Jul 31 1964
From The Space Library
RANGER VII successfully completed its historic mission of taking and relaying to earth closeup pictures of the lunar surface. The spacecraft sent back 4,316 high-quality photographs of the moon before it crashed on the surface of the moon in an area northwest of the Sea of Clouds. All six cameras aboard the spacecraft worked properly, sending back photographs of the moon that improved the resolution of lunar detail as seen from the earth by a factor of 1,000. The closest pictures were snapped 2.3 sec. before impact, at 10.7° south latitude and 203¦ longItude, 68 hrs. and 36 min. after takeoff. At news conference on preliminary results from RANGER VII, held at JPL, principal experimenter Dr. Gerard P. Kuiper of Univ. of Ariz. Lunar and Planetary Laboratory described sampling of the lunar photographs as they were shown to the public. In reply to a question, he said: ".. . the thing that struck me most was that the Moon, the region of the Moon, the dimensions which we have been able to observe . this range, tremendous range of new knowledge has not resulted in any totally unforeseen problems.... "The Moon has shown-the records show a continuity of features from the large craters observable with telescopes down to smaller sizes. "Think that the rounded features of the large numbers of secondary craters is new. Also their large number is new. . . . "It is also clear that primary craters exist, little pits which have very much the same shape. . . They are smaller, but the shape, the form, is the same as the bigger craters.. "There are some ridges shown. These ridges in the maria are rather of the same nature, of the same shape, sort or form, as the larger ridges. "So I would say, in summing up, that the new region of knowledge is in a true sense an extension of the earlier knowledge. I think it shows that the craters continue to occur down to sizes of about three feet in diameter, about one foot depth. "This clearly implies that we are not dealing here with enormous layers of dust, of very loose dust, that is, very loose material, where one would not expect any small features to be visible at all. It is not like sand, in other words... "This is a great day for science, and this is a great day for the United States. . . the amount of information that has been gained about the lunar surface is truly remarkable." (NASA Transcripts)
President Johnson personally congratulated scientists and technicians responsible for the successful flight of RANGER VII. He congratulated Dr. William Pickering, Director of JPL, and Dr. Homer Newell, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications, and then is-sued a statement on the experiment. He called the flight "a basic step forward in our orderly program to assemble the scientific knowledge necessary for man's trip to the moon. . . . The pictures obtained of the lunar surface should prove extremely useful . . . They will be a guide in constructing the lunar excursion module and in planning the trip. Now we shall be able to better map out our descent route. We'll be able to build our lunar landing equipment with greater certainty and knowledge of the conditions which our astronauts will encounter on the moon. I recognize that this great success has come only after a number of failures and partial failures in our efforts to send probes to the moon. This success should spur us on to added effort in the future. . . . On behalf of a grateful nation, let me again congratulate you on this magnificent achievement. All of you today have helped further the peaceful exploration of space." (NYT, 8/1/64)
The U.S.S.R. announced a new program of Pacific rocket firings, to begin August 4 and to last to the end of 1964. The announcement, describing the impact areas south and west of Hawaii, said "test flights of new types of rocket carriers for space objects" would be conducted. The Soviet government requested that ships and aircraft stay out of the impact areas during announced periods. (Balt. Sun, 8/1/64; Tass, Pravda, 8/1/64, ATSS-T Trans.)
W. S. Bellows Construction Corp. and Peter Kiewit and Sons, Inc., received a $2,061,358 fixed-price contract for construction of the Con-tractor's Support Facility at NASA Manned Spacecraft Center. The contract was awarded by the Army Corps of Engineers. (DOD Release 563-64)
A six-month study was concluded of public acceptability of sonic boons that had been conducted by the FAA in the Oklahoma City area since February 3, 1964. The study was designed to gather data on public reaction to the noise that would follow the supersonic airliners of the 1970's. During the test approximately 8 booms a day (total in test, 1,253) were created. During the 6 months the agency received 12,588 telephone calls, most of them complaints. In addition to these direct manifestations of opinion, the Univ. of Chicago conducted a detailed public opinion survey in conjunction with the experiment. Gordon M. Bain, FAA Deputy Administrator for Supersonic Transport Development, said in announcing the completion of the study : "Sonic boom presents the most imposing single challenge to design and operation of a supersonic transport plane. The people of Oklahoma City have been helping explore this challenge as, in effect, major participants in the nation's supersonic transport development program." (FAA Release 64-74; Clark, NYT, 8/1/64)
Alvin H. Parker soared his Sisu 1A sailplane from Odessa, Tex., to Kimball, Neb. (644 mi-) to claim new world soaring distance record over the previous 544.331-mi. distance record. (SSA Release)
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