Feb 21 1971
From The Space Library
Aerobee 350 sounding rocket, launched by NASA from Wallops Station at 7:43 pm EST, carried 440.4-kg (971-lb) Columbia Univ. payload to 196.3-km (122-mi) altitude to search for x-ray polarization of Crab Nebula. Rocket and instruments-including two polarimeters sensitive to x-rays at 2.6 kev and 5.25 kev-functioned satisfactorily. Payload recovery would be attempted after daybreak Feb. 22. (WS Release 71-1)
Text of Dr. Wernher von Braun interview by West German magazine Der Spiegel was released to U.S. press. NASA Associate Administrator for Planning was convinced that in 20 yrs "we shall have reached the point where space travel will earn more than it is costing." Earnings from "bread and butter programs"-comsats, weather-monitoring space-craft, and IS satellites-could pay for permanent lunar bases and manned exploration of Mars. "Most important product of the seven-ties" would be application of "all that the space program has taught us." (Wilford, NYT, 2/21/71, 75)
LaRC engineers were using automobile fitted with diagonal braking system to measure slipperiness of wet runways and predict aircraft stopping distance to prevent accidents, NASA announced. Technique could pro-vide data for realistic calculations of crosswind limitations. Stopping distances of car were measured from 97-km- per-hr (60-mph) speed for skidding locked wheels on wet and dry runways. Tests showed ratio of wet-to-dry stopping distances for auto correlated well with those of representative aircraft. (NASA Release 71-21)
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