Aug 9 1963
From The Space Library
Voice and teletype messages exchanged via SYNCOM II communications satellite between ground station at Paso Robles, Calif., and communications ship Kingsport in Lagos Harbor, Nigeria. The test spanned 7,700 mi., greatest surface distance ever spanned between two points on earth via a communications satellite. (NASA "SYNCOM II Fact Sheet"; N.Y. Herald Trib., 8/10/63)
Senate passed NASA authorization bill (H.R. 7500) providing $5,511,520,400 in FY 1964, a restoration of $307,801,000 cut by House action Aug. l. Senate bill would authorize $4,225,275,000 for research and development; $539,185,000 for administrative operations; and $747,060,400 for construction of facilities. Senate adopted amendment to bar, under certain circumstances, any authorized funds for R&D for exclusive benefit of any person providing satellite communication services (other than Government agency) and amendment requiring that, in addition to study of location for Electronic Research Center, there would be written notice to Administrator that study committee had no objection to selected location. Bill was ordered to House-Senate conference committee. (CR, 8/9/63, 13877-889, 13893-912)
August 9-11: TIROS VI and VII meteorological satellites observed Hurricane Arlene approximately 600 mi. northeast of Bermuda, Typhoon Bess approximately 100 mi. west of Japan, and Typhoon Carmen approximately 500 mi. east of the Philippine Islands. (GSFC Historian Memo, 9/4/63)
NASA Langley Research Center announced contract awarded to Basic Construction Co. for building to house synchrocyclotron of NASA's Space Radiation Effects Laboratory at Oyster Point, Newport News, Va. (LaRC Release)
Letter from Sir Bernard Lovell, Director of Jodrell Bank Experimental Station, to NASA Deputy Administrator Dr. Hugh L. Dryden reporting on his recent visit to U.S.S.R. was inserted in Congressional Record by Sen. Joseph S. Clark (D.-Pa.). Sir Bernard quoted M. V. Keldysh, president of Soviet Academy of Sciences, as saying U.S.S.R. had rejected, at least for present, any plans for a manned lunar landing, because of insurmountable problems of radiation in space. According to Sir Bernard, Keldysh said "that the manned project might be revived if progress in the neat few ears gave hope of a solution of their problems, and that he believed the appropriate procedure would be to formulate the task on an international basis. He stated that the Academy believed that the time was now appropriate for scientists to formulate the task on an international basis (a) the reasons why it is desirable to engage in the manned lunar enterprise and (b) to draw up a list of scientific tasks which a man on the moon could deal with which could not be solved by instruments alone. The Academy regarded this initial step as the first and most vital in any plan for proceeding on an international basis . " NASA Administrator James E. Webb's reply to this letter also was inserted, in which he said: - "... With regard to space research and exploration, as you know, our resent relationships with the Soviet Union have developed directly from the correspondence between President Kennedy and Chairman Khrushchev on specific possibilities of cooperation in this field. Dr. Dryden's discussions with Academician Blagonravov over the past year or so have followed within this framework. There is already a current agreement between the Soviet Academy of Sciences and NASA which represents the first fruit of these early efforts. "Accordingly, if the Soviet. Academy is indeed interested in the matters you describe in your letter, we will look forward to the possibility of further explorations by Dr. Dryden and Academician Blagonravov as to their views and desires . . . ." (Letters, CR, 8/963, 13903)
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