Jul 5 1968
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
U.S.S.R. successfully launched Cosmos CCXXX from Kapustin Yar. Orbital parameters: apogee, 544 km (338 mi) ; perigee, 283 km (175.8 mi) ; period, 92.8 min; and inclination, 48.4° Satellite reentered Nov. 2. (UPI, NYT, 7/6/68; SBD, 7/10/68, 26; GSFC SSR, 7/15/68; 11/15/68)
AEC's High Energy Physics Advisory Panel report in Science decried cutbacks in funds for high-energy physics "one of main fronts of science" and recommended budget increase to avert decline in U.S. effort and construction of giant bubble chamber at Brookhaven Laboratory and electron-positron storage ring at Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC). Work on 200-bev accelerator at Weston, Ill., should continue "at highest priority," report stressed, and provision should be made to finance joint research with U.S.S.R. using present most powerful accelerator in world at Serpukhov, near Moscow. Lack of approval of bubble chamber and SLAC storage ring in 1968 and 1969 budgets meant "for the first time in the history of this field, U.S. physicists will be unable to make use of some of the most modern means of research." Further, there was "clear and present danger" that U.S. would lose its leadership in this fundamental field, "an ominous step" toward situation of 1930s, "when most of the major discoveries in fundamental science were made in Europe." (Science, 7/5/68, 11-9; Sullivan, NYT, 7/7/68, 17)
JPL scientist Dr. Robert Nathan, who had devised method using computers to improve spacecraft photos of moon and Mars, planned to link computers with electron microscopes to photograph single atom. Within six months much of connection work should be done, he said, and "with luck, we could be taking pictures of atoms in a year or so." (Dighton, Glendale News-Press, 7/5/68, 1)
NASA awarded 16-mo, $178,844 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. for computer software to operate NASA/RECON remote-console information retrieval system. Consoles would be installed at field centers and NASA Hq. and linked to central computer at NASA Scientific and Technical Information Facility in College Park, Md. They would provide real-time access to NASA's worldwide collection of scientific and tcchnical documents on aerospace. Users would need no special skill. (NASA Release 68-118)
FCC ruled that rates charged TV networks for overseas service via satellite were not excessive and that companies providing service-AT&T, RCA Communications, Inc., ITT World Communications, Inc., and Western Union International-were no longer required to place payments for services in deferred credit fund. (AP, NYT, 7/7/68, 10)
Danish government announced it had banned U.S. rocket flights to probe sunspot effects at high altitudes over Greenland during 1968 because of popular apprehension which followed January crash of nuclear-armed USAF B-52 aircraft near Thule AFB. Disappointed scientists noted 1968 was peak in 11-yr sunspot cycle; 1969 would offer hardly enough sunspots for study. (C Trib, 7/6/68, 5)
Sonic booms from USAF test flights were threatening prehistoric Indian cliff dwellings and natural rock formations in Arizona. Log kept at Canyon, de Chelly National Monument had recorded 16 booms in April 1967, 19 in April 1968, 20 in May 1968, and 9 in June 1968. Natural Environment Panel, participating in Interagency Aircraft Noise Abatement Program under DOT, planned to place data recorders at Yellowstone, Yosemite, Bryce, and Mesa Verde national parks to extract information on which to base plea for "adjustment" from USAF. (Blumenthal, NYT, 7/5/68, 11)
July 5-12: High-quality weather data were moved from Suitland, Md., by wire to NASA's Mojave, Calif., relay station and beamed, for first time, to stations in the Netherlands and West Germany via NASA's Ats III Applications Technology Satellite. Transmissions, including cloud maps, charts, and photo-mosaics, were received "in good form," according to ESSA. WEFAX (Weather Facsimile Experiment) project was part of World Weather Watch program to develop economical worldwide weather data distribution system. Further experiments scheduled for September included relay via Ats III of weather data to more than 150 Automatic Picture Transmission (APT) stations in 30 countries. (ESSA Release ES-68-43, UPI, NYT, 7/19/68, 35; W Star, 7/24/68, A14)
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