May 15 1977
From The Space Library
NASA announced the expected arrival of a USSR research ship off the Virginia coast near Wallops Flight Center about June 1 to participate in a series of rocket launches to investigate ionization sources in earth's upper atmosphere. The research ship Professor Vize would operate offshore as the Soviet launch platform. The joint American Soviet particle intercalibration (JASPIC) project would compare techniques used by both nations to measure the intensity of electrons and protons entering the lower ionosphere, and to define the role of these particles in nighttime ionization of the lower ionosphere in the midlatitudes, thought to cause high-latitude auroras.
The researchers would base comparisons on results of 4 sounding rocket launches from Wallops and 5 Soviet MF-12 rocket launches from the ship. One of the NASA rockets would release a chemical cloud that might be visible over the east coast. A similar joint activity in Aug. 1976 had launched 22 pairs of rockets over a 2wk period. U.S. and Soviet scientists had decided in 1975 that discrepancies shown by the scientific literature in measurements of ionosphere energetic particles might arise from instrumentation differences, and had agreed to joint measurements and subsequent comparisons at the same time and place. (NASA Release 78-71)
Airline service between the U.S. and the United Kingdom might be disrupted by failure to agree on new rules for sharing the traffic, Transportation Secy. Brock Adams told the Washington Post. The Bermuda Agreement that had governed air transportation between the two countries since 1946 would expire in June, and talks had begun in Sept. 1976 on new provisions. The British government was said to want exactly half the passengers traveling between the two nations or their territories to fly on British carriers, although almost two-thirds of the passengers were Americans. U.S. officials were reported in dismay at the British demand for a bigger share of the traffic, although the U.K. had earned $1.4 billion in revenues from aviation and tourism combined, 55% of the total between the two countries.
The U.S. had generally viewed international aviation as part of its overall foreign policy, whereas other nations generally had a single carrier either publicly owned or publicly supported whose officials were interested solely in increasing their carrier's share of passengers; U.S. philosophy had favored more rather than less competition in both domestic and international aviation. U.S. Ambassador Alan S. Boyd, who would head the U.S. delegation to the talks, said he could give "a succinct summary of our differences ... The United States wants equal opportunity for all carriers;, the British want equal benefits." A complication would be the New York port authority's refusal to allow British and French Concordes to land at JFK Airport, declared unlawful by a recent court decision presently under appeal. (W Post, May 15/77, K1)
The W Post reported that 9 USSR ships would join U.S. ships during June in "Polimode," a joint study of ocean currents in the so-called Bermuda Triangle where numbers of ships over the years had disappeared without trace, inspiring best-selling books on the subject. A USSR research team had detected by satellite "powerful whirl formations" extending hundreds of miles and resembling cyclones on land, the Washington Post said. Tass, the Soviet news agency, said the formations apparently reached from the surface to a depth of several thousand yards. (W Post, Parade, May 15/77, 6)
Threats to the earth's ozone layer remained a matter for concern, Walter Sullivan reported in the NY Times, especially fluorocarbons widely used as aerosol propellants and accumulating as chlorine byproducts in the atmosphere where they would break down ozone and expose the earth to more ultraviolet light. Health records from the United Nations had shown that people living in low latitudes where the ozone layer was thinner and sunlight more abundant had a markedly higher rate of skin cancers, especially of the often fatal melanoma.
Although some scientists noted that atmospheric ozone would normally vary with latitude, season, and even with the sunspot cycle, public health officials said any total increase in ultraviolet exposure would probably increase the incidence of cancer.
Other dangers to the ozone layer included supersonic planes and other high-flying aircraft, nuclear explosions, and the heavy use of nitrogen fertilizers. The Natl. Academy of Science had proposed outlawing fluorocarbon gases as propellants except in medical products. (NYT, May 15/77, 4-9)
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