April 1970
From The Space Library
Science and Technology: Tools for Progress; report to President Nixon by President's Task Force on Science Policy, was released. Report, submitted Dec. 10, 1969, recommended that President enunciate as national policy, need for vigorous, high-quality science and technology and continuing leadership in science and technology "relevant to our other national goals and purposes'"; that President direct Federal departments and agencies to strengthen capability to use science and technology in attack on social, urban, and environmental problems; and that U.S. achieve effective and consistent commitment to long-range research, uninterrupted support of graduate education, improved use of Federal laboratories, and improved process for establishing priorities in Federal support of science. Report further recommended President enunciate policy of increasing long-term participation by private institutions-particularly business-in social, urban, and environmental programs and direct appropriate departments and agencies to identify deterrents to private investment of capital and technology in these programs; suggest incentives for action and remedies for each deterrent; enunciate policy of increased emphasis on R&D for national security, if necessary; and continue encouragement of new science-based foreign policy initiatives and opportunities for international cooperation. Administration should make clear policy of technical assistance to underdeveloped nations to help them establish their own scientific research, education, and technical training institutions. Task Force recommended President direct his Science Adviser to develop, for his approval, broadly-based program for continuing development of national science policy. (Text)
NASA published The Terrestrial Environment: Solid-Earth and Ocean Physics (NASA CR-1579), report of study sponsored by NASA and MIT at Williams College. Report concluded that greater understanding of earth from measurements by satellites would have significant applications to "entire effect of the atmospheric and oceanic development, including protection against (storm) hazard and pollution." Recommended program goals (which were supported by technology recommendations) were: identification of forces and mechanisms that accounted for motions and earthquakes and variations of gravitational field and similar solid-earth phenomena; discovery of general circulation of oceans at all depths; increased knowledge of how earthquakes occur; improved understanding of global heat balance by study of ocean currents and heat transport of air-sea interaction; identification of internal driving forces and complex mechanisms of interaction of earth's core, mantle, and crust; definition of locations and mechanisms of energy dissipation in oceans; and explanation of mechanisms associated with variations in rotation rate and wobble of earth's rotation axis and their possible association with major earthquake events. (Text; NASA Release 70-63)
NAE President Eric A. Walker announced election of 51 engineers to NAE membership. They included Dr. George M. Low, NASA Deputy Administrator, for "contributions to the proposal, formulation, and management of Project Apollo"; Gerhard Neumann, Vice President and Group Executive of General Electric Co. Aircraft Engine Group, for "contributions to the development of variable stator compressors and high by-pass turbofan engines for jet aircraft"; Kendall Perkins, Corporate Vice President, Engineering and Research, of McDonnell Douglas Corp., for "contributions to aerospace technology, and engineering management in the design of aircraft and spacecraft"; and Dr. Paul Rosenberg, President of Paul Rosenberg Associates, for "pioneering contributions to space photogrammetric systems, radar prediction techniques, information storage and retrieval, and the kinematics of human spine motion." (NAS-NRC-NAE News Rpt, 4/70, 1)
In Astronautics and Aeronautics, Herbert Friedman discussed pulsars and their implications in new astronomy: "Even with the modest payloads of small rockets it is possible to instrument for pulsar detection at periods as short as 1 millisecond." X-ray astronomers had been eager to have NASA provide program of high-energy astronomy payloads in 4500- to 9000-kg (10 000- to 20 000-lb) class that would be launched by vehicles of Titan-Centaur capability. Large x-ray detector could "very likely detect thousands of weak sources and discover high-frequency pulsar characteristics, if present. Such a program," HERO (High Energy Astronomy Observatory), "was to have begun in 1970 but has been a casualty of the present budgetary squeeze." (A&A, 4/70, 22-5)
Society that could afford to spend as much as U.S. did on cokes, cosmetics, tobacco, and liquor could afford its space expenditure, William H. Bayley, NASA Assistant Director for Tracking and Data Acquisition, said in JPL Lab-Oratory. Between 1959 and 1969 U.S. had devoted $30 billion to space program, $40 billion each for cosmetics and soft drinks, almost $80 billion each for cosmetics and soft drinks, almost $80 billion for tobacco, and some $110 billion for alcoholic beverages-about four times cost of space program. Annual space expenditure had been about one half of 1% of GNP, and about 1/20th of defense expenditure. Most expensive space program had been Apollo at $24 billion, 93% of which was spent for goods and services provided by private industry. To date, "no money at all has been spent on the Moon or planets; it has all been spent right here on earth." (JPL Lab-Oratory, 4/70, 4-19)
Astronautical Multilingual Dictionary of the International Academy of Astronautics, conceived by the late Dr. Theodore von Karman, was published by Academia Publishing House of Czechoslovak Acade my of Sciences in Prague. Executive editor was Ing. J. Vlachy and scientific editor Prof. R. Pesek. U.S. coeditors were Dr. Woodford A. Heflin of USAF's Air University Aerospace Studies Institute and William H. Allen of NASA. Other coeditors were in U.S.S.R., Germany, France, Italy, Argentina, and Czechoslovakia. (Text; Air University Dispatch, 4/10/70,18)
Teknika i Vooruzheiniye (Moscow) quoted Soviet Cosmonaut Georgy T. Beregovoy on future U.S.S.R. space program: "The Soviet Union is successfully carrying out a space research program designed for many years in the future. Its aims are determined by the needs of science and the national economy and the requirements of scientific and technical progress." Prospects for development were "unfolding with the establishing of orbiting stations. . . . Cosmodrome stations, extra atmospheric bases for geophysicists and astronomical observatories, and space laboratories for chemists will appear." (JPRS 50505, 5/13/70)
Article on birth pangs of first satellite, written by Dr. Clifford C. Furnas shortly before his death in April 1969, was published in Research Trends. Dr. Furnas had been member in 1955 of Don's Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Special Capabilities, a panel appointed to investigate feasibility of U.S. satellite program. (Research Trends, Spring 1970, 15-8)
Failure of Government to define priorities in science and technology and stay with them was one cause of unemployment among scientists and engineers in U.S., Richard S. Lewis said in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Cutback in civilian space program was prime example: "The consequences of this retrenchment in the dissipation of human resources could hardly be more pronounced than if the Nixon Administration was phasing out space exploration-which it is not." (Bull of Atomic Scientists, 4/70, 28-9)
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