Jan 3 1973
From The Space Library
President Nixon accepted the resignation of Dr. Edward E. David, Jr., as Science Adviser and Director of Office of Science and Technology [see Jan. 2]. (PD, 1/8/73, 10)
NASA planned to spend up to $100 million during the next five years on the post-Apollo lunar science program to extract information from 385 kg (850 lbs) of lunar samples, 30 000 photos, and "miles" of magnetic tape from six Apollo lunar landing missions, the New York Times reported. Director Anthony J. Calio of Manned Spacecraft Center Office of Science and Applications had said in an interview that recommendations in an October 1972 report of the Lunar Science Institute were being followed in much of MSC's planning, but the MSC Lunar Receiving Laboratory would be closed on completion of Apollo 17 sample processing. The sample collection might be divided for storage at another Government facility as a "precaution." The LRL report had said preservation of MSC curatorial facilities for lunar materials was "absolutely essential" to lunar science objectives. Calio said sample inventory and preparation of rock slivers for the thin sections library should take two years. Repository for Apollo geophysical material, including magnetic tapes, probably would be Goddard Space Flight Center. (Wilford, NYT, 1/3/73,25)
The Aviation Advisory Commission sent to the President a report of its two year study of long-range U.S. aviation needs. Acting under Public Law 91-258, the Commission had concluded that the "U.S. is facing the greatest combination of threats to its position of world preeminence in aviation since it established that position in the late forties." Recommendations included establishment of Under Secretary for Civil Aviation in Dept. of Transportation to prepare and keep current a 10-yr plan for air services, airports; airways, air vehicles, and ground access. Civil-aviation research and development functions of NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration, and other Federal agencies should be placed under the USCA. (CR, 1/12/73, S608)
Reaction of writers Norman Mailer and Katherine Anne Porter to space flight and to nighttime launch of Apollo 17 were reported in the Christian Science Monitor. Authors had witnessed the Dec. 6, 1972, launch and participated in a space seminar during the "Voyage beyond Apollo" cruise of the S.S. Statendarn, which left New York Dec. 4 for Cape Kennedy and the Caribbean. Mailer had said: "Moon colonies offer the possibility that we'll be able to discover definitively and for the first time what we are doing wrong. Whether we thrive on the moon or fail we're going to learn something that we're not going to learn by staying here on earth. . . ." Part of "the fundamental impasse of 20th-century man and woman is that they cannot find communities which express their philosophical ideas, their social ideas, and their private ideas. In other words, the one thing that we can't do any longer is verify what we think. We can have ideas. But we spend our lives just talking about them, "There are very few people who have a profound sense of commitment. One of the reasons that the astronauts have been so revered . is that they have this huge sense of commitment.... they are absolutely devoted to a living a life that they believe in utterly and are willing to go through great hardship for it. I think that until our society reaches the point where many more people live lives of such commitment it's going to remain essentially unhealthy.
"The decision to go to the moon is such a declaration of intent. If nothing else, one has to risk dying on it. One has to recognize that one is taking a major step, and the idea of taking a major step brings out in, people at least for a short period . . . the best in them. Then, if there's something really alive in the venture, they're likely to keep changing their habits and go on to make more of themselves." Miss Porter had said that, in almost anything men undertook together here on the earth, "in no time at all there's a pull and haul for power. They're betraying and tricking each other, getting in one another's way. And yet when it comes to something they consider big enough and grand enough they do it in a grand way and they do it well, like the astronauts. . . . We've always built and saved a little more than we've been able to destroy, don't you think?" (CSM, 1/3/73)
Rep. Alphonzo Bell (R-Calif.) introduced H.R. 32, National Science and Policy Priorities Act of 1973. The bill differed from S. 32, passed by the Senate in 1972 but never reported out by the House Committee on Science and Astronautics [see Jan. 4]. The new bill sought to protect the National Science Foundation's pure science functions by allocating at least 40% of the science budget to NSF. (CR, 1/3/73, H27; NASA LAR, XII/1)
Discovery of a new comet near the constellation Orion had been reported to Harvard Univ, by 15-yr-old amateur astronomer David Sams of Columbus, Ohio, the Washington Evening Star & Daily News said. Sams had observed the comet through a $90 telescope. (W Star & News, 1/3/73, A3)
Rep. Charles S. Gubser (R-Calif.) introduced H.R. 611, to limit and control more effectively the use of Government production equipment by NASA and Dept. of State contractors. (CR, 1/3/73, H76)
The sky show "When Earth Became a Planet" opened at the American Museum-Hayden Planetarium to mark the 500th anniversary of the birth of Polish physician, economist, statesman, and astronomer Nicholas Copernicus. Copernicus, born in 1473, taught that the sun was the center of the solar system. The theory had paved the way for the work of Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and others who eventually made space age possible. (Am Mus-Hayden Planetarium Release)
Grumman Corp. spokesman told the press in Bethpage, N.Y., that Grumman had accepted an $18-million, short-term loan from the Navy at the same time the firm had said it would not honor a contract to provide the Navy with F-14 jet fighter aircraft. (UPI, W Post, 1/4/73, D6)
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