March 1976
From The Space Library
“Solar Energy, the Ultimate Powerhouse” article appears in National Geographic Magazine
Launch of RCA's Satcom 2 this month was the second launch of a Delta vehicle using 9 large Castor IV Solid Rocket Boosters instead of the standard 9 Castor Its. (First to use the larger rockets was the Delta that launched Satcom 1 on 12 Dec. 75.) RCA had underwritten development expenses of adapting the NASA "workhorse" Delta to use the larger rockets, in a unique NASA-customer-launch vehicle contractor arrangement that had enabled RCA to design its domestic comsat to be the heaviest to date without having to use a larger and more expensive launch vehicle. The Castor IV boosters would permit a Delta to put into synchronous orbit a payload weighing about 900 kg, compared to about 700 kg for a vehicle equipped with the Castor IIs. NASA was thinking of the more powerful Delta as a standard launch vehicle for other customers who could use the increase in permissible weight of about 29% in many areas of spacecraft design: weather forecasting, scientific exploration, and communications. (Spaceport News, 18 Mar 76, 1)
More new discoveries would be made in space than on the ground during the first 10 to 15 yr of Shuttle operations, a colloquium on bioprocessing in space was told by James H. Bredt, NASA program manager for space processing. The meeting of more than 200 industrial and academic bioscience researchers at Johnson Space Center heard reports on Space Shuttle and Spacelab capabilities and status. Noting that Spacelab would be able to carry 300 to 400 experiments, more on each flight than all other previous manned space missions combined, Bredt urged the audience to submit experiment programs that would make use of the new national resource. Participants recommended formation of a small group of bioscientists to advise NASA in discussions of space processing suggestions, and scheduling of follow up meetings to define areas of interest so that programs could be developed before instrumentation development began. NASA spokesmen said more than 1400 experiment proposals for Shuttle flights were on hand, and Shuttle flight opportunities covering the first 2 Spacelab missions would be announced later this year. (Av Wk & Sp Tech, 29 Mar 76, 53)
Endorsed by the state of Colo. as a bicentennial project, a mobile space museum prepared by the High Flight Foundation-a nonprofit religious organization founded in 1972 by Apollo IS astronaut Col. James B. Irwin-would tour the U.S. to give residents of 30 cities a chance to see a large exhibit on national accomplishments in space. The exhibit would include tools and photographs, miscellaneous objects and films. During the tour, various state governors participating in bicentennial celebrations would receive from the astronauts state flags that had been flown to the moon. With Col. Irwin on the board of the High Flight' Foundation were astronauts Col. William R. Pogue (Skylab 3) and Col. Alfred M. Worden (Apollo 15). (Spaceport News, 18 Mar 76, 8)
NASA announced selection of the initial crew of the Boeing 747 shuttle carrier aircraft that would carry and launch the Space Shuttle orbiter in approach and landing tests. Pilots would be Fitzhugh L. Fulton, Jr., and Thomas C. McMurtry, both of Dryden Flight Research Center; flight-test engineers would be Victor W. Horton, also from Dryden, and Louis E. Guidry, Jr., of Johnson Space Center. All the men chosen were civilians. The ALT flights, scheduled for early 1977, would carry the orbiter to an altitude of 7.5 km, where it would separate from the 747 and the orbiter crew would pilot it to a glide landing. Unmanned and manned captive flights would precede initial free flights. (DFRC Release 3-76)
A device used in training Apollo astronauts was adapted to assist persons incapable of supporting their entire weight with their legs. Developed at Langley Research Center, the flying lunar-excursion experimental platform would exert a constant weight-relieving force during any vertical movement by the patient; the supporting force would be selected for a particular patient, and could be changed as the patient's condition improved. Besides its application as a device for exercise during rehabilitation, the apparatus showed potential for use in warehouses and storage facilities where heavy equipment was handled. The project was directed by LaRC's Technology Utilization Office. (Langley Researcher, 5 Mar 76, 7)
The Federal Aviation Administration would use 15 new twin-jet Sabreliners to do a nationwide airways navigation-system checking job that formerly took about 50 older aircraft to do, according to a report by Rockwell International Corp., makers of the Sabreliner. The old Civil Aeronautics Administration (predecessor to FAA) in 1932 had hired 2 pilots in single engine planes to inspect beacon markers-then the only night navigation aids for air travel-as well as to check safety at emergency landing fields. The report reviewed the advent of radio-range transmitters, onmidirectional signals, and instrument-landing systems, for which the FAA operated a Flight Inspection National Field Office based in Oklahoma City with field offices in the continental U.S., the North Atlantic, and the Caribbean. Until recently, safety checks had been the job of a fleet of military-surplus C-47s (commercially called DC-3s) known in World War II as Gooney Birds. These became unsatisfactory with the advent of the jet age, and Sabreliners were added to the fleet in 1968. FAA officials noted that the new twin-jet could cruise at 435 knots, compared to 150 knots for the DC-3s scheduled for retirement in June 1976. (Skyline, Spring 76, 34)
Observance of 1976 as the 50th anniversary of U.S. commercial aviation would be established by a resolution introduced in the Senate by Sen. Howard Cannon (D-Nev.). The Air Mail Act of 1925-known as the Kelly Bill-gave the Postal Dept. authority to contract airmail carriage to private carriers, but the first contract airmail flight did not take place until 15 Feb 1926 in Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago. The Postal Dept. had laid out a transcontinental route, and the contracted routes acted as feeder lines that greatly expanded airmail service around the country. Passenger airlines existed, but passengers were few, so that carrying the mail could mean the difference between success and failure for the airlines of the period. Each of the 46 cities that inaugurated commercial airmail service 50 years ago would cancel its special commemorative cover on the date of the first airmail flight to that city. Covers were issued by the Aviation Historical Foundation' in cooperation with the U.S. a. Postal Service. (NAA News, Mar 76, 2)
On a visit to the ERDA Model Zero 100-kw wind generator installed at NASA's Plum Brook Station near Sandusky, 0h, a reporter from Popular Science magazine climbed the steel tower to get a close look at the monster propeller measuring more than 398 m and rotating at maximum speed of 40 rpm. The flexible aluminum propeller blades operated downwind of the 30 m steel tower similar to utility rigs, set on a raised concrete foundation designed to withstand' high wind and rotor-thrust loads and to be accessible for maintenance. The NASA approach to generating power had been to use large generators rather than groups of small ones; the power from wind was said to increase with the square of the rotor diameter, so that doubling the rotor diameter would produce 4 times the power, besides keeping costs down. Design improvements for future wind turbines would include use of composite materials to reduce cost and weight and improve reliability, and development of a different hub to reduce bending moments of the rotor-blade roots and make them less likely to break. (Popular Science, Mar 76, 73)
A new technique of using aircraft to map surface temperatures of bodies of water with an accuracy close to 1 °C was announced by Calspan Corp. The company said the method could be used to monitor the discharges of large volumes of heated water into rivers and lakes by power plants, steel mills, and other industries. Ecologists had sought regular monitoring of such flows, said to be potentially dangerous to fish and other marine life. Like the conventional method of taking water temperatures from aircraft, the Calspan method used an infrared thermal mapper to record infrared radiation from the surface, but did not require "ground truth" readings taken simultaneously at the sites being scanned, using boats, equipment, ground personnel, and correlations that were both time consuming and expensive. The new system used a radiometer to track along the image produced by the thermal mapper, extrapolating true ground temperatures from a series of passes over sites with identical temperature and noting changes in infrared intensity. Maps using this technique had been within 1 °C of agreement with temperatures checked at the water's surface. (Calspan News, Second Quarter 76, 3)
An FAA test of a new method of conserving energy, to be used when weather or other factors caused delays in aircraft landings, saved nearly 2.5 million liters of fuel in 1 day. The test consisted of holding Chicago bound flights on the ground at 150 airports until they could be accepted at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport with a minimum of airborne delay. (Av Wk & Space Tech., 22 Mar 76, 37)
A 3-yr International Magnetospheric Study that began 1 Jan., sponsored by the International Council of Scientific Unions, would be coordinated by a steering committee set up by the Special Committee on Solar Terrestrial Physics, chaired by Juan G. Roederer, professor and senior research physicist at the University of Denver. The 20 or more countries participating in the study had already submitted more than 1000 individual research programs, including ground-based, balloon, rocket, aircraft, and spacecraft experiments as well as networks of magnetic, auroral, and other geophysical observatories. Among major spacecraft projects planned by the European Space Agency, Japan, the Soviet Union, and the U.S. would be use of ESA's Geos spacecraft in geostationary orbit. ESA and NASA would join in an International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE) program to measure properties of different parts of the magnetosphere simultaneously. About 40 other spacecraft launched before and during the study period were expected to contribute sun-earth physics data to the study. Roederer told the National Academy of Sciences that the international coordination differed from that used in the International Geophysical Year, relying on interlocking spacecraft missions and quick and active exchange of information and scheduling. (NAS News Report, Mar 76, 1)
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