May 17 1978
From The Space Library
MSFC announced it had begun preparations for stress tests of the Space Shuttle orbiter at Lockheed-Calif.'s 430ton (390 metric tons) steel test rig at Palmdale, Calif. The 6-story "reaction frame" rig had more than 350 hydraulic jacks exerting loads on the orbiter to simulate those to be encountered at launch, during spaceflight, and on reentry into earth atmosphere. Lockheed would perform the tests under contract to Rockwell International, builder of the orbiter. (Marshall Star, May 17/78, 2)
Johnson Space Center announced it would sponsor a2-day conference with the Univ. of Texas health science center on ways to use spaceflight in biomedical research. The first session, entitled Space: A Challenge for the Life Sciences, would have as speakers the JSC director, Christopher C. Kraft, Jr.; NASA's director for life sciences, David Winter, M.D.; JSC director of space and life sciences Richard Johnston; and Univ. of Tex. health science center resident Truman Blocker. The conference would conclude with a panel discussion on spaceflight applications. (JSC Release 78-19)
The W Star reported that spokesmen for four government agencies using portable nuclear-power generators could not respond immediately to charges that the federal government lacked adequate control over the use or whereabouts of such devices. Charges came from members of the House Commerce Committee who said the public had not been informed of potential hazards to health, safety, and the environment posed by the devices or how they were used.
Committee members had sent President Carter a letter asking for a public accounting of portable nuclear devices used by the U.S. around the world. Of major concern was a device called SNAP (system for nuclear auxiliary power) generating from any of three radioactive and highly toxic fuels-cesium, strontium, or plutonium-heat that the device could transform into electricity for satellites or other remote power needs. Designed in the early 1960s primarily as power source for space satellites, SNAPS had later been applied to terrestrial uses including a CIA project in which a SNAP, left on a Himalayan mountain to monitor China's missile testing, was apparently buried by an avalanche.
After a 1964 mishap when an Air Force spy satellite powered by a SNAP reentered and burned over the Indian Ocean, spreading radioactive fallout over a wide area, DOD had ordered manufacture of SNAPS in case-hardened containers that would remain intact if a satellite carrying one should fall from orbit. In 1968, a rocket launching another spy satellite from Vandenberg AFB had misfired and dropped two SNAP generators into the Pacific just off the southern Calif. coast; a 6mo search had recovered the SNAPS. (W Star, May 17/78, A-18)
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