May 1 1966
From The Space Library
NASA launched series of four Nike-Cajun meteorological sounding rockets within four hours from Natal, Brazil; Point Barrow, Alaska; Churchill Research Range; and NASA Wallops Station. GSFC acoustic grenade experiment was designed to obtain temperature, pressure, density, and wind data at 22-59-mi. (35-95-km.) altitudes during transition from wintertime westerly wind circulation to summertime easterly pattern. Natal launch was first in cooperative Brazil-US. project under agreement signed Nov. 15, 1965, by NASA and Brazilian Space Activities Commission (CNAE). (NASA Release 66-101; NASA Rpt. SRL)
Javelin sounding rocket was successfully launched by USAF Cambridge Research Lab. from Churchill Research Range, with payload designed to measure total and component magnetic field values and primary electron and proton fluxes during a magnetic-absorption event. (M&R, 5/16/66, 10)
Parachutist Nick Piantanida suffered critical brain damage from oxygen cutoff and rapid decompression during emergency descent in a balloon gondola near Worthington, Minn. Gondola was electrically severed at 57,000-ft. altitude in response to Piantanida’s emergency cry, but parachute did not appreciably slow its descent until about 20,000 ft. USAF specialist later reported that pressure suit had failed, resulting in loss of oxygen. Piantanida, in his third attempt to break world’s free-fall record, had planned to jump from 124,000 ft., free-fall to 7,000 ft., and then parachute to earth, proving that trained parachutists could free-fall from 100,000 ft. without health impairment and without stabilizing devices. (UPI, NYT, 5/2/66, 40; Wash. Post, 5/2/66)
Moscow’s May Day parade featured no new military weapons for first time in three years. Soviet commentators emphasized increased mobility of missiles and claimed that antiaircraft rockets had “radioelectronic devices [which] home the rockets on their targets, even if they take evasive action or use radio jamming devices as a cover.” (Wash. Post, 5/2/66, A1, A14)
NASA’s 31 veteran astronauts would lose over $6,000 annually from sale of their personal stories if 19 new astronauts joined them in contract with Time, Inc., and Field Enterprises Educational Corp., AP reported. Under terms of contract, Time, Inc., and Field paid $520,000 annually for equal division among ‘participating astronauts,’ in return for exclusive rights to all unofficial personal stories and photos. (AP, Wash. Post, 5/1/66, N8)
May 1: Australian mobile space tracking station soon would begin seven-week, nonstop operation on Thursday Island off Cape York Peninsula, according to Australian News and Information Bureau announcement. Minister of Supply Denham Henty had said mobile station, part of NASA’s Anna geodetic satellite project for measurement of size and shape of the earth, would transmit data to U.S., via a fixed station near Adelaide, for analysis at Johns Hopkins Univ.’s Applied Physics Laboratory. (NYT, 5/1/66, 70)
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