March 1965
From The Space Library
Asked in an interview for the San Diego Union if the U.S. would succeed in landing a man on the moon in this decade, Dr. Donald F. Hornig, special assistant to President Johnson for science and technology, said: "When you lay down a schedule, it says that if everything goes as I see it, making allowances for reasonable difficulties, this is what I'll do. It's a tight schedule and will take a lot of doing, We also have to acknowledge that unforeseen problems may arise… When we started in 1961 on a nine-year program it was not wishful thinking but it was a purely paper exercise, We have slipped some on our schedules, but in a sense we have gained ground in that we have not run into any serious difficulties yet. We are now entering the hardest period of all, when the pieces begin to come out of the factory and have to be put together and tested," Answering a query if there would be a manned expedition to Mars one day, he said: "It would be harder than going to the moon, I don't anticipate he will go soon, But we have started the unmanned exploration. The results may whet our appetite or may prove that conditions are so inhospitable that it isn't worth the effort." (San Diego Union, 3/7/65)
JPL scientists W. L. Sjogren and D. W. Trask reported that as a result of RANGER VI and RANGER VII tracking data, DSIF station locations could be determined to within 10 meters in the radial direction normal to the earth's spin axis. Differences in the longitude between stations could be calculated to within 20 meters. The moon's radius had been found to be 3 km, less than was thought, and knowledge of its mass had been improved by an order of magnitude. (M&R, 3/22/65, 23)
NASA Manned Spacecraft Center analysis showed that radiation shielding offered by the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) was negligible: a particle flux producing a 1-rem dose in the Apollo command module would produce a 17-rem dose in the LEM. The Apollo space radiation warning system would provide advance indication of need for astronauts to return from the LEM to the command-service modules. (M&R, 3/22/65, 23)
USAF San Bernardino Air Materiel Area reported that Atlas and Titan ICBM's scheduled for phase-out by summer would be used in antimissile and space booster research and development assignments, Requests had been received to use the silos as civil defense shelters and for storage of petroleum, gas, and grain. (M&R, 3/22/65, 12)
NASA's Office of Technology Utilization published a technology survey on advanced valve technology growing out of space research. (NASA Release 65-92)
A land exchange between the U.S. Government and New Mexico was nearing completion, clearing the way for construction of a $20 million rocket testing complex to be built by Bell Aerosystems Co, near the White Sands Missile Range. (AP, Houston Chron., 3/24/65)
Republican minority of the Joint Congressional Economic Committee said, after reviewing the President's Annual Economic Report, that the U.S. emphasis on defense, space, and other Federal research was giving the other industrial nations the opportunity to concentrate on civilian-oriented research, which might enable them to build superior economies. (Av. Wk, 3/29/65, 78)
The theory that temperature change of 3.5° C or more in 5 min, of horizontal jet flight was a true indicator of clear air turbulence (Cat) had been disproved by George McLean, AFCRL. He explained that Cat did not always occur near jet streams and that when it did, the angle at which the plane hit the jet stream was a determining factor. (OAR Release 365-6)
British Meteorological Office's Skua solid-propellant sounding rocket was described by Kenneth Owen in Indian Aviation. The eight-foot-long, five-inch-diameter rocket had been in use since the beginning of the year as a tool for weather observations and other research. A series of Skuas would be launched as part of IQSY; launchings were planned at the rate of three a week during the nine two-week periods of IQSY known as "World Geophysical Intervals." (Indian Aviation, 3/65, 73-74)
Interview of Dr. Boris Yegorov, Soviet physician-cosmonaut and member of the three-man VOSKHOD I spaceflight crew, by Novosti Press, appeared in Space World. Yegorov mentioned nothing about any ill effects of spaceflight conditions, but did say: "Several times we tried to break away from the chair and hang a bit in the cabin, I must tell you that it's far from a pleasant sensation, It's also entirely inconvenient to sleep thus, One tries rather to lean on something: either with his head against ceiling or with his feet against the chair, During weightlessness it's much more pleasant to be tied to the chair... "During the time we worked none of us had any unpleasant sensations because of weightlessness: we felt fine." (Space World, 3/65, 37-38)
- March
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