Jan 31 1971
From The Space Library
President Nixon in Camel Bay, Virgin Islands, issued statement following successful Apollo 14 launch: "Today, we take the most amazing things almost for granted. It is difficult to imagine, but some day the discovery of the New World will seem almost inconsequential alongside the explorations of our own time. In a way we are like the people who must have stood on the dock at Palos, Spain, and watched Columbus' ships disappear, believing they were watching the end of a great event, when they were watching the beginning. But where they watched the world being opened, and did not know it, we are watching the heavens being opened and we do know it. While those men went under the patronage of individual monarchs, our men go for the American people and, in a larger sense, for all mankind." (PD, 2/8/71, 151-2)
Vice President Spiro T. Agnew told workers at KSC after Apollo 14 launch that days of declining space budget were past and "we're going forward together not just to the moon but I'm certain that the American program will continue and press forward into the reaches of inter-planetary space." (AP, W Star, 2/11/71, A7)
Nike-Apache sounding rocket, launched by NASA from Univ. of Michigan's Keweenaw Rocket Launch Site (KRLS), carried GSFC payload to 184.8-km (114.8-mi) altitude to obtain data during magnetic activity in ionosphere while radiofrequency absorption in 2- and 10-mhz region of spectrum was high. Rocket and instruments functioned satisfactorily. Data would be compared with data from similar launch Jan. 29. (NASA Rpt SNL; NASA Release 71-1)
Tenth anniversary of Mercury-Redstone mission that carried chimpanzee Ham up to 253-km (157-mi) altitude on suborbital flight. Ham was recovered in good health. He was now ward of National Zoo in Washington, D.C. (AP, W Post, 1/31/71, A4; Natl Zoo Fl0)
Capabilities of NASA's largest computer were described by Dr. Robert Jastrow, Director of GSFC Institute for Space Studies, in New York Times Magazine article: "The `thinking' of this machine is carried out in a computing unit, containing 100,000 transistors, which per-forms 10 million elementary actions per second, such as addition and subtraction, comparisons of numbers, logical choices between alternatives...." Numbers and words employed "are stored in its memory, which has a capacity for holding one million separate items of information and can produce ... items, or ingest new ones, in less than one-millionth of a second.... In normal use, 5 per cent of this memory is filled up with the programing instructions which furnish the instinctive reactions of the machine." Machine also received "specialized training" from GSFC staff, "a set of instructions also placed in the machine's memory, and taking up . . . 10 per cent or 15 per cent of the total memory capacity." Remainder of computer's memory contained facts pertinent to problem at hand. Computer executed 24-hr global weather forecast in two hours. Process required "one trillion additions and subtractions, which would take a person working at a desk calculator 10,000 years to complete." (NYT Mag, 1/31/71, 14ff)
Author Norman Mailer said in San Francisco that Americans were as interested in Apollo 14 as they would be in "border war in Bolivia." He criticized images of astronauts projected by NASA. They were "tough men-daredevils" but NASA presented them as "priests." NASA was "asking this country to love saints and Americans are not noted for that." (AP, W Post, 1/31/71, A24)
Los Angeles Times editorial commented on space funding: "If Congress wants to be truly responsible about our national priorities, it will avoid making further cuts which would damage the space program out of proportion to the savings involved." In addition to "advancing the frontiers of knowledge about the origins of the earth and the nature of the universe," space program promised "to pay off in much more concrete ways." "We are already reaping huge benefits from weather and communications satellites, as well as from the development of compact, high-speed computers, new metals and fabrics, microminiature circuits and many other technological advances." Space program also promised more efficient use of earth's resources, help in global attack on environmental pollution, possible prediction of earthquakes, and hope for more productive agriculture by use of lunar soil ingredients. "The line between true and false economy is hard to draw. But the space program is one area where the time has come to draw it." (LA Times, 1/31/71)
January 31-February 9: NASA's Apollo 14 (AS-509) carried three- man crew on successful lunar landing mission. LM-8 Antares landed on moon's Fra Mauro and two astronauts conducted experiments and explored lunar surface for 9 hrs 24 min before rejoining orbiting CSM-110 and returning safely to earth with lunar samples in CM Kitty Hawk.
January 31-February 3: Spacecraft, carrying Astronauts Alan B. Shepard, Jr. (commander), Stuart A. Roosa (CM pilot), and Edgar D. Mitchell (LM pilot), was launched from [[KENNEDY SPACE CENTER|KSC Launch Complex 39, Pad A, at 4:03 pm EST Jan. 31 by Saturn V booster. Launch was 40 min 3 sec later than planned because of high overcast clouds and rain. Delay caused revision of flight azimuth from 72° to 75.6°. Launch was watched by about 2500 invited guests, including Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, Prince Juan Carlos and Princess Sophia of Spain, and Apollo 11 Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, Jr. Spacecraft and S-IVB combination entered parking orbit with 188.9- km (117.4-mi) apogee and 183.1-km (113.8-mi) perigee.
Mid-course correction (MCC-1) modified trajectory so spacecraft arrival time at moon would be same as if launch had been on time. CSM separated from LM/S-IVB/MU at 3:02 GET. Onboard TV was initiated to cover CSM docking with LM, but difficulty in docking was encountered. First five docking attempts by CM pilot Roosa were unsuccessful. Mission Control in Houston, watching on TV, studied problem that could prevent extraction of LM and make lunar landing impossible. Alternate missions also were under study. Astronauts noted catches seemed properly cocked but did not release. Sixth try however, was successful; docking was achieved at 4:57 GET, 1 hr 54 min later than planned. Separated S-IVB/IMU impacted lunar surface at 83:18 GET (2:41 am EST Feb. 4) at 7°49' south latitude and 26° west longitude 174 km (108 mi) southeast of planned impact point. Apollo 12 seismometer detected impact and showed vibrations for about 2 hrs.
Unscheduled 2-hr 22-min TV transmission from spacecraft was initiated at 10:00 GET to troubleshoot probe and drogue of docking mechanism. Crew removed probe and drogue but found no foreign material or abnormal damage. Capture latch assembly was actuated and system performed nominally. Crew and ground were unable to determine why CSM and LM had failed to dock properly, but they found no indication that systems would not work normally again. Officials decided mission would continue as planned [see Feb. 1]. Second midcourse correction, with 10.1-sec SPS burn at 30:36 GET, increased velocity by 21.7 m per sec (71.1 fps). Following maneuver, crew completed about nine frames of dim-light photography on earth's dark side and continued to check out systems. GET update was performed at 55:40 GET to add the 40 min 3 sec lost by launch delay, MCC-3, scheduled for 60:38 GET, was not necessary. Third TV transmission, for 42 min beginning at 60:40 GET, showed Shepard and Mitchell transferring into LM and checking out LM systems. MCC-4, at 77:38 GET with 0.6-sec SPS burn, changed velocity 1.1 m per sec (3.5 fps).
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