Nov 8 1963
From The Space Library
ITU conference on communications frequency allocation concluded in Geneva on a successful note. Joseph McConnell, president of the Reynolds Metal Co. and head of the U.S. delegation, talked from Geneva via SYNCOM II communications satellite about the results of the conference. Final agreement had set aside some 2,800 megacycles of the spectrum for use of space communications. This was somewhat more than the U.S. had requested, although not all of it in the portions of the spectrum that the U.S. had wanted. (NASA Press Conference Transcript; Wash. Post, 11/9/63)
West Germany joined the list of nations participating in satellite communications with the opening of its narrowband station at Raisting. A wideband station to permit television transmission was under construction. Raisting became the seventh station in the satellite communications network. Other narrowband stations were at Nutley, N.J.; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Fucino, Italy. Wideband stations were at Andover, Me.; Goonhilly Downs, -U.K.; and Pleumeur-Bodou, France. (NASA Release 63-250)
Army Corps of Engineers issued invitations to bid on construction of a Vibration Test Laboratory to be built at NASA Manned Spacecraft Center for an approximate cost of $1.5 million. The laboratory would contain some 13,700 sq. ft. and have a general vibration test area 42 ft. high, a spacecraft vibration test area 115 ft. high, and provision for offices, shops, anti control rooms. Bids would be opened on Jan. 9, 1964. (MSC Release 63-226)
Sen. Philip A. Hart (D.-Mich.) introduced a bill (S.2298) to establish a Commission on the Application of Technology to Community and Manpower Needs. The Commission would be composed of members from Government, science, industry, and labor. It would study the current technology and its growth potential, looking to selection of those areas of benefit to national and community needs. It would also study and make recommendations on the impact of technological application. (CR, 11/8/63, 20376-79)
In lecture on "The Practical and Impractical Uses of Space" at Catholic University, Dr. Edward Teller supported the U.S. lunar program but parried questions on the reasons. "I just don't know why . . . I wanted to go to the moon before Sputnik." Teller stated that he believed that water could be drawn from lunar rocks by underground nuclear explosions : "One hundred tons of water on the moon would be the equivalent of 100 tons of gold here." He said that contamination of the water would not be a problem as the U.S. had already developed "clean" bombs and that even cleaner bombs are possible. (Ayres, Wash. Post, 11/9/63, C14)
MSC officials stated that the reason the first Little Joe II did not terminate at the proper time and altitude was because the primer cord joining the initiator to the charge that would have exploded the casing of the Algol engine, thus terminating propulsion, was not connected. (Maloney, Houston Post, 11/9/63)
Large fireball streaked across San Francisco Bay area sky, landing in the Pacific Ocean several miles off-shore, and witnessed by thousands of residents. Fireball was presumed to be a meteor. (AP, Wash. Post, 11/8/63, A3)
Cleveland Clinic kept a calf alive for 20 hours after its heart had been replaced by a mechanical heart system. The controls to drive the pump of this mechanical heart were designed for the Clinic by NASA Lewis Research Center pump specialists. (Lewis Chronology, 11)
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