May 19 1976
From The Space Library
Arnold Palmer, piloting the Learjet "200 Yankee" named in honor of the U.S. Bicentennial, landed at Arapahoe County airport near Denver after a record-setting flight around the world that took 57 hr 25 min 42 sec and covered 37 000 km. Palmer's flight was 28 hr 43 min 9 sec faster than the longstanding record set by Arthur Godfrey and Dick Merrill in 1966. Accompanied by the official observer and timer for the National Aeronautic Assn., Robert J. Serling, and by copilots James E. Bir and L.L. Purkey, Palmer averaged better than 770 kph on the 2.5-day flight that made 9 stops in 7 countries. In meeting officials at each of the stops, Palmer presented Bicentennial flags and bronze replicas of the Declaration of Independence; at Wake Is., he left a silver plaque commemorating the U.S. Marine Corps defense of the island in World War II. In addition to the speed-around-the-world record, NAA planned to claim for the Palmer flight 18 additional records for speed over recognized course: e.g., Boston to Paris, Paris to Tehran, etc. Since he took up flying in the 1950s, champion golfer Palmer had logged about 4500 hr as a pilot. (NAA News, July 76, 1)
Ground-based equipment incorporating computers that would work with components aboard a Shuttle orbiter to guide it to a safe landing had been shipped from the contractor, Cutler Hammer's AIL Division, NASA announced. The equipment, called a microwave scanning-beam landing system (MSBLS), would be installed on a runway at Dryden Research Center, where initial flight tests of the orbiter would begin in mid-1977; a second set would be installed on a newly constructed runway at Kennedy Space Center, where initial Shuttle orbital missions would be launched in 1979. Both locations would be equipped for approach from either direction, and each system would be fully redundant, including a comprehensive monitoring system with automatic switchover and an uninterruptible power supply. As the Shuttle orbiter would descend in a steep glide moderated to a soft touchdown, onboard computers would direct the vehicle through commands to the control surfaces and must know the vehicle's precise position at every instant; standard instrument landing electronics could not provide this information, so that the type of beam created by the MSBLS would be needed.
The MSBLS system would cover a total field of positions through all possible paths the orbiter would take, instead of providing a single straight path for the orbiter to follow; its scanning beam would sweep a wide flat course across the landing sector, and pulses from a ground transmitter would be coded to identify the exact angle at which the beam pointed at each instant of the sweep. A receiver in the descending orbiter would pick up the pulses and decode them to determine the track; the onboard computer would accurately compare the orbiter's location with the desired location and automatically correct any discrepancy. The MSBLS would provide an unprecedented degree of position-guidance accuracy. (NASA Release 76-97; JSC Release 76-35)
Isaac T. Gillam IV, NASA Hq Program Manager of Small Launch Vehicles, was designated Director of Space Shuttle Operations at Dryden Flight Research Center, effective 23 May. In his new position, Gillam would be responsible for development of test support facilities, institutional support of test operations, and flight and industrial safety for test operations in support of Shuttle carrier-aircraft testing and orbital approach and landing tests conducted at DFRC. Before coming to NASA Hq in 1963, Gillam served in the U.S. Air Force as pilot, missile launch crew commander, and ROTC instructor; he had done graduate work at Tenn. State Univ. while serving as assistant professor of military science. From 1963 to 1966, he was resources management specialist at NASA Hq and was then appointed Assistant Delta Program Manager in the Launch Vehicles Directorate. Named Delta Program Manager in Sept. 1968, he became Program Manager of Small Launch Vehicles (including Delta and Scout) in June 1973. He received NASA's Distinguished Service Medal for his work in the launch-vehicle program. (NASA Release 76-96)
The Air Force announced award of a 82 067 113 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to Teledyne McCormick Selph of Hollister, Calif., for unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine, a chemical used in Titan missiles and NASA-USAF space boosters. The contracting activity was the San Antonio Logistics Center at Kelly AFB, Texas. (DOD Release 223-76)
In an address to the American Institute of Industrial Engineers, meeting in St. Louis, W.F. Rockwell, Jr., chairman of Rockwell International Corp., warned that the U.S. in its search for energy independence should not "go driving up the wrong street" but should make use of nuclear power. Claiming that solar power, nuclear fusion, or other exotic power sources were solutions for the distant future, Rockwell described nuclear energy as "the bridge that will allow us to make a smooth transition to those future energy sources" and as being "safe, clean, abundant and economical." Rockwell noted the 6- to 10-yr period needed between the concept and the start-up of a power plant, adding that today's Americans have roughly 36 mo to "get it all together if we're going to have enough power in 1990." (Rockwell Release R-20)
Dr. Wernher von Braun was admitted to hospital in Alexandria, Va., 14 May and was reported in fair condition yesterday, the Washington Post reported. Hospital spokesmen refused comment on von Braun's illness, citing requests from his doctor and family. Von Braun, who left the government in 1972 to become a vice president of Fairchild Industries, Inc., in nearby Germantown, Md., underwent an operation for cancer last year at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, a hospital official there said. The German-born scientist, now 61, had led development of the U.S. space program in the early 1960s. (W Post, 19 May 76, B-4)
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