Aug 27 1975
From The Space Library
Astronomers had picked up microwave signals that dated back 10 billion yrs to the creation of the universe, Sir Bernard Lovell, director of the Jodrell Bank radio telescope station, told the 137th annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. First picked up accidentally by equipment testing space communications, and later monitored by a sounding rocket, the signals apparently had originated in the cataclysmic explosion-the "big bang"-caused when a single primeval fireball exploded to form the universe. The observed radiation was "a relic of the high-temperature phase of the universe," Lovell stated, "perhaps within a second or so of the beginning of the explosion." Lovell urged scientists to reexamine their responsibility to society during their quest for knowledge of the universe and life on other planets; he questioned whether man could "survive for long the consequences of the probing of scientists," saying that the search might produce answers too overwhelming for the mind of man to comprehend. He warned that extensive military involvement might lead to great human disaster, recalling how man's quest for knowledge had led to the development of nuclear weapons. (AP, W Star, 28 Aug 75)
NASA announced that astronaut Thomas P. Stafford would leave the NASA astronaut corps effective 1 Nov. to become commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Serving as a NASA astronaut since September 1962, Stafford made the first rendezvous in space when he flew the Gemini 6 mission (launched 15 Dec. 1965) to meet the already orbiting Gemini 7 crew. He also commanded Gemini 9 (3-6 June 1966), which rendezvoused with the previously launched augmented target docking adapter. Stafford was commander of Apollo 10 (18-26 May 1969), first lunar-orbital mission to use the complete Apollo spacecraft; during the mission he and crew member Eugene A. Cernan flew the lunar module to within 15 km of the surface while John W. Young orbited the moon in the Apollo spacecraft. In July Stafford headed the three-man Apollo crew for the joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission (15-24 July 1975); he had accumulated a total of 507 hr 43 min in space and flown 6 space missions. (NASA Release 75-241)
27 August-7 September: Field operations of an ocean bathymetry expedition sponsored jointly by NASA and the Cousteau Society had been successfully completed in the Central Bahamas. Objective of the expedition was to evaluate the usefulness of Landsat satellite sensors for measuring water depth in shallow seas and for improving the accuracy of mapping ocean-bottom features. Thirteen satellites including NASA's Landsat-1 and 2, Sms 1, and Ats 3; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NOAA 3 and 4 and Essa 8; and six satellites of the Navy's Transit Navigation System, plus two research vessels-Cousteau Society's Calypso and the Johns Hopkins University's Beayondan-recorded bathymetric data at selected sites. Scuba divers measured ocean floor reflectivity and water transparency with sophisticated underwater instruments.
Participating in the expedition were Cousteau Society head Jacques Cousteau and his son Philippe; NASA Project Manager Dr. Enrico P. Mercanti and science monitor Ross McCluney, both of Goddard Space Flight Center; and Dr. Fabian Polcyn of the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan. NASA Director of User Affairs Russell L. Schweickart coordinated the project. Also participating was President Gerald R. Ford's on Jack, who accompanied the expedition for the first phase, assisting with several underwater and onboard experiments. (NASA Releases 75-240, 75-257)
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