Nov 8 1964
From The Space Library
Pravda disclosed that the three crew members of the spaceship VOSKHOD I never used seat straps during their 24-hour flight except during the launching and landing stages. These men also said that their craft was equipped with a new control system that made it possible to orient the vehicle even when it was flying on the dark side of the earth. (Shabad, NYT, 11/9/64, 15)
GAO complained NASA had spent money unnecessarily by producing four basically similar films on the flight of astronaut John Glenn, three on the Alan Shepard flight, three on the Apollo lunar exploration project, two on the Ariel satellite, and two emphasizing international cooperation in the space program. The cost of the films ranged from $216,000 for one of the Glenn-flight productions to $1,500 for one of the three on Shepard's flight. (Orlando Sentinel, 11/4/64; NYT, 11/4/64, 40)
Dr. Thomas B. Weber, formerly at Aerospace Medical Center, Brooks AFB, Tex., and now manager of advanced research for space engineering at Beckman Instruments, Inc., Fullerton, Calif., said that all space-cabin simulation experiments so far have had to be called off within a few days because of accumulation of toxic elements in the closed atmospheres. "This may be the reason Russia's recent three-man space flight, which was expected to last several days, ended after only 24 hours." Dr. Weber continued, "Unless an answer is found, this is a definite threat to our own plans for a manned orbiting laboratory and it could delay the Apollo program to land men on the moon." Working under USAF contracts, Dr. Weber had devised instruments to collect and identify more than 400 contaminants given off by the human body and by space cabin equipment. So far he had found that 20 were potentially lethal, including highly explosive hydrogen given off by water used in cooling systems; ozone, given off by electrical equipment; and ammonia, acetone, and alcohol found in breath, perspiration, and body wastes. "None of these occurs in dangerous amounts in a normal environment," Dr. Weber said, "but in a small cabin they build up to lethal concentrations in short periods of time. . . . Our longest space flight so far lasted less than two days, but even on that one we ran into trouble filtering out the carbon dioxide exhaled by the astronaut." (AP, Denver Post, 11/8/64; AP, Wash. Eve. Star, 12/16/64)
In the Letters to the Editor column of the New York Times, Dr. Martin Summerfield, AIAA Vice President for Publications, took issue with sources quoted by NYT to the effect that Communist China would not be able to produce military nuclear-tipped rockets for another decade or even a generation. "As for rocket secrets," he said, "there are none, either in theory or design. All one needs is a reading knowledge of English, French, or German, and a good collection of recent technical journals." He said it was a serious underestimate to believe that the Chinese could not plan and execute an efficient research, development, and production program for practical missiles of medium range and a further underestimate to believe they were not close to their objective. (NYT, 11/8/64; A&A, 12/64, 10)
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