Apr 12 1973

From The Space Library

The U.S.S.R. launched Cosmos 553 from Plesetsk into orbit with a 486-km (302.0-mi) apogee, 270-km (167.8-mi) perigee, 92-min period, and 70.9° inclination-on the 12th anniversary of Vostok 1, the first manned orbital space flight. The satellite reentered Nov. 11. National Cosmonaut Day honored the April 12, 1961, mission flown by Cosmo­naut Yuri A. Gagarin, the first man in space. Some observers had ex­pected the announcement of a new manned Soviet mission, but in an interview published by Pravda Cosmonaut Vladimir A. Shatalov indi­cated there was sufficient time left for a crew to be placed aboard the Salyut 2 space station, launched April 3. (GSFC SSR, 4/30/73, 11/30/73; SBD, 4/16/73, 253; LA Times, 4/13/73; A &A 1972)

NASA's instrumented Convair 990 aircraft Galileo, piloted by Ames Research Center pilot J. Patrick Riley, and a Navy P-3 Orion antisubmarine patrol aircraft crashed in flames after colliding over Moffett Field, Calif. All aboard the Convair-the four-man crew and seven NASA technicians-were killed. There was one survivor among the six-man Navy crew. The Galileo, known worldwide as a flying laboratory and a test bed for instruments, was on an earth resources survey test flight. [See April 13.] (UPI, W Post, 4/13/73, A3; CR, 4/13/73, S7383; Langley Researcher, 4/27/73, 3; AP, W Post, 4/14/73, A3)

The Federal Communications Commission approved Communications Satel­lite Corp.'s request to provide communications satellite service to Navy and commercial shipping [see March 5]. (B Sun, 4/13/73, C11)

The Astronomy Survey Committee of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council issued Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 1970's, Vol. 2, Report of the Panels. The report confirmed the Committee's 1972 observation that the opening of the radio sky had suggested the presence of undiscovered physical laws and requirements for new observations and explanations. The observation had been made in Vol. 1, released June 1, 1972. The Panel on Radio Astronomy report said: "The processes taking place in the radiation-emitting region of pulsars are the most extreme we know of in the galaxy and far surpass in energy production any power source yet invented." The understand­ing of the generating mechanism through further detailed study would improve the understanding of physics and could lead to "major de­velopments in energy generation here on earth." Suspicion was growing that the molecules already discovered in space were part of "a large group of molecules of ever-increasing complexity that may exist in space." Belief was growing "that interstellar clouds . . . and fast particles may form large organic molecules. Such molecules, which may be as complex as the amino acids and may be of equal importance in our understanding of life, may be discovered by observations made at radio frequencies."

The Panel on Optical Astronomy noted that new technology for basing detectors in the upper atmosphere and in space had begun to make infra­red astronomy "realistic." The Panel on Space Astronomy said, "It ap­pears that much of the energy emitted from astronomical objects and from the universe itself probably resides in the infrared, and hence some of the most important astronomical discoveries will be made in this region." The Panel on Astrophysics and Relativity said that violent ac­tivity in the nuclei of galaxies was "probably commonplace" and not due to thermonuclear processes. The report concluded: "Man has landed on his first planet-the moon. But his mind and eye have trav­eled billions of light years into the past and in the next decade will penetrate unimagined new worlds.” (NAS-NRC-NAE News Report, 4/73, 1; NAS PIO)

The prototype of a miniature medical diagnostic system developed for NASA's use aboard manned space stations by the Atomic Energy Com­mission's Oak Ridge National Laboratory might have clinical uses, NASA announced. The analyzer, being tested at Johnson Space Center, pro­vided fast, automated blood analysis by using one fiftieth the amount of blood required by existing analyzers. It could help a doctor perform rapid analysis in his office, with results within minutes. (NASA Release 73-71)

The Smithsonian Institution held the first showing of its "Experimental Experimentarium," a prototype of the "Spacearium" theater planned for the National Air and Space Museum, to open in 1976. The Experimen­tarium-a small planetarium in the old Air and Space Museum-showed a panorama of a NASA launch. (W Star & News, 4/13/73, D8)

The possibility that three Soviet cosmonauts had died in training accidents early in the Soviet space program was discussed by James E. Oberg of the Dept. of Defense Computer Institute in a speech before the American Astronautical Society in Washington, D.C. Oberg, a Soviet space pro­gram observer, said photos and training films showed four cosmonauts ­identified only as Ivan, Vasily, Grigori, and Valentin-in 1960 and 1961, before the April 12, 1961, Vostok 1 first manned orbital space flight. None of these cosmonauts had been seen or heard of since. Oberg said they might still be, training for a Salyut space station or a lunar landing mission or they could have been killed in accidents before making their intended flights. Oberg said there was no apparent truth to stories that as many as 18 cosmonauts had died secretly. (O'Toole, W Post, 4/13/73, A3)

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