Nov 23 1964
From The Space Library
NASA successfully launched a Nike-Apache sounding rocket to an altitude of 110.8 mi. from Wallops Island, Va. Experimental objectives were: (1) to measure daytime ion and electron densities and solar ultraviolet flux in the region from 31-124 mi.; (2) to test efficiency of loop antenna section for extending CW propagation measurements to "D" region altitudes. (NASA Rpt. SRL)
NASA announced that USNS Croatan had completed its successful shakedown cruise off the Virginia-North Carolina coast during which a number of sounding rockets were launched for NASA. Electronic equipment and operational procedures were checked out in preparation for using the USNS Croatan as a mobile launch platform early in 1965. During this three-month NASA expedition, forty or more scientific experiments would be launched from the USNS Croatan as part of NASA's sounding rocket program in connection with the International Quiet Sun Year (IQSY), 1964-1965. (Wallops Release 64-86; NASA Release 64-294)
USAF announced selection of the first six astronauts for its manned orbiting laboratory (MOL) program. An additional six would be named in early 1965. Following a six-month basic training course, the crewmen, all graduates of USAF's Aerospace Research Pilot School, would be assigned specialty areas. (Av. Wk., 11/23/64, 25)
Paul P. Haney, Public Affairs Officer at NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, asserted that the bulk of 550 communications regarding NASA scientist-astronauts had to be classified as letters of interest. Seventy-five per cent of this number, or 412, Were lacking some detail and about 100 had been eliminated altogether. The number of applications was ahead of the number received for other classes of astronaut, he said. These figures clarified figures given by Julian Scheer, NASA Assistant Administrator for Public Affairs, who had said on Nov. 22 that only 20 applications had been received and that only nine of these applicants qualified. (Houston Post, 11/24/64)
Aviation Week reported that Soviet space-medicine specialists were considering bacterial compatibility in their selection of cosmonaut teams for the three-man Voskhod spacecraft. This was an important consideration because of the difficulty of preventing communication of bacterial flora, which might be harmless to one man and dangerous to another, in a closed-cabin environment. It was not known whether persons with similar metabolic processes would be selected for a single crew or whether those with extremely different ones might not compensate each other, nor had it been determined whether the VOSKHOD I flight crew was selected for bacterial compatibility. (Av. Wk., 11/23/64, 59)
November 23-24: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center was host at the jointly sponsored Goddard-IEEE Short Term Frequency Stability Symposium to some 310 scientists and engineers from across the country, England, Canada, and Switzerland. The symposium was the first of its kind to study problems associated with generating stable frequencies in the micro-wave region for the control, guidance, and tracking of launch vehicles and satellites. (Goddard News, 11/30/64, 1)
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