Jan 30 1977
From The Space Library
The possibility of teleportation-transfer of objects from one place to another by radio waves came closer with the announcement of a new way to create identical copies of a three-dimensional object by using a sculpture-photography system based on the same principles of chemistry and electronics now used in making printing plates. As reported in the Chicago Tribune, Wyn Kelly Swainson, a young man with a, degree in English literature and some training in science, had obtained his first patent on a device being developed with the help of the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio.
Swainson began with the idea of reproducing great works of sculpture without painstaking handwork: a plastic material hardened by light rays would be targeted by intersecting laser beams, controlled by a computer programmed with the image of the object to be copied. Swainson said IBM had already produced an instrument to record computerized shapes, convert the electronic data into light rays, and feed them through the lasers scanning a container of plastic. Where the beams intersected, they would cause a chemical reaction hardening the plastic; washing off the unhardened material would leave an exact copy of the object previously computerized. In theory, a three-dimensional hologram of an object even of complex metals could be analyzed for its precise composition, converted to electronic data, transmitted, and reproduced as often as desired. (C Trib, Jan 30/77, 1-5)
January 30-February 1: Enterprise, the first Space Shuttle, towed atop a 90-wheel trailer from Rockwell Ind.'s plant in Palmdale, Calif., made its first trip to Edwards AFB 57km away. Escorted by a convoy of security and patrol cars, the Space Shuttle Enterprise moved at 8kph and drew hundreds of spectators to view its configuration (24m wingspan and 21m vertical tailfin). Tests of the 38m-long space vehicle would begin Feb. 18 with a series of "captive" flights; first manned flight to an unpowered landing would occur July 22. (W Star, Jan 30/77, A-7, NYT, Jan 31/77, 12; W Post, Feb 1/77, A-3)
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