May 8 1978
From The Space Library
LaRC announced that Donald Hearth, center director, had received an honorary Doctor of Science degree during commencement exercises May 7 at George Washington Univ. in Washington, D.C. As guest speaker, Hearth discussed Technology and the Future, noting, "There will continue to be a strong tendency to characterize technology as either the savior of society's problems or the villain in the drama of life. Technology is of magic," he continued, "but it can help solve some of society's problems. We want machines, but not the kind that run us. We want technology, but we want to be in charge of it." The address included a short history of technology, and projections of possible uses of technology in the near future. (LaRC Release 78-29)
LaRC announced it would hold a conference on safety, occupational medicine, and environmental health May 15-18, with about 60 representatives from all NASA centers attending. Welcoming remarks by Fred Bowen, LaRC technical manager for management operations, would cover audiometric testing, types of hearing loss, rehabilitative techniques, noise protection equipment, and computerized treadmill data. LaRC Director Donald Hearth's remarks on the second day would include discussion of workmen's compensation, disability, continuation of pay status, and LaRC's occupational medicine and environmental health and safety programs. The May 17 agenda would cover space suit testing, new approaches in workplace health standards, fire protection, Space Shuttle safety challenges, the kinetic method of lifting, and system safety in wind-turbine generators. On May 18 participants would discuss nuclear safety in space systems, Space Shuttle occupant safety, and new fire fighting equipment. (LaRC Release 78-28)
The long controversy in the International Civil Aviation Organization over choice of a microwave landing system-which had ended in a 39-24 victory for the U.S.-backed time-reference scanning-beam (TRSB) system-had taught the group important lessons, Av Wk reported. First: the large turnout of Third World countries indicated that future proposers of new systems must focus their appeals to such countries. Roy Cox, director of telecommunications for the British Civil Aviation Authority, described the problem: "Those ... in the meeting faced the impossible task of studying and acting upon some 2,000 pages ... on complex operational and technical issues and the time allotted did not permit adequate study by those states which had not previously participated in the many years of preparation." Second: although the ICAO had recognized the complexity of evaluating competing systems on the basis of extensive avionics expertise and background, 5 of the 10 specialists appointed to the All Weather Operations Panel had represented countries favoring particular microwave landing systems. Although selected as individuals, not as official representatives of their governments, the 5 had consistently favored the entry sponsored by their government. Hindsight would recommend including specialists from many countries on such an evaluation panel, to ensure that members predisposed to one of the choices would represent a minority, rather than a majority, of the panel. (Av Wk, May 8/78, 44)
Walter Morgan, ComSatCorp senior staff scientist, said at a conference sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics that a network of high-capacity comsats could be in orbit by the early 1990s, increasing transmission capacity and reducing the need for large ground antennas, Av Wk reported. Called orbital antenna "farms," the 14 0001b clusters of communications satellite antennas and sensors could replace many smaller individual satellites in geostationary orbit. Five antenna farms linked together in circular fashion would form a major cluster, which in turn could make up l part of a network of 5 separate clusters serving the Americas, Europe, the Pacific, Africa and the Middle East, and Asia. Such antenna farms would reduce the number of individual satellites and emit higher powered radio frequencies, permitting numerous earth stations to have smaller antennas with attendant lower costs and greater mobility.
Basis of an antenna farm cluster would be a structure about 40ft long and 14ft in diameter, housing electronic modules to control mission payload equipment. Although current technology was capable of handling orbital antenna farms, two possible technological problems would be in-orbit construction of the platforms and in-orbit servicing of the equipment. Disadvantages would include compromises on optimum orbital locations for various missions, radio-frequency interference between payloads grouped on a common platform, and the effect of a single system's failure on other antenna farm systems. Although ComSatCorp had not taken an official position on the concept, Morgan predicted that an antenna farm could be operational in the early 1990s, and that a smaller experimental farm might be operating earlier. (Av Wk, May 8/78, 56)
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