Mar 9 1977
From The Space Library
NASA announced that Ronald E. Evans, former command module pilot of Apollo 17, would leave Mar. 15 to become executive vice president of Western American Energy Corp. (WAEC) and director of marketing for WES-PAC Energy, coal-producing subsidiary of WAEC. Evans, selected as an astronaut in 1966, flew on Apollo 17 in 1971 and made a lhr 6min spacewalk. He had been in charge of plans for the ascent phase of Space Shuttle orbital-test flights scheduled for 1979. (NASA Release 77-44)
Reduction of data from NASA's 1976 gravity probe (GP-A) experiment had confirmed the equivalency principle, a cornerstone of Einstein's general theory of relativity, MSFC reported. Using data from two identical atomic maser clocks, principal investigator Dr. Robert Vessot of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in Cambridge, Mass., had demonstrated that time actually went faster in a weaker gravitational field, one removed from the earth's mass. The clock that had been carried aboard a rocket to an altitude of 10 000km had run faster. (MSFC Release 77-41)
MSFC reported plans to request another $18 610 000 in NASA's FY 1978 budget for construction or modification of facilities to be used in building the Space Shuttle external fuel tank (ET) at the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) near New Orleans. With addition of a chemical waste-treatment plant and alterations of the manufacturing, vertical assembly, final-assembly, and checkout buildings, MAF could produce 28 ETs each yr. (MSFC Release 77-35)
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