Apr 23 1964
From The Space Library
NASA and NBC conducted one-hour test of the SYNCOM II communication satellite hovering in synchronous orbit near the West Coast, testing the satellite's capability to relay video coverage from Tokyo's Olympic Games next fall. In the test, signals were transmitted from an antenna at Fort Dix, N.J.; signals returned from the satellite were received at Andover, Me., and relayed to NBC studios by land lines. Quality of the pictures was considered below standard commercial quality hut adequate for brief broadcasts of select events. NBC, Which had purchased exclusive rights to TV coverage of the 1964 Summer Olympics in the U.S. and Central and South America, would now decide whether to attempt live coverage with satellites or to rely on tapes. (Witkin, NYT, 4/24/64, 55)
USAF launched Atlas-Agena D booster combination from Point Arguello, Calif., with unidentified satellite payload. (AP, Houston Post, 4/24/64; M&R, 5/4/64, 8)
AFSC announced that 36 projects initiated under the canceled X-20 program would be continued in support of USAF manned orbiting laboratory (MOL) and other programs. Examples of projects to be continued: X-20 full pressure suit, search and rescue receiver/transmitter, studies of pilot control of booster trajectories, nose cap concept, X-20 heat protection system, coated molybdenum panels, high temperature bearings, sensors/ transducers, test instrumentation subsystem ground station, flight simulation instruments and controls. (AFSC Release 43-10 44)
Dr. Robert M. White, Chief of U.S. Weather Bureau, said in address before joint American Meteorological Society-American Geophysical Union banquet in Washington: "Man has always had to contend with hurricanes, tornadoes, seismic sea waves, floods, earthquakes, and the like. His scientific, technological, and social advances have now brought him face to face with new environmental hazards. I am thinking of communications blackouts, the effects of atmospheric turbulence on high-speed aircraft, radioactive fall- out, and radiation in space. . . . "We are now developing revolutionary new methods of acquiring global information about our environment. The space satellite, although still in its embryonic state, offers a potential for acquiring environmental information over the entire globe in a manner hitherto unimaginable. However, satellites are extremely costly, and their cost will require that a system be devised for multiple uses. A satellite observational system for environmental purposes will have to serve navigational and geodetic functions, make observations of the weather, probe the oceans, and sound the ionosphere. "Any observational platform should be put to multiple uses if it is expensive to build and operate. I am thinking not only of space satellites, but also of ships and aircraft. We can no longer ignore the necessity of using expensive platforms to collect data for many geophysical purposes. The concept of an oceanographic survey without a simultaneous atmospheric survey must be abandoned by force of economics alone. . . ." (Text)
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