Aug 5 1965
From The Space Library
S-IC-T, 138-ft,-tall test version of Saturn V's first stage, was static-fired for 2½ min. at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in first full-duration test-firing. The five F-1 engines, each consuming liquid oxygen and kerosene at the rate of three tons a second, generated 7.5 million lbs. thrust. Ability of the engines to steer the rocket was also successfully demonstrated. The five-engine cluster was mounted so that only the one in the middle of the cross-shaped array was stationary. The others could gimbal slightly in pairs. (MSFC Release 65197; Marshall Star, 8/11/65, 1)
NASA announced selection of Documentation, Inc., Bethesda, Md, to operate its Scientific and Technical Information Facility, the world's largest collection of aerospace literature, in a Government-provided building in College Park, Md. Contract negotiations were expected to result in a cost-plus-award fee contract for approximately $3.6 million, In Fiscal Year 1965, the contract figure was $4.9 million. Mission of the facility was to acquire and organize worldwide technical reports in the aerospace sciences, indexes, abstracts, and items on space exploration; prepare announcement journals; process selected items on microfilm; and provide a central reference service to NASA and its contractors. (NASA Release 65-263)
James C. Elms and L/Gen. Frank A. Bogart (USAF-Ret.) had been appointed NASA Deputy Associate Administrators for Manned Space Flight effective Sept. 1, Dr. George E. Mueller, NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, announced. Elms had served as Deputy Director of NASA Manned Spacecraft Center before assuming his present position as vice president of Raytheon Co, General Bogart, former USAF comptroller, had served as Director for Management Operations, OMSF, since February, Paul E. Cotton, who had been assistant to Dr. Mueller since November 1963, would become Director of Manned Space Flight Management Operations, succeeding General Bogart, B/Gen. Julian H. Bowman (USAF, Ret.) would succeed Cotton, General Bowman had been a special assistant to Dr. Mueller. (NASA Release 65-264)
Gifford K. Johnson, farmer president of the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest; Dallas, was sworn in by NASA Administrator James E. Webb as a NASA consultant. He would provide advice and guidance in the areas of technology utilization and: technology reporting programs. (NASA Release 65-268)
Ham Zimmer, chief of a West Berlin satellite tracking station, said the U.S.S.R. had secretly launched 4 second spacecraft with PROTON I July 16. The unannounced spacecraft said Zimmer, had been brought back to earth landing near Magnitogorsk 300 mi. north of the Aral Sea, between 3 a.m., and 3:25 a.m. (EDT) July 31. (Wash. Post, 8/6/65)
An editorial discussing space weapons appeared in the Washington Evening Star: "Secretary of State Rusk . . is on record as having warned that the ocean: of space might support 'huge nuclear-propelled dreadnaughts armed with thermonuclear weapons. The moan might be turned into a military base. Ways might be found to cascade radioactive waves upon an enemy and there may be other equally deadly spatial advances. The same opinion is held by highly placed military officers. "As General Ferguson of the Air Force put it a couple of years ago, in urging the swiftest possible development of an American military patrol' in space, no one even dimly foresaw the nuclear bomber when the airplane began to operate a half century ago... if we ignore General Ferguson, we could lose everything. As a matter of prudence, our country should at least maintain a program of research and development designed to insure it against the danger of becoming second best in the military uses of space." (Wash. Eve. Star, 8/5/65)
Saline water would be distilled and made potable under a $185-million study program adopted by both the House and Senate, Shortly before the measure passed, President Johnson had told his science advisers to push desalinization "as if you knew you were going to run out of drinking water in the next six months." (CR, 8/5/65), 18756-57)
August 5-6: NASA held an international meeting at Wallops Station to discuss overall objectives and conduct of the Inter-American Experimental Meteorological Rocket Network (EXAMETNET) . Representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, 'Mexico, Peru, the Weather Bureau, and NASA took part in the meeting. Preliminary plans called for network stations to be located at Wallops Station; Natal, Brazil; and Chamical, Argentina, with others to be added in both hemispheres later. Personnel from all participating countries would receive training at Wallops Station with NASA providing the training and the launch vehicles for sounding rocket launches from stations throughout the northern and southern hemispheres, General purpose of the network was to contribute to studies of atmospheric structure and behavior in the southern hemisphere and to help explain atmospheric differences and similarities between the northern and southern hemispheres. (NASA Release 65-45; SBD, 8/5/65, 172)
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