Jul 30 1976
From The Space Library
NASA announced that its Viking Undergraduate Intern Program, permitting U.S. college students to participate in the Viking mission to Mars, was under way at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Fifty-eight students from about 600 applicants had been selected to spend 30 days during the summer working with Viking scientists in a number of scientific areas at JPL, where more than 72 science teams were conducting a detailed examination of the planet, including a search for life. The program was the idea of Prof. Thomas Mutch of Brown Univ., leader of the Viking imaging team, who was assisted by a teammate, Prof. Carl Sagan of Cornell Univ.; the 2 professors reviewed each of the applicants' qualifications and selected the 58 students for the summer's work. The program, designed to directly involve undergraduates with a strong interest in planetary science, was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and by NASA's Planetary Geology Office. (NASA Release 76-139)
A "tethered" satellite-suspended by a cable from the Space Shuttle orbiter's cargo bay-could serve to deploy and control materials used in constructing a space station, or to transfer articles from one manned vehicle to another, said NASA scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Center. The orbiter could also "troll" a tethered satellite through a low-altitude earth orbit to explore the atmospheric region between 80 and 120 km above earth's surface; previous exploration vehicles sounding rockets and low-altitude satellites-could not remain in that region long enough for extensive studies before being forced back to earth by atmospheric drag and gravity. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory would aid NASA in system-dynamics studies for the tethered satellite system. MSFC would manage program development, integrate experiments, and support orbital operations. If the tethered system proved feasible, MSFC would begin spacecraft system design, and the first mission could be scheduled as early as 1980. (NASA Release 76-138)
NASA announced it had awarded a $300 000 grant through its Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology to the Univ. of Wash., Seattle, Division of Ceramic Engineering for research into the nature and properties of ceramic materials. The grant would help educate engineering design students in the search for new materials capable of sustaining high temperatures and exhibiting physical properties needed in an increasing number of applications. Engineering contributions to the field of ceramics had led to improvements in fiberglass, optical communications,, nuclear fuels, catalytic converters, self-cleaning ovens and ceramic-top ranges, eyeglasses that darken in the sun, and human implants not susceptible to reaction with body mechanisms. Principal focus of the Univ. of Wash. program would be development of gas-turbine engine components that could withstand high temperatures and severe mechanical stress, and economical production of such components. (NASA Release 76-137)
NASA announced selection of a team consisting of General Electric Co. and Hamilton Standard Division of United Technology Corp. for negotiating with NASA and ERDA a $7-million contract to design, build, and test by 1978 a 1.5-Mw wind-turbine electricity-generating system, biggest in history. The experimental system, a windmill with 2 horizontally rotating fiberglass rotor blades about 61 m long mounted on a 45-m tower, could produce annually enough energy to supply more than 500 homes at a site with average winds of 29 kph. Located at a utility-company site, the NASA-ERDA system would supply electricity to the local utility for public use, to determine the economics and operating characteristics of large wind turbines coupled to conventional power plants. Utility companies had proposed 17 sites across the U.S.; ERDA would measure their wind characteristics over the coming year and would choose the site late in 1976. Lewis Research Center would manage the project for ERDA. The new system would be bigger than the 1.25-Mw system, 53 m in diameter, built near Rutland, Vt., in the 1940s; that project could not compete economically with the then low cost of fossil fuels, and had been abandoned. (NASA Release 76-136)
Officials of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) threatened a slowdown at major U.S. airports in the form of strict adherence to rules on spacing of aircraft, the Chicago Tribune reported. The union, in a salary dispute with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, would use the slowdown to protest failure to raise flight controllers' pay. Federal Aviation Administration rules would permit a separation between airplanes of from 4.8 to 8 km; if controllers spaced flights the full 8 km apart, schedules could be delayed by as much as 6 hr at busy airports such as Chicago's O'Hare. The tactics, although inconveniencing travelers, would not affect air safety, said PATCO president John Leyden. FAA had issued a request that controllers ignore the slowdown. (C Trib, 30 July 76, 5)
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