May 9 1969
From The Space Library
NASA's HL-10 lifting-body vehicle, piloted by NASA test pilot John A. Manke, reached 54,000-ft altitude and 724 mph (mach 1.1) -first supersonic flight by HL-10 ---after 45,000-ft-altitude air-launch from B-52 aircraft. Primary purpose of 17th flight, made north of Four Corners, Calif." was to obtain stability and control data. (NASA Proj Off)
Nike-Cajun sounding rocket launched by NASA from Wallops Station carried GSFC payload to 79.4-mi (127.7-km) altitude to obtain data on wind, temperature, pressure, and density in 21.8- to 59.0-mi (35- to 95-km) range during atmospheric warming. Seventeen of 19 grenades ejected and exploded as programmed and sound arrivals were recorded. Mission was launched in conjunction with Nike-Cajun launch from Arenosillo, Spain. (NASA Rpt SRL)
Astronomers at 60-in optical telescope at Cerro Tololo, Chile, began two-week alert in attempt to photograph Scorpio X-1, brightest x-ray star, best seen in southern skies. When flare-up occurred, they would radio message to astronomical teams in Hawaii, which would launch two Nike-Tomahawk rockets above atmosphere to photograph x-rays from giant star. At 200-in Palomar, Calif., telescope, astronomers would try to photograph star's visible and infrared light during flare period, while astronomical team in Wisconsin would order OAO II to observe uv light from star. Astronomers hoped to match all photos of flare-up to determine element in star which excited x-rays. (W Post, 5/4/69, A3; Hines, C Sun-Times, 5/5/69)
Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, Presidential Science Adviser, testified before Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences during NASA FY 1970 authorization hearings: "Nothing can do more harm to support for the space program than to have a series of missions for which there are no clear objectives-such as a series of manned revisits to the moon without providing the capability to perform new scientific experiments and to explore interesting new lunar features." When Space Task Group considered urgent items in manned space flight area for FY 1970, it "gave high priority to the provision of additional science payloads for lunar flights and increased capability for man on the lunar surface, to support Apollo missions after the first four landings. Funding for this purpose is included as part of the budget amendment to the NASA request for fiscal year 1970. "An additional item ... is funding for maintaining the production of the Saturn V launch vehicle. Although specific commitment to a particular mission or missions has not been made for the initial vehicles to be produced under this budget amendment, it was the judgment of the Space Task Group that this vehicle represented a unique and valuable resource that we would undoubtedly wish to continue to use, at least through the mid-1970s. Because of the long lead times involved in a vehicle of this size, action is necessary now if we are to have follow-on vehicles produced and available by 1973 and after." (Transcript)
Harold R. Kaufman, Assistant Chief of Electromagnetic Propulsion Div." LeRC, would receive James H. Wyld Propulsion Award for "outstanding leadership in the field of electric propulsion, including the conception design, and development of the world's most successful ion rocket" at AIAA 5th Propulsion Joint Specialist Conference in Colorado Springs, Colo., June 9-13, AIAA announced. (AIAA News; Lewis News, 5/9/69, 1)
Associated Press said Astronaut-Aquanaut M. Scott Carpenter (Cdr., USN ) would retire from USN July 1 to enter private business in oceanography field. He was second U.S. astronaut to orbit earth, during May 24, 1962, Mercury mission in Aurora 7. (W Post, 5/10/69, A3)
Tom Barker, owner of bingo hall in Cardiff, Wales, had written to American and Soviet embassies in London for permission to open first amusement and bingo hall on moon, Reuters said. U.S. Embassy spokesman had replied: "There are no proposals to colonize the moon and many factors inhibit large-scale development." (NYT, 5/9/69, 16)
New York Times editorial: "Now it appears that the solution to the cosmic ray mystery may be intimately related to the explanation for the strangest astronomical phenomena discovered in recent years, if not all history, the pulsars. Present favored explanation "views pulsars as neutron stars composed of matter packed so tightly that a mass the weight of the earth would be a sphere with a diameter of a few hundred feet. The extremely swift rotation of a neutron star, it is now theorized, produces both the periodic radio emissions of the pulsars and the super-energetic cosmic rays." (NYT, 5/9/69, 46)
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