Sep 11 1974
From The Space Library
A declassified feasibility study by Goodyear Aerospace Corp. had indicated that reflector satellites 200-900 m in diameter could illuminate ground areas continuously at night, the Huntsville Times reported. Pointing out commercial uses, an official from Marshall Space Flight Center, which had managed the Project Able study, told the Times that potential applications included reflecting microwaves from space for conversion to electrical power, beaming rays on Florida's orange groves should frost threaten the fruit crop, and lighting Alaska during its ex-tended darkness. Launched on a Saturn V booster or on the space shuttle, a 640-m-dia, 20 000-kg reflector satellite could provide twice the light of the full moon and raise the temperature of the area covered by several degrees. (Casebolt, Huntsville Times, 11 Sept 74)
A new artificial limb had been developed by Kennedy Space Center and Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in California, KSC announced. The strapless device was attached directly to the amputee's bone through a carbon collar that remained at skin level. Originally developed for rocket motors, the high-purity carbon material would not cause infection in patients. Previously, the body's rejection of foreign materials and the failure of the skin to form a hygienic seal had prevented direct attachment to the bone. A quick-release ball connector for the limb was based on a device that held rocket umbilical attachments in place until liftoff. (KSC Release 134-74)
Pages of the Wall Street Journal were being printed via satellite in a joint test program, Dow Jones & Co., Inc., and Communications Satellite Corp. announced. A Dow Jones composition plant in Massachusetts transmitted high-resolution facsimile pages to Intelsat-IV F-7 communications satellite in synchronous orbit 35 900 km above the Atlantic Ocean. The satellite relayed the data to the Dow Jones production facility in New Jersey for production of press plates. The test program was the first time the entire process from composition to printing had been conducted via satellite transmission. (Dow Jones-ComSatCorp Joint Release 74 45; ComSatCorp PIO, interview, 1 Aug 75)
Trace materials in Cleveland's airborne particulate matter were not present in dangerous levels, but lead might approach these levels, scientists from Lewis Research Center reported at the Earth Environment and Resources Conference in Philadelphia. With the City of Cleveland's Air Pollution Control Division, LeRC had conducted a two-year study using neutron activation and gas chromatography to determine levels of 60 trace materials. Processed by computer, levels of trace materials were related to wind direction in the form of maps. Sources of pollution could then be established by knowing which industry produced which elements and compounds and in what ratios. (LeRC Release 74-54)
Lockheed-California Co. had received a $25-million letter contract from Rockwell International Corp. for structural testing of the space shuttle orbiter, the Huntsville Times reported. (Huntsville Times, 12 Sept 74)
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