Nov 15 1972
From The Space Library
Apollo 17 astronauts began three-week preflight quarantine at Cape Kennedy while launch crews started final major rocket and spacecraft tests for scheduled Dec. 6 launch. Isolation was to minimize exposure to disease or illness that could delay mission. Week-long rocket and spacecraft tests would duplicate every phase of final count-down. Countdown would start Nov. 30. (AP, B Sun, 10/16/72, A9)
Soviet space scientists were using laser beams and miniature artificial volcanoes to create lunite, material almost identical to moondust, Reuters reported. Man-made regolith was being produced at Soviet Academy of Sciences' Institute of Space Research in experiment to test whether regolith was product of bombardment over millions of years by micrometeorites or of volcanic activity. Pressure chambers provided temperature extremes and vacuum that simulated lunar conditions; laser beam created micrometeorite effect; and crucible of tungsten filament containing terrestrial basalt was heated electrically to simulate volcanism. Experiment had been described in newspaper Soviet Industry. (Reuters, C Trib, 11/16/72)
GTE International, Inc., subsidiary of General Electronics Corp., announced it had. received contract valued at about $4 million from Western Union International, Inc., for construction of satellite communications earth station in People's Republic of China. Station would be ground link for first direct communications satellite between China and Europe. (GTE Release)
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