Apr 3 1965
From The Space Library
AEC's 970-lb, SNAPSHOT spacecraft carrying Snap-10A nuclear reactor was successfully launched from Vandenberg AFB by an Atlas Agena booster into nearly circular polar orbit; 820-mi. (1,320 km.) apogee; 788-mi. (1,269 km-) perigee; 112 min. period; 90.17° inclination. Four hours after injection into orbit, radio command from earth activated the 250-lb nuclear reactor by moving internal shielding that had kept the emission of electrons from the uranium-235 fuel element from reaching the chain reaction stage. 'The reactor would provide electric power for a 2.2-lb. ion engine. This was the first attempt to test a reactor-ion system in orbit. Twelve hours after launch, radio signals from the Agena vehicle carrying the reactor indicated it was producing 620-668 watts of electricity-some 20% over its designed power. Electricity generated by the reactor would be stored in a 480-lb bank of batteries and released as the ion engine was put through start-stop tests during a three-month period. The engine would manufacture its own power by electrically vaporizing the 3½ oz, of the metal cesium in its fuel tank into atomic particles and expelling them at high speed through a nozzle to provide thrust of two-thousandths of a pound. AEC said the satellite would stay aloft more than 3,000 yrs,-far beyond the 100 yrs. it would take for the reactor's radioactive elements to decay to a safe level. The reactor would be shut down after a year, the ion engine after about three months. If successful, the test would signal the first operation in space of a light, compact, propulsion system that would produce power over long periods on small amounts of fuel for (1) surveillance and patrol satellites functioning in orbit for years, and (2) manned spaceships capable of speeds of 100,000 mph on trips to distant planets now beyond the reach of conventionally-fuelled rockets. Also orbited was U.S. Army SECOR IV geodetic satellite. (Hill, NYT, 4/5/65; AP, Wash. Post, 4/4/65; UPI, Chic. Trib., 4/5/65; AEC Release H-60; U.S. Aeron. & Space Act., 1965, 139; Atomic Energy Programs, 1965, 151)
NASA Nike-Apache sounding rocket was launched from Ft. Churchill, Canada, to altitude of 204.67 km. (127.2 mi.) with Rice University experiment to make time resolution measurements of electron fluxes within an aurora for use in determining transit times of these electrons from their sources, Performance was satisfactory. (NASA Rpt. SRL )
USAF School of Aerospace Medicine was conducting experiments on 13 rhesus monkeys at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to discover how nuclear radiation would affect auditory, visual, and motor systems. Studies might ultimately reveal how man would be affected under similar conditions. Each monkey was conditioned to respond to a visual or auditory cue; by measuring the time required for animal to respond before and after radiation exposure, scientists could determine the effect of radiation on monkey's ability to perform. Preliminary results had confirmed that "animals exposed to radiation undergo a period shortly after irradiation in which they are totally unable to function." (NYT, 4/4/65, 68)
In Saturday Review, Science Editor John Lear reviewed GSFC's Project Firefly as "an epic experiment that will at least track the essential spark of life wherever it can be found beyond the earth." He reviewed Dr. William D. McElroy's pioneering research in bioluminescence [see March 11] and noted that Norman E. MacLeod, head of GSFC Bioscience Group, emphasized in interviews the contribution of the Johns Hopkins scientist. He also reviewed the flight of "robot photographer named Ranger 8," concluding "The Russians tend to be more practical about small but crucial obstacles than Americans do. Although they are years ahead in rocketry (having now demonstrated the ability to move a man out through the hatchway of a spaceship in flight and safely back again-a preliminary step to using the hatchway to link the two spaceships that will travel as one to the moon), they have not yet been so brash as to announce a date by which they will make a manned landing- on the moon, Before we become still more acutely embarrassed by our lunar braggadocio, it would seem wise for Washington to abandon the virtually impossible 1970 deadline for putting an American on the moon." (SR, 4/3/65, 45-48)
Sen. J. W. Fullbright (D-Ark,), speaking at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, criticized the U.S. "crash program aimed at landing on the moon by 1970 at a cost of $20-to-$30 billion," He said that "... the moon is only one of our aspirations, a distant one at that, and in the meantime we have children to educate and cities to rebuild," Fulbright cited education as the nation's paramount deficit and advocated orienting "our space program to our own needs instead of letting the Russians determine for us what we will do and how much we will spend." (UPI, Boston Sun, Globe, 4/4/65)
"Our military space program is a wall decoration," said James J. Hagerty, Jr. in an editorial in the Journal of the Armed Forces, He continued: Jr., technology is there, but we are not exploiting it, Our DOD civilian leadership is content to drift along with the idea that someday we'll get around to it if we need it. This attitude seems to be based on the theory often advanced by Secretary McNamara and echoed by [NASA Administrator] Mr. Webb in his Hill testimony, that there is 'little chance that the Russians can develop a surprise military [space] capability'... If there is any chance at all, we should be doing something more than we're doing." (Haggerty, J/Armed Forces, 4/3/65, 8)
Walter Henry Barling, Sr, who built the Barling bomber in 1923 for Gen. Billy Mitchell, died at 75. Mr. Barling was one of aviation's first test pilots and his Barling bomber was the world's largest airplane at the time. (AP, NYT, 4/5/65, 31)
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