December 1971

From The Space Library

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Current revision

U.S. manned lunar missions Apollo 14 and 15 were voted fifth most important news story of 1971 in AP poll of member newspapers. Communist China was voted number one newsmaker for admission to U.N., changed diplomatic relations with U.S., and emerging position in world affairs. (W Star, 12/27/71, C9)

Bell Aerospace Rendezvous articles described GSFC-devised position- location and aircraft communications experiment (PLACE) to test feasibility of transoceanic air traffic control system that would use earth-orbit satellites. Experiment was designed following earlier mission analyses by ERC. "Scheduled for 1973, the year-long experiment will determine the technical and operational feasibility of using communications satellites to give ground control centers precise and uninterrupted readings and control of air traffic over the North Atlantic 24 hours a day." Experiment would employ two satellites-ATS 5 launched Aug. 12, 1969) and ATS-F (to be launched in 1973)-and three ground stations. PLACE would be able automatically to pinpoint to within one mile [1.6 km] actual positions of up to 250 aircraft, update information once a minute, and predict locations between up-dates. Operational PLACE system could reduce flight-corridor widths to 48 km (30 mi) and aircraft spacings from 15- to 5-min intervals, permitting same corridors to accommodate 12 times as much traffic without affecting flight safety. In bad weather, PLACE could simultaneously reroute every aircraft within flight corridor. Although PLACE was geared only to North Atlantic air traffic, "it is the fore-runner of what could become a worldwide satellite air traffic and surface control network." (Rendezvous, Summer/Fall, 71, 9-11; Aerospace Technology, 2/26/68, 33)

Dr. Charles S. Sheldon II, Chief of Science Policy Research Div. of Library of Congress' Congressional Research Service, reviewed Soviet space program in AIAA Student Journal. Soviet program's physical size and upward pace "suggests it exceeds in real terms the U.S. program at its previous maximum." In contrast to U.S. program-which had been eroded as programs ended and technical man-power teams broke up-Soviet "application of resources to a broad program of space flight has continued fairly steadily upward toward an ultimate level which has not yet been publicly defined." Soviet program began its space flights with adaptation of its first ICBM, SS-6 Sapwood. "This vehicle, with improved upper staging, is still the mainstay of the present program while our corresponding, but very small, Redstone and Vanguard first stages have long since disappeared into history." Largest single element in total U.S.S.R. program was Cosmos reconnnaisance satellite, which stayed in low-circular orbit a few days and was then recovered and which represented "rather passive military support flights." Other elements with direct weapon implications were special uses of SS-9 Scarp ballistic missile carrier with space versions F-1-r carrying fractional orbital bombardment system (FOBS) and F-1-m carrying highly maneuverable payloads. Some payloads launched by F-1-m "seem almost certainly aimed at developing the techniques of rendezvous with uncooperative spacecraft to inspect them and, if need be, destroy them. In a series of flights . . . such inspectors have made close passes on other Soviet payloads and then have themselves been blown into clouds of debris. At least one, instead of being destroyed .. - was deliberately redirected to plunge into the atmosphere and ocean." (AIAA Stu J, 12/71, 14-28)

Safety problems of space shuttle were discussed by Director I. Irving Pinkel of LeRC Aerospace Safety Research and Data Institute, in Astronautics & Aeronautics article. "The rocket engine must have an airplane-like endurance of 10 years (100 missions). The airplane systems must operate where rockets do, subject to space vacuum, space radiation, and reentry heating, and still carry a fan engine with high cycle temperature." (A&A, 12/71, 28-35)

Attributes of Q-fan engine for STOL propulsion were described in Aeronautics & Astronautics article by George Rosen, United Aircraft Corp. Hamilton Standard Div. engineer; "Q-Fan, with its lightly loaded rotor, operating at low tip speeds and incorporating controllable-pitch Wading, is now essentially available as a new propulsor uniquely matched to the stringent performance, noise, and operational requirements of the advanced STOL transport. It offers the aircraft designer flexibility in meeting the specific requirements of a given aircraft with a limited number of available core engines. By varying the size of the Q-Fan, the bypass ratios available . . . could range from 15:1 to 30:1, or more if needed." (A&A, 12/71, 50-5)

Slackening of U.S. R&D was scored by Eberhardt Rechtin, Principal Deputy Director of Defense Research and Engineering in DOD, in Astronautics & Aeronautics article: "The image of world technical leadership earned by our electronics and aerospace industries in the 1960s will predictably be eroded in the 1970s by our own lack of planned `firsts' in contrast with the continuing achievements of the Soviet Union, France, and probably Germany and Japan." Major source of future wealth "must be the special skills of our population- yet we are presently pricing ourselves out of the world markets, including our own. We are also disseminating our science, our inventions, our management expertise, and our manufacturing technologies around the world in a way which, though it raises the standards of living elsewhere, also diminishes the competitive advantages of our own people." While U.S. had been world leader in R&D less than 25 yrs, "you hear discussions about reordering national priorities as if we could make unilateral decisions, independent of the international competition -as if international interactions were not a significant, much less a driving, factor- concerning defense R&D, the NASA space program, tax incentives to industry, or a wage/price freeze." (A&A, 12/71, 22-7)

Goals and Means in the Conquest of Space by Soviet author R. G. Perel'man (NASA Technical Translation F-595) was reviewed in Aerospace Historian by Clarke G. Reynolds of Univ. of Maine. Reynolds quoted Perel'man conclusion: after "conquering" Solar System, Communist society "will take a further bold step, i.e., to the stars of our galaxy, and then other galaxies; to visit and study the planetary systems and civilizations of other worlds in order to bring other islands of intelligence into the system of the grand circle that is characteristic of the space age in the evolution of intelligent life." (Aerospace Historian, 12/71, 217)

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