Dec 8 1965
From The Space Library
200,000-lb,-thrust J-2 engine was captive fired for 388 sec, on a new test stand at NASA MSFC. The J-2 engine would be used to power the [[Saturn S-IVB stage, second stage for the Saturn V. Ten tests of the liquid hydrogen-liquid oxygen powered rocket engine had been conducted at MSFC since the J-2 engine test facility was put into use in August 1965. (MSFC Release 65-300)
Full-scale Saturn V booster (S-IC stage) weight simulator was shipped from NASA Marshall Space Flight Center to Kennedy Space Center on NASA barge Poseidon. Trip would require five days. Simulator would be used in checking equipment and handling procedures at KSC's Launch Complex 39 in preparation for arrival of the Saturn V facility vehicle early in 1966. ( MSFC Release 65-295)
Soviet Union gave assurances to U.S. through Ambassador Anatoly F. Dobrynin that it was abiding, and would continue to abide, by the 1963 U.N. resolution calling on all states not to orbit weapons of mass destruction, U.S. had raised the question whether the resolution was being violated after the Nov, 7 display during a military anniversary parade of "an orbital missile" capable of delivering a surprise blow from space, Comment in Pravda on American press reaction to display of orbital rockets during the Nov, 7 parade: "By raising a racket about the Soviet orbital rocket, somebody in the USA evidently calculated to divert the attention of the world public from the American military preparations in the cosmos. The activity of the USA ... is , . subordinated to the idea of using space for military purposes. Program MOL,. The military equipment reviewed on Red Square on November 7 demonstrated ... the power of our rocket weapons not in order to threaten anyone, Nuclear rocket weapons, which the Soviet Government has at its disposal, are the powerful means of guaranteeing the peace." (Pravda, 12/8/65, DOD Trans,; Finney, NYT, 12/11/65, 1)
A temporary injunction was issued banning a steel fabricating firm from running internal combustion engines while Gemini VII orbited over the Corpus Christi, Tex., area. The Government, in asking for the injunction, said machinery at Safety Steel Services, Inc, interfered with radio signals to the spacecraft and "threatened the safety of the astronauts." (AP, Wash, Post, 12/9/65)
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announced plans to phase out all 80 U.S. B-58 bombers and 345-350 of the Nation's 600 B-52 bombers by 1971. Action was part of his program to consolidate or eliminate 149 of military installations in the U.S. and abroad at a yearly estimated saving of $410 million, In ordering the bomber phase-out, McNamara said certain bases from which B-52 operations were being removed were being retained "for a new mission which will be disclosed subsequently." Observers believed DOD might order production of the bomber version of the F-111 fighter. ( DOD Release 887-65; Raymond, NYT, 12/9/65, 1; Corddry, Wash. Post, 12/9/65, A2)
French Ambassador-designate Charles Lucet awarded gold medals and citations to French and American scientists who had worked on the FR-1 project. The French satellite was launched from the Western Test Range Dec. 6 with a NASA Scout booster, NASA officials honored at the French Embassy ceremony in Washington included Arnold W. Frutkin, Assistant Administrator for International Affairs; Robert C. Baumann, Chief of Spacecraft Integration and Sounding Rocket Div, GSFC; and Dr. Robert W. Rochelle, Chief of Flight Data Systems Branch, Spacecraft Technology Div., GSFC. (Ross, Wash, Post, 12/9/65, Kl)
Australia was negotiating with the U.S. to use American Redstone rockets instead of Britain's Blue Streak for research at Woomera on rocket reentry into the atmosphere, National Development Minister Allen Fairhall told the Australian Parliament that the Redstone, though obsolete for orbital purposes, would be more suitable because it achieved greater altitude. (Reuters, NYT, 12/9/65)
Thomas Carroll, pioneer NACA test pilot in the 1920's and chief of safety design for the old Washington Airport, died after a long illness. As first and chief test pilot for NACA, he tested planes at Langley Laboratory in Virginia from 1920 to 1930. (Wash. Eve. Star, 12/10/65)
R, Gordon Gould asked the U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals to declare that he was first to conceive a particularly promising version of the laser and to grant him patent rights. A patent application on the device had already been filed by Nobel prize winner from MIT Dr. Charles H. Townes and Dr. Arthur L. Schawlow of Stanford Univ. Gould's lawyers contended he had conceived the idea first, and despite the other application, had preserved his rights to the patent by working to perfect the device. (NYT, 12/9/65, 96L)
W. A. Patterson, Chairman of the Board of United Air Lines, told the Aviation-Space Writers Assn, in Washington, D.C., that his company had refrained from ordering a supersonic transport "because it's a phony deal, You don't put a deposit on a plane that may cost $40 million, that you have never seen, and that you don't know anything about." Patterson said the deposit plan was designed to create in Congress an "atmosphere of enthusiasm" to obtain appropriations for SST research and development. (AP, NYT, 12/9/65, 93)
Soviet communications expert Dr. N. I. Chistiakov, speaking at the UNESCO-sponsored space communications conference in Paris, called for an international convention to govern the use of satellites for broadcasting. He said a draft agreement should be drawn up by the International Telecommunications Union and should make satellite communications available to all countries on a non-discriminatory basis. ( Wash. Post, 12/8/65)
Commenting on Dr. Warren Weaver's Nov, 29 statement to U.S. News and World Report questioning the wisdom of spending $30 billion to get an American to the moon by 1970, the Wall Street Journal said: "Now Dr. Weaver is not against going to the moon . . . what he is against is the hell-for-leather way the moon program is being whipped along where the emphasis rightly should fall is on Dr. Weaver's assertion that 'the great ideas that develop within the body of science -strange and improbable as this sounds-arise from curiosity and not from urgency,' and that the moon program has caused a massive diversion of scientists and engineers from possibly more productive fields., ." (WSJ, 12/8/65, 16)
December 8-9: NASA Lewis Research Center hosted in Cleveland a Conference on Selected Technology for the Petroleum Industry, Session was sponsored by the NASA Technology Utilization Program whose objective was to make available to industries the results of knowledge gathered from space research and development. NASA Administrator James E. Webb, addressing the Conference, warned of the possible consequences of reduction in the NASA budget request for FY 1967: ". , history should have taught us that new space capabilities, in which we have made a considerable investment, must be used or their benefits will be lost," Webb said history should have taught us also "that plans for the future should not be drawn by a timid hand," He quoted the late Dr. Hugh Dryden, NASA Deputy Administrator, as saying "the present gap in manned flight activity [between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R,] is a direct consequence of a postponement of the decision to proceed beyond Project Mercury from September 1960 until May 1961." (Text; LRC Release 65-88)
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