May 2 1974
From The Space Library
A full-scale simulated crash of an aircraft with a crew of four lifelike dummies was successfully completed at Langley Research Center as part of five years of tests in a program to study the crash-worthiness of light, general-aviation aircraft. The aircraft, a surplus twin-engine Piper Navajo, was suspended from the top of the test facility and swung by cables into the ground at 97 km per hr. An umbilical cable fed data on structural response back to a computer. The program was a cooperative effort with the Federal Aviation Administration and private industry to develop structural design techniques to improve the capability of light aircraft to withstand crash conditions and to increase the likelihood of passenger survival. (NASA Release 74-107; Newport News, Va., Times Herald, 9 May 74)
NASA announced the appointment of Dr. David L. Winter as Director of Life Sciences succeeding Dr. Charles A. Berry, who had announced his retirement 21 Dec. 1973 but remained with NASA until April. Dr. Winter would manage programs in biomedical and bioscience research, medical aspects of manned space flight operations, man-machine integration, life science applications, aeronautical life sciences, extraterrestrial life re-search, and occupational medicine. He had been Deputy Director of Life Sciences at Ames Research Center. (NASA Release 74-118)
Controversy over the parking position of Western Union Telegraph Co.'s second satellite-Westar-B, scheduled for June launch-was growing, the Wall Street Journal reported. Western Union had requested that the Federal Communications Commission assign the satellite a 119° west longitude position, but American Telephone & Telegraph Co. had petitioned the FCC to deny the request. AT&T would like to use that position for one of three comsats it planned to have in operation by early 1976. Positions were limited; communications satellites occupied orbits 35 500-35 900 km above the equator, and positions between 119° and 138° west longitude served the continental U.S., Hawaii, and Alaska best. In addition, comsats had to be spaced about 5° apart to avoid interference with each other. (Jacobs, WSJ, 2 May 74)
Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., former NASA Deputy Administrator and Secretary of the Air Force, had been reelected to a four-year term as President of the National Academy of Engineering, NAE announced. He was first elected to the office in May 1973 for a one-year term. (NAE Release, 2 May 74)
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