Apr 19 1966

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BOAC grounded four Boeing 707 jets after precautionary inspection had revealed hairline cracks around bolt holes in tail assemblies. Following BOAC announcement, FAA disclosed that 22 Boeing 707 and 720 jetliners, all three or more years old, were under repair for tail assembly cracks. (NYT, 4/20/66, 1; Ingraham, NYT, 4/21/66, 66M; NYT, 4/22/66, 65; Toth, Wash. Post, 4/24/66, M6)

USAF launched unidentified satellite from WTR with Atlas-Agena D booster. (U.S. Aeron. & Space Act., 1966, 150)

House Committee on Science and Astronautics filed its report on H.R. 1441, the $4.986-billion NASA budget authorization. (NASA LAR V/65-66)

International Association of Machinists and Boeing Co. settled dispute on seniority issues under Federal mediation, averting strike of 50,000 Boeing employees, including those working on Saturn V boosters at Kennedy Space Center, NASA. (UPI, NYT, 4/20/66, 48; UPI, Wash. Post, 4/20/66, A6)

Eastern Airlines reserved two delivery positions for US. supersonic transport (SST); transaction raised total number of reserved delivery positions to 96 and number of companies holding reservations to 22. (FAA Release 66-36)

April 19-20: American Geophysical Union held 47th annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Dr. George P. Woollard, AGU president and director of Univ. of Hawaii's Geophysics Research Center, in opening speech, urged intensive study of earth's interior. As an example of complexities of the planet brought to light by detailed knowledge, he noted that satellite observations, leading at first to the view of earth as "pearshaped," had been supplemented by new information on local variations. "We will probably wind up," Woollard said, "with a warty, oblate spheroid." (Sullivan, NYT, 4/20/66, 47M)

Univ. of Chicago astronomer Edward Anders told AGU that organic compounds in certain meteorites were result of "natural chemical processes," not "products of living organisms from afar." Hydrocarbon formation, Anders said, "will happen whenever carbon monoxide, hydrogen and meteoritic dust cool on a rapid time scale." John Wood of Smithsonian's Cambridge Astrophysical Observatory said that some meteorites were `truly primordial' matter, formed along with the rest of the solar system from a solar nebula." (Wash. Post, 4/21/66, A3)

Experimenters presented preliminary reports on NASA's PIONEER VI spacecraft at AGU meeting. Initial data gathered by 140-lb. spacecraft, launched into heliocentric orbit Dec. 16, 1965, indicated that: (1) low-energy cosmic radiation generated in solar flares traveled in well defined streams coming from varying directions; (2) electron density in interplanetary space, measured by Stanford Univ. radio propagation detector, was nearly 10 per cu. cm.; (3) solar wind contained not only hydrogen and doubly-charged helium ions but also a small number of singly-charged helium ions; and (4) interplanetary magnetic field had structures interpreted as filamentary "stringers" associated with solar coronal filaments seen during eclipses. (NASA Release 66-87)

April 19-21: Nine NASA astronauts visited MSFC for briefing on Saturn I-B launch vehicles to be used in initial manned Apollo missions. Briefing including tours, hardware descriptions, design philosophy, structural and propulsion tests, and flight data from Feb. 26 AS-201 flight-was attended by Astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, James A. McDivitt, David R. Scott, Russell L. Schweickart, Edward H. White II, Frank Borman, Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Roger Chaffee, and Walter Cunningham. (MSFC Release 66-79)

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