Dec 24 1972
From The Space Library
NASA released Apollo 17 photos including one of best full-disc photos of earth taken from space. Photo, taken Dec. 7 as Apollo 17 spacecraft headed toward moon, showed earth from North Africa and Arabia to Antarctic polar icecap. (Photo 12-H- 1578; NASA PIo)
Erts 1 Earth Resources Technology Satellite (launched July 23) took photo from space of Nicaraguan capital of Managua that showed why city had been devastated by earthquake Dec. 23. Picture showed that Managua was built on ashes of volcanoes that stretched in straight line from Managua almost to Pacific shore. Quake had registered only 6.5 on Richter scale, but it had been close enough to surface to shake loose ash fill beneath city. (O'Toole, W Post, 12/31/72, A2)
Dr. Rocco A. Petrone, NASA Apollo Program Director, reviewed program in Los Angeles Times article: "As one looks back over the 12 years of Apollo, the biggest effort . was the engineering effort-the understanding of the demands that would be placed on the flight hard-ware, the understanding of the laws of nature that we would have to work with in order to fly to the moon, the conversion of dreams into hardware, the manufacture and testing of this hardware, so that we could feel confident to fly our men to the moon and return. "But within that overall engineering program, we knew we would be exploring, we knew we would open up new vistas and for that reason we developed the experiments to be taken along on later flights." There had been "only one reason for flying Apollo after the first landing and that was to gather information for science, to continue the exploration of the Moon." Underlying drive of Apollo "- to reach into space, to seize these new challenges, to learn more about the moon and also about earth, to explore for new opportunities for man to use in his future development-is not well understood by the public." Apollo had "lifted mankind from his cradle and started him on the pathway to the stars." (LA Times, 12/24/72)
Discovery through infrared measurements that Titan, largest of Saturn's six moons, had minimum temperature of 205 K (-90°F), same as atmosphere in which life originated on earth 2 billion yrs ago, was discussed by Cornell Univ. astronomer Dr. Carl E. Sagan in interview published by Washington Post. Discovery had been made by Cornell Univ. and Univ. of Minnesota astronomers using infrared measurements. Titan was about 1.5 billion km (900 million mi) from sun and received only one percent of sunlight that earth received. "We have to ask ourselves what kind of a planet would make this atmosphere so far from sun. The only answer we have been able to come up with is something identical to our primeval earth. Possible life form on Titan would not be earthlike, "but it would be earth chauvinism to think that no form of life whatever could survive so far off in the solar system. " Dr. Sagan believed Titan was made up of chemical ice, except for small molten core of radioactive rock. Core melted ice far below surface, forcing volcanic ice to surface, where it burst into brilliant red on contact with sun's ultraviolet light. "We see Titan as a red disc through the telescopes, which is exactly what we get in the laboratory when we react methane, hydrogen, water ice, and ammonia with ultra- violet rays." (O'Toole, W Post, 12/24/72, Al)
New York Times editorial asked, "Which America?" In same week Apollo 17 astronauts fired their spacecraft home from moon, "American pilots fired bombs that broke through the heavens over a peasant nation in Asia. America the ingenious and America the vengeful had both struck." U.S. and its people were being judged "for what our Government is doing with its mighty technology. Are we now the enemy-the new barbarians?" (NYT, 12/24/72)
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