May 14 1965
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (2MB PDF)
NASA and FAA announced formation of a joint 12-member coordinating board to strengthen joint planning and facilitate exchange of information between the two agencies. The board would focus its attention on aeronautical research, development, and testing activities to gain the greatest return from available resources and to avoid duplication. Co-chairman would be Dr. Raymond L. Bisplinghoff, NASA Associate Administrator for Advanced Research and Technology, and Robert J. Shank, FAA Associate Administrator for Development. (NASA Release 65-155)
Sen. A. S. Monroney (D-Okla,) told a meeting of the American Helicopter Society in Washington, D.C, that NASA was spending too small a share of its budget on aviation research. Senator Monroney, the chairman of the Senate Aviation Subcommittee, said he became angry when he compared the $43 million earmarked for aeronautics next year with the space agency's total budget of $5.2 billion, He said that although the agency allocated less than 2 percent of its budget to solving the many flight mysteries it acknowledges still exist, the agency's working-level scientists wanted to do more in this area. Monroney also said he disagreed with those who contended that subsidy for the helicopter airlines was wasteful and unwarranted. He said that while helicopters might not have made the progress many wished for and some had promised, commercial revenues had increased, costs had declined, equipment had improved, and capability to operate on instruments had been developed. (AP, NYT, 5/15/65)
NASA Administrator James E. Webb announced during a ceremony at Western Reserve Univ. honoring retiring Dr. T. Keith Glennan, president of Case Institute of Technology, that Glennan had been asked to return to NASA as an adviser. Webb said Glennan would be asked to review NASA spending plans for the next ten years. Glennan, Webb's predecessor as NASA Administrator, was appointed by President Eisenhower to head the agency when it was formed in 1958. (Ludwigson, Cleveland Plain Dealer, 5/15/65)
Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara told the House Appropriations Committee that about $12 billion-80 per cent of the allocated money-had been wasted on the abortive B-70 bomber project, Howard Margolis reported in the Washington Post. The question of how much of the money spent was wasted arose when McNamara was asked whether knowledge from the B-70 work would be valuable to other military and civilian projects. McNamara suggested that at least 80 per cent of the money had been wasted, Margolis said. McNamara's general view had been that substantial "waste" of this sort was unavoidable in the defense program since it was rarely possible to know how valuable a development project would be before large sums had been spent, Margolis added that McNamara suggested minimizing such waste by insisting on good evidence of probable value before allocating large expenditures and, even then, by limiting spending as much as possible until the value of a project was proven. (Margolis, Wash, Post, 5/15/65)
A special educational television satellite station to carry color or black-and-white TV direct to home receivers was proposed to NASA by Hughes Aircraft engineer Dr. Harold Rosen. (Time, 5/14/65; CR, 5/20/65, A2549)
Sen. Henry M. Jackson ( D-Wash,) reported that ComSatCorp would construct a $6 million ground station at Brewster, Wash, and that FCC had approved ownership of the station by ComSatCorp. (AP, Oregonian, 5/14/65)
A mouse-size "algatron," life-support system designed to make outer space habitable for astronauts on prolonged missions, was demonstrated by Univ. of California scientists Dr. William J. Oswald and Dr. Clarence G. Golueke. In the system bacteria break down animal wastes, algae live off the result, and emit oxygen while absorbing carbon dioxide. According to the scientists' report, the algatron, in which a mouse lived for six weeks and could have stayed indefinitely, would weigh about 1,000 lbs. in a man-sized version. (Wash, Post, 5/14/65)
A lunar dust cloud produced by braking rockets of Soviet probe LUNA V as it attempted a soft landing on the moon May 12 was photographed by the observatory at Rodewisch, E. Germany, said the observatory's director in an interview with ADN, E. German press agency. The tracking station had made photographs of the lunar approach of the spacecraft at 15-sec, intervals. At the moment of best visibility--10:15 p.m. Moscow time-the dust cloud was 140 mi, long and 50 mi. wide. It had disappeared by 10:21 p.m. Moscow time. This was the first indication that braking rockets aboard the spacecraft had been operative. Soviet announcement had given landing time for LUNA V as 10:10 p.m. Pictures of the dust cloud were published in Izvestia. (NYT, 5/16/65, 6; AP, Wash. Sun. Star, 5/16/65)
Communist China exploded its second atomic bomb "over its western areas" at 10 a.m. Peking time, according to Hsinhua, the Chinese Communist press agency. (Reuters, NYT, 5/15/65, 2)
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