Jul 26 1978
From The Space Library
NASA announced that 16 astronaut candidates from JSC, including six female candidates, would undergo three days of training beginning July 31 at the Homestead Air Force water survival school in Fla. [See July 6.] More than half the 35 current candidates had had water survival training before entering the NASA program. Each day's activities would include classroom lectures on water-survival techniques and actual training in the water. The candidates, wearing a tethered parachute harness, would slide down a wire from a tower and be towed through the water in the harness to practice parachute release. In other exercises, candidates towed aloft under a parasail canopy would land in the water to be picked up by boat. On the final plunge from the parasail into the water, candidates wearing full survival gear would be picked up from their life-raft by helicopter. The Air Force's 3613th Combat Crew training squadron operated the water survival school. (NASA Release 78-114)
NASA announced that effective July 30, the Legislative Affairs Division would become a separate organizational entity reporting to the Office of the Administrator. Experience over the past 8mo indicated that this change would better balance the workload of the senior staff and assure close and continuous liaison with the Legislative Branch. (NASA special anno July 26/78)
MSFC announced it would issue a request for proposals (RFP) from industry to develop automatic welding for commercial use. Under NASA's requirement to transfer new technology to industry, it had decided to seek a new line of equipment for economical and more productive automatic welding of single and double contour welds. Automotive, shipbuilding, small watercraft, military hardware, aerospace, petroleum, and solar heating and cooling industries might use such an invention.
MSFC had built a prototype model with real-time computer-controlled weld speed and torch-angle control for making a variety of contour welds. The unit, equipped with digital closed-circuit television welding torch guidance, could automatically maintain accurate alignment of the torch and weld joint during welding. Values for up to 5 constantly changing variables, measured and fed into the control computer to maintain constant speed and angle, could easily make contour corrections at every millimeter of travel or more frequently. The contract would call for development on a cost-sharing basis of commercial versions of the equipment for purchase and use by industry. MSFC's computer-weld skate with automatic torch guidance had three patents, two on the computer control and one on the closed-circuit television guidance; NASA had applied for an additional patent for the entire computer-weld skate. These patents could be licensed by the successful proposers. (Marshall Star, July 26/78, 4)
The Dept. of Transportation announced it had issued an updated plan for development of an all-weather landing system that would eventually replace the current instrument-landing system worldwide. An FAA update of the original 1971 national plan had set forth requirements for completing the prototype phase of the program, on terms set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) earlier in 1978. ICAO had selected the U.S./Australian time-reference scanning-beam microwave-landing system (MLS) to be the standard approach-and-landing guidance system of the future. The updated "National Plan for Development of the Microwave Landing System" called for completion of the prototype development and testing phase by the end of 1982. The plan made allowance for a transition phase' between system development and implementation. Although it made no firm recommendations on implementation of the system, it described alternate strategies. Work had been completed on two of the six MLS configurations: a small community airport version and a basic system for most commercial fields. Still to be developed were the "expanded" version for large hub airports and various tactical systems for military use.
DOT also had drafted a document for adoption by ICAO on Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPS) that would prescribe technical and operational characteristics of MLS to ensure quality of system performance and compatibility of air and ground components throughout the world. (FAA Release 63-78)
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