Dec 10 1973
From The Space Library
Establishment of a NASA Task Force on Energy Conservation and designation of Gen. Bruce K. Holloway (USAF, Ret.), Special Assistant to the Administrator and Assistant Administrator for DOD and Interagency Affairs, as Director of Energy Conservation were announced by Dr. George M. Low, Deputy Administrator. In a memorandum to Center Directors and program and staff office heads Dr. Low said the Task Force would direct NASA activities to reduce energy use, determine where further energy reductions could be made in NASA and its programs, and apply technical and management ingenuity to finding new and imaginative ways in which NASA and other agencies could conserve energy. (Text)
Kennedy Space Center requested bids from 50 construction firms on the 4600-m (15 000-ft) runway to be built for the space shuttle northwest of the Vehicle Assembly Building. The runway would be the first facility built in reshaping Launch Complex 39 for its new role in the shuttle program. Bids were to be opened Feb. 22, 1974. (KSC Release 7-74)
NASA launched a Black Brant VC sounding rocket from White Sands Missile Range carrying a Harvard College Observatory solar physics experiment to a 2683-km (167-mi) altitude. The launch was also one of the series of calibration rockets (CALROC) launched in support of Skylab missions [see Jan. 22]. The rocket and instrumentation per-formed satisfactorily. (GSFC proj off)
Skylab backup hardware was being stored in plastic tents with controlled environments at Marshall Space Flight Center for later use or disposal. (MSFC Release 73-193)
Former astronaut John H. Glenn, Jr., announced in Cleveland he would make a third bid for the Democratic nomination to the Senate from Ohio. He had lost the 1970 Democratic senatorial primary; a head in-jury had forced him to end his 1964 Senate campaign. Glenn, as pilot of Friendship 7 (launched Feb. 20, 1962), was the first American to make an orbital space flight. (CSM, 12/11/73; A&A 1962)
Dr. Wolf V. Vishniac, Univ. of Rochester microbiologist and biological scientist in NASA'S Viking Mars lander program, died at age 51 after falling down a steep slope during a scientific expedition to Antarctica for NASA. Dr. Vishniac was studying how microbes multiplied in the arid Antarctic soil. He had been a member of NASA's Lunar and Planetary Missions Board 1967-1970. He had served on the Office of Manned Space Flight's Joint Editorial Board on Space Biology and Medicine since 1965 and was coediting Volume One of "Space Biology and Medicine." He had been a member of the Viking Biology Team since 1969, had served on the Lunar Sampling Analysis Team in 1968 and 1969, and had been active on the Space Sciences Board of the National Academy of Sciences. (NASA Release 73-277; AP, NYT, 12/ 13/73, 48)
December 10-14: More than 120 papers by scientists worldwide were presented at the Third Earth Resources Technology Satellite Symposium sponsored by Goddard Space Flight Center. The Symposium highlighted data from ERTS 1 Earth Resources Technology Satellite (launched by NASA July 23, 1972), which had provided more than 100 000 images of the earth's surface. Also emphasized was the extension of scientific techniques and findings discussed in a March symposium, including applications directly benefiting the public in dealing with local and regional resource problems. (NASA Release 73-271; GSFC PIO)
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