Aug 18 1970
From The Space Library
USAF launched unidentified satellite from Vandenberg AFB by Titan IIIB-Agena booster into orbit with 395.9-km (246-mi) apogee, 151.3-km (94-mi) perigee, 89.9-min period, and 110.9° inclination. Satellite reentered Sept. 3. (Pres Rpt 71; GSFC SSR, 8/31/70; 9/30/ 70)
NASA announced it was inviting 450 scientific and technical leaders to Space Station Utilization Conference to be held at ARC Sept. 9-11. Invitees would participate in planning of manned earth orbital space station scheduled for 1976-1978 launch. Laboratory was to be operated in space for 10 yrs. At conference, panels would be formed to screen potential space station uses and panel recommendations would provide material for related study in summer 1971. (NASA Release 70-137)
August 18-27: International astronomers attending triennial assembly of International Astronomical Union in Brighton, England, named lunar craters after 513 persons-including crews of Apollo 8 and 11; astronauts who died to Jan. 27, 1967, Apollo fire; six living Soviet cosmonauts; and late Cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin, who became first man in space on April 12, 1961. One crater was named Apollo to commemorate U.S. space program. All craters named were on moon's far side except three near Sea of Tranquility-Apollo 11 landing site-named for mission's crew Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., and Michael Collins. Among those honored were Apollo 8 Astronauts Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, Jr., and William A. Anders; Astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Roger B. Chaffee, and Edward H. White II, killed in Apollo fire; Cosmonauts Andrian G. Nikolayev and wife [[Valentina V. Tereshkova|Valentina V. Nikolayeva-Tereshkova, Gherman S. Titov, Aleksei A. Leonov, Vladimir A. Shatalov, and Konstantin P. Feoktistov; and late Cosmonauts Vladimir M. Komarov and Pavel I. Belyayev. Others honored included Dr. Hugh L. Dryden, former NASA Deputy Administrator; N. E. Golovin, White Sands rocket scientist; Willy Ley, rocket scientist and author; Dr. William R. Lovelace, former NASA Director of Space Medicine for Manned Space Flight; Theodore von Karman, aerodynamics expert; Joseph A. Walker, NASA X-15 test pilot; and Alan T. Waterman, NASA consultant and first NSF Director. Names had been selected by Working Group on Lunar Nomenclature and were approved by IAU officials. Other names approved included those of medieval Persian poet-astronomer Omar Khayyam, U.S. physicist Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, U.S. scientist George Washington Carver, mythological figures Icarus and Daedalus, and apocryphal Chinese rocket inventor Wan Hu. (McElheny, Post, 8/15/70, A1; AP, W Star, 8/22/70, A2; SAO PIO; Sky and Telescope, 11/70,262-6)
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