May 24 1971
From The Space Library
NASA supercritical wing, flown on TF-8A jet aircraft piloted by NASA test pilot Thomas C. McMurtry, successfully completed seventh flight from vac. Aircraft reached 12 900-m (42 500-ft) altitude and mach 0.98. Objectives were to expand flight envelope to higher altitudes and explore flutter and buffet boundaries, evaluate stability and control characteristics, and evaluate control system. (NASA Proj Off)
At Apollo 15 press briefing in Washington, D.C., Astronaut Alfred M. Worden, CM pilot, described planned activities in lunar orbit, including first "working walk" in space. At 320 000 km (200 000 mi) from earth on return journey from moon, he would move outside CM, hand-walk on 7.6-m (25-ft) tether along rail, and open bay in SM to retrieve two canisters of film used to photograph moon while space- craft was in lunar orbit, It was necessary to retrieve film before SM was jettisoned 160 km (100 mi) from earth before CM'S reentry. Worden said one hour had been allotted to space walk but underwater practice had indicated retrievals could be completed in 20 min. Two roundtrips from CM to SM were necessary because only one canister could be carried at a time. First canister would weigh 36.3 kg (80 lbs) and hold 2000 m (6700 ft) of film, including more than 1600 exposures of lunar surface taken from 113-km (70-mi) lunar orbit. Photos would be enlarged on earth to compose blowup 15.2 m (50 ft) wide and 160 km (100 mi) long showing details on lunar surface as small as 1.5 m (5 ft) in diameter. NASA hoped these would include photo of LRV. Second canister would weight 3.6 kg (8 lbs) and hold 1100 m (3600 ft) of film used in mapping camera. While Worden retrieved cannisters, CM's hatch would be opened. Astronaut James B. Irwin would guide Worden along tether and Astronaut David R. Scott would stow canisters when Worden passed them through hatch. Worden told press, "We're going to be doing something out there, not just testing out an engineering concept or working out a procedure to do something." (Transcript)
Grumman Aerospace Corp. pilots Robert K. Smyth and William H. Miller conducted successful 58-min flight of USN F-14 from Grumman facility at Calverton, N.Y. Same pilots had flown first USN F-14 on second flight, on Dec. 30, 1970, when it crashed into woods near Grumman facility seconds after they successfully ejected. Aircraft was kept at speeds below 467 km per hr (290 mph) during maneuvers to familiarize pilots with handling characteristics. (Witkin, NYT, 5/25/71)
Rep. Glenn M. Anderson (D-Calif.) introduced Emergency Conversion Loan Act to aid victims of aerospace industry depression. Legislation would immediately qualify jobless engineers, scientists, and technicians for conversion loans from banks in amounts up to 60% of prior salary, but not to exceed $12000. (CR, 5/24/71, E4915)
Dept. of Labor released results to date of Technology Mobilization and Reemployment Program to relocate unemployed aerospace and defense industry personnel. While 10 284 professionals had registered with state unemployment agencies since program's May 3 inception, about 300 jobs had come into registry. These did not include aerospace and defense jobs already listed but not yet tallied. Labor Dept. spokesman said program hoped to provide jobs for about 30 000 out of about 100 000 scientists, engineers, and technicians it would serve over next two years. (Shabecoff, NYT, 5/25/71)
May 24-25: Technical conference sponsored by MSFC and Huntsville, Ala., section of Optical Society of America at MSFC reviewed research in holography and optical filtering being conducted by NASA, industry, and universities. Holography was technique of using lasers to obtain three dimensional image of object or scene without use of camera or lenses. Method was employed in display systems and testing. (MSFC Release 7145; MSFC PAO)
May 24-26: Eleventh European Space Symposium was held in West Berlin, Germany, to discuss applications satellites. In welcoming address Dr. Manfred Bodenschatz of German Society for Aviation and Astronautics (DGLR) said: "We have passed through the infancy period of space flight and realized the untold possibilities of utilization. . It is only to be regretted that the general public has not apparently fully realized this and one does . begin to note a certain indiffer- ence to space flight accompanied by the feeling that the major space powers will be doing it for us anyway." Purpose of symposium was "to demonstrate clearly that a whole range of . . fields of application already exists and must be enlarged upon, and that European space technology, science, and industry can and must render its own important contribution here if it does not want to be left hopelessly behind." (SF, 10/71, 393-4)
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