Jul 23 1976
From The Space Library
Proponents of the B-1 strategic bomber, "vigorously opposed for years by people inside and outside of government," seemed likely to win their struggle to get approval for the $22-billion program, said Science magazine. A House-Senate conference committee voted in mid-June to spend $960.5 million in procurement funds for the first 3 B-1 planes, although the Senate had passed an amendment delaying spending of the money until a new administration should take office.
This year's fight to procure the B-1 was the culmination of a 15-yr effort that began with the shooting down of a U-2 plane over the Soviet Union in 1960; the USAF projected the building of a low-flying manned bomber, the ideas converging in 1969 with AMSA (advanced manned strategic aircraft), a project opposed by then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. In 1969, when Melvin Laird became President Nixon's Secretary of Defense, AMSA studies were concluded and the final design "metamorphosed into the B-1," Rockwell Intl. Corp. becoming prime contractor. At the same time, other Pentagon planners were backing a strategic armed cruise missile decoy system (SCAD), assuming that Congress would not approve both programs. At the urging of the USAF, Secretary Laird canceled the SCAD program in July 1973, but the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (Sen. Thomas McIntyre, D-N.H.) ordered it reinstated.
Both the bomber and the cruise missile had encountered development problems and increased expenses; internal Rockwell documents from Jan. 1974 showed company concern about "competitive threats in the form of the standoff missile and ... the launch aircraft" that other companies might seek to build. A massive public-relations campaign was mounted to protect the B-1; ultimately, Science said, the B-1 would win but the cruise missile would also have its day, quoting John B. Walsh, Deputy Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) at the Pentagon, as saying "you need both bombers and cruise missiles." (Science, 23 July 76, 303)
Marshall Space Flight Center announced that Barbara S. Askins, a chemist in MSFC's Astronomy Branch, had applied for patent on an improved process, autoradiographic film intensification, that would improve photographic images after films or plates had been developed. Exposing silver or other imaging material on a developed film or plate to a radioactive environment would convert the material to a radioactive compound; placing the radioactivated material in contact with a receiver emulsion on an unexposed film or plate would reproduce the original image with increased contrast and density. The hazards and complexity of handling radioactive material had limited the use of such a process, but the new process did not require special training, expensive equipment, or extraordinary safety precautions, as it used an isotopic organo-sulfur 35 compound and could be adapted easily to an ordinary photographic laboratory. Askins said the process would be used in astronomy and other scientific research where low light levels were encountered. (MSFC Release 76-13)
The U.S. had the smallest Air Force since the beginning of the Korean War, General, William J. Evans told a luncheon of the National Security Industrial Association in Los Angeles. Gen. Evans, commander of the Air Force Systems Command, said that the Air Force, in an effort to reverse this trend, was in the midst of the greatest modernization period of its short history, citing "the effective combination" of "land-based terminals and spaceborne satellites to provide attack warning, weather data, communication links, and positioning and navigation for American forces wherever they may be." The U.S. was building a modern Air Force "with inefficient equipment that would be at home in a museum," he said, calling on industry for more investment in modern equipment and advanced technology. Contractor testing had not been realistic, and performance of contractor products had failed to meet operational requirements; the government presence in contractor plants, to which industry objected, could be reduced with better designs, streamlined operations with better visibility, and measures such as greater use of computers to reduce inefficiencies. (AFSC Release OIP 152.76)
The organizational structure of a large earth-orbiting space station was the topic of a doctoral study at Fla. State Univ. for Dr. James Ragusa of Kennedy Space Center's Science and Applications Office. The study was an offshoot of work on future space projects (with Gene McCoy of KSC's Shuttle Payload Integration Office) before Dr. Ragusa left to work on his Ph.D. The topic was one about which little had been written, and was timely in that the structure should be included in plans for such a mission. Spacelab, with a 7-man crew, needed no complex organizational structure; a space colony with a projected population of thousands would require a government rather than an organizational structure. A space base housing 50 to 100 persons would bring together people of varying backgrounds for extended periods of time-the station being designed with a 10-yr operating life-and large-group behavior would be a factor in considering the best type of organization. Ragusa investigated the organizational structures used on submarines and destroyers, interviewing the submarine captains and taking cruises on the nuclear sub Nathanael Greene and the research sub Benjamin Franklin.
Among those interviewed for the study were Dr. Wernher von Braun; Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001 and father of the communications satellite; several astronauts; and Gene Roddenberry, creator of the TV series "Star Trek." Ragusa found that the organization on Roddenberry's U.S.S. Enterprise was modeled after that used on 18th century English ships, which in turn was based on that used on Phoenician ships 2500 years ago, in which the ship was considered an extension of the country itself and abided by the laws and traditions of the homeland; the captain was king, and his word was law. The structure best fitting the needs of a space base was the "total matrix model" with four levels of hierarchy, best for efficient and orderly management of the crew because of its adaptability. Of 8 models, the "Star Trek" structure ranked fifth because of its lack of flexibility and efficiency. (Spaceport News, 23 July 76, 5)
NASA announced that the U.S. Government Printing Office had published the 3-volume English edition of the joint U.S.-USSR Foundations of Space Biology and Medicine, summarizing biological and medical results of the first 15 yr of space flight. The work was produced by a joint editorial board on space biology and medicine formed in Oct. 1965 by NASA and the Soviet Academy of Sciences; the USSR had published a Russian language edition in Moscow. The text consisted of 45 chapters, 19 authored by U.S. scientists, 20 by USSR scientists, and 6 by teams of authors from both nations. Volume I was called "Space as a Habitat"; Volume II, "Ecological and Physiological Foundations of Space Biology and Medicine," responses of man, plants, and animals to space flight; Volume III, "Space Medicine and Biotechnology," technology and procedures needed to sustain life and permit living creatures to function in space. (NASA Release 76-135)
23-24 July: The scientific balloon Da Vinci II I, launched west of St. Louis, Mo., at 7:25 am CDT on 23 July, landed safely at about 9 am EDT on 24 July about 80 km east of Lexington, Ky. Purpose of the flight was to follow industrial and urban air pollution into the surrounding countryside, recording the changes in concentration and chemistry of the pollutants. Early findings indicated that high levels of ozone and sulfur dioxide-2 major air pollutants-persisted throughout the flight. The 4-member crew of Da Vinci II I included 3 who manned both the Da Vinci 1 flight in Nov. 1974 and the Da Vinci II flight in June 1976: Dr. Rudolf J. Engelmann of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; pilot and project originator Ms. Vera Simons; and pilot Jimmie Craig of the U.S. Naval Weapons Center. The new member of the crew was Preston B. Herrington of Sandia Laboratories, Energy Research and Development Administration, which would collect and analyze the flight data as well as conduct all flight operations. Da Vinci was a joint project of ERDA, NOAA, and the Environmental Protection Agency. (ERDA Releases 76-211, 76-245)
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