May 5 1977
From The Space Library
NASA announced it had awarded McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Co. a 6.5yr, $15.6 million contract to develop and evaluate composite vertical stabilizers for DC-10 transport aircraft. A NASA program called ACEE (aircraft energy efficiency) would pursue the use of composite materials to decrease structural weight of aircraft by about 25% and to reduce fuel consumption by 10 to 15%. LaRC would manage work under the contract at the Douglas plant in Long Beach. (NASA Release 77-89; LaRC Release 77-16)
NASA announced that Det Norske Meteorological Institute in Oslo, Norway, had asked that the Nimbus 6 satellite help it track a huge oil slick resulting from an oil well blowout in the North Sea. By May 16 the Norwegians would put 5 random-access measurement-system (RAMS) buoys into the oil slick to send environmental information to the spacecraft. Goddard Space Flight Center engineer William W. Conant, noting that similar buoys earlier this year had helped the U.S. Coast Guard track an oil slick off Nantucket Sound, said NASA would support the Norwegian effort by transmitting locations of all the buoys twice daily for 30 days, adding "We don't normally provide daily teletype information." For more than a yr, the Norwegians had been tracking ice drift in the Spitzbergen region north of Norway, using a RAMS system as an accurate method of tracking in all weather. (NASA Release 77-30)
Transportation Secretary Brock Adams gave Congress proposals by the Carter administration to help the airlines finance modification or replacement of commercial jet aircraft failing to meet FAA noise-level standards, through revising the present 8% passenger ticket and waybill taxes now earmarked for the Airport and Airway Trust Fund. The Civil Aeronautics Board would let the airlines add a 2% surcharge to be deposited in a special environmental fund to pay for retrofitting existing aircraft or acquiring replacement aircraft that would meet the new noise standards. Airlines whose revenues reached a certain allowable cost level would have the surcharge terminated. (DOT Release 55-77)
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