of a billion dollars in a facility which will serve only to launch a manned lunar mission. It has acquired a permanent installation which will serve the requirements of the National Space Program for years to come, "But these facilities, like the lunar landing mission, are themselves only a manifestation of a greater entity-people. At present, 2,500 NASA and 6,300 contractor employees work at the Center. By 1967, when the spaceport becomes operational, 3,000 government employees and 10,000 contractor employees will be employed." (Text)
First General Dynamics F-111A developmental aircraft, in its 13th flight, reached 40,000 ft, its highest altitude so far, USAF announced. (Av, Wk., 4/19/65, 27)
17-yr,-old John J. Breaux, who exhibited a "soundovac" that could "solve any mathematical problem when a formula was available," and 17-yr,old Douglas A. Whithaus, who based his exhibit on development of a liquid-gaseous-propellant rocket engine, were entrants in the Greater St, Louis Science Fair selected to compete in the National Science Fair, May 6-8. (St, Louis Post Dispatch, 4/10/65).
Fred Callahan, 16, of Ft. Benning, Ga, prepared to launch Zeus 2, possibly the largest rocket built by an amateur. Zeus 2, nine ft. long with 2,000-lb, thrust, could reach peak altitude of 64 mi, Zeus 1 was launched by Callahan three years ago. (Wash, Daily News, 4/10/65)
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center had awarded a ten-month, $10,934,377, cost-plus-award fee contract to Mason-Rust Co, to continue support services at Michoud Operations, New Orleans, and at its Computer Operations Office in Slidell, La. (MSFC Release 65-84)
The case of Thiokol's 260-in,-dia, solid motor ruptured during initial hydrotest of the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co, builders of the case, Cause of the failure had not been determined. (M&R, 4/19/65, 14; Av. Wk, 4/19/65, 29)
Commenting that contributions to science made by the space probes and satellites had been "interesting, all of it useful, none of it genuinely; eyepoppingly unexpected," an editorial in the San Francisco Sunday Chronicle continued: "Surprisingly enough, space research has produced several by-products with a practical end. "The most significant to the world as a whole are the reconnaissance satellites with which Russia and the U.S. are now mutually inspecting each other's and everyone else's military installations with the kind of accuracy that has given Washington excellent pictures of the tower on top of which the Chinese atom bomb was exploded. They can prevent any significant military move from going undetected; a byproduct of them are the weather satellites, "Less is heard about the progress of early warning satellites designed to pick up the flaming tails of enemy missiles; this could be either because they have run into trouble or, like the satellites the Polaris submarines steer by, they are too successful to be mentioned. The possibility of putting H-bombs into satellites is not mentioned either in these days, but this time because the Russians and the Americans seem to have decided by mutual consent to forget it: the risks of an unmanned satellite going wrong were too great, and the risk of a manned one going berserk was even greater." (S. F. Sun, Chron, 4/11/65)
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