Apr 21 1966
From The Space Library
NASA Aerobee 150 sounding rocket launched from WSMR reached 96-mi. (154-km.) altitude in Johns Hopkins Univ. experiment designed to observe ultraviolet emissions from Venus. Scattered light produced by solar illumination of ITT startracker optics prevented acquisition and lock-on of target Venus, but good data were obtained on Lyman-alpha. (NASA Rpt. SRL)
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Richard B. Russell (D-Ga.) announced unanimous vote to increase by $167.9 million DOD's FY 1967 budget "to provide `long-lead-time' production items for the Nike-X antimissile missile system." Senator Russell said Committee's decision had been influenced by information reported April 21 in Washington Post on Soviet missile-defense buildup and "by the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to go ahead, during recent closed door testimony." Administration budget had already carried $447 million for missile defense, (Rosenfeld, Wash. Post, 4/21/66, AI; Norris, Wash. Post, 4/22/66, A4; Senate Rpt. 1136, 4/25/66)
NASA Administrator James E. Webb praised development of the NERVA nuclear rocket engine following a tour of AEC's Las Vegas, Nev., test site. He observed the nuclear engine was capable of producing longer duration flights than engine systems in current use. (UPI, Houston Chron., 4/22/66)
NASA awarded $50,000, 60-day fixed-price contracts to Douglas Aircraft Corp., McDonnell Aircraft Corp., and Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. to perform definition and preliminary design studies and evaluate plan to make spent Saturn V S-IVB stage hydrogen tank habitable for manned space missions of up to 30 days. Contracts would be managed by MSFC. (MSFC Release 66-83)
Immediate need for an emergency space rescue squad was underlined by the curtailed March 16 GEMINI VIII mission and by electrical malfunction aboard OAO I successfully orbited April 8, William Hines asserted in the Washington Evening Star. "Without such capability," Hines suggested, "large sums of money and vast amounts of scientific-technological effort are being dissipated, and it is only a matter of time before lives will be placed in jeopardy. . . . Where manned missions are concerned, a rescue capability is not merely desirable but imperative. . . . In the next five years somewhere between 25 and 30 missions involving about 75 astronauts will be flown. Durations will range from three to 45 days, and mission objectives will reach as far as the moon's surface. At the most conservative estimate there are probably a dozen chances for something to go seriously wrong on a typical mission. To put it another way, there are somewhere between 300 and 500 accidents waiting to. happen in the next five years-any one of them potentially tragic." (Hines, Wash. Eve. Star, 4/21/66, A14)
U.S.S.R. announced annual Lenin prizes. Winners in science included anonymous space experts responsible for LUNA IX and LUNA X missions. LUNA IX made the first soft-landing on the moon Feb. 3; LUNA X became the first manmade satellite of the moon April 3. Prize commemorated Lenin's birthday and was considered highest in the Soviet Union. (AP, Wash. Post, 4/22/66)
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