Jun 17 1962
From The Space Library
Testimony by NASA Administrator Webb before House Appropriations subcommittee was released in which he declared that the U.S. has given far more than it has received in exchanges of space flight findings with the Soviet Union. By publicly releasing information gained from space flights, the U.S. is " . . . cooperating with them, but not getting very much in the way of return cooperation," he said. Webb defended U.S. policy of making space research results generally available: "We are, in this open way, exposing the problems just ahead of us to the largest number of able minds all around the world. This is really the way mankind has made its forward advance. No one can tell from which mind comes the solution to a problem.
"I think the progress which can come from this can never be matched by Russia and the nations which do these things in secret." USAF announced launching of an unidentified satellite with an Atlas-Agena booster from Point Arguello, Calif.
In an address at Northeastern University in Boston, NASA Administrator James E. Webb told the graduating class that "change and the accelerating rate of change will be the dominant features of your existence." In discussing NASA’s program, he pointed out that in 1961 the nine largest contractors, who received 62 per cent of NASA contracts, actually purchased or subcontracted well over half this work to 10,989 first-tier suppliers or subcontractors located in 46 states and the District of Columbia. While 56 per cent of NASA direct purchases and contract awards ($25,000 or more) went to states west of the Mississippi, the award of subcontracts so shifted the distribution that 53 per cent of the dollars were actually spent east of the Mississippi. All regions of the nation can contribute to "the full development of the possibilities inherent in the application of scientific and technical advances," and share in "the potential for a period of economic growth that will bring a flowering of human progress, education, and culture."
Senator Hubert Humphrey spoke on the floor on the coordination of information between DOD, NASA, and AEC, and inserted in the record a memo of June 13, 1962, in which he criticized NASA’s information exchanges. He stated: "NASA has developed highly advanced blueprints, so to speak, for information exchange. . .
The blueprints are a long way from realization. . . . [NASA] possesses, moreover, in-house personnel and a principal information contractor with a very high degree of professional competence." Through the official Soviet newspaper Pravda, the U.S.S.R. asserted that the U.S. was endangering an international program for cooperation in the use and exploration of outer space by failing to accept the Soviet drafts of codes to regulate activities in space, and by planning to undertake a program for the military use of space.
Prarda reported: The "United States thus had left the door open for carrying the armament race into outer space. It seems that American representatives have come to Geneva not so much to negotiate on the peaceful exploration of space as to justify by legal pettifogging the Pentagon's militaristic plans in space and these plans already are too well known." Dr. Wernher von Braun, MSFC Director, presented cash invention awards totaling $1,750 to 5 employees on behalf of the NASA Inventions and Contributions Board. Award of $750, highest at MSFC to date, went to engineer Billy C. Hughes for feeder restrictor for gas-bearing gyros to be used for Saturn guidance platform. Other inventors honored were John R. Rasquin and Robert J. Schwinghamer ($500 jointly) for device that electronically measures roll during rocket assembly; Wilhelm Angele and Hans G. .Martineck ($400 jointly) for an electrical cabling system; and Martineck ($100 singly) for plug and connector for miniaturized circuits.
In address to Loyola University in Los Angeles, Gen. Bernard A. Schriever (USAF) said: "For the first time in history, scientific and engineering knowledge gives man a realistic means of world wide attack on the age-old problems of hunger, poverty, and disease . . . Now science has opened the way to space.
"There is every reason to be grateful for this new knowledge and power. But some have gone too far. Instead of merely accepting and using the fruits of scientific discovery, they have made a religion of science. This, in essence, is what has happened under Communism—and it has turned out to be the most false, deceptive, and cruel religion the world has ever known. It means that men and women are treated the way a biologist treats plants and animals. It is power without principle . . ."
June 17–August 10: Space Science Summer Study, sponsored by National Academy of Sciences Office of Space Sciences (funded by NASA grant), held at State University of Iowa, Dr. James Van Allen as chairman. Scientists represented NASA, DOD, AEC, NSF, industry and research organizations. Review of NASA’s space science program was contained in a detailed NAS report released January 1963.
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