Feb 23 1968
From The Space Library
NASA Nike-Tomahawk sounding rocket launched from Churchill Research Range carried Univ. of Alaska experiment to obtain data on horizontal and vertical spatial variation of auroral light emissions and relationship between their intensities and volume emission rates. Rocket and instrumentation performance was satisfactory and experiment was successful. Peak altitude was not determined because radar lost track. (NASA Rpt SRL)
President Johnson announced appointment of Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor (USA, Ret.) as Chairman of President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board to succeed Clark M. Clifford, who would become Secretary of Defense. (PD, 2/26/68, 345-6)
President Johnson nominated n/c Edmund F. O'Connor (USAF), MSFC Director of Industrial Operations, for promotion to Major General. Assigned to NASA through special NASA-DOD personnel exchange agreement in 1964, Gen. O'Connor had been responsible for technical and administrative management of Saturn IB and Saturn V launch vehicles and Apollo Applications Program. (MSFC Release 68-33)
Soviet Defense Minister, Marshal Andrey A. Grechko, speaking at Moscow ceremony marking 50th anniversary of Soviet armed forces, confirmed reports that U.S.S.R. had greatly expanded its ICBM force [see Feb. 19] and emphasized that Soviet armed forces had been modernized to emerge victorious in nuclear or non-nuclear war. (Anderson, NYT, 2/24/68, C8)
February 23-24: Results of 13 experiments carried on board Biosatellite II (launched Sept. 7 and recovered Sept. 9, 1967) were discussed by scientists at NASA-NAS symposium in Washington, D.C. Experimenters reported that radiation in weightless state caused greater damage to plant and animal organisms than radiation on earth. Affected most severely by weightlessness and radiation were young and actively growing cells and tissues and cells with high metabolic activity. Animal cells were least affected by weightlessness. Generally, plants had difficulty maintaining proper orientation; some plant structures, mechanisms, and biochemical activities were affected. Analyses of effects of 45-hr flight on individual experiments, compared with control group on earth, revealed that pepper plant leaves twisted and curled downward and wheat seedling roots grew upward and sideways. Radiation experiments showed: wasp nurse cells and primitive egg cells slowed activities, allowing time for repair of radiation damage; two strains of bacteria grew substantially faster and tolerated radiation better, and viruses hosted by these bacteria appeared to be less effective in harming bacteria than on earth; twice as many flour beetle offspring died, and beetles suffered 50% more of characteristic wing defect; tradescantia plant had greater cell death and pollen abortion; and both adult and larval stages of vinegar gnats suffered greater chromosome damage. (NASA Release 68-35)
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