Apr 7 1975
From The Space Library
Thor-Delta launch operations at the Eastern and Western Test Ranges had resumed on a limited basis despite the continuing strike by employees of the launch vehicle's manufacturer, McDonnell Douglas Corp. [see 10 Feb and 22-23 March], Aviation Week and Space Technology reported. With supervisory personnel at the company's plant completing the hardware in the place of striking workers, McDonnell Douglas hoped to finish 10 of the 12 launch vehicles scheduled for delivery to NASA launch sites by the end of 1975. NASA's GEOS-C Geodynamic Experimental Ocean Satellite and Canada's Telestar-C communications satellite, both originally scheduled for March, had been rescheduled for April and May launch on Thor-Delta vehicles delivered before the strike began. Other launch dates would depend on the buildup and checkout of booster hardware at the launch site, and on availability of hardware still at the plant.
Other scheduled launches affected by the strike included Nimbus F experimental satellite, OSO-I Orbiting Solar Observatory, and Communications Satellite Corp.'s Marisat-A maritime communications satellite. (Av Wk, 7 April 75, 17)
The European Space Research Organization (ESRO) announced the award of a $4.4 million [3.5 million accounting units] contract to a European consortium to provide software for ESRO's Meteosat meteorological satellite, scheduled for launch in April 1977. Under the terms of the contract the consortium, consisting of companies in France, United Kingdom, West Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Sweden, would provide data-acceptance capability, image processing, operational mission support, data archiving, analysis and dissemination of image data, and monitoring of the overall data-processing system.
Meteosat, ESRO's first applications satellite, would record and transmit data for more accurate weather forecasting. (ESRO Release, 7 April 75)
The relationship of the scientific community to any White House advisory panel should be the "same as for any other pressure group," Haywood Blum said in a letter to the editor of the New York Times. Based on past performance, "it seems to be unlikely for the scientific community to agree on any substantive issue; witness the ABM [antiballistic missile], SST [supersonic transport], National Cancer Institute, underground nuclear testing, use of DDT and breeder reactor development fights, to name only a few." Further, the wisdom and perspective of the scientific establishment "remain in doubt." One example was in scientific training in a time of the over-production of Ph.D.s: Dwindling funds were being used not to develop young scientists but to support "the Grant Swinger," who flew from place to place around the world "making contacts while recent graduates were squeezed out of their disciplines." The President needed counsel but, because the scientific community could not provide truly objective and balanced advice, "would it not be better for [this] advice to be exposed to public scrutiny?" (NYT, 7 April 75, 30)
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