Jul 12 1965
From The Space Library
Soviet cosmonaut Col. Pavel Belyayev disclosed in an article in the newspaper Sovietsky Patriot that the heat was so intense when he was forced to land VOSKHOD II by manual controls that drops of molten metal ran down the portholes. He said when he discovered that something was wrong with the automatic landing system of the two-man spacecraft, he asked ground control for permission to use the manual system-something that had never been done before during a Soviet manned spaceflight. (UPI, Houston Chron, 7/12/65)
Soviet astronomer A. Markov stated that a lunar crater would be the most suitable landing site inasmuch as the floor of the crater would be composed of solid material, Because of the steep inclines in certain lunar formations, it would be impossible for deep layer of dust to accumulate, he noted. (Berliner Zeitung, 7/11/65, 4-6)
Dr. Cyril Ponnamperuma of NASA Ames Research Center's Exobiology Div, and ARC research assistant Ruth Mack had synthesized the five chemical building blocks of DNA and RNA in a simple laboratory model which duplicated conditions believed to exist on earth from three to four and a half billion years ago, NASA announced. DNA and RNA, nucleic acids, form the core of and are the "prime movers" of all living cells in plants, animals, and man. The five DNA-RNA building blocks, known as nucleotides, are made up of a nitrogenous base, a sugar, and a phosphate. Their synthesis under laboratory conditions could be a major advance toward explaining the origin of life on earth ; it could have retraced a critical phase in the chemical evolution of organic material which had to occur before the appearance of life itself. Synthesis of nucleotides had been done before, but always by long, complex laboratory procedures. (NASA Release 65-221; ARC Release 65-17; Marshall Star, 7/14/65, 9)
Strange objects moving through space were reported sighted in two widely-separated areas of Portugal. The Azores Weather Bureau claimed interference from one which stopped its electromagnetic clocks, Descriptions of the objects were similar to official Argentine and Chilean military reports of sightings in the Antarctic recently. (Orl, Sent, 7/12/65)
Senate defeated by 61-to-16 the proposed Proxmire amendment to make an across-the-board reduction of 5% in the NASA appropriations bill. This left the Senate bill, still to receive its final vote, at $5.19 billion. The House had passed a $5.16 billion appropriation, Sen. William Proxmire ( D-Wis,) had contended that the manned lunar landing program constituted an "excessive waste," Sen. Joseph S. Clark ( D-Pa, ) had felt the problem was not one of waste or inefficiency but felt that more of the nation's resources should be put into education, housing, pollution abatement, and other urban problems, Sen. Wayne Morse ( D-Ore.) had supported the reduction but had proposed that the cut be 25% or 50%. "The American people have been thoroughly taken in by a TV spectacular," he said and charged that the space program "is all for the purpose of gratifying our national ego." Senator Morse had indicated that no other single agency conducted programs "with such vague objectives with such little return to the national Government," Proxmire had charged that NASA was the prime example of an agency whose expenditures Congress had difficulty in controlling, that certain project costs within the NASA program could be reduced, and that NASA used too great a proportion of our monetary, material, and manpower resources. The 16 Senators voting for the Proxmire amendment were Boggs, Clark, Cooper, Douglas, Fullbright, Gruening, Kennedy (N.Y,) , McGovern Miller, Morse, Morton, Mundt, Nelson, Proxmire, Williams (N.J,), and Williams (Del.) . ( CR, 7/12/65, 15927-40)
Brig. Gen. Julian H. Bowman (USAF, Ret.) was appointed Special Assistant to the NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, General Bowman would handle special management problems in areas such as program manpower and organization, career management, and industry relationships. (NASA Hq. Bull., 7/20/65)
USAF scientist Dr. Hubertus Strughold told the Aviation and Space Writers Meeting in Washington, D.C., that the possibility that frozen oceans beneath the surface of Mars may support life cannot be ignored. Men may even find enough moisture there to provide them water and oxygen for an expedition, "and thus a critical problem of extraterrestrial resources would no longer exist," he said. The idea that an underground water table exists on the otherwise arid planet was only a hypothesis with no evidence at present; but a combination of older theories by other scientists plus "common horse sense" led him to speculate the water was there, Dr. Strughold said. (Text)
AEC Administrator Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, in an interview with U.S. News and World Report reviewing the 20th anniversary of the exploding of the first atomic device in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, said a dozen countries had the potential to "join the present five-member nuclear club." Japan, India, West Germany, Sweden, Italy, Canada, and Israel were capable of producing an atomic bomb soon; Spain, Brazil, Yugoslavia, Egypt, and Switzerland had the scientific talent and available resources to produce a bomb in a little longer time, he said. (U.S. News, 7/19/65, 13)
Reviewing developments in the TFX aircraft program-now designated F-111, Richard Elliott wrote in Barron's: "Since it was launched in 1963, the TFX program has cost roughly $900 million. Another $700 million has been earmarked for it in fiscal 1966. If the Pentagon buys as many F-111's as it now plans, the price tag through the early 1970's will run to at least $8 billion, . (Elliott, Barron's, 7/12/65)
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