Sept 28 1975
From The Space Library
Plans had been completed for the first U.S. experiments to be flown on a Soviet spacecraft, Dr. David L. Winter, NASA Director of Life Sciences, announced. As a result of joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. working group meetings on space biology and medicine, 4 U.S. life science experiments and 7 tissue investigations were to fly aboard a Soviet biological satellite scheduled for launch later in the year. The U.S. experiments-all passive and completely autonomous from spacecraft power, telemetry, and data recording ,would be housed in 5 Soviet-built containers, each 17.8 cm long by 12.7 cm wide by 11.5 cm high. Maximum weight for each container, including experiments, would be 2.5 kg. Unique to this spacecraft' was a Soviet-designed onboard centrifuge. U.S. experiments would be flown both on the centrifuge and on a stationary platform.
The 4 flight experiments included a plant tumor-growth experiment to study the effects of weightlessness on sensitive plant systems; a carrot-cell-culture experiment to assess the effects of weightlessness on plant systems and on normal development of embryonic tissues; a heavy-particle radiation experiment to measure high-charge and high energy particle radiation aboard the spacecraft; and a killifish or mummichog (minnows) embryogenesis experiment to evaluate the effect of weightlessness on development of the vestibular system during embryonic development in a vertebrate animal.
Six of the tissue investigations would use rat tissue-and the seventh flies-supplied by the Soviets from their animal experiments. Soviet scientists would prepare the animal tissues for U.S. scientists to use in their investigations and would return the U.S. experiment packages upon completion of the flight.
Ames Research Center was managing 3 of the life-science experiments and all tissue investigations. Johnson Space Center would manage the fish-egg development experiment. (NASA Release 75264)
Transfer of the Launch Vehicle and Propulsion Program from the Office of Space Science to the Office of Manned Space Flight, and transfer of the NASA Directorate for Life Sciences from the Office of Manned Space Flight to the Office of Space Science became effective. Also, the name of the Office of Manned Space Flight had been changed to Office of Space Flight, and the name of the Launch Vehicle and Propulsion Program had been changed to Expendable Launch Vehicle Programs.
In announcing the changes, NASA Administrator Dr. James C. Fletcher had said that the exchange of these functions would "provide a more logical alignment of responsibilities as we move into Space Shuttle operations. The new Office of Space Flight will be concerned primarily with launching... and conducting Shuttle operations, while Space Science will have responsibility for the science to be performed on these flights." (JSC Roundup, 26 Sept 75, 1)
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