Apr 5 1976
From The Space Library
Harris M. (Bud) Schurmeier, manager since 1972 of the Mariner Jupiter/Saturn project at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was named Assistant Laboratory Director for Civil Systems, JPL Director Bruce C. Murray announced. The new post would direct Civil Systems activities at JPL, begun in the 1960s to apply specific JPL capabilities in technical and management areas to critical problems of society, including technological transfer to energy, environment, biomedical, and transportation systems. Replacing Schurmeier as manager of the Jupiter/Saturn project that would send 2 instrumented Mariner spacecraft to the giant outer planets next year would be John R. Casani, former manager of JPL's Guidance and Control Division. While serving as Mariner Jupiter/Saturn project manager, Schurmeier had also acted as Deputy Assistant Laboratory Director for Flight Projects for the past 6 yr; the latter position would not be filled immediately. (JPL release 5 Apr 76)
Howard R. Hughes, 70, aviation pioneer and founder of a financial empire that included aerospace and aviation holdings, died en route to Houston. He was president of Hughes Aircraft and sole trustee of its owner, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His estate was estimated to be worth between $1.5 and 2 billion. Newspaper accounts of his wealth and years of withdrawal from public contact told of his early achievements in flying, sparked by his learning to fly during his production in 1930 of "Hell's Angels," then the most expensive motion picture ever made. On 13 Sept. 1935 he set a world land-plane speed record, flying the H-1 (his own design) at 566 kph; in the same plane, he established a transcontinental speed record 19 Jan. 1937 of 7 hr 28 min. On 10 July 1938, he took off in another Hughes plane from N.Y. and flew around the world with 4 associates in 91 hr. Although he had no degree, he studied at Caltech and Rice Institute and had helped to design several aircraft, including the Lockheed P-38 fighter and the same company's triple-tail-fin Constellation transport. (NYT, 6 Apr 76, 1; W Post, 6 Apr 76, A-1; Av Wk, 12 Apr 76, 23)
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