Feb 15 1965
From The Space Library
NASA announced it had asked astronomers and scientists in 38 countries to help analyze and interpret the closeup photographs of the moon taken by RANGER VII in July 1964. The scientists would first receive a set of 199 high-quality pictures taken by RANGER VII's "A" camera; photographs taken by other cameras would be sent later, NASA had also sent RANGER VII photographs to the European Space Research Organization, the European Launcher Development Organization, the International Committee on Space Research, and the United Nations. (UPI, Phil. Eve. Bull., 2/15/65)
Christopher C. Kraft, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center director of flight operations, said the three-orbit Gemini GT-3 flight with astronauts Virgil I. Grissom (USAF) and John W. Young (USN) would be much safer than Project Mercury orbital space flights. The astronauts would not depend solely on the braking rockets to bring them back to earth. They would make maneuvers during the first and third orbits to bring the spacecraft back through the atmosphere even if retrofiring braking rockets failed. Toward the end of the third orbit, near Hawaii, Grissom would fire the rockets for about two minutes, sending the Gemini spacecraft into a 54-mi. orbit which would be a reentry path. Over Los Angeles, the main braking rockets would be fired to drive the spacecraft down to a landing about 70 mi. east of Grand Turk Island in the Atlantic Ocean. Kraft said if the braking rockets did not fire, the GT-3 craft would land about 1.000 mi, due west of Ascension Island. (Galveston News-Tribune, 2/16/65)
NASA announced it had determined the areas of Mars to be photographed by MARINER IV's. TV camera during the July 14 fly-by, Recording of the first picture would occur when the spacecraft was approximately 8,400 miles above the Martian surface. MARINER's camera would be pointing at the northern Martian desert, Amazonis. The camera would then sweep southeast below the Martian equator covering the Mare Sirenum, the southern desert Phaethontis, Aonius Sinus, and into the terminator or shadow line. The spacecraft would be about 6,300 mi. above Mars for the final picture. (NASA Release 65-42)
First successful flight test of a miniature mass spectrometer specifically for biomedical and environmental use was made at NASA's Flight Research Center. The system weighed 46 lbs., measured 10 x 10 x 20 in, with vacuum system, and could monitor and chemically analyze samples of gases that might be encountered in either the cockpit environment of the spacecraft or in the pilot's respiratory system. It could detect buildup of harmful gas or absence of necessary life support gas. The mass spectrometer was built by the Consolidated Systems Corporation, Monrovia, California. (FRC Release 6-65 )
NASA established an Office of Industry Affairs at the Pentagon by arrangement with the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Installations and Logistics), to coordinate DOD-NASA mutual interest procurement and contract management matters, including quality assurance. Clyde Bothmer, who formerly directed management operations in NASA's Office of Manned Space Flight, became Director. (NASA Release 6555; NASA Ann. 65-35)
Clarence A. Syvertson had been named Director of NASA's new Mission Analysis Division of the Hq. Office of Advanced Research and Technology, NASA announced. He would be responsible for study of future missions for research and technology programs. The Mission Analysis Division, to be located at NASA Ames Research Center, would be staffed by outstanding scientists drawn from all NASA Centers and would be organized along aeronautical and space mission lines. (NASA Release 65-46; NASA Ann, 65-34)
President Johnson sent to Congress his annual reports on the National Science Foundation, the ComSatCorp, and U.S. participation in the International Atomic Energy Agency, In message accompanying the NSF report. President Johnson said: "Close and understanding accord between science and public affairs is an imperative for free societies today." Science would be looked to for use in technology and industry, health programs, exploration, and, "most especially for the guidance that will permit us to proceed with greater security and greater confidence toward our goals of peace and justice in a free world." In a message accompanying the report on the ComSatCorp, the President said the goal of the was "to provide orbital messengers, not only of word, speech and pictures, but of thought and hope" for the world. "The past year has seen important advances in the program to develop a global communications satellite system. The first launch of a commercial satellite is to take place in the early months of this year. "Through the initiative of the United States an international joint venture has been established, Under the law I have designated the Communications Satellite Corp. as the U.S. participant. The corporation is to be the manager on behalf of all participants. "The corporation has now been financed, has constituted its first board of directors to replace the original incorporators and has moved forward with its program. All agencies of the Government with responsibilities under the act have made important and faithful contributions with the sympathetic assistance of the congressional committees concerned. "The new and extraordinary satellite telecommunications medium bringing peoples around the globe into closer relationship is nearer to fulfillment, heralding a new day in world communications." In its second annual report ComSatCorp noted that it had ended 1964 with about 8190 million in short-term holdings and more than 137,000 shareholders. It reported it had agreements with 18 countries to join in a single global system with ComSatCorp as manager and said that a satellite was being readied for launching in March. The report on the Nation's participation in the International Atomic Energy Agency was accompanied by a covering letter which said 1963 "will possibly be marked in I.A.E.A. history as the year in which a firm foundation was laid for its system of safeguards against the diversion of materials to military use." (Text, CR, 2/15/65, 2605; NYT, 2/16/65, 1; AP, NYT, 2/17/65, 64)
NASA and U.S. Army Materiel Command adopted an agreement for joint participation in low-speed and Vtol aeronautical research. The re- search program was centered at NASA Ames Research Center. (NMI 1052.7)
NASA had selected the Bendix Field Engineering Corp., Owings Mills, Md., to negotiate a cost-plus-award-fee contract for continued operation, maintenance, and support services of the NASA Manned Space Flight Network of tracking stations. Contract was valued at about $36 million over two years. (NASA Release 65-48)
In National Science Foundation's annual report to the President and the Congress, NSF Director Leland Haworth said the Foundation was "attempting to formulate an approach ... to interfield priority assessment which would take into account the probable contributions of NSF-supported basic research to the solution of a variety of national problems. Thus, for example, it is possible that a whole cluster of basic research activities might justifiably be supported in several fields of the behavioral and environmental sciences, all of which would in one way or another shed light on what is now called the 'transportation-urbanization' problem. . . ." Discovery of what may be the first real baby star-one apparently much smaller than the moon-was described in the NSF report. NSF credited the find to Dr. Willem J. Luyten, a University of Minnesota astronomer doing research aided by an NSF grant. Having roughly one-thousandth the diameter of the sun, the new-found dwarf apparently contained 300 tons of material per cubic inch of volume, more than 100 million times the density of water. There was no question about the discovery of the star, the report said. The only possible question was whether the distance to it had been figured accurately, because that would have a bearing on computing its actual size. (Carey, Wash. Eve. Star, 2/16/65; Science, 2/25/65)
Lt. Gen. Frank A. Bogart (USAF, Ret.) was appointed Director of Manned Space Flight Management Operations, Since joining NASA on December 1, 1964, General Bogart had served as Special Assistant to the Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight. (NASA Announcement 65-30)
Dr. Eugene Konecci of the National Aeronautics and Space Council staff reported to the Medical Society of the State of New York at its annual convention that the semicircular canals of the inner ear had been demonstrated to play a key role in motion sickness that astronauts might experience in a rotating, orbiting spacecraft. Capt. Ashton Graybiel at the USN School of Aviation Medicine, Pensacola, expressed optimism that astronauts could be taught to overcome the effects of motion sickness. One way, he said, was to precondition selected persons by teaching them how to avoid movements that would invariably upset them. Another promising development, Dr. Graybiel said, was drug research. (Simons, Wash, Post, 2/16/65)
Dr. Karl G. Harr, Jr., President of Aerospace Industries of America, Inc., addressed the Economic Club of Detroit: ". . . the aerospace industry of today does indeed represent a truly unique phenomenon in industrial history in almost all of its aspects. . . . it is that industry which places at the disposal of the nation-both its public and its private sectors-the capacity to manage the research, development and production of the most technologically advanced product that is possible-for whatever purpose desired. ... it is essential that we all understand the principal factors-historical, present and future-that have produced and will continue to produce this uniqueness. "First, the genesis and evolution of what is today's aerospace industry is a direct product of the nation's post-World War II history and is inextricably linked thereto. . . . World War II unleashed for the world, but particularly for the United States, two revolutions which have been gaining momentum ever since. The first of these was a form of economic revolution which saw the economy of the United States surge into new dimensions. The second was a scientific/ technological revolution which saw all that had gone before in man's scientific history fade into a pale background. . . . "World War II itself provided an extreme example of the explosive expansibility of the industrial base of the United States. This expanded industrial base remained after the war to serve as a foundation for a general economic upsurge. . . the aerospace industry has become and remains, in a very real sense, an instrument of national policy, not only in terms of the hardware directly provided the government, but also as it underpins the economic/technological advances in the private sector of our economy. . . . Discussing the future of the industry, Harr noted that "the size and viability of this industry is not tied to defense and space programs, important as these have been and will continue to be in shaping its destiny. It is tied, rather, to the total technological progress of the nation, meaning the application of advanced technology to whatever purposes may be desired. Programs now well underway in such diverse fields as air freight, urban transportation, desalination, oceanography, 2000-mph aircraft and hundreds of others serve to illustrate this fact..." (Text)
In an editorial headed "Space Racing After Seven Years," the Miami Herald said: "Fast starters don't always win. The match race in space between the United States and the Soviet Union is shaping up satisfactorily, from our viewpoint. The start was easy to identify, but the finish line is nowhere in sight." (Miami Her, 2/15/65)
Among Weather Bureau employees honored at the 17th Annual Dept. of Commerce Awards Program were: Dr. Sigmund Fritz, for outstanding contributions to meteorological research in the fields of solar radiation, ozone, and meteorological satellites, for highly distinguished authorship, and for exceptional leadership as Director of the Weather Bureau's Meteorological Satellite Laboratory; Louis P. Harrison, for highly distinguished authorship and outstanding contributions to the fields of barometry and psychrometry; David S. Johnson and Dr. S. Fred Singer, a joint award in recognition of unusual ingenuity, leadership, and guidance in the development and implementation of a National Operational Meteorological Satellite System; Jay S. Winston, for valuable contributions to meteorology in the areas of general circulation studies, the interpretation of weather satellite data, and the heat budget of the earth-atmosphere system. (Commerce Dept, Release WB 65-1)
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