Nov 19 1963
From The Space Library
A NASA Hq press conference confirmed that the combustion instability that had plagued the 1.5 million-lb.-thrust F-1 rocket engine had been corrected. NASA had assembled a team of the best propulsion experts in the country to work on the problem. The nature of the corrective action was redesign of a part of the engine behind the injector, so that fuel and oxydizer were no longer subject to surging as they entered the thrust chamber. Further redesign was underway to simplify the rather complicated series of baffles in the new part. (Wash. Eve. Star, 11/19/63)
NASA Associate Administrator Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr. speaking before the Chamber of Commerce, Albuquerque, N.M., said : "All of you saw the headlines saying, `Khrushchev Announces Withdrawal from Moon Race' or words to that effect; but I wonder how many read the subsequent stories in which Khrushchev said his remarks had been misinterpreted, and that the Soviet Union intended to explore the moon as soon as this could be done with confidence of success. 'Even our opponents realize that we have the leading role in space,' Khrushchev said recently. 'They haven't overtaken us yet, and we are not going to let them. Our people are covering themselves with glory. We shall give the capitalist world no peace, since it has to go.' "We have a balanced, fast paced space program geared to our national needs and resources. I can assure you that the Soviets are also working hard on a well conceived program, even though they throw a veil of secrecy over their failures and try to confuse us about their objectives." (Text)
FAA announced a plan for allocation of the U.S. supersonic airliners as they came off the production line. U.S. airlines would receive 44 of the first 70 aircraft, with preference going to airlines flying the Atlantic. Foreign airlines would receive the remaining 26 of the first 70, again with preference going to airlines on the Atlantic Ocean run. (NYT, 11/20/63, 70)
In the Senate debate on the Independent Offices Appropriations bill, Sen. J. W. Fulbright (D.-Ark.) made a motion that the NASA appropriation be cut an additional $519 million-a flat 10% cut in each of the three NASA budget categories: research and development, construction of facilities, and administrative operations. "Simply stated," the Senator said, "the purpose of the amendment is to allow time to reevaluate the goal of trying to reach the moon in this decade and to proceed on a more deliberate and thoughtful basis." (CR, 11/19/63, 21270-299)
Dr. Joseph F. Shea, Program Manager, Apollo Spacecraft, MSC, spoke before the National Rocket Club in Washington. He explained the philosophy behind the recent changes in the Apollo flight-test program, when Saturn I launch vehicles were replaced by Saturn IB's and the first manned flight thereby delayed for some nine months. Dr. Shea pointed out that the space age had advanced to the point that the space environment is understood well enough so that components can be designed, built, and ground-tested with confidence that they can perform well in space. The flight test program has become "the relatively small portion of the development iceberg which is clearly visible to the public." This had led to a desire to flight-test the entire spacecraft configuration from the outset, rather than the previous method of adding additional systems flight by flight, when "every spacecraft is a somewhat different design containing the potential of new problems. "The discipline of a single configuration-configuration control, if you will-not only increases the carry over from test to test so necessary for establishing design confidence, but also provides repeated opportunities for early spacecraft tests of substantial scope." (Text)
Dr. Philip Abelson, Director of the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory and editor of the HAAS magazine Science, criticized the mechanism for providing the President with scientific advice. In a speech in Houston, he said: "Too much power is concentrated in a few overworked people, most of whom are of limited competence. The secrecy of the operations and the power invoked must inevitably lead to corruption, either of the intellect or of the purse. . . ." As to the President's Scientific Adviser, Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner, Abelson charged he "has accumulated more visible and invisible power than any scientist in the peacetime history of this country . . ." and was a man who had failed "to engage in forward planning" of science policy. (Simons, Wash. Post, 11/20/63)
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