Aug 11 1980
From The Space Library
ARC reported that eight men aged 35 to 50 would participate in a study of weightlessness to help NASA learn why spaceflight dehydrates humans. Dr. Joan Vernikos-Danielis of ARC's biomedical research division would use a head-down method in prolonged bed rest for the study; the rush of blood to the head in the first exposure to zero gravity might trigger the body mechanism that eliminated fluids and salts. The Soviets for some time had been using bed rest with head down 6° from the horizontal to simulate weightlessness. Usable measurements were not obtainable during actual spaceflight because of the heavy demands on astronauts in the first stages of a mission. (ARC Release 80-68; NASA Release 80-131)
LaRC staff working this summer at NOAA, National Severe Storms Laboratory at Norman, Okla., guided a modified F-106B jet fighter plane through severe southwest thunderstorms to show that lightning could strike not just once but two or even three times in the same place. Most lightning study had been at ground level; LaRC was studying its effect on planes in flight.
The F-106, holder of a world single-engine speed record set in the 1950s, was still used by the Air Force and could fly up to -50,000 feet (15,250 meters); most flights would be around 15,000 feet (4,500 meters), the altitude where lightning was most statistically likely to strike. LaRC used an F-106B on loan from DFRC, considered top choice for the mission because of its thick wing skins and its larger-than-average bay with room for much experimental equipment.
All F-106B work was on storm hazards, divided into those that did or did not involve lightning (those unrelated to lightning were turbulence, wind shear, and storm-hazards correlation). Hazards from storms were factors in aircraft operations and design. Through the summer, WFC instruments would map thunderstorms and the exact location of the F-106B in them, to compare with pilot and instrument observations. (NASA Release 80-130; LaRC Release 80-56)
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