Jun 21 1968
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
U.S.S.R. successfully launched Cosmos CCXXVIII. Orbital parameters: apogee, 241 km (149.8 mi) ; perigee, 203 km (126 mi) ; period, 88.9 min; and inclination, 51.6°. Satellite reentered July 3. (SBD, 6/24/68, 260; GSFC SSR, 6/30/68, 7/15/68)
NASA'S HL-10 lifting-body vehicle, piloted by Maj. Jerauld R. Gentry, successfully completed ninth flight. Purposes were to obtain stability and control data through pitch and rudder pulse maneuvers, verify yaw rate measurements, investigate pilot limit cycle, and verify predicted optimum use of landing rockets during landing flare. (NASA Proj Off)
Nearly 1,000 scientists and educators attended "crisis" meeting called by New York Academy of Sciences to demand science be declared "disaster area" because of threatened $6-billion Federal budget cut. Federal R&D funding, after decade of average 22% annual expansion, had risen only 2.5% annually since 1964, while number of scientists had risen 20%. It was feared resulting crush would damage U.S. leadership in sci- ence and technology. MIT Provost Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner said, "If the Congress continues to do what it is now doing we'll wake up with another sputnik in a decade." Federal R&D funding had risen from $74 million in 1940 to $16.9 billion in 1968 with October 1957 "shock of Sputnik" giving greatest impetus. Cut of $6 billion would mean "we're going to cut not only into the fat, but into the flesh of lots of areas," Dr. Donald F. Hornig, President's Science Adviser, said. NASA's sustaining university program had been one of chief casualties of recent cutbacks with budget slashed from $45 to $10 million yearly, forcing drop from 1,300 to 50 training grants which had produced more than 1,000 Ph.D.s since 1961. Government officials had chided scientists for being ill-prepared for leveling of Federal support and for alleged detachment from political realities. (Reinhold, NYT, 6/21/68, 1)
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