Dec 22 1976
From The Space Library
Rockwell International-prime contractor for NASA's Space Shuttle-announced that it had purchased more than $18 million of goods and services from minority businesses throughout the U.S. in 1976, a 58% increase over 1975. Rockwell had been cited by the Black Businessmen's Assn. of Los Angeles for its participation in "Black Economic Development," and by the Natl. Assn. of Black Manufacturers for its contributions to industry development. Kenneth B. Gay, Rockwell vice president for purchasing, said that "qualified minority businesses in the more technical areas" had been hard to find in the past, but there were "many highly skilled, competent small companies competing aggressively for our business" at present. The more than 500 minority firms supplying Rockwell received about $5 million for machining and specialty fabrication; more than $2 million for metal structures; another $2 million each for raw materials and supplies and for technical services; and more than $1 million each for electrical equipment and for maintenance and repair services. (Rockwell Release R-46)
An unmanned Soviet spacecraft that returned to the earth 17 Dec. in Soviet Asia after 18 days in orbit might have been the test vehicle of a new Soyuz designed to carry three cosmonauts into space, instead of the two that have flown on the 13 Soyuz missions during the past 5 yr. Thomas O'Toole, reporting in the Washington Post, pointed out that the Cosmos 869 had flown the same pattern followed by all Soviet manned space flights, and noted that the USSR had long followed the practice of disguising unmanned test flights of Soyuz spacecraft by using the generalized Cosmos designation. At least four unmanned Soyuz vehicles had flown under the name of Cosmos during the past 4 yr, the article said. The USSR had not attempted a three-man flight since 1971, when the three crewmen of Soyuz 11 suffocated on their return to earth; the crew could have survived had they worn space suits, but the vehicle being used had no room for three men in space suits. Officials said then that the spacecraft would be modified to accommodate three-member crews in space suits, and Western observers predicted that the Inter-Soyuz flights scheduled to begin in 1978 with Russians and non-Russians together would use three cosmonauts again. (W Post, 22 Dec 76, A-2)
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