Jul 13 1976
From The Space Library
Marshall Space Flight Center announced that MSFC engineers had developed an optical processing system that could use earth pictures taken by satellites such as Landsat or SEASAT to survey highway traffic. When the New Orleans, La., planning commission asked the Center if space technology could provide an automated way to conduct thorough, reliable, and inexpensive traffic surveys, MSFC responded with a technique used several years ago of scanning phototransparencies with a laser beam; the new laser scanner would sense differences in intensity of the filtered beam, recognize vehicle sizes and shapes, and store size and location data for later use. Data from an aerial traffic survey using the system could be in the hands of users within hours. The new method must start with aircraft photographs, said MSFC engineer Joseph H. Kerr, who patented the rapid survey system; present Landsat satellites passed over a target only once in 18 days, but the project gave NASA a chance to refine the method for use on satellites in the 1980s. Whereas processing of satellite data might now take months, Kerr said his system could produce data 100 times faster. (NASA Release 76-128)
Solar power would charge batteries in 2 electric vehicles used by the National Capital Parks, Dept. of the Interior, during this summer's Bicentennial Festival of American Folklife in Washington, D.C., NASA announced. The golfcart-like vehicles, each equipped with 6 standard traction batteries, would get energy from photovoltaic cells capable of providing 1.7 kwh of electricity during peak sunlight; the array was prepared by Lewis Research Center as one of several demonstrations of solar energy it was conducting as manager of ERDA's photovoltaic test and demonstration project. Cells were provided by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to which ERDA assigned responsibility for the low-cost silicon solar-array project. The solar-powered vehicles would be used from July through Sept. at the festival, one for transportation of festival workers, the other fitted with a vacuum cleaner for refuse pickup. (NASA Release 76-129;.ERDA Release 76-218)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
