Jan 30 1964
From The Space Library
NASA launched RANGER VI lunar probe with Atlas-Agena B launch vehicle from AMR in lunar landing mission to photograph the moon's surface. The Atlas booster fired properly and, after stage separation, the Agena B stage ignited and attained orbital speed. After coasting in parking orbit of about 110-mi. altitude, the Agena B reignited, sending RANGER VI through the "launch window" on a course which would pass within 600 mi. of the moon. A midcourse correction maneuver was planned so that the spacecraft would impact the lunar surface. The only scientific instruments onboard the 804-lb. spacecraft were six TV cameras, designed to provide more than 3,000 photographs of the lunar surface during the last 10 min. of the 66-hr. flight. This was the first Ranger launch since October 1962, when extensive review of the Ranger project was undertaken because of previous Ranger failures. For RANGER VI, changes were made in subsystems to improve reliability and provide redundancy in some areas; also, sterilization requirements for Ranger spacecraft were relaxed, since excessive heat was suspected of causing some previous malfunctions. (NASA Release 64-16; Witkin, NYT , 1/31/ 64, 1; LRC Release 64-10; Miles, Wash. Post, 1/31/64, 1)
U.S.S.R. announced orbiting of two satellites, ELECTRON I and ELECTRON II, with a single launch vehicle. Soviet news agency Tass said the satellites were studying "the internal and external radiation belts of the earth and physical phenomena connected with them." ELECTRON I was orbiting at 7,100-km. (4,412-mi.) apogee; 406-km. (252-mi.) perigee; 2-hr., 49-min. period; and 61° inclination, ELECTRON II was orbiting at 68,200-km. (42,379-mi.) apogee; 460-km. (286-mi.) perigee; 22-hr., 40-min. period; and 61° inclination. (Tass; Wash. Post, 1/31/64, A14)
At American Meteorological Society meeting, UCLA campus, Lewis D. Kaplan presented paper on current ideas about atmosphere of Mars-surface pressure is considerably lower than previously estimated and CO2 concentration is considerably higher-and discussed significance of these findings for Martian-atmosphere entry spacecraft. (AMS Program, 717)
NASA submitted to the Congress its report on H.R. 6651, to provide for study on establishment of a National Space Museum. NASA position was that since the National Air Museum of the Smithsonian Institution had undertaken to preserve and display space objects, enactment of H.R. 6651 was considered unnecessary. (NASA LAR III/15)
NASA's equal opportunity employment activities were commended on Senate floor by Sen. Jacob K. Javits (R.-N.Y.) . Senator Javits introduced in the Congressional Record letters from NASA indicating specific measures taken in broad-based equal opportunity program, especially in Huntsville, Ala., and Wallops Station, Va. (CR, 1/30/64, 1328-29)
President Johnson appointed Dr. Herbert F. York, Chancellor of Univ. of Calif. at San Diego and La Jolla, to the President's Science Advisory Committee succeeding Dr. George B. Kistiakowsky. (AP, NYT, 1/31/ 64,11)
Interviewed in Houston, where he toured NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, NASC Executive Secretary Dr. Edward C. Welsh commented that U.S.S.R. leads U.S. in "total manned [space] flying hours, aggregate weight lifted into space, and some phases of biomedicine. "But we are ahead in space navigation, communications, weather satellites, and boosters. "I doubt that they now can equal the thrust of Saturn I, although I think they eventually will do so." (Houston Chron., 1/31/64; Houston Post, 1/31/64)
Dr. Edward C. Welsh, Executive Secretary of National Aeronautics and Space Council, addressed Texas City Chamber of Commerce, discussing these summarized points:
- "1. The space program is a sound investment to improve the economic health of the country and is not a wasteful expenditure of funds so long as the program is handled on a business-like basis.
- "2. The space program is being carried out as a partnership with private enterprise and requires cooperation with communities throughout the country.
- "3. The space program does not and should not drain resources from other important projects, such as schools and housing; in fact, it stimulates both.
- "4. The space program is essential to our national security-through both its NASA activities and its Department of Defense activities.
- "5. The lunar program is a key feature in the space program, as it provides a clear objective and it requires the orderly development of a wide range of competences, all of which will have value for future space performance.
- "6. International cooperation in our space program can be mutually beneficial and will not impair our national security or inhibit the development of our own space capabilities.
- "7. The space program stimulates the supply of trained scientists and engineers, but does not require them in such quantities as to interfere with the constructive employment of the vast majority of them in other lines of endeavor." (Text)
NASA Administrator James E. Webb addressed World Affairs Council of Northern California, in San Francisco, discussed national and international aspects of the U.S. space program: "The competition is tough. The U.S.S.R. has the ability to concentrate its efforts without public debate and without the regard for individual freedom of choice or living standards which enjoy high priority in our own country. But it does not follow that our own space effort should be similarly concentrated. The implications of space are broad, broader than we can now know, and they do not end on the moon. The necessary technologies are enormously demanding and therefore enormously promising. And, whatever we do in space, we are critically dependent upon a thorough knowledge of the space environment. Moreover, the Soviet program, which has appeared to many of us to be so narrow and directed almost exclusively to prestigious exploits, more recently gives signs of broadening to include considerable basic research as well as practical investigations, for example, through the use of weather satellites in which we pioneered. "Therefore, we must not be trapped into a narrow competition-focusing our energies on one mission or even on manned flight alone. Our preparations must be broad enough to give us a flexible base suitable for a continuity of effort and ability to move in a direction or directions perhaps still unknown. "The projects and programs, national and international, in which we are engaged have unprecedented scope and potential. It is this scope and this potential which make space activity a valuable instrument of national and international policy. It is a many faceted tool to be used for the economic and social advance of this and cooperating nations as Well as for the preservation of our technological and political leadership in the world. This tool and its importance should be fully understood and appreciated. At the same time, as Lord Hailsham has said, we should remember that international cooperation is not a substitute for national excellence. "Europe has not been alone in recognizing these factors. In the complex of UN organizations, great interest has been evidenced among nations great and small in the problems and benefits of space. "Here again, space has served to bring East, West, and neutrals together in a code of legal principles to govern space activity, which was unanimously adopted in the last session of the General Assembly. In the associated forum of the International Telecommunications Union agreements were reached on the assignment of radio frequencies for space research and space communications. Without these arrangements the future of communications satellite systems would be heavily clouded. And in another UN agency, the World Meteorological Organization, a start has been made in the evaluation and planning of requirements for a world weather satellite system which also promises real economic and human benefits. "Thus it is clear that our national effort in space research and exploration is becoming a powerful force in developing greater international cooperation-cooperation which is not limited to the nations of the Free World, but which spans the Iron Curtain, as well. It is in this context, as a force which joins all mankind against a common enemy, the hostile environment of space, rather than against each other, that the space effort may bring the most significant and enduring rewards." (Text)
In its annual report to the Congress, AEC reported that "substantial increases" had been made in explosive power of thermonuclear warheads for Polaris, Minuteman, and Titan long-range missiles. AEC also said progress had been made in developing nuclear weapons that produce less radioactive fallout. The advances were made in 1962 test series of atmospheric explosions in the Pacific. (Finney, NYT, 1/31/64, 1)
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