Jul 9 1969
From The Space Library
Apollo 8 Astronaut Frank Borman met in Moscow with Mstislav V. Keldysh, President of Soviet Academy of Sciences, and spent 40 min with U.S.S.R. President Nikolay V. Podgorny in talk which Borman said was "encouraging and beneficial" in efforts to achieve U.S.-U.S.S.R. cooperation in space. (AP, W Post, 7/10/69, A23)
Apollo Program Management: Staff Study was submitted to House Committee on Science and Astronautics by Subcommittee on NASA Oversight. It identified key concepts contributing to successful evolution of NASA-industry management team and areas where additional studies would be useful in application of its expertise. Key factors included clear definition of primary objective, monitoring and auditing systems that allowed vertical and horizontal information flow, refinement in program-control techniques using incentive contracts, correlation and definition of multiple-program interfaces by use of systems-oriented staff groups, real-time and flexible management reporting system, and balance between governmental in-house capability and industrial capability. (Text)
Die proof of 1.05- by 1.80-in 10-cent airmail stamp commemorating "First Man on the Moon," attached to envelope, would be carried by Apollo 11 and canceled on Moon by Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., Postmaster General Winton M. Blount announced. On return to earth, die would be used to produce commemorative stamps for August issue. Hand-canceled "Moon Letter" would undergo 21-day decontamination period at LRL and be returned to Post Office Dept. for display in Washington, D.C., and later throughout U.S. and abroad. Stamp was designed by Paul Calle, modeled by Robert J. Jones, and engraved by Edward R. Felver and Albert Saavedra. It depicted astronaut stepping from spacecraft onto lunar surface. (PO Dept Releases 107, P-37; W Post, 7/10/69, A13)
Some observers on earth might be able to see moon-bound Apollo 11 on two occasions, NASA announced. At 2;44:18 GET, exhaust plumes from S-IVB firing in parking orbit over Gilbert Islands in South Pacific would be visible to naked eye for several minutes over large part of sky. For several hours after translunar injection burn, CSM /LM, S-IVB, and four spacecraft-lunar-module-adapter (SLA) panels would be visible through telescope to observers in U.S., Mexico, Central and South America, and western Africa. (NASA Special Release)
As NASA prepared for Apollo 11 lunar landing, space contractors, engineers, and scientists cited thousands of "space technology transfers," down-to-earth rewards from space program, Wall Street Journal said. Side benefits ranged from medical innovations and safer highways to new management techniques, commercial products, and industrial tools. They included life raft with bucket keel to prevent capsizing in rough water and inner tube that inflated automatically to keep craft afloat if outer skin was punctured, computer system to track down fathers behind in child support payments, inertial navigation systems that were standard equipment on new 360- to 400-passenger Boeing 747, and thermal mapper developed for satellites, being used to seek oil formations, diagnose cause of sinking airport runways, and find sources of water pollution. Other space age spinoffs were plastic resin marketed as commercial laminates, adhesives, and coatings; devices to monitor internal stress in dams during earth tremors; data-processing techniques to record train traffic and to match power-generating capacities to demand; electromagnetic hammer that smoothed and shaped metal without weakening it; and luminous devices for aircraft exit signs, map reading, and gun sites. Medicine was benefiting from miniaturized electronic devices in cardiac pacemakers, remote-handling and manipulation equipment that had improved prosthetic devices like artificial limbs, space-helmet-like hoods to measure oxygen consumption while patient exercised, and computer to provide sharper x-ray photos. (Tanner, WSJ, 7/6/69)
MSFC announced it would exercise option in existing contract with Computer Sciences Corp. to allow continued support services through June 30, 1970, at cost of $6,081,887. (MSFC Release 69-157)
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