Aug 12 1976
From The Space Library
NASA announced plans for rollout of the first Space Shuttle orbiter on 17 Sept. at NASA's Rockwell. Intl. Space Div. at Palmdale, Calif. The ceremony was scheduled for 9:30 am PDT, and media representatives were alerted. (JSC Release 76-51)
WFC announced launch of a rocketborne experiment to investigate effects on the upper atmosphere of metal ions from a meteor shower. A 2-stage solid-propellant Nike-Tomahawk was launched at 11:54 am EDT, lifting a 149.3-kg payload to a peak altitude of 147.5 km. The payload included 2 experiments, one for the Univ. of 111. and the other for the Univ. of Bern, Switzerland, as well as a solar-aspect sensor and a clamshell nosecone provided by WFC. The Illinois experiment also carried an instrument for GSFC. The meteor shower (the Perseids) deposited metallic debris in the atmosphere from about 120 to 90 km; measurements of the relative concentration of the different metals-magnesium, iron, calcium, potassium-could help identify the nature and origin of the meteor. A second objective would be to study the dispersion and concentration of metal ions in the atmosphere, thought to cause unusual propagation of radio and TV signals. The meteor shower was predicted to last for 4 days beginning 11 Aug. (WFC Release 76-12)
McDonnell Douglas Corp. would join Aerospatiale and Dassault-Breguet of France in a transatlantic consortium to develop and market a new medium-range jetliner for the 1980s, announced France's Transportation Secretary Marcel Cavaille at Toulouse, capital of the French aerospace industry. Tentatively named Mercure 200, the 160-to 180-seat twin-jet aircraft would have a range of about 3000 km; a modification of the current Mercure plane, it was estimated to cost about $240 million to develop, whereas a totally new plane would have cost more than $1 billion. The new plane, designed to save about 20% of fuel costs over the current Mercure, would be powered by a CFM 56 engine jointly designed by General Electric and France's government-owned Snecma (Society Nationale d'Etude et de Construction de Moteurs d'Aviation). Aerospatiale-the state-owned National Society of Aerospace Industry-would get 40% of the construction work, which would cushion it from layoffs when construction of the Concorde ended this year; Dassault, the private company that designed the plane, would get 5%, probably the final assembly. McDonnell would get 15%, the rest to be offered to other European manufacturers.
Including McDonnell Douglas in the consortium would give the Mercure 200 an unprecedented entry into the American market, which amounted to half the world market, noted the New York Times. Although the new aircraft would compete with Boeing's 727 and 737, which previously had a monopoly on the medium-range market, exploratory talks with Boeing had come to nothing because French officials feared the size of Boeing's operation would relegate the French to little more than a subcontractor. the preliminary agreement with McDonnell Douglas awaited a McDonnell promise not to build a plane competing with the French-German passenger-transport Airbus. (NYT, 13 Aug 76, D3; WSJ, 13 Aug 76, 4)
NASA announced it would cosponsor a conference 21 Sept. at the Univ. of Conn. on transfer of biomedical instrument technology. The conference, also sponsored by the New England Research Applications Center, the Conn. Dept of Commerce, the Conn. Product Development Corp., and the Univ. of Conn. Health Center, would display technology developed by NASA for the manned space program to manufacturers and show how the technology could be applied to develop improved medical equipment and techniques. Hundreds of improvements based on NASA technology were already in use by the medical community, ranging from bio-isolation garments to a rechargeable cardiac pacemaker. At the conference, medical experts from NASA Hq, JSC, and NASA's biomedical and technology applications teams would describe the types of technology available to industry and the medical community, and the role NASA could play in helping to commercialize new products. NASA's program of licensing patents would also be explained. (NASA Release 76-144)
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