Apr 28 1964
From The Space Library
Aerojet General Corp. successfully test fired Apollo service module engine in long duration test at Sacramento, Calif. The multiple-restart, 22,000-lb.-thrust engine was activated four times for total of 421 sec. (UPI, Houston Chron., 4/29/64)
Use of lasers to measure craters on the moon was reported by J. S. Courtney-Pratt, of Bell Telephone Laboratories, to Society of Photographic Scientists and Engineers in New York. Based on computations made with laser beams sent to crater lips and then to crater bottoms, lunar craters were found to be as deep as 20,000 ft. (Devlin, NYT, 4/29/64, 15)
NASA Administrator James E. Webb, addressing Texas Technological College, said that the role of NASA was "essentially the same as that of its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Both Were created in an atmosphere of chagrin and deep concern because prior to World War I and following World War II the nation had forfeited early leadership in a new field of technological opportunity-aeronautics in 1915 and space in 1957. In recommending the creation of NACA in 1915, a committee of the Smithsonian Institution presented a Memorial to the Congress Which began: "This country led in the early development of heavier-than-air machines. Today it is far behind.. . "This was at the outset of a war in which, despite the fact that the Wright Brothers had first demonstrated powered flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903, the United States had no aircraft design or manufacturing capability of its own. No aircraft of American design or manufacture flew in Europe during World War I, and it remained for NACA, in the years Which ensued, to provide the basic research and development upon which achievement of ultimate U.S. air supremacy, civil and military, was based.. . "The advent of Sputnik I in 1957 revealed that once again, this time in space, the United States had neglected a clear opportunity for technological leadership and to overcome the deficiency, the President and the Congress turned once again to the formula which had proven so effective in aeronautics for more than 40 years. It created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as a research and development agency charged with restoring the nation's leadership in space by developing the rockets, the spacecraft, the facilities, the scientific knowledge, and the operational skill required. And like NACA, NASA has fulfilled its mission to the extent that we have now reached a point of parity in space with the Soviet Union. . . ." (Text)
At annual meeting of National Academy of Sciences, in Washington, Dr. Lloyd V. Berkner, President of Graduate Research Center of the Southwest, was elected to a second four-year term as Treasurer. Also at the meeting, NAS elected 35 new members on the basis of dis-tinguished and continuing achievements in original research, among them: George Howard Herbig, astronomer and assistant director of Lick Observatory; and Clark Blanchard Millikan, professor of aeronautics and director of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory. Election of six distinguished foreign scientists also was announced, among them: Marcel Gilles Josef Minnaert, Professor Emeritus at the Univ. of Utrecht and co-inventer of the stellar curve of growth, one of the most significant developments in modern astronomy; and Maurice Roy, Directeur General de l'Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aerospatiales and currently President of the International Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) . (NAS-NRS Releases)
Quasars (quasi-stellar objects) Were subject of discussion at American Physical Society meeting in Washington. Too large to be stars, too small to be galaxies, quasars emanate tremendously strong radio waves even though they are billions of light-years away. Dr. Peter Bergmann of Yeshiva Univ. said pulsing quasar 3C-273 must have been shining for at least a million years, because it must have taken at least that long for the jet of luminous gas protruding from one side to reach its presently observed length. Dr. Bergmann presented his theory that quasars shine because of gravitational collapse-trans-formation of mass to energy by gravitation rather than stellar fusion. Dr. Louis Gold and Dr. John W. Moffatt of Martin Co.'s Research Institute for Advanced Studies rejected theories that quasars operate on stellar fusion principle, theorized that "ordered oscillation" was operating inside the vast gaseous envelopes rimming quasars. Laser effect, or coherence of particles, occurred in the gaseous envelope, which was about 1 to 10 light years thick. Dense core of quasar must act as fusion furnace, providing particles which acquire coherence on their way to the outside. (Sullivan, NYT, 4/29/64, 15; Haseltine, Wash. Post, 4/29/64; Hines, Wash. Eve. Star, 4/29/64)
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