Aug 4 1976
From The Space Library
Johnson Space Center announced signing of a supplemental agreement with Lockheed Electronics Co. of Houston for $2.57 million, for additional scientific and technical support at the Slidell Computer Complex of the Earth Resources Laboratory in La. The supplemental agreement brought the total value of the contract to $7.1 million. (JSC Release 76-49)
MSFC reported an unprecedented amount of data distributed to and used by the scientific community as a result of rapport, established under an arrangement known as the Skylab solar workshops, among principal investigators in the Skylab Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) project and other scientists. The workshops, supported by NASA, had provided a means of "intense interaction and collaboration" by the participants, MSFC said.
The first workshop, held in Oct. 1975 on coronal holes, was attended by 60 scientists representing 19 universities and other institutions; a second workshop in Feb. and the last this wk would conclude the series. The workshops met near the High Altitude Observatory at Boulder, Colo., under fairly isolated conditions; the scientists were together most of the time, passing on information, explaining discoveries, and talking shop from breakfast until late at night. Jack Zirker of the Univ. of Hawaii's Institute of Astronomy, director of the first workshop series, said the workshop procedure was "an ideal way to deal with the topic" because participants collaborated closely between meetings, planning and carrying out projects that otherwise might have languished.
The next workshop in the series, on solar flares, was scheduled to begin with a first meeting in the last week of Oct. 1976. Discussions at the first meeting would define the total effort; participants would return home to work on individual pieces of the problem. A second meeting 4 or 5 mo later would be a midterm status review and working meeting, with participants contributing information relevant to the total project. At the final workshop, participants would sum up their findings and identify unsolved problems, preparatory to publishing their results. The workshop would produce a monograph summarizing the state of the art at that point. Scientists taking part in the solar workshop series said the system could be adapted readily to research in other scientific fields and was highly productive. (MSFC Release 76-145)
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