Aug 8 1969
From The Space Library
August 8-14: Zond VII automatic space station was launched by U.S.S.R. from Baikonur with "powerful carrier rocket" and placed on free-return lunar trajectory from parking orbit. Tass said mission objectives were to study moon and near-lunar space further, photograph lunar surface, and test improved onboard systems and design of "rocket-space complex." All equipment was functioning normally. On Aug. 11 Tass announced that spacecraft had circled moon on flight plan similar to that of Zond V (launched Sept. 15, 1968) and Zond VI (launched Nov. 10, 1968), had photographed lunar surface, and was returning to earth. Zond VII reentered atmosphere by skipping across outer layers of atmosphere to reduce its entry speed and then descended and softlanded in predetermined area near Kustanay in northern Kazakhstan Aug. 14. (SBD, 8/11/69, 120-1; 8/18/69, 152; NYT, 8/9/69, 26; 8/12/69, 6; 8/15/69, 14; GSFC SSR, 8/15/69)
August 8: NASA announced selection of Heliodyne Corp. and Wolf Research and Development Corp. for final negotiations leading to one-year $1-million, cost-plus-award-fee contract with two one-year options to operate National Space Science Data Center at GSFC. (NASA Release 69-118)
In Washington Daily News column Sen. Everett M. Dirksen (R-Ill.) said: "Unknowing voices clamor to us to give up the search into the unknown. They ask us to spend the money on things here on earth. They ask for something that already has been done. Where do you think the money is spent that sent Apollo 11 to the moon? It wasn't spent on the moon. There are no creatures there to benefit from the billions spent to finally land Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in the Sea of Tranquility. The money was spent here on earth, where it enriched the laborers, the craftsmen, the technicians, the engineers, the scientists- and their neighborhoods. It enriched the millions and millions of people who always benefit from industry. . . . (W News, 8/8/69, 23)
Washington Post editorial: "There was a certain logic in playing down the purely scientific aspects of the Apollo Program in the past since the effort was to land men on the moon before the Russians did. But that day is past. The scientists of space, as contrasted with its engineers and technicians have been forced into the back seat of the manned space program. It is time now to make them the navigators. The choice of missions-for future flights to the moon and for future operations that will lead some day to a trip to Mars and eventually other planets-should be largely in their hands. They, far better than the men who created the hardware and the knowledge necessary to make space travel possible, know the areas most appropriate for exploration in terms of gaining knowledge." (W Post, 8/8/69)
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