Jun 4 1973
From The Space Library
NASA was "fighting for its political life," a Detroit News editorial said as the Skylab 2 astronauts considered ways to release a stuck solar wing on the Skylab 1 Workshop launched May 14: "Its funds have been cut drastically since the moon landings were accomplished. Skylab itself is a vehicle costing $295 million. If it has to be abandoned the people will demand more expenditures be cut. So NASA is trying to prove that man really is boss of the machines he produces, that money is not being thrown away. There is a limit, however, to what NASA can devise and the astronauts accomplish. That limit must not be overstepped." (D News, 6/4/73)
The U.S.S.R. lunar vehicle Lunokhod 2 had completed its mission, Tass announced. The New York Times later said there were indications that Lunokhod 2 had had an accident shortly after the start of its fifth lunar day, while heading toward the uplands east of Le Monnier Crater and that the vehicle's operation had been terminated unexpectedly. Lunokhod 2 (landed on the lunar surface Jan. 16 by Luna 21, launched Jan. 8) had covered 37 km (23 mi) of complex terrain and withstood sharp temperature changes. It had taken the first measurements from the lunar surface of the luminosity of the lunar sky and had established that the moon was surrounded by a layer of dust particles in which the visible solar light and the reflected earth light were dispersed. Lunokhod 2 had taken 86 relief panoramas and 80 000 TV photos of the lunar surface during 60 communications sessions. It had also measured physical, mechanical, and chemical properties of the upper layer of lunar rock and had studied the characteristics of the corpuscular emission of solar and galactic origin. (Tass, FBIS-Sov, 6/6/73, L5; NYT, 6/5/73, 18)
A Japan Airlines spokesman said in Tokyo that the June 3 crash of the Soviet Tu144 supersonic transport aircraft would compel JAL to delay further its decision on buying three Anglo-French Concorde Sm. (W Post, 6/4/73, A10)
President Nixon accepted the resignation of Grant L. Hansen as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Research and Development. (PD, 6/11/ 73, 751)
NASA launched a Black Brant VC sounding rocket from White Sands Missile Range carrying a Harvard College Observatory payload to a 131.6-km (81.8-mi) altitude. The rocket was part of the CALROC series [see April 18] to provide a reference, using solar flux data, for the calibration of the Observatory's experiment on the Apollo Telescope Mount launched on the Skylab Workshop May 14. The experiment failed and the rocket was destroyed at 30.2 sec. (GSFC proj off)
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