Nov 20 1963
From The Space Library
Senate passed (72-1) the appropriations bill for Independent Offices (H.R. 8747), which included the NASA FY 1964 appropriations, and sent the bill to a conference committee to reconcile Senate and House versions. Senate amendments included one by Sen. Proxmire cutting NASA appropriations by $90 million ($80 million from R&D, $10 million from construction of facilities), bringing the total NASA appropriation approved by the Senate down to the $5.1 billion approved by the House and one by Sen. Anderson requiring NASA to notify Congress 30 days in advance of any transfer of R&D funds in excess of $250,000 to construction of facilities. Amendments defeated included the one by Sen. Fulbright to cut the NASA appropriation by 10% ($519 million). (CR, 11/20/63, 21339-382; NYT, 11/21/63; Wash. Post, 11/21/ 63)
President Kennedy congratulated the U.S. delegation to the recent International Telecommunications Union conference in Geneva, said the conference "has been one of the most successful of its kind held in recent times." The U.S. and the ComSatCorp "can now take practical steps, in cooperation with other governments and foreign business entities to develop a single global communications system." Reassuring small countries on their role in the communications satellite system, the President said : "It continues to be the policy of the United States that all countries which wish to participate in the ownership, management and use of this system will have the opportunity to do so. (MacKenzie, Wash. Post, 11/21/63)
President's report to Congress on U.S. participation in the U.N. during 1962 stated : "In two other fields the United Nations has continued to be a vital instrument to effect a disengagement in important sectors of the great power confrontation. The Organization has served as a forum for encouraging an agreement for the cessation of nuclear weapon testing and for promoting progress toward general disarmament. It has served, as well, as a mechanism for negotiating, legal principles and technical cooperation in outer space. We must be no less concerned with these persistent efforts to shape the future within the framework of the United Nations Charter than we are with United Nations operations designed to respond to the alarm bells of the present." (CR, 11/20/63, 21321)
Lewis scientists reported on studies of radiation phenomenon they believe caused VANGUARD I's voice to change. Dr. Jim Blue, Lewis scientist, attributed the "voice change" to a structural change inside Vanguard's quartz crystal. VANGUARD I, launched March 17, 1958, first noted the earth's pear shape, (LRC Release 63-93, Lewis Chronology, 11)
Tass reported that a leading Soviet space scientist, Prof. Gleb Chebotarev, claimed U.S.S.R. would put satellites in orbit around the moon, Mars, and Venus "in the near future . . . . The regions of outer space around the moon, Venus, Mars and Mercury where stable movement of artificial satellites is possible have been determined by means of electric machines at the Theoretical Astronomy Institute." (UPI, NYT, 11/21/63)
DOD announced the transfer of the Naval Missile Facility at Point Arguello, Calif., and Navy tracking stations in the Pacific to the USAF and the establishment within the USAF of a central authority to act as single manager for ICBM and space tracking activities, including AMR, ICBM and space activities at Point Arguello and Vandenberg AFB, Calif. and the Air Force Satellite Control Facility, Sunnyvale, Calif. USAF also acquired on-orbit control of DOD satellites except Navy navigational satellites and military-communications satellites. (DOD Release 1494-63)
Dr. Edward C. Welsh, Executive Secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, speaking before the Atomic Industrial Forum Conference in New York, said that nuclear energy was essential to the space program and offered larger potential in space applications than in terrestrial ones. "One of the major defects in space thinking today is that it is too 'short-run'. There is a tendency to think only from budget to budget rather than from decade to decade. It has taken great effort-not altogether successful-to get people to think as long-run as a manned flight to the moon. In terms of what space, travel and space exploration mean to this country, the lunar objective is really a short-run target. Yet, some people think of it as the final space goal which is so far in the future that it can be further delayed without serious effects. If we are to think clearly about space, it is important that we recognize the lunar program for what it is, i.e., only one of the initial steps in a very young program. I believe that those who understand and support nuclear energy in space have a responsibility to educate others in the long-run, broad-based view of space. . . . I am suggesting that, if we can get people to realize now that space travel and space exploration are permanent features of the economy, the idea of nuclear energy will automatically be considered a major element in the program." (Text)
An American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft believed to be returning from a mission over Cuba had crashed into the Gulf of Mexico 40 mi. north of Key West. An air-sea rescue search failed to recover the pilot. (UPI, Wash. Post, 11/21/63)
Sen. Clinton P. Anderson (D.-N.M.), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, spoke to the 1963 Annual Conference of the Atomic Industrial Forum in New York on the relationship between Congress and science. Sen. Anderson offered four main reasons for the new level of Congressional concern over the Federal investment in science and technology : (1) cost consciousness; (2) "the belief among some Members that congress has lost the ability to oversee effectively the vast diffusion of R&D activities for which it appropriates funds"; (3) "concern that the procedures of Congress, in some respects, may not measure up to the demands of 'big science' "; and (4) "criticism of the space program as 'moon madness' and 'lunacy' gets lumped in with the criticism of heavy spending for research and development." Sen. Anderson agreed with the aims of those who were cost conscious, although he noted that many R&D programs that had been canceled as "failures" had in fact left a valuable technological legacy to subsequent programs. He agreed that Congress needed more advice on technical matters, but doubted that the need would be solved by Congress hiring its own technical staff ; rather it needed more help from specially convened panels; more engineering advice-since the bulk of the Nation's 15 billion annual investment in science and technology is in the engineering of hardware rather than in science; improved presentations by the Executive Department, including more briefing by the Office of Science and Technology ; expansion of channels of information such as Library of Congress, NAB, NSF; reports by the scientific and engineering communities to Congress on the state of science and of engineering; and more long-term planning. (CR, 12/3/63,21997-22000)
First award of the recently established Burroughs International Test Pilot Award was made to Joseph T. Tymczyszym, Chief of FAA's West Coast Supersonic Transport Office. The award presented by FAA Administrator Najeeb E. Halaby at the Wings Club in New York was established by United Aircraft Corp. in honor of Richard H. Burroughs, Chance Vought test pilot who was killed when he stayed with his disabled experimental aircraft to guide it away from an inhabited area. Award would be administered by Flight Safety Foundation, Inc., of New York. (FAA Release 63-96)
Army fired a Pershing solid-fuel missile from Fort Wingate, N.M., 260 mi. to White Sands Missile Range, N.M. in a public demonstration of the battlefield missile prior to its deployment to Europe early in 1964. This was the 15th firing of the Pershing to WSMR from various distances away. (Langguth, NYT, 11/21/63, 25)
USAF accepted the first two F-4C tactical fighter aircraft into the Air Force inventory in ceremonies at MacDill AFB, Fla. The F-4C is the Air Force version of the Navy's F-4B, combines into one aircraft the capability for close air support, interdiction, and air superiority. (DOD Release 1496-63)
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