Nov 11 1977
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Lewis Research Center's 2-yr program of sampling air around the world to detect substances detrimental to the environment had been unable to cover the polar regions, the Lewis News said, until last month when its air monitors rode the polar route on Pan American's 50th anniversary flight.
Known as GASP (global air sampling program), the LeRC effort had used instruments designed at he center to detect and measure small particles and pollution-related gases, as well as carbon monoxide, water vapor, ozone, and various other oxides, operating automatically and recording data on magnetic tape for analysis at NASA labs and distribution to scientists and engineers anywhere for air-quality evaluation. Sampling the upper_ air over the poles would show "what clean air is actually like," said GASP director Porter J. Perkins. "What kind and amount of manmade pollutants are up there, if any? Especially are very interested in fluorocarbons from aerosol cans ... What we may find ... may conceivably alter presumptions we've made about global distribution of certain airborne contaminants." (Lewis News, Nov 11/77, 3)
KSC's Spaceport News reported on Center efforts to recover launch vehicle and payload wreckage from the "unprecedented" back-to-back explosions of a Delta and an Atlas Centaur carrying an OTS and an INTELSAT spacecraft.
In "the most comprehensive and painstaking recovery in the Space Center's history," land, sea, and air crews searched every foot of the 50mi2 impact area. Two Patrick AFB helicopters and a private chopper worked to spot scattered wreckage from the air; the USAF crew made 19 flights in 2wk, with a total of 88hr in the air, covering a 12 mi2 area and locating about 95% of the wreckage recovered. Ground crews in armored personnel carriers and sea crews in Navy and private craft then took over to retrieve and identify each piece, check it for live ordnance, and catalog its recovery location. USAF ordnance disposal personnel often had to penetrate thick, snake-infested vegetation to reach Delta and Atlas Centaur fragments. Personnel from Port Everglades and the Navy's harbor-clearance unit using an Air Force landing craft-utility (LCU) boat retrieved the Delta's solid-fuel motor #1 from the water as prime suspect in the OTS launch failure.
The teams worked from early morning to dusk, even over weekends, and recovery work for the Delta was still under way. Hundreds of persons helped on the recovery, from directors to office clerks. Personnel from KSC had the aid of representatives from McDonnell Douglas, General Dynamics, Patrick AFB, and Pan American Airways operations in the extensive ground search. To reward the combined efforts, KSC would present a group achievement award to the Delta 134/Atlas Centaur 43 recovery team at an awards ceremony Nov. 22. (Spaceport News, Nov 11/77, 4)
MSFC reported successful completion of structural tests on the Space Shuttle external tank's intertank section, carrying the attach points for the Shuttle's two solid-fuel rocket boosters and subject to heavy loading both on the launch pad and during flight while the boosters were thrusting.
MSFC engineers would now proceed with vibration tests on the forward portion of the external tank, the liquid-oxygen container, attached to the intertank. Structural tests would follow later in 1978. (MSFC Release 77-212)
JSC announced that the 10th group of Shuttle astronaut applications would report to the center Nov. 14 for physical examinations and interviews. This group consisted of 24 mission specialist applicants and one pilot applicant; 17 were civilians, 1 a woman, and 8 were from the military-3 each from the USAF and Navy, Leach from the Marines and Coast Guard. This group would bring the total to 84 pilot applicants and 128 mission specialist (21 women) applicants screened at JSC. In Dec., NASA hoped to name as many as 20 in each category for 2 yrs' further training before final selection as astronauts. (JSC Release 77-75; NASA Release 77-236)
JSC announced that NASA and the Soviet Academy of Science would send representatives to a meeting Nov. 14-17 in Moscow to discuss a joint program for the 1980s using the flexible delivery and large capacity of the Space Shuttle and the Salyut's longer stay time in orbit, Dr. Noel W. Hinners, NASA's associate administrator for space science, would head the U.S. delegation, and Dr. Boris Petrov, chairman of the academy's Intercosmos council, would head the Soviet delegation. (JSC Release 77-78; NASA Release 77-234; FBIS, Moscow Dom Sv in Rusn, Nov 18/77)
NASA announced that Wallops Flight Center would host the 8th annual meeting of the NASA-Soviet Space Biology and Medicine working group Nov. 19-25, preceded by a workshop Nov. 16-18 on simulated weightlessness, as part of a continuing program under a 1971 agreement between NASA and the USSR Academy of Sciences. Meeting participants would discuss biomedical results of the Cosmos 936 mission carrying U.S. experiments, the Salyut 5/Soyuz 19 mission, and a JSC test demonstrating Spacelab missions, as well as research on space motion sickness and health in weightlessness. Dr. David Winter, NASA's director for life sciences, would head the U.S. delegation, and Dr. Rufus Hessberg, director of space medicine, would head U.S. workshop participants. Soviet leader at both meetings would be Dr. Nikolai Gurovsky of the Soviet Ministry of Health, (JSC Release 77-78; NASA Release 77-234; WFC Release 77-15)
Communications Satellite Corporation (ComSatCorp) announced it would buy back 1.5 million shares of its common stock for $37 cash per share until Dec. 6. The organization had decided on the repurchase as a preliminary step in possible future acquisitions, and a restructuring of its accounts to show a substantial debt, as the FCC had indicated its rate making would be based on such a debt in the organization's capital structure. ComSatCorp emphasized that it was currently debt free. (ComSatCorp Release 77-28)
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