Jun 7 1973
From The Space Library
President Nixon was expected to bring Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev to Johnson Space Center during his forthcoming visit for U.S. summit meetings, the Houston Post said. A JSC spokesman had said June 22, Skylab 2 splashdown day, was being considered and a survey team of Dept. of State and U.S. Secret Service personnel had visited JSC for preliminary planning. [See June 14.] (Maloney, H Post, 6/7/73)
Deputy Secretary of Defense William P. Clements, Jr., directed the Navy to produce preliminary plans for a $250-million prototype development plan for a jet-fighter aircraft costing less than the controversial F-14 Tomcat missile-armed fighter. He also authorized the Navy to negotiate with Grumman Aerospace Corp. for an additional 50 F-14s armed with Phoenix missiles. The 50 aircraft would bring the F-14 total to 184 on order, with a possible 50 being ordered in FY 1974. The F-14 price was expected to average $25.8 million per aircraft. (Corddry, B Sun, 6/8/73, A8)
Tass commented on the cause of the June 3 explosion and disintegration of the Soviet Tu-144 supersonic transport aircraft over Goussainville, France, during the May 24-June 3 Paris Air Show, as U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers Vice Chairman Leonid Smirnov and a Soviet government commission arrived in Paris to participate in the accident investigation: It had been hoped the Tu-144's black box, or flight recorder, would provide a clue to the cause. "But the box has been found open in the garden of a house and the film in it exposed. The magnetic tape . . . is missing." Investigators were studying films taken by TV and amateur cameramen at the Air Show. "The last spurt of the plane before it hit the ground suggests that the pilot, powerless to prevent the disaster, fought to the last to take the plane away from the densely populated center of Goussainville." (FBIS-Sov, 6/8/73, Fl)
June 7-12: The House Committee on Science and Astronautics' Subcommittee on Energy held hearings on solar energy for heating and cooling. Dr. George O. Lof, Colorado State Univ. professor of civil engineering, testified June 7 that heating and cooling buildings by solar energy was technically feasible and closely approaching economic viability. "With adequate funding, the dual involvement of industry and university . can be expected to move solar heating and cooling into public use within a very few years." Electric power from solar energy, however, would cost several times the present cost of conventional power and the best method was not even known. A major study funded by the National Science Foundation was beginning at Colorado State Univ., with Westinghouse Electric Co. collaboration, of the best system and conditions for generating solar power. (Transcript)
June 7-15: The fifth meeting of the joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. editorial board for the preparation and publication of a review of space biology and medicine was held in Moscow. NASA and the Soviet Academy of Sciences announced June 18 that the meeting had developed further plans and schedules for the early publication of the three-volume work. (NASA Release 73-117)
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