Jul 14 1964
From The Space Library
Rocketdyne Div. of North American Aviation and Douglas Aircraft Co. received three contract increments totaling more than $8 million for work on S-IVB stage of Saturn IB and Saturn V launch vehicles from NASA MSFC. Additional funding of $3.6 million went to Rocketdyne to equip their plant for production of J-2 engines and for providing static test site and propellant storage area. Douglas received two incremental contracts. One, for $2.3 million, was for purchase of long-term items on recently ordered additional eight S-IVB stages- Other, for $2.2 million, was for purchase of additional set of automatic checkout equipment. (SBD, 7/14/64, 63; Marshall Star, 7/15/64, 9)
NASA announced it had selected General Atomics Div. of General Dynamics Corp. to perform preliminary work, estimated to be worth about $1.7 million, on development of advanced type of nuclear reactor for use in powering spacecraft. Company would conduct studies on use of tungsten to contain uranium fuel in compact high-powered reactor that might power a rocket. Work would be performed for Space Nuclear Propulsion Office operated jointly by NASA and AEC. (NASA Release 64 173; WSJ, 7/15/64)
Pratt & Whitney received $685,000 contract from NASA MSFC for study and integration of an advanced liquid-oxygen-hydrogen rocket engine. Objective would be to integrate existing feasible concepts into one engine best able to meet future requirements. Work would be coordinated with other advanced mission studies such as Saturn V improvement, post Saturn, and the reusable orbital shuttle transport. Configuration would be an engine with a single chamber turbopump unit with variable mixture ratio control. It would be throttleable and capable of multiple restarts and with a thrust range of 300,000 to 350,000 lbs. One-year study would use data produced under several separate NASA engine technology contracts at Pratt & Whitney with inputs from Aerojet-General Corp., Rocketdyne Div. of North American Aviation, and General Electric Co. (M&R, 7/20/64, 8; SBD, 7/14/64, 63)
Missile and Space Systems Div. of Douglas Aircraft Co. has submitted study to NASA which concluded that six-man space research station, capable of orbiting for one year, could be orbiting earth within five years. Crew, serving on staggered schedule, would travel to and from station on modified Gemini or Apollo spacecraft. Station itself would provide small degree of artificial gravity by rotating slowly and would include centrifuge to simulate re-entry forces. (AP, N.Y. Her. Trib., 7/14/64)
Dr. Charles A. Berry of NASA's MSC said that some communicable diseases could develop on space missions of up to 14 days if astronauts were exposed during preflight preparation period. Therefore NASA plans included turning the spacecraft around and returning to earth in severe cases and equipping vehicles with emergency medical supplies. Also, doctors might be trained as astronauts for 30- to 60-day missions. (Phil. Eve. Bull., 7/14/64)
July 14-15: NASA's Wallops Station, Wallops Island, Va., launched seven scientific experiments in a period of less than 10 hours. All of the experiments involved sounding rocket experiments carried aloft by Nike-Apache rockets. Four of the payloads carried sodium vapor cloud experiments for GSFC to provide data on wind directions and speeds and at various altitudes and the changes which occurred during the period from sunset to dawn (peak altitudes: 118 mi., 119 mi., 119 mi., and 119 mi., respectively). . The other three were ionosphere experiments for the Univ, of Illinois and the Geophysics Corp. of America (peak altitudes: 97 mi., 99 and 106 mi., respectively). The main purpose of these tests was to observe and measure structural changes in the ionosphere from nighttime to daytime, as radiation from the sun penetrated down-ward. All seven experiments were successful. The sounding rocket experiments were part of the third International Year of the Quiet Sun (IQSY) "quarter day" in the coordinated solar study program. (Wallops Releases 64-54, 64-55, 64-56; GSFC Historian; NASA Rpts. SRL)
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