Jul 6 1964
From The Space Library
USAF launched Atlas-Agena D space booster from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., with unidentified payload. (M&R, 7/13/64, 14; SBD, 7/8/64, 33)
European Space Research Organization (ESRO) made first launching, a British Skylark sounding rocket, to altitude of 125 mi. from Salto di Quirra range in Sardinia. (NYT, 7/11/64, 5)
NASA selected International Business Machines Corp. Federal Systems Div. to supply technical services for support of Goddard Space Flight Center's computer facilities. The computation services and allied systems permitted GSFC to acquire high-speed raw data from spacecraft and to convert it almost instantaneously into intelligible information concerning the spacecraft. Contractor was to staff and operate computer facilities related to launch monitoring system at Cape Kennedy, the early flight tracking station on Bermuda, and GSFC control center. (NASA Release 64-166)
MSC announced approval of improved Gemini spacesuit for use by Apollo astronauts in the earlier flights in earth orbit. Adoption of Gemini spacesuit would allow more time for development of Apollo suit, which would allow astronauts greatest mobility for walking on surface of moon. (Houston Post, 7/7/64)
An airlines pilot who used a weather map based on information transmitted to earth by a Tiros meteorological satellite on a flight from New York City to Dakar, Africa, said ". . the map was so accurate as to be almost unbelievable. . . . in my estimation we have found the answer, let's send up more Tiros." Weather maps based on Tiros information were being given to pilots flying international routes, as a matter of course. (Las Cruces Sun-News, 7/6/64)
In Aviation Week editorial, Robert Hotz said that until the past two years most nations in the world considered space technology to be monopoly of the competing U.S. and USSR Now they were beginning to participate in space programs themselves. Two primary reasons given were technical success of weather and communications satellites and "enlightened and effective" program in international cooperation operated by NASA. Hotz saw international space cooperation as the most powerful force binding nations of the world if early promise of international space technology is realized. "Perhaps the most heartening aspect of the international expansion of space activity is the manner in which the hard technical and financial facts are persuading nations to work together on cooperative projects ranging from global satellite systems to booster development and scientific exploration. "Part of this has been achieved through the NASA international cooperation program for which Dr. Hugh L. Dryden, Deputy NASA Administrator; Arnold Frutkin, head of the international programs office of NASA; and Dr. Harry Goett, director of Goddard Space Flight Center, deserve special credit. "The other portion has been achieved through Communications Satellite Corp., currently organizing global communications system with heavy international participation, and through the U.S. Weather Bureau's leadership in developing a global weather satellite system. . . ." (Av. Wk., 7/6/64; CR, 7/31/64, A4040-41)
McDonnell Aircraft Corp. celebrated its 25th anniversary. Today with facilities worth $90 million, a backlog of $1 billion in contracts, and 35,000 employees, the company looked back to the day in 1939 when James S. McDonnell's office had a typewriter, one employee, and no contracts. (AP, New Orleans Times-Picayune, 7/6/64)
Scholars on CLA faculty, having judged that space age overemphasized science in education at the expense of the humanities, sought support for proposed independent National Humanities Foundation. Foundation was to be structurally similar to NSF. Proposal, drawn up by 20-man Commission on the Humanities, was already in the hands of President Johnson. (Ham, L.A. Times, 7/6/64)
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