May 6 1974
From The Space Library
NASA FY 1975 authorization bill H.R. 13998 was reported to the Senate by the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences. The Committee authorization of $3.267 billion was $8.145 million higher than that passed by the House 25 April. It was equal to 1% of the total FY 1975 Federal budget and was $0.5 billion below the constant-level NASA budget endorsed by Congress two years earlier. The Committee had added $16 million to NASA'S 4 Feb. budget request, to fund procurement and launch of a third Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS-C) for continuity of remote-sensing data. The Committee also had added $6 million to support activities under way and the initiation and application of new ideas in energy and environmental areas. It re-fused to concur in $20 million added by the House to the space shuttle program. (S Rpt 93-818)
6-10 May: The possibility of self-sufficient colonies of men in space was discussed at a conference of physicists, astronauts, and space flight technologists at Princeton Univ. Dr. Gerald K. O'Neill, Princeton professor of physics, suggested that a colony for .2000 persons could be constructed on a space station at the point in the moon's orbit where the gravitational fields of the earth and the moon balanced. The cylindrical station could be built within 15 to 20 yrs using the space shuttle to transport the 9000 metric tons of necessary building materials from the earth. The abundant materials available on the moon could be transferred by a cargo-launching system. Dr. O'Neill pointed out that "virtually unlimited" resources existed in space, including a continuous source of energy from the sun and great chunks of almost pure nickel-iron from the Asteroid Belt. Increasingly large and complex stations could ensure that most "dirty" industry could be operating off the earth by the middle of the 21st century. Space colonies could also ensure the continuity of the human race. (Sullivan, NYT, 13 May 74, 1; OMSF, interview, Feb 75)
6-21 May: Fifteen nations, including the U.S., signed an international convention for the protection of copyrighted signals transmitted by satellite, following a week-long international conference in Brussels, Belgium. Each contracting country undertook to prevent any earth station in its territory from picking up and redistributing satellite signals without authority. Representatives of 60 nations had established the text of the convention at the conference sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization. The convention would remain open for signatures until March 1975. It would come into force three months after ratification by five signatory states. (Rpt to House Com on Sci & Astro, Corn Print, July 74)
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