Dec 30 1962
From The Space Library
AT&T announced that second Telstar communications satellite would be launched next spring, one which would attempt to avoid or overcome radiation damage which shortened the life of TELSTAR 1. TELSTAR I transmitted the first live intercontinental television after launch on July 10, but developed malfunctions in power sources on November 29.
Speaking at general AAAS meeting in Philadelphia, Dr. Hugh L. Dryden, Deputy NASA Administrator, supported the thesis that science has developed most rapidly in an environment of a national social need, most often for national defense or health. In an atmosphere of highly motivated and widely supported national activities, science and scientists have received enhanced support over broad areas as well as in narrow specialties: Benefits of this have far outweighed unbalances. Such has been our national experience in the technologies of aeronautics, communications, radar, nuclear energy, and now space. In such periods, the number of free scientists supported to work on problems of their own selection is greater than in the absence of social pressures, although admittedly there is a still greater expansion of team effort.
Dr Dryden said: ". . It is our aim in NASA to administer the [space] program in such a way as to strengthen science and engineering broadly, to strengthen our universities and our industrial base, in fact to add to our national strength in every possible way. As regards the problem under discussion, NASA has undertaken as a goal the support of about 4,000 graduate students per year in 150 qualified universities to do our part in increasing the supply." December 30: Dr. Robert M. Petrie, Director of Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria, B.C., told AAAS in Philadelphia that the Milky Way Galaxy appears to be expanding. Dr. Petrie's 20-year study of 600 "B" stars (hottest and brightest stars in the galaxy) produced evidence that our sun and all other stars are moving away from the galactic center.
Dr. James A. Van Allen, State University of Iowa physicist, criticized Government report on atmospheric radiation resulting from U.S. high-altitude nuclear explosion in July, which stated radiation levels were much higher than had been predicted and would last longer than had been predicted. Dr. Van Allen charged the Government report was a "hasty and ill-considered" interpretation of the facts; he predicted the bulk of artificially formed radiation would no longer be detectable by summer of 1963. Dr. Van Allen said President's Science Advisory Committee ignored findings from INJUN satellite (which he used to study effects of the explosion) and relied instead on data from TELSTAR satellite, launched after the nuclear test. Scientist James W. Warwick of University of Colorado, basing his conclusions on radio measurements from ground stations in Hawaii and the Philippines, said his studies were in general agreement with those of Van Allen and his coworkers and were "inconsistent" with Government estimates based on TELSTAR data.. The two scientists were in Philadelphia for session of American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dr. Joseph A. Conner, Jr., of NASA, Said in AAAS paper that there will be an arbitrary retirement age for astronauts, not in terms of years but in exposure to penetrating radiation in space.
Soviet Cosmonaut Pavel Popovich arrived in Havana to participate in fourth anniversary celebration of Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution, Havana Radio announced.
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