Oct 5 1968
From The Space Library
USAF launched unidentified satellite from Vandenberg AFB by Thor-Agena D booster into orbit with 316-mi (508.5-km) apogee, 300- mi (482.8-km) perigee, 94.5-min period, and 74.9° inclination. (Pres Rpt 68)
U.S.S.R. successfully launched Molniya 1-10 to relay telephone and telegraph communications and TV programs to far northern and far eastern U.S.S.R. and to central Asia. Orbital parameters: apogee, 39,639 km (24,630.5 mi) ; perigee; 429 km (266.6 mi) ; period, 711.9 min; and inclination, 64.8°. (UPI, W Star, 10/7/68, A9; AP, NYT, 10/8/68, 2; GSFC SSR, 10/15/68)
Republican Presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon issued policy statement, "The Research Gap: Crisis in American Science and Technology": U.S. was "shortchanging" its scientific community and risking research gap between U.S. effort and that of U.S.S.R. "Faced with dynamic possibilities for science, the current Administration is hobbled by the static philosophy that technological potentialities are limited. . . . This attitude is particularly perilous in the realm of defense. . . . In few areas of development is activity so intense and productive as in Soviet military research and development" While U.S.S.R. graduated twice as many scientists annually as U.S., American scientific community was "demoralized" by wavering attitudes toward R&D. "Scientific activity cannot be turned on and off like a faucet. The withdrawal of support disperses highly trained research teams, closes vital facilities, loses spinoff benefits, and disrupts development momentum . . . The United States must end this depreciation of research and development in its order of national priorities. . . . It would be an urgent goal of my administration to devise effective means by which it could cooperate with industry and the academic community in an effort to make maximum use of scientific advances to help solve major national problems. . . . Our goal is to make the United States first again in the crucial area of research and development." (Text; Walsh, Science, 10/18/68, 335-7)
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