Mar 9 1970
From The Space Library
ComSatCorp sent annual report to shareholders on 1969 activities. Financial report had been released Feb. 20. In letter to shareholders ComSatCorp President Joseph V. Charyk and Chairman James McCormack said: "Outstanding progress has been made in the establishment of the global communications satellite system... a goal toward which COMSAT and the International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium (INTELSAT) have worked since inception. This basic goal was achieved when a satellite was placed over the Indian Ocean in the summer of 1969.... In addition, the pace of earth station development by national entities in many countries has been significant. Investment worldwide of about $200 million in earth stations and more than $100 million in satellites reflects a widespread confidence in the present and future benefits of satellite communications." Highlights of 1969 included achievement of major INTELSAT goal, global coverage by comsat; full commercial operation of 22 new antennas in 18 countries; tart of construction on Intelsat IV series satellites and selection of Atlas-Centaur as series launch vehicle; completion of ComSat Laboratories, major R&D facility; and reaffirmation by ComSatCorp of its readiness to finance, establish, and operate domestic comsat system. (Text)
Press editorials commented on President Nixon's statement on Nation's space program. New York Times: "If the President's program is fulfilled on schedule, the economics of space activity-both its costs and its dividends for nonscientists here on earth-will be revolutionized. The reconnaissance activities of earth resources satellites have enormous potentials for aiding agriculture, forestry, the search for new minerals, and the exploitation of the seas. The prospect of communications satellites that can broadcast radio and television programs directly to homes everywhere offers exciting new perspectives for further unifying all peoples, while simultaneously raising delicate political problems.... When it becomes available, the reusable Space Shuttle will... facilitate construction of a permanent manned orbiting space station that will open up new areas of scientific and economic activity in the near neighborhood of earth." (NYT, 3/9/70)
Washington Evening Star: "The 1970's promise to be an exciting decade in space, not just a comedown from the exhilaration of the initial moon landings. The next 10 years will be even more satisfying if another of the President's goals-increased international cooperation in space-is realized. To that end, Soviet space scientists have been told about the U.S. plans. The Russian leaders would do well to consider the economies and other benefits that could come from pooling skills and resources as man reaches farther and farther beyond his planet." (W Star, 3/9/70)
Washington Post: "It was appropriate that President Nixon should announce his proposed plans for exploration in space on the last day in this century when a total eclipse of the sun was visible in the United States. Opportunities to make strides in learning about our universe do not come often and must be seized when they arrive. The scientists... did the best that could be done in Saturday's brief moment of darkness to learn more about the forces in the sun that dominate our solar system. And the President seems to have done about the best that can be done' with the resources now available to keep our space program on the right track. "The emphasis the Administration is giving to unmanned flight activities-the commitments to launch vehicles in 1977 and 1979 or grand tours of our outermost planets are the most exciting-will test the willingness of the nation to spend huge sums on basic research. The future programs of NASA, at least for the next decade, will have little of the appeal that seized the public during the race to land men on the moon first. And the worth of these programs, in terms of knowledge they may yield about the solar system and the usefulness of that knowledge, is difficult to appreciate fully. The test in the future will be whether we are willing to pay for these probes for knowledge without the exhilarating experience of watching the first man step onto the moon's surface, and of beating the Russians." (W Post, 3/9/70)
MSC announced award of $57264 989, cost-plus-fixed-fee NASA con- tract to General Electric Co. for spacecraft checkout, reliability and quality assurance engineering, and systems engineering in support of Apollo and Skylab programs. Contract, which definitized letter contract, covered work from October 1969 through December 1972. (MSC Release 70-31)
"Grand Tour" of outer solar system was discussed by William Hines in Chicago Sun-Times: "The grand tour idea came out of Caltech several years ago after a graduate student in Prof. Homer J. Stewart's aeronautical engineering department calculated the added energy that could be imparted to a spacecraft by the massive gravitational fields of various planets. This information, together with the unusual configuration of outer planets in the 1980s, was patched together by Stewart into the grand tour concept. Theoretically, Stewart calculated, it should be possible to fire. a spacecraft into a near-miss trajectory toward Jupiter and then let that planet, biggest in the solar system, take over. Jupiter would add energy, and hence velocity, to the spacecraft.... This would send the craft toward Saturn, where more energy would be borrowed from the ringed planet's gravitational field, and then on to Uranus for more of the same, Neptune and finally Pluto." (C Sun-Times, 3/9/70)
March 9-10: NASA launched series of three Nike-Tomahawk sounding rockets from TERLS, carrying GSFC payloads to investigate relationship between ion composition, airglow emissions, and vertical drift velocities in F region of ionosphere. Rockets and instruments functioned satisfactorily and good data were obtained. (NASA Rpts SRL)
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