Aug 16 1967
From The Space Library
USAF launched unidentified satellite from WTR using Titan III-B booster; satellite reentered Aug. 28. (Pres Rep 1967)
Astronauts Walter M. Schirra, Donn F. Eisele, and Walter Cunningham toured McDonnell Douglas Test Facility near Sacramento to inspect 3rd stage of the Saturn V booster which would be used to launch them on first manned Apollo mission in 1968. Schirra told newsmen that NASA would not be "pressed by the press" into flying the mission on a specific date. Asked if he believed pressure from the press was in any way responsible for the Jan. 27 fire, Schirra replied: ". . . I found that whenever we . . . get together with the members of the press that you're right away asking us, `Well, now when are you going to fly?' That's almost the first question, and it's not a very unique question. . . . It seems you want that answer that may be hard news, but when we give YOU that answer then if we don't make that date, for some reason or another it appears that we're failing our goal. While the goal is to have a successful flight at a reasonable time rather than an early failure. . . ." (Transcript)
NASA's MARINER V spacecraft had reached the halfway point in elapsed time in its 128-day, 216-million-mi flight to Venus. Scheduled to fly by the planet Oct. 19, spacecraft had traveled 98,667,000 mi in 64 days. It was scheduled to reach midway mark in distance Aug. 22. (NASA Release 67-223)
The Federal Government had involved itself in the SST program because failure to do so would have resulted in a loss of jobs and progress in U.S. aviation industry, M/G J. C. Maxwell (USAF), Director of FAA SST Development, told the National Space Club. "The aircraft industry had been challenged by a powerful consortium [[[Concorde]]] of two large aircraft companies fully subsidized by two major governments. Our aircraft companies did not have the resources to meet this challenge. The government acted." Federal participation had resulted in some major side effects, Maxwell said. "We were able to make available to all potential SST contractors a vast amount of technological information that the government had acquired in its own huge aircraft endeavors. The flight test experiences of the B-70, the SR-71, and the F-111 were and are being provided to our SST contractors. . . . We were able . . . to contribute some 49,000 hours of SST wind tunnel tests conducted by NASA. The military . . . has logged some 300,000 hours of supersonic experience. . . . The SST program is founded on the experience and know-how from other programs sponsored and paid for by the government-and that includes the space effort. "Another benefit . . . [was] the fact that the resources of the whole aviation industry were brought into the project. Our search for the best design was, in every sense of the word, a competition. The best talent and genius of American aeronautical engineering was put to work." (Text)
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