February 1966
From The Space Library
Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, Director of MSFC Research Projects Laboratory, summarized progress in development of electric propulsion in Astronautics & Aeronautics: “The first laboratory experiments with electrostatic thrustors began in 1958. In the early thrustor models, power efficiencies and propellant-utilization efficiencies were 20-30%; lifetimes did not exceed a few hours; ion-current densities were less than 1 milliamp/cm2; the problem of beam neutralization was unsolved was not even well understood. Mission applications seemed far in the future. Today, only seven years later, electrostatic thrustors are very close to flight readiness. Two systems, the ion-bombardment system and the surface-ionization system, have reached power efficiencies and propellant efficiencies above 90%; they produce ion currents of about 20 milliamp/cm2. Beam neutralization has proven in the laboratory as well as in actual space tests, and engine lifetimes of several-thousand hours have been demonstrated. With a few more years of refinement and quality engineering, these ion thrustors will be ready for extended missions into interplanetary space. . . .” ‘‘(A&A, 2/66, 71-2)’’
Arnold Frutkin, NASA Assistant Administrator for International Affairs, noted two viewpoints on achieving Soviet cooperation in space research in Astronautics & Aeronautics: “. . . the one holds that the answer . . . lies in finding a suitable device, either bilateral or international-a new idea, an imaginative approach, a twist . . . for example, a proposal for an international space laboratory. . . . ‘“the other view is that the device is substantially irrelevant and that it is the basic relationship between the two countries, the basic political and military realities, which will determine at any given time whether cooperation is feasible or not.” (A&A, 2/66, 20)’’
Dr. Raymond L. Bisplinghoff, former NASA Associate Administrator for Advanced Research and Technology and new AIAA president, wrote his first “President’s Message” in Astronautics & Aeronautics: “One of the dilemmas of modern times is that science and technology can do a multitude of things-many of which the community may not necessarily desire and so will not support. As professionals we have tended to preoccupy ourselves with the potential of science and technology rather than the expressed needs of the community. A responsible professional society of the future must find . . . the wisdom among its members to relate its technologies to human needs. A wise professional society . . . will convey the legitimate aspirations of its thinkers and men of action to the community at large. . . .” ‘‘(A&A, 2/66, 29)’’
Japan scheduled launch of her first earth satellite for March 26 with four-stage, 8.6-ton Lambda booster. Planned orbit would have 723-km. (480-mi.) apogee and 290-km. (180-mi.) perigee. If successful, Japan would become fourth nation to orbit spacecraft. ‘‘(NYT, 2/27/66, 33; UPI, Wash . Post, 2/27/66)’’
Commenting on national space goals in the post-Apollo period, Henry Simmons said in Astronautics & Aeronautics: “NASA over the past year quietly shifted its emphasis from an AAP exploiting already financed Apollo hardware for alternate missions to a much vaster AAP involving outlays on the scale of the Apollo lunar effort itself to support an intensive follow-on effort extending perhaps to 1975. Some NASA Centers engaged in the Apollo program, and particularly the Marshall Space Flight Center, are already confronted with the prospect of unemployment among their most skilled and valuable design personnel. ‘We are right now in the position where over the next six months the engineers who did the original design on the Saturn and probably a year from now those who did it on the Apollo will be out of work,’ NASA Administrator James E. Webb told the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences during its hearings last August on post-Apollo goals. . . .” ‘‘(A&A, 2/66, 5)’’
ARC scientists who had produced organic material in simulated Jupiter atmosphere said presence of some form of life on Jupiter and other planets was possible, but unlikely. They would continue experiments to find out more about chemical processes that occur at very low temperatures. ‘‘(UPI, NYT, 2/19/66, 44)’’
MSFC was using seven vessels to transport Saturn I-B and Saturn V rocket stages and components too large for conventional road, rail, or air transport between manufacturing, test, and launch sites. MSFC’s marine transportation had grown from one craft in 1960 to present size of six river and ocean-going barges-Promise, Palaemon, Little Lake, Pearl River, Orion, and Poseidon-and one ship-USS Pt. Barrow. ‘‘(MSFC Release 66-36; Marshall Star, 2/16/66).
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