Jul 7 1977
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(New page: NASA announced it had awarded Boeing Commercial Aircraft Co. of Seattle a contract to design and ground-test composite structures for the Boeing 727 aircraft: NASA's aircraft energ...)
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NASA announced it had awarded Boeing Commercial Aircraft Co. of Seattle a contract to design and ground-test composite structures for the Boeing 727 aircraft: NASA's aircraft energy-efficiency program to decrease transport-aircraft fuel consumption by 50% had included contracts with several manufacturers to reduce aircraft weights by using composites (high-strength filaments in a polymer matrix, lighter than metal structures): Boeing would build five shipsets of composite elevators (five right- and five left-handed) using manufacturing techniques that might become standard procedure: Costs would be shared, $8 100 000 contributed by the government and $890 000 by the contractor. Langley Research Center would' manage contractor effort over 3.5yr. (NASA Release 77-139; LaRC Release 77-27)
MSFC reported that employees Whitt Brantley, Jr., and Robert W: Rood had invented a solar energy device capable of 300 000 Btu per hr, enough to heat or air condition several buildings: It would offer a 50 to 70% efficient solar energy option for uses requiring temperatures above 200°F, costing as little as $5 per ft2 for units 25 to Soft in diameter. (MSFC Release 77-123)
NASA announced that a team of astronomers at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics using data from NASA's Uhuru satellite had discovered what seemed to be "superclusters" of galaxies more than 150 million light-years in diameter, bounded by areas of extremely hot gas acting as x-ray sources. The mass of gas required to produce x-rays would be 5 to 10 times greater than all material seen at other wavelengths, and would suffice to bind the galaxies into superclusters. Primarily hydrogen and helium, the gas was thought to be "primordial material" from an explosion that created the universe.
In the debate over origins, "open universe" theorists supported the idea of a big bang 20 billion yr ago expanding outward forever; "closed universe" advocates said gravitational collapse would halt expansion and the material would fall back on itself, perhaps to repeat the cycle. Traditional optical and radio techniques had not found enough material in space to supply the gravity needed to "close" the universe; the new data indicated the missing mass might exist as vast amounts of hot gas between galaxies.
Uhuru, first of a series of small astronomical satellites (SAS) for studying cosmic x-rays, had been launched Dec. 12, 1970, as Explorer 42. The astronomers had noted the x-ray emissions while compiling the fourth Uhuru catalog from observations in the early 1970s. The project was managed for NASA by Goddard Space Flight Center. (NASA Release 77-138)
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