May 1 1970
From The Space Library
Dr. George M. Low, NASA Deputy Administrator, held press briefing at MSC on Apollo 13 Review Board's progress in investigation of accident that aborted April 11-17 mission: Combination "of all the data from telemetry, from all the testing of all the analytical work and perhaps information from photographs" would be required "to determine the most probable cause or causes" of April 13 accident. Board believed most probable sequence of events was: Short circuit in oxygen tank No. 2 caused combustion within tank. "This in turn caused the pressure and a temperature within the tank to increase. The tank then ruptured. This rupture... caused the pressure in the compartment in which the tank is located to increase which then caused... the big covering panel in the Service Module to blow off." Panel hit high-gain antenna and knocked it out, causing brief loss of data. Preflight events of possible significance included change of motors of fans inside tank at Beech Aircraft Co. plant early in manufacture. "Later on the tank, itself, was... moved from one spacecraft and installed in spacecraft 109 and during the removal from spacecraft... 106, it was jarred or dropped an inch or two [5-10 CM].... Finally, during the loading and unloading of the tank during the countdown demonstration tests at the Cape there was an anomaly which made it very difficult to get the oxygen out of the tank. This was several weeks before the flight and a new procedure not previously tried was used in the detanking-gaseous oxygen "was pumped into the tank and released again, the heaters were turned off and on. . . ." Board was investigating connection between events and accident and would submit final report to Dr. Low and Dr. Thomas O. Paine, NASA Administrator, about June 1. (Transcript)
Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences favorably reported H.R. 16516, NASA FY 1971 authorization bill, with amendment reducing total authorization to $3.316 billion-$285 million less than $3.333 billion requested by Administration. Committee's recommended total-providing $2.606 billion for R&D, $32.5 million for construction of facilities, and $677.3 million for research and program management-was lowest recommended by Senate Space Committee since 1961 and $399.6 million less than total recommended by Committee in FY 1970. Committee rejected House increase of $130.5 million over Administration request for Apollo program. It also rejected increases of $139.5 million for space flight operations, $5.6 million for ATS project, $2.3 million for selected aeronautics research efforts, $500000 for technology utilization program, and $2.05 million for construction of Earth Resources Technology Laboratory "at this time." It restored House cuts of $1.5 million to advanced manned missions program, $5.6 million to Explorer satellite project, and $4.2 million to tracking and data acquisition. Committee strongly urged Executive Branch to develop formal interagency agreement defining responsibilities for experimental and operational ERTS systems. (Senate Rpt 91-833)
NASA established NASA Planning Board under direction of Dr. Wernher von Braun, Deputy Associate Administrator for Planning, to provide focal point for coordinating and integrating NASA planning and related activities. Board and its activities would be supported by central staff under Dr. von Braun and Dr. DeMarquis D. Wyatt, new Assistant Administrator for Planning. Six members; one executive secretary, and five observers had been selected from top NASA Hq. administrators. (NASA Release 70-65)
NASA communications network (NASCOM) service was transferred from Intelsat-II F-2 (launched Jan. 11, 1964) to Intelsat-III F-7 (launched April 22, 1970). (ComSatCorp Release 70-26)
Aerobee 150 sounding rocket was launched by NASA from Churchill Research Range carrying ARC experiment to collect dust particles. Rocket and instruments functioned satisfactorily. (SR list)
H. Dale Grubb, former Special Assistant to President, was sworn in as NASA Assistant Administrator for Legislative Affairs. (NASA Off Leg Aff)
Apollo 13 Astronauts James A. Lovell, Jr., and John L. Swigert, Jr., were given ticker-tape parade welcome in Chicago, where they addressed 800 at luncheon and later spoke to 2500 high school students. Astronaut Fred W. Haise, Jr., third Apollo 13 astronaut, was indisposed. (UPI, H Post, 5/2/70)
FAA reported operations at 300 airports in U.S. with FAA-staffed control towers had increased two percent in 1969-smallest annual increase since 1961. In 1968 increase was 11%. Decline was attributed primarily to hourly flight quotas established June 1, 1969, by FAA at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago and four other major airports to reduce congestion and delays. O'Hare, with 676 473 operations in 1969, remained Nation's busiest airport despite two percent drop in total 1969 operations. Second and third busiest were Los Angeles International with 613 938 operations and Long Beach (Calif.) with 550 867, with Santa Ana (Calif.) following with 545 299. (FAA Release 70-39)
Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, AEC Chairman, addressed International Joint Conference of American Geographical Society and American Div. of World Academy of Art and Science in New York: "It is obvious that for some people science and technology are among the best scapegoats of the time. They are said to be the cause of most of our ills today. By conquering disease and extending life they have been responsible for an explosion of population. By increasing productivity and raising living standards they have been responsible for depleting resources and polluting nature. By expanding knowledge and emphasizing efficiency, they have been responsible for deflating myths and diminishing man. And by placing enormous power in the hands of man they have brought him to the brink of his own destruction." Science had been "victim' of its own single-minded success" in going "from the broad and general philosophy from which it originated into a growing number of more precise disciplines-each becoming more productive the narrower its focus became." But "in recent years this process has been reversed and we are now seeing the growth of interdisciplinary sciences and a striving for a more all encompassing grasp of the physical world and even broader relationships. . . This type of growth is essential if science is to be the guiding force-as it must be-behind our evolving mankind." (Text)
Samuel K. Hoffman, President of NR Rocketdyne Div., retired after leading company's work in development of rocket engine technology for more than 20 yrs, including 10 yrs as Rocketdyne President. Hoffman received American Rocket Society's Robert H. Goddard Memorial Award in 1959 for outstanding work in liquid-propellant rockets. (NR News, 5/1/70, 1; Aeronautics and Astronautics, 191560,176)
Dr. Philip H. Abelson, editor of Science magazine and codiscoverer of element neptunium, was named President of Carnegie Institution of Washington. He would succeed Dr. Caryl P. Haskins, who would retire at end of June 1971. (NYT, 5/6/70; Carnegie Inst Release)
Holt, Rinehart and Winston published Operation Overflight, in which author Francis Gary Powers said information supplied by Lee Harvey Oswald, identified by Warren Commission as assassin of President John F. Kennedy, might have enabled Russians to shoot down his U-2 espionage aircraft in 1960. Powers believed Oswald had supplied U.S.S.R. with data on MPS-16 height-finding radar equipment. (AP, B Sun, 4/20/70, 6)
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