Jan 29 1970
From The Space Library
NASA launched two Nike-Cajun sounding rockets from Point Barrow, Alaska, carrying GSFC grenade experiments. Rockets and instruments functioned satisfactorily. (SR list)
Apollo 8 Astronaut Frank Borman would leave active duty with NASA July 1, NASA announced. He would become Vice President of Electronic Data Systems, Inc., assist in establishment of American Horizons Foundation, and continue to serve NASA as consultant on earth-orbiting space stations. Borman, assigned to NASA by USAF since 1962 and NASA Field Director of Space Station Studies since May 1969, would retire from USAF after 20 yrs active duty. He had received NASA Distinguished and Exceptional Service Medals, USAF Command Astronaut Wings and Distinguished Flying Cross, American Astronautical Flight Achievement Award, Air Force Assn.'s David C. Schilling Flight Trophy, Cal Tech's Distinguished Alumni Service Award, and New York State Medal for Valor. Experience in space program, Borman said, "has been the most rewarding, of my life. This new opportunity will enable me to work with a major industrial firm, continue an association with the space effort and to devote a substantial amount of my time through the Foundation to many issues which have interested me for a long time." (NASA Release 70-14)
MSC announced award of one-year, $11-million, cost-plus-award-fee contract extension to Service Technology Corp. for facility support services. Award was for third year of five-year program initially awarded to LTV Aerospace Corp. and brought total value of contract since December 1967 to $34.8 million. (MSC Release 70-17)
President Nixon announced appointment of Russell E. Train, Robert Cahn, and Gordon J. F. MacDonald as members of new Council on Environmental Quality and outlined Council's chief responsibilities: to study condition of Nation's environment, develop new environmental programs and policies, coordinate Federal programs, ensure that all activities of Federal Government took environmental considerations into account, and assist President in preparing annual report on Environmental Quality. (PD, 2/2/70, 90-1)
At annual meeting of American Physical Society in Chicago, symposium on cosmic physics suggested stellar explosion could have precipitated condensation of dust and gas to form sun and planets. Analysis of meteorite discovered several years earlier at St. Severin, France, had led to suggestion by Cal Tech physicist Dr. Gerald J. Wasserburg that great stellar explosion had accompanied or immediately preceded formation of solar system, Walter Sullivan said in New York Times.. Meteorite had contained calcium phosphate crystals in tiny tracks of particles ejected by radioactive atoms. Suspected source was plutonium 244-element manufactured in laboratory but not found in nature. Because plutonium 244's mean lifetime was only 118 million yrs, any plutonium in earth rocks or meteorites, both more than 4.5 billion yrs old, would have decayed radioactively unless something occurred just before or during solar system's formation that synthesized this substance. According to Wasserburg hypothesis, material was incorporated into meteorite where, during solar system's infancy, it decayed possibly into neutron-rich forms, or isotopes, of xenon found in meteorite, leaving radiation tracks. (NYT,1/30/70, 23)
January 29-30: U.N. Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space met at MSC for review of Earth Resources Satellite Program. Representatives from 21 of 28 nations on Committee were shown conceptual design of satellite system to survey global atmospheric patterns by mid-1970s. Dr. John M. DeNoyer, Director of NASA Earth Observations Programs, described Global Atmospheric Research Project: It would be "significant step toward adequate modeling of the atmosphere and will take us much closer to a reliable prediction capability for the weather." Space technology could also contribute to management of world's food supply, quality and availability of water, mineral sources, land use, urban development, and pollution. "Degradation of our planet may be inevitable. If so, we must work as a community of all nations to make the rate of degradation as slow as possible." (MSC Release 70-16; Hill, H Chron, 1/30/70)
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