Jul 6 1965
From The Space Library
ComSatCorp, rejecting petitions by seven communications carriers to reduce its authority, strongly supported FCC's decision giving ComSatCorp "sole responsibility for the design, construction, and operation" of three ground stations to support the Corporation's global satellite system for commercial communications. Answering the charge that station ownership and operation should be assumed by the carriers on a competitive basis, ComSatCorp said the operational date of the global system would be needlessly delayed if ownership of stations were decided on a case-by-case basis. To the complaint that the FCC decision gave ComSatCorp control of "terrestrial facilities" for traffic-processing between interface points and the stations themselves, ComSatCorp replied that it would "look first to the carriers to provide" the facilities. Further, "should ComSatCorp determine, in any particular situation, to propose construction of its own communications links, the soundness of any such proposal would, of course, be subject to scrutiny by the Commission with full consideration of the views of all interested parties," Against the allegation that ComSatCorp-constructed terrestrial facilities would introduce costly "backhauls," ComSatCorp said backhauling was "routine and unavoidable" throughout the communications industry. (ComSatCorp Release)
Existing contracts with the Boeing Co. and the Bendix Corp, had been extended to incorporate modification of the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) as a shelter for use with a Local Scientific Survey Module (LSSM) for astronaut surface mobility, MSFC announced. Boeing would receive $565,000 and Bendix $570,000 for the new work. Both contracts would run for about nine months. The two firms had completed individual studies of a possible lunar mobile laboratory (Molab) under the original terms of the contracts. The Molab would be much larger than the LSSM now being studied. (MSFC Release 65-173)
Lockheed Aircraft Corp, pronounced successful the first flight of its new helicopter, the 286. The Corp, said the five-place aircraft, designed to travel at 174 mph, was two weeks ahead of schedule, with FAA certification expected later in 1965. Lockheed hoped the utility helicopter would find a wide range of use in transport, rescue work, and various military missions, including antisubmarine warfare. (WSJ, 7/6/65, 2)
Thiokol Chemical Corp.'s Reaction Motors Div, was awarded a $10,600,000 Navy contract to continue production of packaged liquid rocket engines for the Navy and Air Force Bull Pup missile. (Thiokol Release; WSJ, 7/6/65)
Rep. Burt L. Talcott (R-Calif,) inserted in the Congressional Record a letter from E. J. Stecker, president of Holex, Inc., and an exhibitor at the Paris International Air Show (June 11-20) : "At Paris the Russians made us look like idiots and we cooperated so beautifully that it almost looked as though our public relations program was being directed by the Kremlin, "I walked through the aircraft park where the Russian and American exhibits were practically side by side. The Russian aircraft were exclusively commercial, the American almost 100 percent military. Think of the irony of the situation. "There was a long line waiting to enter the space exhibit of the U.S.S.R inside was a full scale model of the Vostok space capsule and its rocket motor suspended from the ceiling, what appeared to be an operational Vostok in a glass case and Mr. Gagarin, Russia's first man in space, who shook my hand . . . and gave me a Vostok lapel pin. This was easily the most popular exhibit at the show and I would estimate that 70 percent of the attendees had Vostok pins and were wearing them. . . "The Russians then flew in their great misshapen 750-passenger transport aircraft which really impressed the public. I examined it and as a pilot and engineer of many years standing, I feel it economically and militarily foolish, but the publicity value was tremendous. "Then there was the announcement of the proposed U.S.S.R. SST transport which looks like a retouched Concorde. This also hit all of the front pages, "In short, the Russians stole the show with an obsolete space capsule much inferior to our Mercury, an artist's sketch of a supersonic transport and an overgrown, awkward monstrosity of an airplane. But they could do it because everything they did was aimed at and shown to the general public. . . "When White, McDivitt, and the Vice President finally arrived, it was a triumphant tour surrounded by Secret Service, press, public relations and photographers and the great mass of the unwashed public including the exhibitors were generally ignored and forgotten. . . "There were a few good points, James Webb, Administrator of the NASA, visited the U.S. exhibitors. He came unheralded and alone and had time to stop and talk for a few minutes without the aid of 50 photographers, In this, Jim was unique among the U.S. officials and should be commended. The USAF Thunderbirds and the U.S. Navy Blue Angels put on fantastic flying exhibitions on Thursday evening. But it occurred around 7:30 p.m. when most of the public had departed. "The point is this: The Russians appealed to the people; we ignored the people and appealed to the press. As a result, the Russians only lost the front pages once and that was when we made them through the unfortunate crash of our 2-58." (CR, 7/6/65, A3555-6)
President Johnson's ordering 18 mo. of additional research on the supersonic airliner ( SST) program was assessed as a calculated risk by Robert J. Serling in Washington Post. The President was betting that the extra year and a half of development work would produce a plane so far superior to the British-French Concorde that the Concorde's far earlier introduction would mean little in terms of sales, he said. Serling pointed out that while advance orders for a purely paper SST had outnumbered those of the under-construction Concorde by more than 2 to 1, the U.S. lead was built on the airlines' belief that (1) U.S.'s plane would be far superior and (2) it would not come along too far behind the Concorde, However, present plans were for flight-testing the Concorde in 1968; the Soviet Union had announced it would have a supersonic airliner operational even before the Concorde. An in-service U.S. SST was not likely before 1974 or 1975. (Serling, Wash. Post, 7/6/65, A8)
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