Jan 22 1973
From The Space Library
Former President Lyndon B. Johnson died of heart attack in Austin, Tex., at the age of 64. During his senatorial career preceding his election to the Vice Presidency in 1961, Johnson had served in 1957 as Chairman of the Prepardeness Investigating Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, where he had instituted an inquiry into the status of U.S. satellite and missile programs. Hearings led to establishment Feb. 6, 1958, of the Senate Special Committee on Space and Astronautics with Johnson as Chairman. The Special Committee prepared the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 establishing NASA (effective Oct. 1, 1958). Before passage of the Space Act July 29, 1958, the Senate created the permanent Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences July 24. Johnson became first chairman-the position he held until 1961. Johnson was Chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Council 1961-1963 and was instrumental in persuading President John F. Kennedy to select attainment of a manned lunar landing within the decade as a national goal. Johnson had become 36th U.S. President on assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963 and had seen the first successful manned circumlunar flight, made by Apollo 8 Dec. 21-27, 1968, before he left office in January 1969. (W Post, 1/23/73, Al; CR, 1/29/73, 51467)
Apollo 17 Astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Ronald E. Evans, and Dr. Harrison H. Schmitt received the traditional greeting from Congress following their Dec. 7-19, 1972, mission. They were welcomed by the House of Representatives, since the Senate was not in session. Cernan told the House that Apollo 11 Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong's placement of the first U.S. flag on the moon in 1968 had been "a symbol of the courage and the dedication and the effort and self-sacrifice of 200 million people in this country who made that effort possible." The act had "probably gained more pride and more respect throughout the entire world than any one thing that has happened . . . in the entire 200-year history of our country." With one step by Armstrong, "we are able to gain something that we had never really been able to grab hold of in my lifetime." Evans said his stay in the CM had made him realize that earth, like spacecraft, had limited consumable resources and "somehow the human survival requirement means that we have got to conserve these resources and man must learn to adapt to his environment." Schmitt said that, in obtaining knowledge through the Apollo program, man had evolved into entering universe. "Although the nature of that evolution was technological, I believe it will be marked a thousand years from now as a single unique event in human history" appearing "more distinctly even than history's record of our use of atomic energy. It is at times unseemly, at times shortsighted but always human pathway through time, mankind found that its reach could include the stars.” (CR, 1/22/73, H372-4)
The last Apollo splashdown party given by National Space Club in Washington, D.C., had the theme "Salute to Apollo: Man's Promise for the Future." The program included remarks and messages from President Nixon; Vice President Spiro T. Agnew; Sen. Frank E. Moss (D-Utah), Chairman of Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences; Dr. James C. Fletcher, NASA Administrator; Apollo 17 Astronauts Eugene A. Cernan and Dr. Harrison H. Schmitt; former NASA Administrator James E. Webb; North American Rockwell Corp. Vice President and President-Aerospace Group William B. Bergen; and Grumman Aerospace Corp. President Joseph G. Gavin, Jr.
Former President Lyndon B. Johnson who had died during day, had sent a message commending space pioneers who had "made the Apollo miracle a living reality. It has been more ... than an amazing adventure into the unexplored and the unknown. The Apollo program has been and will endure as a monument to many things-to the personal courage of some of the finest men our nation has produced-to the technological and managerial capability, which is the genius of our system-and to a successful cooperation among nations which has proved to all of us what can be done when we work together with our eyes on a glorious goal."
Master of Ceremonies Peter S. Hackes of National Broadcasting Co. eulogized President Johnson as "the policy father of the space program." A message from Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minn.), former Vice President and Chairman of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, said the Apollo program had been an "outstanding example of government, industry, and university cooperation and has really shown brilliance of management and technological competence." An Apollo film was narrated by Dr. Rocco A. Petrone, NASA Apollo Program Director.
Dr. Petrone said the Apollo program had taken 12 yrs "and I don't look upon this as curtains at the end of a play. It's like the curtain at the end of the first act. It's just beginning." Dr. Wernher von Braun, Vice President for Engineering and Development with Fairchild Industries, Inc., and former NASA Deputy Associate Administrator, said President Johnson had been instrumental in achieving congressional support for the space program. Apollo 8 Astronaut William A. Anders recalled President Johnson as "a very large man, very down to earth" who had the spirit of an astronaut, but was "a little too big" to be one. (Program; Texts; Smyth, W Post, 1/23/73, 132; RI PTO)
NASA postponed the launches of the Skylab 1 Orbital Workshop and the Skylab 2 crew from April 30 and May 1 to indefinite dates in May. The postponement was necessitated by an unexpected accumulation of problems in launch preparations for vehicle modules and experiments and first-time Skylab testing at Kennedy Space Center. Skylab Program Director William C. Schneider set tentative launch dates of May 14-15 but would announce official dates in late March after continued testing and reviews of flight planning. (Schneider TWX to NASA Centers, 1/22/73)
Dr. James C. Fletcher, NASA Administrator, issued a management instruction continuing in existence, and setting forth the charter for the NASA Space Program Advisory Council and its related standing committees under the Federal Advisory Committee Act of Oct. 6, 1972 (P.L. 92-463). The NASA Administrator had determined Jan. 4, 1973, that the Council and committees were in the public interest in the performance of duties imposed upon NASA by law, "and they are therefore continued for the period ending June 30, 1974." Council functions were to consult with and advise NASA, through the Deputy Administrator, on plans for, work in progress on, and accomplishments of NASA's programs. (NASA NMI 1156.20C)
The Federal Republic of Germany's Aeros satellite (launched by NASA Dec. 16, 1972) was operating within expected limits. Five science experiments had been turned on and were operating satisfactorily. An anomaly had possibly degraded data from the U.S. neutral atmosphere temperature experiment; four other experiments were unaffected. (NASA prog off )
NASA launched a Black Brant VC sounding rocket from White Sands Missile Range carrying a Goddard Space Flight Center payload to a 276.8-km (172-mi) altitude. The objective was to test the performance of the rocket configuration that would be used for a series of calibration rocket (CALROC) launches during the manned Skylab mission scheduled for May. The rocket and instrumentation performed satis. factorily. The CALROC launches would provide a reference for the calibration of equipment on Skylab's Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM). CALROC launches were also scheduled during the Skylab 3 and Skylab 4 missions, to acquire solar flux data on specific regions of the sun in conjunction with Skylab astronaut observations of the same regions with ATM experiments. Instrumentation on CALROC would be similar to but smaller than that on the ATM. Black Brant VC would be used for all launches. Taking part in the program, managed by Marshall Space Flight Center, were Ames Research Center, Naval Research Laboratory, Harvard College Observatory, and the White Sands Naval Ordnance Missile Test Facility. (GSFC proj off; MSFC Release 73-42')
Measurements of ice, surface, and atmospheric conditions in the Bering Sea would be made by NASA and the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, NASA announced. The experiment would be conducted Feb. 18-Mar. 7 on a Soviet weather ship and I1-18 aircraft and by a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker and the instrumented NASA Convair 990. The project would be carried out under August 1971 recommendations of the Joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. Working Group on Satellite Meteorology for better understanding of interaction of sea ice and atmosphere on weather patterns in the Bering Sea area. (NASA Release 73-2)
A Federal court in New York began hearing $2-million libel suit brought by Dr. W. Ross Adey, Univ. of California at Los Angeles brain research specialist, against the New York-based animal welfare organiza tion United Action for Animals. Dr. Adey accused the organization of publishing "false, scandalous, defamatory statements" in an article in its bulletin on a NASA- and Air Force-funded Biosatellite 3 experiment (launched June 28, 1969). The organization had criticized Dr. Adey's treatment of Bonny-an instrumented monkey that had been orbited to measure functions of central nervous, cardiovascular, and metabolic systems under weightlessness. Bonny had died shortly after its return to the earth. (Burks, NYT, 1/20/73, 27; 1/25/73, 45)
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