Jun 13 1977
From The Space Library
NASA announced it had awarded Boeing Commercial Airplane Co., Seattle, Wash., a $1.7-million contract for work on control technology for the Boeing 747 civil-transport aircraft, part of a program to increase fuel efficiency of future aircraft by up to 50%. Work would include design, wind-tunnel tests, and evaluation of modifications such as winglets, wingtip extensions, and active controls for load maneuvers, gust alleviation, and suppression of structural vibrations. LaRC would manage the contract for work to be done within 2yr at the Boeing plant in Seattle. (NASA Release 77-120; LaRC Release 77-25)
INTELSAT announced that the Republic of Chad had become the 96th member of the organization, and the 23rd from Africa. The INTELSAT operating agreement had been signed June 9 by the Societe de Telecommunications Internationales du Chad. (INTELSAT Release 77-14-I)
NOAA reported it had used two of its operational environmental satellites with NASA's Landsat-2 to obtain imagery that could give early warning of river ice melts causing ice jams and flooding. David F. McGinnis, Jr., and Stanley R. Schneider of NAAA's Natl. Environmental Satellite Service (NESS) had studied the Ottawa River separating Quebec and Ontario provinces and joining the St. Lawrence River below Ottawa and Montreal over 12 days in April 1976 to find which sections were covered with ice. By the end of the period, all but three of the 14 sections studied had been free of obstructing ice. Disappearance of ice monitored by the team in the Chaudiere River of SW Quebec had resulted from hydraulic transport rather than melting, which had occurred in the Ottawa River because of the blocking effect of dams, islands, and sharp bends in the river. (NOAA Release 77-145)
The Energy Research and Development Administration reported that its scientists had developed a new way to reclaim used automotive oils, removing solid and liquid impurities in a solvent-and-distillation treatment. After heating the used oil to drive off volatile hydrocarbons and water, the process would add a solvent to make sludge of the contaminants; the remaining oil would go through normal processes of distillation, improvement of color and odor, and reformulation with additives. Iowa State Univ. had run a vehicle-fleet test for more than 10mo using the re-refined oils with no abnormal wear or performance; the product had not generated polluting byproducts. Most commercial rerefining had used an acid-based technology producing wastes more polluting than the used oil itself. (ERDA Release 77-14)
ERDA announced that the world's largest aircraft would airlift one of the heaviest loads ever transported by air June 19 when a USAF C-5 Galaxy carried a U.S.-built 40-ton magnet from Chicago to Moscow for tests of an experimental magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) process for generating electricity. The USSR's U-25 facility near Moscow, operated by the Soviet Institute for High Temperatures, was the largest MHD test facility in the world. Dr. William D. Jackson, head of ERDA's MHD program, said that using the Soviet plant would speed commercialization of the process in the U.S. at reduced cost to the American public. The magnet would aid in tests conducted jointly for about 2yr under the U.S.-USSR Energy Agreement of 1974. (ERDA Release 77-100)
The new administration of President Carter would not initiate a working Landsat earth resources monitoring system until it found out how much money Landsat data users would invest in such a system, (Av Wk, reported. The president's science adviser Frank Press, director of the White House office of science and technology policy, would set up a committee to study the user-cost question. Press had told the Senate subcommittee on science, technology, and space that it would be "premature to commit the federal government" to support of an operational system because of many uncertainties about remote sensing; he said that development of a sector to be served by Landsat data had not evolved "as rapidly as some anticipated several years ago," and that "no comprehensive assessment" had been made "of the overall market structure for Landsat data applications. . . ." The subcommittee was considering a bill cosponsored by Sen. Wendell H. Ford (D-Ky) and former astronaut Sen. Harrison M. Schmitt (R-NM) that would establish an operational Landsat system, the space segment to be run by NASA and the ground data distribution by the Dept. of the Interior. (Av Wk, noted, however, that the Interior testimony had been altered at the last minute to deny support of the bill. (Av Wk, June 13/77, 91)
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