Mar 15 1966
From The Space Library
US. delegate to the Geneva disarmament conference Adrian Fisher urged U.S.S.R. to reconsider President Johnson’s offer of a “verified freeze” of the production of missiles and other strategic vehicles for launching nuclear bombs as a “logical first step in the control of the growth of inventories of strategic nuclear vehicles.” Soviet delegate Semyon K. Tsarapkin had rejected the US. plan March 3. ‘‘(NYT, 3/16/66, 10)’’
Compania Telefonica Nacionale de Espana (CTNE)-the Spanish national telephone company under NASA contract-awarded ITT contract to establish a ground station terminal complex on Grand Canary Island to support communications for US. Apollo mission. Stations, equipped with 42-ft. parabolic antenna reflectors, super-cooled low-noise amplifiers, and 10-kw transmitters, would furnish multichannel telephone and telegraph service. ‘‘(ITT Release)’’
New York Univ. announced completion of New York Univ.-NASA aerospace laboratory in Bronx was scheduled for June 1966. One-story, 15,000-sq.ft. facility constructed with $582,000 NASA grant would include wind tunnel capable of duplicating speeds of up to 14 times the speed of sound for four seconds; models of supersonic transports, spacecraft, and other advanced aerospace designs would be tested there. ‘‘(NYT, 3/16/66,55)’’
A laser to function as a ground-based device to recharge an orbiting satellite’s batteries was suggested by Dr. Charles H. Townes, MIT, and Dr. Arthur L. Schawlow, Stanford Univ., co-inventors of the laser, in a paper before the Optical Society of America’s meeting in Washington, D.C. Report predicted exploitation of the laser would grow into a billion-dollar industry by 1970. ‘‘(Clark, NYT, 3/16/66, 45M)’’
Employment in aerospace industry would increase to 1,266,000 by June 1966-a gain of 94,000 or eight per cent from September 1965, reported Karl G. Harr, Jr., president of Aerospace Industries Assn. Aircraft employment was expected to show greatest increase, with missile and space employment remaining relatively stable. ‘‘(Aerospace News, 3/15/66)’’
March 15-16: AAS-NSC Fourth Goddard Memorial Symposium-“Space Age in the Fiscal Year 2001”-was held in Washington, D.C. Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., NASA Deputy Administrator, delivering the first Annual Dr. Robert H. Goddard Lecture, stressed the importance of the contributions of men such as Dr. Robert H. Goddard and Dr. Hugh L. Dryden to the dramatic development of the space program: “The history of NASA reflects much of Dr. Dryden’s understanding of how progress can be made and what the conditions are that produce effective responses to the challenges being faced. A pivotal concept that has guided NASA administration has been that of the relation of the research and development project to many rapidly growing disciplines of science and technology. A project serves a larger purpose than its own defined immediate ends. A project is a disciplined and organized effort directed to a specific objective; one of its principal characteristics is. that it has a schedule. As such a project provides a creative and driving force in the total achievement of science, engineering, and technology . . .” ‘‘(Text)’’
Wesley A. Kuhrt, United Aircraft Research Laboratories, predicted interplanetary and translunar tourist travel for FY 2001: “A six-day round trip to the moon via 35-passenger, nuclear-powered ‘clipper’ ships would cost each adventurer $10,000. For an 18-month trip to Venus, the passenger would pay $32,000. Steerage class to Mars, a two-year undertaking, would cost $35,000. But for $70,000 a passenger could ride the Mars Express to and from the red planet in 11 months. . . .” All fares assumed the Government would underwrite the cost of developing the spacecraft, Kuhrt said. Other predictions made at the symposium included teams of superhuman astronauts bred over several generations as a result of present studies in genetics and molecular basis of life; communications between ordinary persons in their homes and anyone, anywhere; versatile robots to perform human tasks; cosmic cargo transported at $10 per pound; network of satellites to link everyone in the world so they could speak in their native languages via rapid automatic translating computers; and man-shaped robots sending back threedimensional pictures to human masters hundreds of miles away. Harvard astronomer Carl Sagan speculated that the trip from other galaxies had already been made and that earth had already been visited from space at least once. ‘‘(Text)’’
Rep. Joseph E. Karth (D-Minn.) told a luncheon audience that “we must lay out basic objectives far enough ahead that they will serve as relatively fixed goals-or in non-technical terms, as dreams. Such an early dream of man was to fly like a bird; later, we gradually translated this dream into making it easy for everyone to fly in an aircraft. We have these dreams and they affect our progress strongly. . . . ” To meet these ends, Karth recommended forming a “Hoover-type” Commission to review planning and decision-making system in the area of science and technology. In addition he cited the need for “frequent, systematic, large-scale surveys and analysis of science and technology from the near-term to the distant frontiers of knowledge. . . .” ‘‘(Text)’’
In a prediction of what the “Space Age Society” would be like in 2001, NASC Executive Secretary Dr. Edward C. Welsh told the symposium: “The major development over the coming years will be the speed of change. We already have great difficulty maintaining our perspective regarding the change which has taken place during the last 8 or 10 years. Well, that rate of change is like the tortoise pace compared with what is coming in the future. . . . “Some with fertile imaginations foresee the time when there will be large scale emigration from earth to growing settlements on the moon and the planets. While I see the great growth in the ability to travel to such distant spots safely and speedily, I see little likelihood of any sizable movement of population even though nuclear reactors would furnish much of the competence to make conditions in such places both livable and productive. My reason for not predicting such movement is due to the simple belief that living conditions are going to be so improved here on earth that few would want to leave. . . . As for space travel, we can certainly let our imaginations soar, as we are now only in the infancy of growth. The space child has barely learned to walk. The future with its space travel being almost as common as airplane travel is today is yet to come . . . but it will come. interplanetary trips, at speeds many times what we now attain, will take place in craft as reusable as the jet plane is today, with at least as many passengers aboard. . . . “One more thing I can predict with great confidence. The debate on the worthwhileness of space technology and space exploration-still continuing on the part of those of little vision-will have disappeared completely within a decade or so. The benefits will have become so obvious and the potential so exciting that even the most near-sighted will be aware of the rich space harvest. . . .” ‘‘(Text, Wash. Post, 3/16/66, AID; Hoffmann, N. Y. Her. Trib., 3/16/66)’’
Importance of materials science and space vehicle technology was discussed by Milton B. Ames, Jr., Director of Space Vehicle Research and Technology, NASA Hq. OART. “The structural designer of future launch vehicles will face many new and challenging problems. Launch vehicles . . . [will be] larger, complex, and more costly. If we are to reuse these launch vehicles without having to spend large sums of money either to bring them back or to refurbish them after recovery, major advances will be required in structural and materials technology.” Development of new materials and methods, such as “superinsulations” ‘to prevent heat leakage; stronger shielding materials to protect spacecraft from meteoroids and intense radiation; advanced lifting-body designs for greater reentry precision; and folding spacecraft parts which could be reassembled in space, would play a major role in US. space program before the year 2000, he said. ‘‘(Text)’’
Dr. Charles S. Sheldon II, NASC staff member, discussed overall economic outlook for space age up to FY 2001. Sheldon noted that US. space program took about one per cent of gross national product and estimated that “Soviet Union is putting about two per cent of their GNP into space efforts . . . .The close tie with military rocketry has speeded space development in these recent years, but it has also saddled space technology with an expendable ammunition philosophy rather than aiming at the lower operating costs of a recoverable transport philosophy. . . . “Today we probably are headed toward an age of conservation, and one of deliberate recycling . . . the task of the remainder of this century may include the development of closed ecological systems for long duration space fight, and on a different scale, heroic measures to recycle waste water and to reprocess industrial and consumer wastes into reusable products. . . . “If our urbanized society requires closed ecological systems even here on Earth, we can, in effect, air condition whole cities.” Discussing weather modification and climate control, he said: “. . . whether we bend nature itself, or create new sealed urban units, each almost self-sufficient in its ability to control its temperature, clean and recycle its air and water, and put all other wastes to productive use, some such heroic measures will be needed as this century runs out.” ‘‘(Text)’’
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