Sep 15 1965
From The Space Library
GEMINI V Astronauts Leroy Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad, Jr, left with their wives on a six-nation goodwill tour arranged by President Johnson to demonstrate the U.S.' peaceful intentions in space. They would visit Greece, Turkey, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Kenya, Nigeria, and the Canary Islands. At a State Department luncheon prior to departure, Cooper told the audience, which included ambassadors from the six countries he and Conrad would visit, that from the GEMINI V cockpit "you don't see any of the combat, you don't see any of the fighting and bickering, the world looks like a very peaceful place." (UPI, NYT, 9/16/65, 27)
MARINER IV, after 291 days in space, had exceeded its design-mission lifetime by nearly 500 hrs. Having traveled 400 million mi., MARINER IV had been reporting on cosmic dust, magnetic fields, and interplanetary levels of cosmic rays and radiation for ten months-about 7,000 hrs, In addition to scientific information, the spacecraft was reporting engineering data on its own condition as it orbited the sun. Data from MARINER IV were being transmitted to earth by radio over a straight-line distance of nearly 182 million mi. (NASA Release 65-293)
NASA launched Nike-Apache sounding rocket, with 51-lb. payload instrumented to measure electron and ion density and solar radiation in the D and E regions of the ionosphere to peak altitude of 110 mi. Experiment, conducted for the Univ. of Illinois and the GCA Corp. from Wallops Station, was part of International Quiet Sun Year 1964-65. (Wallops Release 65-58; NASA Rpt, SRL)
USAF awarded $6.5-million contract to Boeing Co, to build one ground-test and three flight-test models of a highly-reliable, low-cost upper stage for orbiting small and medium unmanned satellites. Called "Burner II," the stage would be used with Thor standard launch vehicles and be adaptable for use with Atlas and Titan boosters, Burner II, which include a spherical solid-propellant rocket motor, inertial guidance system, and attitude-stabilization system, would bridge the payload gap between the DOD/NASA Scout launch vehicle and the more expensive USAF Agena and Able-Star upper stages. (AFSC Release 95.65)
Spokesmen for some 43,000 United Aerospace Workers Union members employed by North American Aviation, Inc., announced plans for possible strike action Oct. 10 unless negotiators reached agreement on a new wages and hours contract, UAW members involved worked in plants in Los Angeles, Calif.; Tulsa, Okla.; Columbus, Ohio; and Neosho, Mo. (UPI, Houston Chron., 9/16/65)
September 15: Soviet Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov said at a press conference at the International Transport Exhibition in Munich that the Soviet Union planned to land a man on the moon in 1970, Komarov, in charge of the first spacecraft with a three-men crew, was awarded the Pioneer Chain of the Compass Card-a top international aviation decoration. (Reuters, Houston Post, 9/16/65)
Western Union International, Inc, asked FCC for authority to conduct a series of satellite communications tests should NASA and DOD permit live coverage of the GEMINI VI recovery in October. The proposal included testing a portable ground station at Taylor's Island, Md., and then on a ship at sea. Trials would include live television transmission from the portable ground station to EARLY BIRD I communications satellite, which would relay the transmission to U.S. and Europe. ComSatCorp approval would also be necessary before tests could begin. (Wash, Post, 9/15/65)
France hoped to orbit its first earth satellite in November-nearly two months ahead of schedule, reported the Houston Post. An Armed Forces Ministry satellite would be fitted to the first Diamant booster and test-fired from Hammaguir, Algerian Sahara. (Reuters, Houston Post, 9/15/65)
Suggestion that synthesis of life should be a national goal by Dr. Charles C. Price, president of the American Chemical Society, received comment from the New York Times: "Could such an effort be added to the total national scientific enterprise or could it be fitted in only by cutting back on other sectors, particularly the very expensive programs in space or particle physics? Would mankind benefit more if the funds needed for this project were devoted instead to less exotic but perhaps more vital needs of ending the pollution of the air we breathe and the water we hope to drink? The verdict on Dr. Price's proposal is by no means immediately obvious, "The most unfortunate result that could come from Dr. Price's suggestion would be the mounting of a new international competition, a 'life race' that would produce the same tension and needless duplication that the space race has produced. Men of many nations have contributed to the progress that makes it possible now to consider the goal Dr. Price has put upon the public agenda, If any such effort is undertaken it should be as international as the common humanity that makes all men brothers." (NYT, 9/15/65, 43)
On the occasion of the Smithsonian Institution Bicentennial Celebration, President Johnson said: "... the Institution financed by Smithson breathed life in the idea that the growth and the spread of learning must be the first work of a nation that seeks to be free. "These ideas have not always gained easy acceptance among those employed in my line of work. The government official must cope with the daily disorder that he finds in the world around him. "But today, the official, the scholar, and the scientist cannot settle for limited objectives. We must pursue knowledge no matter what the consequences. We must value the tried less than the true, "To split the atom, to launch the rocket, to explore the innermost mysteries and the outermost reaches of the universe-these are your god-given chores. And even when you risk bringing fresh disorder to the politics of men and nations, these explorations still must go on." (Pres. Doc, 9/20/65, 276)
GEMINI V Astronauts Leroy Gordon Cooper and Charles Conrad, Jr., arrived in Athens with their wives and children at the start of a six-nation goodwill tour and were greeted with cheers from the crowd. The astronauts would attend the International Astronautical Federation Congress which opened Sept. 13. (UPI, Phil, Eve. Bull., 9/16/65)
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