Feb 5 1976

From The Space Library

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Current revision

The "Historic Redstone Test Site" at MSFC, neglected since the final Redstone test firing in Oct. 1961, would be restored to its original appearance as an exhibit for visitors during the Bicentennial celebration, MSFC announced. The interim test stand, as it was called, was built by the U.S. Army in 1953 and used to test moderate-range Redstone rockets. On 31 Jan. 1958, a modified Redstone renamed Jupiter-C launched into orbit the first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1. Another modification of the Redstone tested on the stand was the Mercury-Redstone, one of which powered the first U.S. manned space flight-that of Alan B. Shepard in May 1961. The stand was the site of 364 test firings between 1953 and 1961, after which it was retired from a space program that had become much more sophisticated. Painted in its original colors and designs, and with a Redstone borrowed from the Army Missile Command installed on it, the site would appear much as it did 15 yr ago in its new role as an historical exhibit. (MSFC Release 76-32)

Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., discovered a new elementary particle, heaviest ever observed, the annual meeting of the American Physical Society was told. The investigators from Columbia Univ., the State Univ. of N.Y. at Stony Brook, and the Fermi lab said the "upsilon" particle raised the possibility that physics might never be able to identify any ultimate or basic building blocks of matter. The upsilon was discovered in debris of particles created by acceleration of a proton beam aimed at a beryllium target; the resulting collision produced a cluster of electron-positron pairs with a mass of 6 billion electron volts, more than 6 times that of the proton and 1.5 times that of any other particle. The report on the upsilon particle was a last-minute addition to the annual meeting's agenda because the data were available only in the last few wk; first observed about 5 mo ago, the upsilon had been seen only 12 times so far, but was expected to require new thinking in theoretical physics. (B Sun, 6 Feb. 76, A-3; W Post, 9 Feb 76, A-3)

The accepted explanation of solar energy-fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium at the sun's core-had been challenged by more than one recent discovery, the Christian Science Monitor reported. Measurements of natural vibrations in the sun, published in the journal Nature by a Soviet and British group, had revealed that the sun pulsed steadily every 2 hr 40 min. Such regularity had not been predicted by the fusion theory. Another group, reporting in the journal Science on a 3-yr experiment directed by the Brookhaven National Laboratory, found fewer neutrinos created by thermonuclear reactions at the sun's center than was "consistent with standard ideas of stellar evolution." Suggested explanations were a tiny black hole at the sun's center, which could radiate energy outward without creating neutrinos, or a shutoff of the sun's thermonuclear furnace, which would lower the number of neutrinos long before any decrease in heat or light would become apparent. (CSM, 5 Feb 76, 16; B Sun, 23 Jan 76, A-3; NYT, 23 Jan 76, 1; 18 Feb 76, 32)

Thermal protection fabrics developed for use in the Apollo and Skylab programs would be the basis for research into improved clothing and equipment for firefighters, under a contract signed between NASA and the Department of Commerce's National Fire Prevention and Control Administration. The agreement assigned management responsibility to Marshall Space Flight Center for a 3-yr program funded jointly by NASA and NFPCA at a cost of $300 000 in the first year. The program would emphasize weight reduction, performance, and cost of equipment to improve the chances of a firefighter's surviving any fire uninjured, in a job described as the most hazardous in the U.S. (MSFC Release 76-31)

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