Aug 4 1963

From The Space Library

First public demonstration of communications exchange via synchronous satellite, when two U.S. wire services and Ni­gerian newsmen exchanged news stories of about 300 words each via SYNCOM II communications satellite, hovering 22,823 mi. over Western Africa. Photographs of President Kennedy and Ni­gerian Governor General Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe also were ex­ changed. Transmissions were made from NASA station at Lake­hurst, N.J., and USNS Kingsport communications ship in Lagos Harbor, Nigeria. (AP, Wash. Eve. Star, 8/5/63; NASA Release 63-171)

Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce issued report urging selec­tion of Edwards AFB as U.S. Space Recovery Center. Report was based on 12-month study of potential recovery sites through­ out U.S. for all types of space vehicles. Chamber General Man­ager Harold W. Wright said: "We hope that the National Aero­nautics and Space Administration will seriously consider the Ed­wards facilities for its use and not attempt to duplicate similar facilities elsewhere .... "The federal government has already poured millions and mil­lions of dollars into the highly-instrumented Pacific Missile Range, the electronic recovery control center at Sunnyvale and the highly developed facilities in the Edwards-Wendover, Utah­ Holloman-White Sands, N.M., complex. "This provides the nation's space effort with the best available land recovery site." NASA Hq. spokesman, queried about report, stated Project Gemini landing operations were still under study, "with a pos­sibility we will require no large, fixed base for recovery of the spacecraft." First series of Gemini flights would employ water­landings, and there was possibility that all Gemini flights would depend on water recoveries. In any case,' NASA is well aware of Edwards," spokesman said, and the agency would give Chamber's study careful consideration. (L.A. Times, 8/5/63)

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