Aug 6 1965
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (2MB PDF)
Milton O. Thompson (NASA) flew X-15 No. 1 to maximum altitude of 103,200 ft. and maximum speed of 3,534 mph (mach 5.15) to obtain data for the infrared scanner program and the stability and control system. (NASA X-15 Proj, Off,; X-15 Flight Log)
NASA had awarded a contract to Rice Univ. for a new type of Explorer satellite designed to extend studies of near-earth atmosphere phenomena, especially auroral phenomena, Under a cost-reimbursement contract, the university would provide two Owl Explorer spacecraft and a flyable prototype at a total estimated cost of $3,676,100. Earliest launch would be in 1967 from the Western Test Range, Launch vehicle would be a four-stage Scout. (NASA Release 65-266; Wallops Release 65-46)
A Saturn/Apollo Applications Directorate had been established in the Office of Manned Space Flight, NASA announced. The new directorate would plan and direct programs utilizing technology developed in Project Apollo. M/Gen. David M. Jones (USAF) would be Acting Director of Saturn/ Apollo Applications in addition to his duties as Deputy Assistant Administrator for Manned Space Flight (Programs). Deputy Director would be John H. Disher, formerly Test Director in the Apollo Program Office. Melvyn Savage, who had served under Disher as Chief of Test Planning, would become Apollo Test Director. (NASA Release 65-265)
Venus' surface was dry, radio astronomers at Cal Tech reported, probably consisted of sand or porous rock, and was much too hot for any known form of life-up to 675° F. The planet's cloudy atmosphere was at least 40-mi, thick consisting mostly of carbon dioxide with some nitrogen and a trace of water vapor, Observations were made at Cal Tech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory by Dr. Barry Clark of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at Green Bank, W. Va., and Dr. Arkady Kuzmin of the Lebedev Institute of Physics in Moscow. (AP, NYT, 8/7/65, 10)
Tass announced that U.S.S.R.'s 12.2-ton PROTON I satellite was orbited by a booster whose main engines were rated at thrust of more than 60-million horsepower. PROTON I was orbited July 16. PROTON I marked "the beginning of a new phase in the exploration and domestication of space," It would study solar cosmic rays, spectrum and composition of cosmic ray particles, nuclear interactions of galactic origin, and galactic gamma rays. (Tass, 8/6/65)
A new helicopter world record was set by Soviet aviatrixes T. Russiyan and L. Isayeva, who flew 1,040 km. (645 mi.) in six hrs, 58 min. in an Mi-4 at an altitude of 1,000 m. (3,280 ft,). (Pravda, 8/6/65, 4)
Hiroshima was devastated by world's first operational atomic bomb 20 years ago. (WSJ, 8/6/65, 1)
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