September 1967
From The Space Library
Suggestions for restoring public confidence in and acceptance of the US. space program were advanced by William Leavitt in Air Force and Space Digest: "We can husband our resources by looking carefully at the question of whether we need two expensive and competitive manned orbital laboratories, one run by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and one run for the Defense Department by the Air Force. . . . "We can increase the funding and sharpen the planning of the unmanned working satellites. . . . We can begin to look seriously at the potential of aerospace systems analysis and engineering in the solution of nonspace and nonmilitary public problems, with an emphasis on building into these techniques . . . social, economic and political factors. . . . And we can begin to put to work in our schools, suburban and urban, many of the space-age training techniques that have been a beneficial by-product of the technological age we live in." (AF/SD, 9/67,158-159,162,165)
M/G Alvin R. Luedecke (USAF, Ret.) , Deputy Director of JPL, resigned. He had come to JPL on Aug. 1, 1964, after five years as general manager of the Atomic Energy Commission and 25 years as an Air Force officer. (JPL Laboratory, Sept. 67)
NAA announced that Igor I. Sikorsky, popularly known as the father of the helicopter, had been selected to receive the 1967 Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy. Presentation would be made at the Dec. 14, 1967, annual memorial dinner in Washington, D.C. (NAA Release)
NSF's Office of Economic and Manpower Studies published report showing independent nonprofit institutions employed more than three times as many scientists and engineers in January 1965 as they did in January 1954. Scientific Activities of Nonprofit Institutions, 1964 said expenditures for R&D performance in these institutions were a little more than 5« times as much as in 1953, increasing the nonprofit sector's share of the Nation's total R&D outlay from two percent in 1953 to three percent in 1964. (Text)
More than two thirds of 1966's public intercity travel had been by air, Space/Aeronautics reported. While long-haul air traffic demand would be shifted to aircraft like the SST, the airlines would need to come up with short-haul systems of equal caliber. Past studies, sponsored by FAA, had revealed that V/STOLS, complex and costly to operate as they are, would capture a substantial share of the short-haul market with their time savings and convenience and would, in fact, even increase the market by inducing more travel. (S /A , 9/67, 102-15)
General aviation fatal accidents for the first time fell below 3 per 100 million hours, the CAB estimating 2.5 for 1966. (National Pilots Assn News, 9/67)
The overall national security significance of space, in both tactical and strategic terms, were discussed by Dr. Harold Brown, Secretary of the Air Force, in General Electric Forum. "The Department of Defense does not view space as a mission, but rather as a place," he said, explaining broad Air Force responsibilities and goals in space. He cited representative features of the military unmanned space programs: (1) ballistic missile warning; (2) antisatellite defense; and (3) nuclear detonation detection. (Brown, General Electric Forum, Autumn 1967)
U.S.S.R. and Great Britain planned to sign a joint technological agreement shortly as result of British government and industry team visit to Moscow during September, reported Aviation Week. Agreement would cover automatic landing, aircraft engine technology and reliability, engine noise, and sonic boom research, Minister of State John Stonehouse, team leader, stated. Britain had substantial lead over U.S.S.R. in these fields, but Stonehouse contended sharing of information would lead to new export markets for British hardware in Soviet and Soviet bloc countries. (Av Wk, 10/2/67,16)
Earth-orbiting satellites, according to Soviet cosmonaut Pavel Popovich's report in Aviation and Cosmonautics, would render practical help to agriculture, assessing crop and forest resources and discovering areas of vegetation affected by disease, fires, locusts, and underground springs. His report specified regularly photographing areas under cultivation from sowing to harvesting and processing data in computers to obtain yield forecasts. (S/F, 9/67,310)
Soviet radio astronomer Professor Vsevolod Troitski, in statement to Tass, said new information had provided convincing proof that moon's surface was sufficiently strong to support spacecraft landings. He stated that substance composing top layer of moon's surface consisted of loosely connected particles averaging 0.01 in and that contacts between particles were very weak. On an average, porous substance covered moon to a depth of about 13 ft, according to Troitski. (S /F 9/67, 305)
- September
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
