Mar 2 1973
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
Communications Satellite Corp. would receive a $27 912 000 firm-fixed-price contract for lease of ultrahigh-frequency satellite communications service, the Navy announced [see Mar. 7], (DOD Release 109-73)
Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., Secretary of the Air Force, announced the award of Air Force contracts to Fairchild Industries, Inc., and General Electric Co. to develop the A-X close air support aircraft. Fairchild Industries, Inc., would receive a $159 279 888 cost-plus-incentive-fee contract to test prototype aircraft and to develop and build 10 pre-production A-10 aircraft for flight-testing.
General Electric Co. would receive a $27 666 900 fixed-price-incentive firm contract to develop and deliver 32 TF-34 engines to power the A-10 aircraft. (DOD Release 105-73)
Science commented on the new congressional Office of Technology Assessment. OTA, now in the planning stage, was unlikely to receive any of its $5-million budget before July 1 and therefore would not be operating before the summer. The OTA board would be a joint committee of Congress including Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass,), chairman; Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D-Minn.) ; Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (DS.C.); Sen. Peter H. Dominick (R-Colo.) ; Sen. Clifford P. Case (R-N.J.) ; Sen. Richard S. Schweiker (R-Pa.) ; Rep. John W. Davis (D-Ga.); Rep. Olin E. Teague (D-Tex.) ; Rep. Morris K. Udall (DAriz.) ; Rep. Charles A. Mosher (R-Calif.) ; and Rep. James Harvey (R-Mich. )
OTA would be a general consulting service to Congress to aid it in its decisions, in part by contracting out long-term studies to think tanks and universities. Short-term work could be done by a panel of outside experts and ad hoc panels with members from industry, science, engineering, labor unions, and public interest groups. OTA hoped to make all of its business open to the public. (Shapley, Science, 3/2/73, 875-877)
The small, $240 000 guidance-control computers used in the Minuteman I nuclear missile force had been made available to public organizations by the Air Force, Science reported. For a $30 delivery fee, the general purpose computers, one meter (three feet) in diameter, were being recycled to hospitals, laboratories, and universities to begin reprogramming for peaceful uses. The computers had become available because of the deployment of the Minuteman III multiple-warhead missiles. (Wade, Science, 3/2/73, 880)
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