August 1980

From The Space Library

---

Current revision

NASA distributed its Program Plan, Fiscal Years 1981 through 1985, containing "initial guidance for NASA's activities over the short-term and, to some extent, the long-term future." The introduction noted the current drive to curb inflation and resulting cuts in the federal budget including NASA's - but called for a perception of the work the agency was technologically ready to undertake "and should undertake in the interest of the Nation." Citing problems raised by "absence of major new initiatives," the introduction called for "sound, logical, technological progression toward achievement" of U.S. goals in aeronautics and space.

Major goals to be met by the plan's 46 "major initiatives" were: -to fill the transportation and orbital operations needs of science and applications space missions and most transportation needs of national security space missions; -to apply space technology in remote sensing, communications, materials processing, and technology transfer that "hold promise for immediate or potential benefits to humanity"; -to continue developing aeronautical technology; -to improve "by a factor of 10 to 100" NASA's ability to acquire, transmit, and process data; -to advance knowledge of how energy is transported from the Sun and through the interplanetary medium and how that energy effects Earth; -to ensure good health and performance of humans in space and to study the effects of gravity on living systems; -to understand the origin and distribution of life in the universe and the relationship between life and its habitat.

Major initiatives in the field of aeronautics numbered 6; in space science, 8; in space and terrestrial applications, 20; and in Space Transportation Systems, 12, for a total of 46.

Half the initiatives listed in a similar program plan (for FY80-FY84) had been postponed: Of the 23 missions, 11 were previously scheduled for 1981; 7 for 1982; 4 for 1983; and 1 for 1984. Of the 11 previously scheduled for 1981, 9 were now postponed to 1982; and 1 each, to 1983 and 1984. Of the 7 missions previously scheduled for 1982, 5 were postponed to 1983; 1, to 1984; and 1, to a time "to be determined." Of the 4 missions previously scheduled for 1983, 1 was scheduled for 1984; and 3, for 1985. The sole mission previously scheduled for 1984 had been postponed to 1985.

International programs in which NASA would be concerned during the next fiscal years would include cooperative activities (Space Shuttle and Spacelab; space applications such as remote sensing, geodynamics, materials processing, and communications; space science such as astrophysics, planetary research, solar-terrestrial relationships, and solar energy; exchanges of experiments with the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union); reimbursable launches; and foreign competition in remote sensing, communications, spacecraft launching, and aircraft development.

The volume included probable schedules for NASA missions and tables of funding and development needed to carry out the program. Space transportation funding, for instance, showed increases in FY81 and FY82, then leveled off. Funding for applications showed rapid increase; that for aeronautics, space technology, and space science would also increase but at a slower rate.

The 235-page program plan contained detailed lists of activities in each program area, with graphs and tables showing schedules and funding for that area. The book concluded with an index and a list of the abbreviations and acronyms used in NASA's programs. (Text, NASA Hq Mgmt Sppt Ofc, distributed Aug 80)

Aviation Week and Space Technology reported that the Secretary of the Interior had asked the Secretary of Commerce to cancel the Hughes-built thematic mapper [see April 14] that was to form part of an operational Landsat system, originally scheduled for launch on Landsat-D. Cecil D. Andrus wrote Philip M. Klutznick that the main obstacle to achieving an operational Landsat system was "the presumption" that Landsat-D research missions must come first. Andrus noted that Interior had proposed two years ago to give priority to solid-state multispectral linear-array technology [see June 16] instead of the "elaborate, expensive, and research-oriented" thematic mapper.

Andrus, who Aviation Week and Space Technology said was "extremely concerned about competition" from France, Japan, and the Soviet Union in remote sensing, emphasized the "implications for the President's policy of leadership in space if France and others are able to offer better resolution data at lower cost before our core system becomes operational." (Av Wk, Aug 11/80, 17)

The British Interplanetary Society's publication Spaceflight carried an article by one of its fellows (barrister Cyril Horsford, also a director of the International Institute of Space Law), on the agreement covering the activities of states on the Moon and other celestial bodies, opened for signature at the United Nations (U.N.) December 18, 1979. The "moon treaty," 10 years in the making, was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly as a resolution; some of its principles were already in the first outer space treaty in 1967, but several nations, "notably the USSR," had expressed the need for a separate agreement specially directed at exploration of the Moon. The treaty now awaiting signature would apply to all bodies in the solar system and their orbits, as well as the Moon; the text (reproduced as appendix to Horsford's article) was already the subject of controversy among international lawyers and others in two particular areas.

First, Article IV said use of the Moon was "the province of all mankind"; Article XI said the Moon and its resources were "the common heritage of mankind.."The difference had raised questions whether the meaning was the same. Article I of the 1967 space treaty had used the words "province of all mankind," whereas the words "common heritage" first appeared during a Law of the Sea conference, when a moratorium on exploration preceded a General Assembly resolution affirming the common-heritage principle. International law had not defined the limits of the principle; the new "moon treaty" would reserve privileges under it to States Parties to it (although "all mankind" would be beneficiaries). Also, the concept of "common heritage of mankind" was apparently limited to the terms of Article X1.1.

Second, the third paragraph of Article XI would apparently prohibit any appropriation of resources found on the surface or subsurface of the Moon; in its literal meaning, this wording would preclude any mining or exploitation of valuable minerals found there in future. Some felt the language was "merely legal," reaffirming the existing principle that no legal property in lunar resources in place could accrue to an exploring state. The U.S. delegate to the United Nation's legal subcommittee was confident that the wording did not place any moratorium on exploration, pending the international "regime of management" required under Article XL5. Horsford noted that opposition to Article XI had already led the U.S. Senate to postpone ratification of the treaty this year.

Although the 1967 space treaty "clearly enshrined" the principle of nonsovereignty over celestial bodies, "some quarters" feared that such a clause would inhibit space powers (particularly the United States) from embarking on "the costly adventure of lunar exploitation" while such a restraint existed or where an international regime of shared resources would result in little or no profit. "This danger is already apparent in... deep sea mining, when an international regime is involved," said Horsford. (SF, July-Aug 80, 273)

The NAA reported that Howard Hughes's Spruce Goose would remain intact under an agreement signed by the Summa Corporation, executor of the Hughes estate, with the Aero Club of Southern Calif. (NAAs California chapter) and with the Wrather Corporation which would display the aircraft near the Queen Mary at the Port of Long Beach. Summa, under pressure to vacate the hangar site, had announced plans to dismantle the Goose and display parts of it at the Smithsonian and eight other museums [see May 23, June 17]. Now it would transfer the flying boat to the Aero Club after agreement on details of display and management. (NAA newsletter, July/Aug 80, 7)

NASA reported on its 17-year-old art program of inviting well-known artists to document major agency activities. Among participants were traditionalists like Peter Hurd and James Wyeth and modernists like Robert Rauschenburg and Lamar Dodd. NASA had stationed artists at the closest possible observation points during Moon launches and on recovery ships when astronauts returned from space and let them pilot simulators of travel to make-believe moons.

In 1977 NASA commissioned Robert T. McCall to document the rollout of Enterprise at DFRC (McCall was muralist for the National Air and Space Museum). In 1978 Franklin McMahon and Tom O'Hara painted the first flight of the orbiter. Arthur Shilstone and Clayton Pond covered vibration tests at MSFC; Shilstone and Nicholas Solovieff recorded Shuttle progress, including rollout in May 1979 at KSC. NASA would send a team to paint the launch and landing of Columbia. The New York Society of Illustrators had given Shilstone a certificate of merit for his painting "The Crawler: Rollout of the Enterprise" which had been in an international exhibition, including Japan and China, and would appear in the society's 1980 art annual. (NASA Actv, Aug 80, 18)

Science magazine carried R. Ganapathy's report on existence in Earth's Cretaceous Tertiary geological boundary of debris from a major meteorite impact 65 million years ago, discussing the possible effects of such a catastrophe as extinction of the dinosaurs. (Science, Aug 22/80, 921)

NASA announced appointment of Roy S. Estess as deputy manager of NSTL, replacing Henry F. Auter, who retired in February 1979. Estess joined NSTL in 1966, working on the Saturn V acceptance tests and directing the advanced planning for Shuttle testing at NSTL. Since 1977 he had managed satellite remote-sensing research in NSTL's Earth resources laboratory. (NASA anno Aug 29/80)

The New York Times reported the death from a heart attack at her home in California of Jacqueline Cochran, first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound and director during WWII of the Women's Air-Force Service Pilots (WASPS), which trained more than 1,200 women to fly transport planes. Brought up in poverty and working in a cotton gin in Georgia at the age of 9, she took her first flying lesson when 22 and in 1935 was the first women to enter the Bendix transcontinential air race, winning the Bendix trophy in 1938. She had married Floyd Odlum in 1936 and served as a captain in the British Air Force Auxiliary, returning to the United States after Pearl Harbor. She set more than 200 flying records, breaking the sound barrier in 1953 in an F-86 jet fighter plane. In 1961 she set a new altitude record of 55,253 feet and in 1964 a women's world speed record of 1,429 mph in an F-104G SuperStar. She retired in 1970 as colonel in the Air Force Reserve. (NY Times, Aug 10/80, 40)

ESA observed the fifth anniversary of its first satellite, Cos B, designed for an operational life of one year. ESA commended the quality of the spacecraft and its subsystems, especially the spark chamber for which no space experience existed at the time of its construction. The eighth satellite built by European industry for ESAs predecessor, the European Space Research Organization (ESRO), Cos B made the first complete detailed survey of the Milky Way in high-energy gamma-ray spectra and discovered a score of new gamma-ray sources. The spacecraft was made by the CESAR consortium led by Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blom with industrial firms of seven ESA member states: Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. (ESA Info 21)

Progress reports on the continuing flight of Leonid Ryumin and Valery Popov in the Salyut 6-Soyuz 37 orbiting space station noted that their mission had lasted 115 days as of August 1. The cosmonauts were busy redocking Soyuz 37 (which Pham Tuan and Viktor Gorbatko had used to get to the Salyut) to make room for more supply-ship missions. The visitors had returned to Earth safely July 31 in the Soyuz 36 craft; next on the list for the long-term occupants was "cleaning of the premises of the orbital complex" and physical training, Tass said.

On August 5 Tass reported completion of various crystal experiments using Splav and Kristall apparatus in "cosmic material studies" of semiconductors cast from gallium arsenide, and crystals of indium antimonide and gadolinium cobalt, a magnetic material. Tass August 9 reported a first: crystallization of a substance from a smelt in "directional microgravitation." The idea was to form crystals at more than "minimum microacceleration. " The crew put into the Splav an ampule of raw material and activated it; they then used the space station's motors in a twisting maneuver during which the station became "a sort of centrifuge" for a few hours. Acceleration, zero at the center, "near the transfer compartment and transfer chamber... was at its maximum." Previous experiments had always been during sleep periods, as movement of people around the station affected the results. For more data on crystal formation in orbit, the crew tried it in the span between Earth gravity and zero gravity. Tass called the test a first step in a new science of "weightlessness physics" whose practical conclusions were already being felt. On August 12 Tass noted the crew had been in space for 18 weeks; further tests were going on, making special glass in zero gravity and monocrystals of germanium.

On August 22, Moscow radio said that this expedition had had more technological tests than any previous ones: the Isparitel apparatus alone had provided more than 186 samples, most of them delivered to scientists on Earth by Pham Tuan and Viktor Gorbatko. One substance, a solidified solution of cadmium telluroid and mercury telluroid, would be impossible to obtain on Earth where "when molten they separate out as oil and vinegar do when poured into the same glass." The large crystals of this obtainable in space would permit "heat viewing" or detection of negligible variations in temperature, important to industry and to medicine. (FBIS, Tass in English; Moscow Dom Svc, Aug 1-26/80)

• July
• August

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

• September