Feb 20 1967
From The Space Library
NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight Dr. George E. Mueller stressed importance of manned spaceflight program in speech before IEEE meeting in Washington, D.C.: This is a particularly appropriate date for us to review our manned space flight programs. It was just five years ago today that John H. Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth in his Mercury spacecraft, FRIENDSHIP 7. Since that time, we have made noteworthy strides in the manned exploration of space. . . . In the Mercury and the Gemini programs, we learned much about man's capabilities in space flight. . . . "We will learn much more from the Apollo missions. By 1970, we will have provided the capability to explore space out to 250,000 miles from earth and to conduct manned operations and experiments on flights of up to two weeks duration. The Saturn I and Saturn V boosters will have injected up to 140 tons of payload per launch into near-earth orbit. The Saturn V will have sent 48 tons to the vicinity of the moon. The Apollo spacecraft will have sustained a three-man crew for two weeks in a two-compartment, maneuverable vehicle and will have landed two men on the moon and returned them with samples of lunar material, to earth. The U.S. manned space flight programs will have logged more than 500 man days in space, during which data and experience will have been acquired from approximately 100 in-flight experiments." (Text)
Former Astronaut John H. Glenn, speaking at National Space Club luncheon in Washington, D.C., criticized the press for uninformed discussion of the Jan. 27 Apollo tragedy: "I deplore comment in the press recently regarding the accident. The press has a responsibility not to comment in areas about which it is not informed." Speaking on the fifth anniversary of his space flight in FRIENDSHIP 7, Glenn noted that the deaths of three Apollo astronauts were part of the price man must pay in his quest for knowledge: "Man tries something and sometimes he succeeds and sometimes he fails. It is very regrettable. We hate to lose good friends, but we think they went in a good cause." (Sehlstedt, Jr., B Sun, 2/21/67,8; AP, W Post, 2/21/67; NYT, 2/22/67,50)
During week of Feb. 20: Princeton Univ. announced development of accelerator capable of raising electrically neutral atoms and molecules to energy levels never before obtained in controlled experiments. Utilizing supersonic jets of mixed gases in high-vacuum container, accelerator could generate molecular beams of neutral particles with kinetic energies of 10 or more electron volts. Particles at this energy level were necessary to many common gas-phase chemical reactions. Dr. John B. Fenn, professor who directed NSF-sponsored project, said accelerator would aid studies in meteorology and aerospace technology. (NYT, 2/26/67,59)
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