Apr 24 1973
From The Space Library
The first Skylab prime crew-Charles Conrad, Jr., Dr. Joseph P. Kerwin, and Paul J. Weitz-and backup crewmen Russell L. Schweickart, Dr. F. Story Musgrave, and Bruce McCandless, II, began the 21-day preflight isolation period at 8:30 am EST in preparation for May 15 launch. Isolation would continue for seven days following their return from Skylab. Crewmen would be restricted to specific areas and limited in the number of approved personal contacts allowed during the immediate preflight and postflight periods. During the isolation only Skylab food and water would be consumed by the crew members. This diet would also continue for 18 days following the return from the mission, to obtain baseline data for Skylab medical experiments in nutrition and musculoskeletal evaluation series. (NASA Releases 73-84 & unnumbered, 4/30/74)
Richard W. Cook, Deputy Director, Management, at Marshall Space Flight Center, would retire in June, MSFC announced. He would be succeeded June 3 by John S. Potate, who was attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on leave from his position of Director of the Apollo Program Control Office in the Office of Manned Space Flight. Potate had joined the OMSF in 1969, (MSFC Releases 73-47, 73-77; MSFC Org Ann 0101)
National Academy of Sciences' handling of the controversial supersonic transport was criticized by Philip M. Boffey, Managing Editor of the newsletter Science & Government Report and former Science magazine writer, in a report he released after a two-year "evaluation" study of NAS. The Washington Post later quoted the report as saying an NAS group in 1965, had "incredibly" urged the Government to conduct a campaign to persuade the U.S. public to accept the SST though it had 'become evident that the aircraft would produce harmful sonic booms. In 1968, NAS had downplayed the possibility of physical damage from the booms, though it later circulated a "clarifying" statement internally to its own members saying the SST would be unacceptable. (Cohn, W Post, 4/25/73, A2)
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