Jun 22 1973
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(New page: President Nixon sent a telegram to the Skylab 2 astronauts following their successful splashdown at the end of a 28-day earth orbital mission [see May 14-June 22] : "The successful com...)
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President Nixon sent a telegram to the Skylab 2 astronauts following their successful splashdown at the end of a 28-day earth orbital mission [see May 14-June 22] : "The successful completion of the first mission of Skylab is a source of intense pride for the American people. You have demonstrated that just as man can conquer the elements of earth, he can cope with the exigencies of space. You have given conclusive evidence that, even with the most advanced scientific and technological support in the world, the courage and resourcefulness of good men are still central to the success of the human adventure. On behalf of the American people, I welcome you home from the Skylab spaceship to spaceship earth. I also look forward to seeing you at San Clemente on Sunday." (PD, 6/25/73, 828)
NASA held two Skylab 1-2 postmission briefings at Johnson Space Center. Dr. James C. Fletcher, NASA Administrator, told a NASA press conference that, "as near as we can tell, essentially all of the objectives that were anticipated for this mission have been completed. And needless to say none of us really dreamed that this could be done at the time that the meteoroid shield failed to deploy. So it exceeded our wildest expectations at that time." Skylab 1-2 could be symbolized by a ham-mer, and the Skylab 2 astronauts could be characterized as "the master tinkerers of space." The mission's anomalies had made no major impact On NASA'S budget. Dr. Willard R. Hawkins, JSC Deputy Director of Life Sciences for Medical Operations, said at a crew medical status briefing that the astronauts had "looked rather wobbly and unsteady when they got out of the spacecraft." The crew-aware of the increased pull of gravity-had said they felt as if they were "very heavy . . . like about a two-G load." All three men had experienced dizziness, lightheadedness, and some nausea. Astronaut Dr. Joseph P. Kerwin felt more of these effects than Charles Conrad, Jr., and Paul J. Weitz. His blood pressure had dropped to a critical level 25 min after splashdown and he had to inflate his spacesuit to force the blood back up from his legs to his brain. During medical tests aboard the recovery ship Ticonderoga, Conrad had per-formed at his premission level. Weitz had experienced a sudden drop in blood pressure and pulse rate while on the bicycle ergometer but had recovered within a five-minute rest period. Kerwin had demonstrated more of the vestibular disturbance and was unable to complete any of the tests. (Transcripts)
President Nixon and Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev signed a U.S.-U.S.S.R. Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War, at the White House. Both sides would act in such a manner as to prevent development of situations that could cause "dangerous exacerbation of their relations, as to avoid military confrontations, and as to exclude the outbreak of nuclear war between them and between either of the Parties and other countries." (PD, 6/25/73, 822-3)
The House, by a vote of 315 to 21, approved H.R. 8825, FY 1974 Dept. of Housing and Urban Development-Space-Science-Veterans appropriation [see June 19]. A point of order was overruled, to block an amendment by Rep. Bella S. Abzug (D-NX.) that would have cut $475 million in NASA research and development funds and forbid any funding for the space shuttle. (CR, 6/22/73, H5191-5238)
Winners of an Army competition to develop the new advanced attack helicopter were announced by Secretary of the Army Howard H. Callaway. Bell Helicopter Co. and Hughes Helicopters & Hughes Aircraft Co. would compete in a flyoff with two prototypes per contractor. The flyoff winner would install and test the required subsystems for night vision, fire control, navigation, and communications. Values of the initial development contracts were $44.7 million to Bell and $70.3 to Hughes. (DOD Release 316-73)
June 22-July 28: During unmanned operations of the Orbital Workshop, launched May 14, the Apollo Telescope Mount observed the sun's chromospheric network, prominences, coronal transients, solar limbs, lunar libration clouds, and solar eclipses. Active ATM operations were discontinued July 16 because the experiment pointing and control system's primary pitch-rate gyroscope failed. An astrophysics particle collection experiment exposed outside the Workshop would be retrieved by the Skylab 3 crew, scheduled for July 28 launch. Sample panels of thermal coatings exposed on the airlock module also would be returned. Neutron analysis detectors, a student experiment, were monitored. (NASA prog off)
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