Mar 9 1967
From The Space Library
President Johnson told White House news conference he was "very hopeful" of landing men on the moon by 1970, but did not think "there is any guarantee that we will at all." The President noted that a manned lunar landing was "a very difficult undertaking. I think it has been a very close question since the original target date was set." (PD, 3/13/67, 419)
Australian government announced it would begin new search for NASA's Biosatellite I, carrying more than 10 million tiny living organisms, believed to have landed in western Australia Feb. 15. Initial search had been canceled by NASA, Feb. 22. (Reuters, C Trib, 3/10/67)
Report on spaceflight emergencies and spaceflight safety, released by House Committee on Science and Astronautics' Subcommittee on NASA Oversight, made several specific recommendations: (1) NASA and USAF continue to devote intensive study effort to spaceflight safety and report periodically to the committee; (2) NASA and USAF establish joint working-level committee to eliminate duplication of effort, assure compatibility in equipment features, conduct joint accident reviews, and achieve a coordinated effort; (3) each agency establish a separate flight safety group to monitor system designs for specific missions to ensure close attention to the problem of flight safety; (4) development of possible space rescue or escape capabilities be considered in the design and development of all future manned spacecraft; and (5) NASA prepare a long-range "plan for meeting future spaceflight emergencies"-including program identification and long-range funding requirements-by the end of 1967. (Text)
NASA Associate Administrator for Advanced Research and Technology Dr. Mac G. Adams outlined NASA's supporting role in SST development at hearings before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics: "In 1965 NASA provided the FAA with the services of 50 technical people for six weeks for the evaluation of industry-proposed airframe and engine designs. During final evaluations last fall, 75 professionals were provided for two months and two major facilities at Langley and Ames were operated 10 hours a day and 6 days a week during September. We are assisting FAA contractors by making available to them facilities such as wind tunnels and simulators and have helped solve specific problems growing out of detail design. The contractors used about 4100 hours of NASA wind tunnel time for each of the past two years." NASA was carrying a major research responsibility as a member of a Federal team on the SST sonic boom program-including definition of sonic boom signatures and effects of sonic boom on structures, Dr. Adams said, and was also continuing its own study of materials suitable for SST structures. "In addition to supporting the FAA on the present SST, we are continuing our general research program aimed at an improved second-generation supersonic transport." (Testimony)
Development of a military base in space or on the moon would be the least expensive way to protect US. cities, Rep. William Jennings Bryan Dorn (D-S.C.) suggested in speech on the House floor. He said that the refinement of US. capabilities to destroy, on a moment's notice, any potential enemy anywhere in the world would be far superior to development of an antimissile missile system for the. protection of selected cities only. In addition, stations in space that could control the weather and current of the sea might well "deter a madman dictator" and a spacecraft capable of raining atomic warheads could ensure peace. (CR, 3/9/67, H2422-3)
Rep. Charles E. Goodell (R-N.Y.) introduced legislation to House authorizing the President to "designate a day in January of each year as a day of remembrance" for Apollo Astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee, who died in Jan. 27 fire at KSC. (CR, 3/9/67, H2460)
Wall Street Journal editorial challenged theory presented in RAND Corp.-Brookings Institution publication, Technology, Economic Growth and Public Policy, that massive Federal effort was necessary to supplement US. technology development "in non-defense areas, on projects that will add to the nation's store of industrial technology and further spur economic growth. . . . "Improved technology is vital to the nation, and Federal help sometimes is either desirable or unavoidable. But history indicates that the Government's efforts usually should come, not as a matter of bureaucratic routine, but rather as a last resort." (WSJ, 3/9/67)
March 9-13: Series of four NASA Nike-Apache sounding rockets launched from Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) carried India's Physical Research Laboratory experiment to 114-mi (183-km) altitude to measure atmosphere winds above 62 mi (100 km) using sodium vapor payload, and electron density using Langmuir probe. In two cases no wind data were collected due to non-ejection of sodium vapor; Langmuir probe experiment performed satisfactorily. (MSA Rpt)
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