Jun 19 1965
From The Space Library
Vice President Humphrey and the GEMINI IV astronauts, Maj. James A. McDivitt (USAF) and Maj. Edward H. White II (USAF), won cheers and applause from visitors to the International Air Show at Le Bourget, France. Attendance at U.S. pavilion, which had been poor, picked up appreciably. Also present were NASA Administrator James E. Webb, and Charles W. Mathews, manager of the Gemini program. A scheduled formal meeting between the American astronauts and Lt. Col. Yuri Gagarin, first man in space, fell through when the Soviets announced that Col. Gagarin would be "too busy." However, at an official luncheon, Gagarin stopped at White's table and the two astronauts shook hands and spoke briefly. (AP, NYT, 6/20/65, 38; UN, Wash. Daily News, 6/19/65; AP, Hudgins, Wash. Post, 6/20/65, A28)
TIROS VII meteorological satellite completed two years in orbit without a failure, NASA had orbited TIROS VII June 19, 1963, with a Thor-Delta launch vehicle launched from ETR (then called AMR) . (NASA Proj. Off,)
Gemini V spacecraft was flown by cargo carrier to Kennedy Space Center, NASA, for the seven-day flight scheduled for Aug. 9. (UPI, NYT, 6/20/65)
British physicist Samuel Tolansky of London Univ.'s Royal Holloway College theorized that a carpet of black diamonds valuable for industrial purposes had formed on the lunar surface over the ages because of meteor impact, He cited diamonds found in the El Diablo meteorite crater in Arizona. (AP, Wash. Eve, Star, 6/19/65, 1)
"It is time now to put the manned military control of space on a crash basis equal in priority to the Apollo program," said Rep. John W. Wydler (R-N.Y.), member of the House Science and Astronautics Committee, in a letter to the editor in the New York Times. He suggested the following steps be taken: "The first MOL flight is scheduled from two and one half to three years from now. This should be speeded up at least a year and the necessary sacrifices made to achieve it. The Gemini capsules required for the MOL project should be ordered at once. To achieve our goals effectively the manned earth orbiting program should be placed under military control. . . . "I believe the only way the Department of Defense can meet its responsibilities in 'near space' is to assume direction of the manned earth orbiting program. It should reorganize the U.S. Air Force into the U.S. Aerospace Force and make it truly that... "The decision we must make is not whether there will be military control of space but rather whether that control will be Russian or our own..." (NYT, 6/19/65, 28)
The Space Act of 1958 may have unwittingly provided competition that is getting results, said an editorial in the Cleveland Plain Dealer: "There was conjecture then, and there is conjecture now, that NASA and the Air Force duplicate efforts in the parallel development of rockets. There are rumors of smouldering controversy. "But yesterday's dramatic blastoff of the triple-barrelled Titan III-C by the Air Force, coming closely on the heels of NASA's sensational Gemini performance, indicates the competition, thus far is beneficial to both." (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 6/19/65, 23)
USAF has come up with something for NASA to reckon with, commented William Hines, concerning the Titan success, in an article in the Washington Evening Star: "It is the Air Force position-which NASA will now be forced to try to disprove-that anything Saturn IB can do, Titan III-C can do better, "The Air Force, for its part, must now try to prove Titan III-C's reliability over the long haul. Gen. Joseph S. Bleymaier Jr, head of the Titan III-C program, said it is his goal to make every one of the 12 shots in the Titan III-C development series a 100% success, "Equally important with reliability is cost. Bleymaier says the Titan III-C can be produced in quantity for $12.8 million, or just a little more than half the $22 million it is estimated NASA's Saturn IB will cost. Titan III-C's $800 million development cost is but a fraction of what NASA will have spent to get the first Saturn IB off the ground." (Hines, Wash. Eve, Star, 6/19/65)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
