April 1965
From The Space Library
More than 100 delegates from Eurospace toured U.S. aerospace installations, including NASA Kennedy Space Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, and facilities of U.S. firms corresponding to Eurospace member companies. Purpose of the U.S. European Space Conference was to bring together top industrial leaders from European and American aerospace companies to review problems posed for the industry by evolution of space technology. (M&R, 4/26/65, 9)
A $2,3-million test facility expected to improve space storability of liquid and solid rocket propulsion systems would be completed at the Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory at Edwards AFB, Missiles and Rockets reported. (M&R, 4/26/65, 10)
The 2,000th full-scale solid rocket motor of the Polaris A-3 model was shipped to Navy's Pacific Missile Facility where it would be integrated into an operational missile. (J/Armed Forces, 4/24/65, 15)
Walter R. Dornberger, vice president in charge of research for Bell Aerosystem Co, wrote in the company's bimonthly magazine, Rendezvous, the United States was spending too much for space exploration. As a start to cutting costs, Dornberger proposed developing space boosters that could be recovered and reused. (AP, Milwaukee J., 4/14/65)
AFCRL experiment proved that a radio signal transmitted by an orbiting satellite could be trapped between two layers of the ionosphere and, upon emergence, channeled to ground stations half way around the world. Scientists had been aware of the ionospheric ducting capability for a number of years, but it had not been fully explored before the orbiting satellite experiment. (OAR Release 4-65-1)
Dr. Willard F. Libby, chemist and Director of UCLA Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, advocated emphasis on manned scientific missions in the U.S. space program. "In my opinion, space is a great unknown from which we will obtain many new scientific discoveries." He approved of the use of scientist-astronauts, "but they must be backed much more wholeheartedly by the entire scientific community, particularly the academic community, than is at present the case. Education will help to accomplish this eventually, but there is a particular urgency to determine the post-Apollo objectives in the near future," A solution to the immediate problem, which had been proposed to and adopted by NASA: formation of a "Scientific Task Force," made up of scientists about the same age as the astronauts, to work and live at MSC and be closely connected with the astronauts, MSC Director Dr. Robert R. Gilruth, Director of the Office of Space Sciences Dr. Homer E. Newell, and the Advisory Committee for Science and Technology. The Scientific Task Force would educate the scientific community with the manned space flight program and thereby acquire its ideas on the subject, and acquaint the NASA directors with the ideas for scientific experiments suggested by the academic community. (A&A, 4/65, 70-75)
Martin Summerfield, Princeton Univ., said in AIAA editorial that most of the critics of the U.S. space program were erecting and knocking down "straw men." Some of the attacks on the space program were designed to divert space funds "to other, supposedly more important purposes," and these viewpoints are "pushed too hard and can lead the nation in dangerous directions," The more significant criticism on scientific grounds was that ground-based instruments (supplemented by unmanned probes) can gather data about space, the moon and other celestial bodies more effectively than rocket-launched exploration. This criticism, he said, "misses the mark completely because it takes for granted that the national space program-or at least the NASA part of it-was conceived simply as a scientific venture..." He recalled the words of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which provided "clearly . , the overriding intent to develop the technology of space flight as an extension of the former NACA's commitment to aeronautical flight, , "The real issue is whether the nation should continue to develop the technology for flight in space, capitalizing on such useful applications as seem practical from time to time. The answer can only be 'yes,' and nothing less than a vigorous program will do. It makes no sense to insist that so broad a program be evaluated in competition with telescopes or unmanned scientific probes. Advances in space science will not substitute for flying capability. Each of these efforts is important in its own right... " (A&A, 4/65, 23)
Orville H. Daniel discussed small rockets-chiefly meteorological sounding rockets-in International Science and Technology. "Forty years ago, when Dr. Goddard was performing his first experiments, all rockets were small rockets. Today, with thrusts nearing 10 million pounds and rocket vehicles approaching the size of small skyscrapers, a 500pound-thrust rocket seems like a relic of the past, Nevertheless, such small rockets remain as important to science and as challenging to technology as Dr. Goddard's fledglings were in his day. About 1500 of them were fired last year for various scientific purposes... ." (Int, Sci. & Tech., 4/65, 32-37)
Cosmic x-ray detection experiment carried aloft by an Aerobee sounding rocket discovered the first two extragalactic x-ray sources and identified a variable x-ray source within the Milky Way galaxy. The two extragalactic sources-Sygnus A and M-87-were found to emit x-radiation 10 to 100 times their radio and light energy. The variable x-ray source was Cassiopeia A. Details of the experimental results were announced March 2, 1966, by Dr. Herbert Friedman, Naval Research Laboratory physicist, Project was conducted by Dr. Friedman, E. T. Byram, and T. A. Chubb of NRL under sponsorship of NRL and National Science Foundation. (Clark, NYT, 3/3/66; MA, 4/66, 98, 100)
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