Feb 18 1976
From The Space Library
A "house of the future" incorporating technology from aerospace research would be open to the public at Langley Research Center after July 1, NASA announced. The Tech House, a project of NASA's technology utilization program, would demonstrate how an average family could cut fuel consumption by two thirds and water consumption by one half, using innovative energy and water management systems integrated with building designs and materials. Building started in late Jan.; all equipment and features in the house would be available to the public within 5 yr, or are available now. A family selected by NASA would live in the house for at least a year, beginning early in 1977; a systems engineer would monitor all use of the systems in the normal life of the family and record day-to-day savings. The contemporary one-story house would have an enclosed living space of about 500 sq m; its major feature combined solar collectors with night radiators and heat pump for one of the most cost-effective heating and cooling systems now available. Contributing to the NASA project were the National Association of Home Builders, the National Bureau of Standards, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. (NASA Release 76-26)
The Communications Satellite Corporation (ComSat) reported 1975 net income of slightly more than $46 million, compared to nearly 145 million for 1974, attributing the increase to additional leasing of circuits to the corporation's customers-3833 at the end of 1975, compared to 3510 in 1974. The report noted the FCC decision of 4 Dec. 1975 ordering lower rates for services provided through ComSat's global system, and warned that the decision would have "a substantial adverse impact" on future earnings unless modified by judicial review. ComSat had appealed the ruling and delayed filing a schedule of lower rates. (ComSat Release 76-3)
More than 25% of all scientists and engineers in the U.S. and the USSR were engaged in weapons work of some kind, whereas fewer than one hundredth of l % were engaged in arms control or disarmament, said William Epstein, former director of the U.N. Disarmament Division, in a letter to the New York Times. Warning of the "terrible doomsday weapons that scientists may yet develop" in the spiraling arms race, Epstein called on scientists and engineers to establish nationally and internationally a code of conduct that would include educational work on the perils of the arms race and political efforts to achieve arms control and disarmament. "Science may be neutral and amoral, but scientists are not ... They have a moral duty to use their capabilities for the benefit of humanity and not for its destruction." Uniting their efforts behind a "Hippocratic oath" not to engage in means of mass murder, associations of scientists and other professional bodies could provide moral support and tangible assistance to those "even in dictatorial countries" where imprisonment or harassment would be the result of such action. (NYT, 18 Feb 76, 33) 19 February. Marisat 1-first satellite of a privately owned $100-million system to provide rapid high-quality communications between ships at sea and shore stations-was launched on a Delta for Comsat General Corp. from Cape Canaveral at 5:32 pm local time (1032 GMT). The 655-kg craft was headed for a stationary orbit 35 788 km above the Atlantic Ocean at 15°W, about 547 km southwest of the coast of Liberia. A second satellite, Marisat B, would be stationed over the Pacific later this year. Marisat 1 carried 2 channels each about 4 mhz wide, operating in the L and C bands; one would translate shore-to-ship signals from 6 to 1.5 ghz, the other would translate ship-to-shore signals from 1.6 to 4 ghz. Ground stations at Southbury, Conn., and Santa Paula, Calif., would provide earth-satellite communications links, using 12.8-mdia. antennas to relay tracking, telemetry, and command information between the satellites and the Comsat General control center in Washington, D.C. The U.S. government would use three UHF channels on the satellite, completely separate from the L- and C-band channels, through its own terminal facilities. The satellite system, owned and operated by a consortium headed by the Comsat General Corp., would be used by commercial shipping lines, as well as by the U.S. Navy pending completion of its own Fleet Satellite Communications System. By early April, commercial telephone, telex, and data communications would be available to link ships and offshore facilities with shore stations connected into domestic and international communications networks worldwide. Marisat mobile terminals had been purchased or leased from Comsat and installed on ships of a number of nations. {NASA Release 76-22; MOR M-492-205-76-01[prelaunch] 26 Jan 76, [postlaunch] 13 Apr 76; ComSat Release CG 76-107; W Star, 20 Feb 76, A-6)
A new comet now approaching the sun-named Comet West, after Richard M. West of the European Southern Observatory at Geneva, Switzerland, who discovered it in Nov. 1975-would be the object of extensive space and ground-based study to identify and measure its constituents, NASA announced. Comet West would come closest to the sun on 25 Feb., but would not be readily visible until about 2 March because of solar brightness; it would provide the first opportunity for extensive comet study since the appearance in 1973 of Comet Kouhoutek (a "visual disappointment" from which more had been learned about comets than in all the time that had gone before). NASA would participate in the study along with the Naval Research Laboratory, and with the Univ. of Colo. at Boulder and the Johns Hopkins Univ. (NASA Release 76-31)
Work began on the world's largest radiotelescope-the "Very Large Array," consisting of 27 dish antennas each 25 m wide and weighing 160 tons, plus a Y-shaped layout of rail tracks and underground tubing along three 21-km legs-and was scheduled for completion in 1981 at a cost of $76 million. The plains of St. Augustine, N.M., isolated and desolate, had been chosen because a ring of mountains would prevent radio interference. The VLA would probe objects such as quasars that appeared to speed away at more than half the speed of light, as well as other puzzles such as black holes, star formation, galactic structures, and interstellar molecules. Its design would improve on three weaknesses of current telescopes: poor resolution, poor sensitivity, and inability to make images or maps quickly. Antenna signals routed through underground waveguides to a control center would be amplified and fed into a computer system that could turn out high-resolution images of the radio source in to 12 hr. The array would be supervised by officials of the National Science Foundation, Associated Universities, Inc., and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. (CSM, 19 Feb 76, 16)
The universe had been analyzed and found to be open, a group of astronomers told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. The director of Cornell Univ.'s national astronomy and ionosphere center, Dr. Frank B. Drake, said that the most recent astronomical data indicated that in about 30 billion years the universe would have changed, and no stars would appear in a night sky, having gathered into "Island Universes"-clusters of galaxies widely separated from each other. Computer analysis of recent observations indicated that separation of galaxies into islands had not yet begun, which meant that the universe might be comparatively young. The conclusion that the universe was open had been based on factors such as expansion rate, deceleration, and density of the universe. Evidence today would support the "big bang" theory which stated that the universe had exploded in the beginning from a single solid mass, and would go on expanding. (B Sun, 19 Feb 76, A-3)
U.S. observers were concerned about spiraling strategic arms programs in the USSR, the Christian Science Monitor reported. Heavy payload in the Soviet nuclear system and an expanded program of deploying multiple warheads had aroused fears of a possible "first strike" by the USSR against U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) systems. Intelligence experts estimated the USSR would have 1500 land-based missiles by summer, compared with 1054 for the U.S.; an article in Foreign Affairs magazine by Paul Nitze-Secretary of the Navy in the Johnson administration-had stated the Russians believed they could "win" a nuclear war, whereas popular feeling in the U.S. was that all participants in a nuclear exchange would be destroyed. A Russian "cold launch" system for missile launching that did not damage the silo was contrasted to the U.S. "hot launch" system that damaged the silo during launch. The Pentagon had sought $78 million for development of a new ICBM called "MX," and a FY 1977 budget of $9.4 billion for strategic forces. (CSM, 19 Feb 76, 6)
Extinction of several species of life forms resulted from a weakening of the earth's ozone shield nearly a million years ago, according to a study of recorded atmospheric occurrences that had not previously been correlated. In the Jan. issue of the British scientific journal Nature, Drs. George C. Reid and I.S.A. Isaksen of NOAA and Thomas E. Holzer and Paul J. Cruzen of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colo., stated that fears about man-caused destruction of stratospheric ozone, might be well founded. Examination of earth-core samples showed extinction of species of microscopic sea animals during a reversal in polarity in earth's magnetic field that weakened magnetic forces shielding the atmosphere from solar and cosmic radiation. The resultant heavy bombardment of radiation formed nitric oxide in the high atmosphere, in turn destroying part of the ozone shield. Similar increases in radiation, recently recorded, would inevitably affect present organisms, the report :said; aside from direct effects on higher forms of life, indirect damage would come from the consequent upset of the ecological life cycle. (NYT, 19 Feb 76, 21)
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