Mar 19 1963

From The Space Library

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, in cooperation with NBC and RCA, accomplished first known transmission of television in color via RELAY I communications satellite. 15-min. sequence of movie Kidnapped was relayed by RELAY from 4,000-mi. high orbit, and was scheduled to be shown on Walt Disney's program on March 24. (AP, Wash. Post, 3/22/63, A5)

Ernest W. Brackett, Director of NASA Procurement and Supply said in testimony before Subcommittee on Space Sciences and Advanced Research and Technology, House Committee on Science and Astronautics: " . . . NASA is trying a new contract system which we hope will accomplish the incentive objectives. The base fee in the contract will be lower than the usual fee. Criteria will be set up in the contract for evaluation of the con­tractor's performance. These criteria may include reduction and control of costs, excellence of performance, delivery on schedule, and other points. Periodically a NASA board, also specified in the contract, will evaluate the contractor's performance and may award some higher fee, up to a set maximum, if the facts justify an increase .... " (Testimony)

Dr. Robert C. Seamans, testifying before House Committee on Sci­ence and Astronautics' Subcommittee on Applications and Track­ing and Data Acquisition, outlined NASA personnel requirements for FY 1964. Dr. Seamans said some 73,000 scientists and engi­neers would be required to carry out the U.S. space program, and 11,300 of these would be employed by NASA. (UPI, NYT [West. Ed.], 3/20/63)

NASA Administrator James E. Webb and Council of New York City President Paul R. Screvane conferred in Was n on plans for NASA exhibit at 1964 World's Fair, possibly to be a proposed 361-ft. inflatable Saturn V rocket replica to house 10,000 sq. ft. of exhibits. (NASA Release 63-58)

Ivan A. Getting of Aerospace Corp., in address to space flight test­ing conference at Cocoa Beach, Fla., estimated that 90 percent of all current in-flight rocket failures could be detected and corrected by better preflight checking, including "preliminary designs, design reviews, re-design , testing, additional redesign and additional testing. The probability of a successful perform­ance of such a product is directly related to the thoroughness of this evolutionary process ... "There is an unfortunate tendency in our rush to meet end directives and time schedules, and in our desire to save money the program, to cut out important steps in developmental tests and ground systems tests. Not only are such economies false, but they impinge on our reputation as a nation for excel­lence in scientific achievement and engineering design." (AP, Wash. Post. 3/20./63. A2)

Mar 20 1963

Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences ordered favorably reported the 14 nominations of incorporators of Space Communications Corp. On the Senate floor, Senator Albert Gore (D.-Tenn.) requested the Senate withhold action on con­firmation of the nominations "for a reasonable time," until he could prepare "the case, which I think is a very substantial one, against the propriety, advisability, and constitutionality of the Senate allowing itself to be entrapped into the operations of a purely private corporation organized for profit . . . . " (NASA " Leg. Act. Rpt. II/43; CR, 3/19/63, 4307; Wash. Post, 3/20/63) Dr. Abe Silverstein, Director, NASA Lewis Research Center, ex­pressed appreciation to John W. Mercy, Jr., Chairman of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, for commission's contributions to the Lewis recruiting program. During Fiscal Years 1962 and 1963, Lewis hired 1,280 engineers and scientists from all over the U.S. (LRC Release 63-9; Lewis Chronology, 2)

Joseph G. Gavin, Jr, a vice president of Grumman Air­craft, replying to question during testimony before Manned Space Flight Subcommittee of House Committee on Science and Astro­nautics, said first U.S. astronauts returning from the moon would bring back about 100-(earth)-pound sample of lunar terrain. (L.A. Times, 3/20/63)

Atlas booster for Project Mercury manned flight MA-9, scheduled for mid-May, arrived at Cape Canaveral from General Dynamics/ Astronautics, San Diego. (AP, Wash.. Post, 3/20/63)

Astroscience Center, facility devoted to current and long-range space programs, opened in Chicago by Armour Research Foun­dation of Illinois Institute of Technology. Headed by Dr. Leon­ard Reiffel, Director of Physics Research at the Foundation, new center would coordinate research projects for NASA and enlarge space research activities of the Foundation. (NYT [West. Ed.], 3/21/63)