Aug 5 1967
From The Space Library
NASA Nike-Apache sounding rocket launched from WSMR carried Dudley Observatory instrumented payload to 93-mi (150-km) altitude to test modified parachute recovery system and evaluate performance of Dudley Observatory micrometeoroid collection payload before flight during meteor shower. Malfunction of recovery system resulted in hard impact of scientific payload and loss of collection material. Flights using modified recovery system were discontinued until cause of malfunction was determined. (NASA Rpt SRL)
NASA's selection of two foreign-born astronauts [see Aug. 4] was praised by Erwin D. Canham in the Christian Science Monitor: "The Australian, Dr. Philip K. Chapman . . . and the Welshman, Dr. John A. Llewellyn, . . . are both naturalized Americans. They are, one may assume, part of the brain drain which has brought so many able persons to the United States in the last quarter of a century. Nothing like this flow of talent has been seen on such a scale in history before. "The outreach of science also has become profoundly international. It is a deeper bond than we have yet recognized it to be. Someday, perhaps, it will transcend politics. That is the challenge: to bring political institutions into line with the basic unities which are evidenced in men's constantly changing relationship to the physical universe. . . ." (Canham, CSM, 8/5/67)
August 5-27: NASA's Lunar Orbiter V became fifth US. spacecraft to circle I the moon. It entered lunar orbit following successful deboost maneuver which reduced its speed by 1,440 mph and permitted lunar capture. Initial orbital parameters: apolune, 3,734 mi (6,023 km); perilune, 121 mi (194 km); period, 8 hrs 30 min; and inclination, 85°. Launched from ETR Aug. 1, spacecraft performed 513 attitude changes, responded to 4,524 commands, and recorded one micrometeoroid hit. Spacecraft systems were functioning normally. Photographs taken beginning Aug. 6 included 23 previously unphotographed areas of the moon's far side, first picture showing the "full earth"; 36 sites of primary interest to science; and five additional candidate Apollo landing sites. Transmitted were 212 medium-and 212 high-resolution photos. Final readout was completed Aug. 27. Mission substantially filled in blanks in previous LO photography so that entire lunar surface, front and back, had now been photographed at resolutions about 10 times better than obtainable from earth-based observations. Harold Masursky, US. Geological Survey, told news conference at JPL that several of the pictures indicated there might be frozen liquid on the floor of perpetually shaded craters near the lunar poles. The nature of the "fluidal materials" was open to speculation, he said, but "meandering rills appeared to have been caused by some form of material flowing from a volcanic eruption-similar to terrestrial streams found in desert areas on earth." (NASA Proj Off; AP, W Post, 8/9/67, A3; UPI, C Trib, 8/15/67; NYT, 8/15/67, 1)
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