Dec 2 1968

From The Space Library

Retirement of H. Julian Allen as Director of Ames Research Center, announced Oct 25, would be deferred, NASA announced. Allen would be Special Assistant to Associate Director, Office of Advanced Research and Technology, and would serve as Acting Director of ARC for indefinite period. ARC Associate Director James F. Parsons, named to be Acting Director after Allen's retirement, had become seriously ill. Parsons died March 2, 1969. (NASA Ann, 12/2/68; ARC Memo from Director to Staff, 3/3/69)

U.S.S.R. published Zond VI photo of 70-mi-wide lunar crater carrying name honoring geneticist Nikolay I. Vavilov, who had been sent to Si­beria in 1939 for opposing ideas of Trofim D. Lysenko, and his brother Sergei I. Vavilov, who had later become president of Soviet Academy of Sciences. Nikolay Vavilov died in Siberia in 1943; his brother died in 1951 Soviet name for crater, Brothers Vavilov, had not yet been ac­credited by International Astronomical Union. (NYT, 12/3/68, 36)

President Johnson presented 1968 Enrico Fermi Award in White House ceremony to Dr. John Archibald Wheeler, Princeton Univ. physicist, for "pioneering contributions to understanding nuclear fission and to developing the technology of plutonium production reactors and his continuing broad contributions to nuclear science." Award carried gold medal, citation, and $25,000. (PD, 12/9/68, 1956; W Post, 12/3/68, A2; W Star, 12/3/68, A6)

DOD announced issuance of $4,400,000 initial increment to $31,132,689 cost-plus-incentive-fee USAF contract with Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. for launch support services at WTR. (DOn Release 1060-68)

U.K., West Germany, and the Netherlands had decided to pool secrets and build centrifuge separation plant to produce cheap enriched-ura­nium reactor fuel, Don Cook reported in Washington Post. In 1962 agreement with U.S., the countries had contracted to keep experimenta­tion in centrifuge secret from each other. In addition to U.S., U.S.S.R. and Communist China produced enriched uranium by gaseous-diffusion process. (W Post, 12/2/68, A3)

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• 1969