Nov 17 1965
From The Space Library
International Association of Machinists union rejected McDonnell Aircraft Corp.'s latest contract proposal and prepared for a strike at midnight tomorrow that would halt the production of Gemini space capsules and F-4 Phantom jet fighter planes. McDonnell had offered a nine-cent-an-hour wage increase in each of the next three years and various improvements in fringe benefits and working conditions. Union members said, however, that the improvements still would not put them on a par with other workers in the aerospace and aircraft industries. (AP, NYT, 11/18/65, 27; AP, Wash. Eve. Star, 11/18/65, A3)
Tracking and telemetry station to support Applications Technology Satellites (ATS) would be established by NASA at Toowoomba in eastern Australia near Brisbane at an approximate cost of $6 million, Plans for the new station were jointly announced by NASA Administrator James E. Webb and Australian Minister for Supply Allen Fairhall. (NASA Release 65-357)
Balloon experiment with a collection system to study the Leonid meteor shower was flown from Palestine, Tex, the National Center for Atmospheric Control announced. It cruised at about 95,000-ft, altitude for about 10 hrs, and ended its flight near Concord, N.C. (AP, NYT, 11/20/65, 11)
NASA Associate Administrator Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., told the National Space Club in Washington, D.C., that the time had come for the Administration to decide on what goals it wanted to set for the period after landing astronauts on the moon. The U.S. must use the tremendous space capability it had carefully built up since SPUTNIK he said, "or see its value erode. If we do not use what we have created, continued expansion of the Soviet program will likely lead to future Soviet missions that will have the impact of SPUTNIK I." (Text)
Discussing long-term plans of the nuclear rocket program, Dr. Harold B. Finger, Manager, AEC-NASA Space Nuclear Propulsion Office, said he foresaw development of a nuclear rocket engine having a thrust of 200,000 lbs, to 250,000 lbs., using reactors designed for 4,000 to 5,000 megawatts, and capable of direct-flight lunar landing missions; deep space unmanned space missions; and manned planetary missions, He said development of such an engine would utilize the technology already available and being developed through the Kiwi, Nerva, and Phoebus reactor programs. (AEC Release, 11/17/65)
Christopher C. Kraft, flight director for the Gemini program, escaped death or serious injury when the gun pointed at him by a teenage boy wanting to go to Cuba to aid anti-Castro prisoners misfired. Incident occurred aboard a jet airliner enroute to Miami from New Orleans. The young gunman, identified as Thomas Robinson, 16, of Brownsville, Tex., was disarmed by one of the passengers and subdued by Kraft and Paul P. Haney, chief of public information at MSC. (AP, Balt. Sun, 11/18/65)
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