March 1968

From The Space Library

Special ESSA task force recommended environmental science and service agencies take early, joint steps toward national effort for development and use of earth-oriented space technology. In Man's Geo­physical Environment: Its Study from Space, task force predicted fu­ture space platforms would be able to acquire global geophysical data on unprecedented scale for environmental disciplines. It recommended combination of manned and unmanned space vehicles-rather than ei­ther alone-and warned that orbiting environmental observatories might provide data too rapidly for effective use unless data handling and display improvements were begun in immediate future. It rated highly spacecraft capability to service and repair manned spacecraft in orbit, to provide semiautomatic mode to operate manned spacecraft after flight crew left, and to launch subsatellites, special probes, and re­coverable capsules from orbit. Among proposals for missions were continuous monitoring of space disturbances to predict spaceflight hazards, global ionospheric map­ping, global noise and interference survey, global measurements of ab­solute ground and sea surface temperatures and surface roughness, and surveys of snow areas, river and lake ice distribution, rain and river gauging, shoals, and sea states. (Text)

NRC Committee on Polar Research, established in 1958 to continue re­search begun by NAS during International Geophysical Year, began re­view of significant results of past research efforts, to pinpoint scientific questions that should be studied in either of polar regions during next few years, and to make recommendations on national research goals. (NAS-NRC-NAE News Report, 3/68, 2)

Strong arguments in favor of Europe's making comsats "focal point" of space activity were presented in Spaceflight by spacewriter Arthur C. Clarke, former chairman of British Interplanetary Society. "Reliable domestic radio services are not available over most of the world. Long distance services are of poor quality . . . [and] by 1970, there will be 130 million VHF sets in the world, many of which could pick up direct radio broadcasts from satellites." U.K., he said, "certainly cannot do everything in space. But what we should not tolerate is the apparently invincible ignorance of those who think that nothing in space is worth doing. . . . Our space achievements will be our greatest legacy to the future. Indeed they will create that future. They will make it possible to have a future." (Clarke, SF, 3/68, 78-84)

Effects of manned space flight program on communities surrounding NASA space flight centers were discussed in Monthly Labor Review. South had gained most from 1967 decision to proceed with Apollo Pro­gram. Total civil service and contractor employment increase of 66,000 in five states bordering Gulf of Mexico was about 5% of area's in­crease in total nonagricultural employment. However, economic significance of program had not been uniform. Employment at Mississippi Test Facility exceeded half of total employment in Hancock County in 1966, while space employment in Houston, Texas, was less than 2% of total employment. Space employment accounted for slightly more than 7% of total employment growth in Alabama, Louisiana, and Missis­sippi since 1961. Employment growth brought population growth, caused expansion of school facilities and faculties, raised per capita income, and increased retail sales. Beginning decline of employment in program in 1966 had moderated economic growth, and if funding continued to decline after 1968 communities would have to adjust to sharply contracting employ­ment. (Holman, Konkel, Monthly Labor Review, 3/68, 30-6)

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