NASA SP--4022 

ASTRONAUTICS AND 

AERONAUTICS, 1977 

A Chronology 

Eleanor H. Ritchie ' 

The NASA History Series 

Scientific and Technical Information Branch 1986 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

Washington, DC 
Four spacecraft launched by NASA in 1977: left to right, top, ESA’s Geos 1 and 

NASA’s Heao 1; bottom, ESA’s Isee 2 on NASA’s Isee 1, and Italy’s Wo. 

(NASA 77-H-157, 77-H-56, 77-H-642, 77-H-484) 
Contents 

Preface ...................................................... v 

January ..................................................... 1 

February .................................................... 21 

March ...................................................... 47 

April ....................................................... 61 

May ........................................................ 77 

June ...................................................... 101 

July ....................................................... 127 

August .................................................... 143 

September ................................................. 165 

October ................................................... 185 

November ................................................. 201 

December .................................................. 217 

Appendixes 

A . Satellites, Space Probes, and Manned Space Flights, 1977 ....... 237 

B . Major NASA Launches, 1977 ............................... 261 

C . Manned Space Flights, 1977 ................................ 265 

D . NASA Sounding Rocket Launches, 1977 ..................... 267 

E . Abbreviations of References ................................ 273 

Index ...................................................... 279 

Illustrations .. Four spacecraft launched by NASA. 1977 ......................... n 

Space Shuttle orbiter Enterprise en route to testing ................ 17 

Artist’s concept. world’s largest wind-turbine blade ................ 34 

Landsat images. Sierra Nevada snowcover. 1975 and 1977 .......... 81 

Dr . Wernher von Braun with Saturn V. 1969 ..................... 116 

Artist’s concept. solar sail rendezvous with comet ................. 49 

“Sounds of Earth” recording goes on Voyager2 spacecraft ......... 144 

Space Shuttle orbiter Enterprise on first free flight ................ 151 

iii 
NASA maintains an internal history program for two principal reasons: (1) Sponsorship of research in NASA-related history is one way in which NASA responds 

to the provision of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 that requires 

NASA to “provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof.” (2) Thoughtful study 

of NASA history can help agency managers accomplish the missions assigned to 

the agency. Understanding NASA’s past aids in understanding its present situation and illuminates possible future directions. The opinions and conclusions set 

forth in this book are those of the author; no official of the agency necessarily endorses those opinions or conclusions. 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 

20402 (paper cover) Library of Congress Catalog Number 65-60308 
Preface 

Astronautics and Aeronautics for 1977 is the 17th volume in a series of 

annual chronological digests of principal events in the fields of 

astronautics and aeronautics. Initiated in 1961 with a compendium of 

events from 1915-1960, this series is designed to serve as a reference for 

policymakers, reference librarians, and researchers. Each entry is followed by one or more citations of sources to which users may turn for 

further information on the particular event or development being chronicled. 

The Astronautics and Aeronautics series is one way in which the 

NASA History Office has attempted to implement its charter to 

disseminate information about the activities of the National Aeronautics 

and Space Administration, and to provide support for historians and 

other researchers in the area of United States aeronautical and space programs. As a result of staff and budgetary limitations, the NASA History 

Office has been unable to maintain the annual currency of this series. We 

expect, however, to bring the series up to date with a forthcoming compendium volume covering principal events over a six-year period. 

This volume was written by a member of the NASA History Office 

staff, Eleanor H. Ritchie. Michael A. Dennis, Stuart Rosenbaum, and 

Charles Scott also worked on the volume. 

Reliability is essential to the usefulness of any reference work of this 

scope. As with previous volumes, readers can contribute by notifying our 

office of any errors so that we can publish them in subsequent volumes. 

Sylvia D. Fries 

Director, NASA History Office 

December 1985 

V 
January 

January 2: Leaders of 28 major U.S. scientific societies had endorsed 

tests to determine the value of a “science court”-an impartial quasijudicial body - in evaluating conflicting claims on controversial national 

issues such as nuclear-reactor safety, food additives, pesticides, and offshore oil exploration, and in determining the facts, according to New 

York Times science reporter John Noble Wilford. The concept, debated 

for several yr, had received the endorsements in the last months of 1976. 

Although it had the support of President Ford’s scientific advisers, proponents were not sure how President-elect Carter’s advisers stood. (NYT, 

Jan 2/77,28) 

January 3: NASA announced award of what Aviation Week called “the 

largest NASA contract ever issued for an unmanned space program” to 

Western Union Space Communications Co., TRW Systems, and Harris 

Electronics Systems Div. for development of the tracking and data-relay 

satellite system (TDRSS) aimed at replacing present ground stations by 

offering orbital-communications coverage for 85 to 100% of spacecraft 

orbit, compared to 15% coverage now available from ground-based 

facilities. The system would consist of two specialized relay spacecraft in 

synchronous earth orbit plus a ground terminal at White Sands, N.M., 

supporting 20 or more satellites orbiting at up to 5000km altitude. The 

lOyr contract at $79.6 million per yr would include work on spacecraft 

and ground stations, as well as all operating costs. 

TRW would be prime manufacturer under subcontract with WU to 

build six spacecraft plus components for a seventh, using technology 

developed for the FltSatCom spacecraft and hardware used in WU’s 

Westar domestic comsats; Harris Electronics would build the White 

Sands station and provide antenna components. Missions using the 

TDRSS would include scientific, applications, and manned satellites 

such as Space Shuttle, Spacelab, and Shuttle-launched spacecraft 

scheduled for the 1980s. (AvWk, Jan 3/77, 14; NASA Release 76-213) 

Seven European nations planning to use data from the U.S. Seasat A, 

due for launch in May 1978, were forming an organization to coordinate 

their activities, Aviation Week magazine reported. Denmark, Finland, 

France, West Germany, Britain, Norway, and Spain would use Seasat 

measurement of wave heights to forecast floods in the North Sea area 

1 
JANUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 

and to design ships or offshore structures such as oil rigs, or in harbor 

construction. The group planned to have five laser-ranging stations and 

up to 10 Doppler tracking stations ready by the time Seasat would be 

operational. (AvWk, Jan 3/77, 20) 

January 4: Kennedy Space Center announced it would hold a symposium Jan. 15 on minority opportunities at the Spaceport, to include 

talks on KSC procurement, future construction plans, and explanations 

of the KSC affirmative action plan and equal employment opportunity 

program. KSC had invited representatives of minority business firms and 

the general public to attend the symposium. (KSC Release 2-77) 

January 5: The U.S. Air Force Systems Command reported it had worked out a way to suppress noise of jet-aircraft engines during maintenance 

operations on the ground, as a means of reducing hearing loss in 

maintenance personnel and noise impact on the community. Fifty-eight 

Air Force bases worldwide had received the suppressor units, consisting 

of primary and secondary air intakes and enclosures, augmenter tube, 

exhaust muffler, and support structure to house controls and water 

pumps. After backing an aircraft into the secondary enclosure, workers 

would enclose the air intakes at the front in the primary-intake mufflers; 

the secondary enclosure, covering the aft fuselage and engine exhaust, 

would include openings to be sealed against the fuselage and stabilizers 

to keep noise inside. Inside the augmenter tube, secondary cooling air 

would mix with the exhaust, and spray bars in the tube would spray 

water at 800gal per min during afterburner operation. (OIP Release 

284.76) 

0 The International Telecommunications Satellite Organization 

(INTELSAT) announced it would award to a British company, AERE 

Hartwell, a 15mo $71 540 fixed-price contract to develop low-pressure, 

nickel-hydrogen power cells that would use a lanthanum-alloy member 

both as hydrogen reservoir and as negative electrode. Use of lanthanum 

would lower pressure in the cells, reduce the heat dissipated during 

discharge, and reduce the volume of cell density. If successfully 

developed, the cells would operate at a maximum pressure of about 6 atmospheres and would have a minimum life of 500 charge-discharge 

cycles when used in synchronous-satellite applications. (INTELSAT 

Release 77-1-M) 

INTELSAT announced award of a 15mo $72 536 fixed-price contract 

to EIC Corp. of Newton, Mass., for development of an improved highpressure nickel-hydrogen power cell that would increase reliability and 

attain a minimum lOyr cyclical life in synchronous-satellite applications. 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 JANUARY 

Such an advance would permit about 4O00 daily charge-discharge cycles, 

or about lOyr of maintenance-free operations. (INTELSAT Release 

77-2-M) 

January 6: NASA formally adjudged the Viking 75 mission, launched 

toward Mars on Aug. 20 and Sept. 9, 1975, successful, according to the 

post-landing mission operations report. All Viking instruments except 

the seismometer on the first lander (which failed to uncage itself‘) 

operated successfully and were continuing to send data to earth. The 

prelaunch mission objectives (advancing knowledge of Mars by orbital 

observation and by direct measurements in the atmosphere and on the 

planet’s surface) had been realized, the report said. (MOR 

S-8 15-75-01/02) 

0 NASA announced that a test model of Pioneer IO, first spacecraft to 

reached Jupiter, would be on display at the Natl. Air and Space Museum 

in Washington, D.C., beginning Jan. 11. The actual spacecraft, 

launched March 3, 1972, had reached Jupiter in Dec. 1973 and was now 

about 1.6 billion km (about a billion miles) from earth headed for the orbit of Uranus, which it should reach in Sept. 1979, by the time its sister 

spacecraft Pioneer I1 would reach Saturn. 

Headed generally toward Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus, 

Pioneer IO would reach the orbit of Pluto (about 4 billion miles out) in 

1987, but radio-signal reception would be doubtful beyond the orbit of 

Uranus. The model of the first spacecraft scheduled to leave the earth’s 

solar system would appear in the Milestones of Flight hall with the 

Wright Flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, and the Apollo 11. (NASA Release 

77-1; ARC Release 77-1) 

0 NASA Hq announced appointment of Curtis M. Graves as director of 

the Community Affairs Division, effective Jan. 3. Graves came to NASA 

from the Natl. Civil Service League, where he was managing associate 

for continuing education from 1973 to 1977. For 6yr he was a member of 

the Texas legislature, representing a Houston district beginning in 1966 

as the first black elected to that body since 1891. Born in New Orleans, 

he received a bachelor’s degree from Texas Southern University and an 

honorary doctorate from Union Baptist Bible College in Houston. He 

also served as- branch manager of a savings and loan association and as 

advertising manager and editor of two Houston newspapers. In his new 

assignment with NASA he would supervise the agency’s relations with 

communities where NASA centers and installations are located, promoting understanding of NASA’s economic and social impact on these 

areas among local citizens and NASA personnel nationwide. (NASA 

Release 77-3) 

3 
JANUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

@ India and the Soviet Union had reached agreement on coordinating 

their satellite systems, said the Indian news agency Samachar, as 

reported by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. The agreement 

resulted from a recent visit to Moscow by a team of experts from India’s 

Ministry of Communications and Department of Space. The problem 

arose because of possible interference between the proposed India 

domestic comsat Insat, to be placed in geostationary orbit over the Indian Ocean, and existing or proposed satellite systems of the USSR. The 

aim of the talks was to ensure avoidance of satellite interference through 

discussion of the technical aspects of the systems, including the distance 

between satellites. Satellites already in operation in that area included 

those of the Intl. Telecommunications Satellite Organization, Indonesia, 

and others. (FBIS, Delhi Patriot, Dec 26/76, 1) 

January 7: NASA announced that four customers had signed up for 

“getaway special” payloads to fly on the Space Shuttle on a spaceavailable basis beginning in 1980. The small self-contained payloads 

must weigh no more than 90kg (2001b) each, measure no more than 

0. 15m3 (5ft3), and require no services such as electrical power or deployment into space. 

Owners of the research and development packages were R. Gilbert 

Moore of Utah, a private citizen who offered half his payload to Utah 

State Univ., which in turn would make the space available to high school 

students who submitted proposals to fly their own experiments; Dr. L.R. 

Megill, chairman of the space science experiment committee at Utah 

State, who funded a payload as a follow-on to Moore and also planned 

to invite student proposals; and Reiner Klett , representing independent 

West German researchers, who signed for two payloads, one biological 

and one for space processing. (NASA Release 77-4) 

Radio signals between the four Viking spacecraft on Mars and earthbased antennas had provided the most accurate confirmation so far of 

Einstein’s theory of relativity in an experiment conducted Nov. 25, 1976, 

when Mars moved behind the sun relative to the earth, causing a total 

blackout of communications with the Viking spacecraft. Radio signals 

transmitted to the Viking spacecraft from antennas at Goldstone, Calif., 

and Canberra, Australia, had produced “incredibly precise” measurement of the radio transmission. According to Adam I. Braufman of the 

Mass. Institute of Technology, the “uncertainty” over a space of some 

322 million km was less than 2m, an accuracy of five parts in 10 million 

millionths. 

The Viking radio science team was trying to confirm Einstein’s prediction that the sun’s gravitational force would bend and delay radio signals 

4 
ASTRONAUTICS’ AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JANUARY 

(or any form of radiation) traveling close to a massive body such as the 

sun. Previous tests using the spacecraft communications systems tended 

to confirm the theory, but the Viking test proved much more accurate 

than the previous ones. (NYT, Jan 7/77, A-8; W Post, Jan 7/77, A-1) 

Q NASA announced it would participate in a joint agro-environmental 

monitoring system that would improve crop management in the state of 

Virginia through knowledge gained from the automated data-collection 

and processing systems developed for satellite and space-exploration programs. Funded by Wallops Flight Center at Wallops Island, Va., and by 

the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ. at Blacksburg, a network of data collection stations would automatically track “degree-day” 

units necessary for the emerging of certain insects or diseases; when a 

certain total was reached, the system would alert a farmer to spray his 

crop. Savings would result from reduced use of insecticides during less 

effective periods, reduced possibility of pollution, and fewer requirements for labor and equipment. Loyd C. Parker, Wallops project 

manager, said design work was complete and by early spring the five 

monitoring stations and central computer should be ready for use. 

(NASA Release 77-6) 

Q Marshall Space Flight Center announced it would accept proposals for 

a study contract to define possibilities of receiving electrical energy from 

the sun in large quantities for use on earth, through a concept called 

Satellite Power Systems, consisting of a number of spacecraft in stationary orbit using photovoltaic or solar-thermal power instrumentation 

to capture solar energy, convert it to electrical energy, convert that to 

microwave energy, transmit it to earth stations for conversion back to 

electrical energy, and distribute the power to users. Other NASA studies 

had established the technical and economic feasibility of satellite power 

systems, but an agreement between NASA and the Energy Research and 

Development Administration would result in additional data on key 

issues and critical areas, and the ability of the concept to deal with these 

issues and areas. MSFC would accept proposals for the study through 

Jan. 24. (MSFC Release 77-1) 

January 8: James B. Irwin, eighth astronaut to walk on the moon, remained in satisfactory condition after triple bypass surgery at the Texas 

Heart Institute. “He is still in intensive care but is doing very well,” said a 

spokesman at St. Lukes Episcopal Hospital in Houston. The operation 

consisted of replacing three vein segments with veins removed from 

Irwin’s legs. Irwin, 46, lunar-module pilot on the Apollo I5 mission July 

26, 1971, had resigned from the astronaut corps in May 1972. (NYT, Jan 

8/77, 17) 

5 
JANUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

January IO: Av Wk reported that the seismometer carried on the Viking 2 

lander might have recorded the first seismic event since the spacecraft 

touched down Sept. 3, 1976, on the Utopia Planitia area of the planet 

Mars. Beginning about 7pm local time for the lander, on Sol 60 (Nov. 7, 

1976), the activitq continued for about 30min. Viking project observers 

said the data seemed to have the “proper signature” of a seismic event, 

similar to data recorded on the lunar surface during seismic events. 

Donald Anderson, leader of the Viking seismology team, said rough 

estimates put the center of the activity several thousand km from the 

lander, but cautioned against labeling the activity a “marsquake” until 

further studies were done. (AvWk, Jan 10/77, 21) 

MSFC reported that the number of visitors to the center in 1976 had 

increased 11 Vo over the previous yr to a total of 95 529, representing each 

of the 50 United States and several foreign countries. The guided bus 

tours of the center, cosponsored by MSFC and the Alabama Space and 

Rocket Center, last year added new items and increased activities at some 

of the former Saturn test sites. The tour stop presenting the story of the 

Space Shuttle and its payload had added a full-scale mockup of the Shuttle main engine. Tourists could also enter a full-scale mockup of Skylab 

to see how the astronauts lived in orbit; and the east and west test areas 

being converted for Shuttle testing were now available for viewing. The 

Redstone test stand already on the tour route had been refurbished and 

was added to the Natl. Register of Historic Places. (MSFC Release 77-3) 

0 The U.S. Dept. of Defense had begun development of plans to wage 

war in outer space, the Washington Post reported, and had contracted 

with six manufacturers to study ways of letting its satellites sound an 

alarm if approached, sound another alarm if attacked, and defend itself 

from an enemy satellite that approached too close. 

Quoting “knowledgeable sources . . . close to the Pentagon,” the Post 

said the USSR’s resumption last year of hunter-killer satellite testing 

after a 5yr hiatus had caused growing concern over the threat of war in 

space. The Pentagon presently had at least a dozen comsats in orbit linking U.S. military bases, ships, and aircraft around the world, and 

another dozen navigation satellites to guide Navy surface ships and submqrines. A killer satellite launched by an enemy could knock out the entire U.S. defense communications system within a wk, according to the 

Post account, and the Pentagon had considered putting an entire array 

of comsats in orbit and turning off their radios until needed: “With their 

radios off,’’ said a source, “the opposition couldn’t track their radio 

beacons. And if they can’t track them they can’t find them.” No one had 

forecast a war in space within the next lOyr, the Post added, but the Pentagon planned to be prepared after that. Asked if the U.S. could fight a 

6 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 JANUARY 

war on earth today if it had lost its satellites in space, a source replied: 

“Not successfully.” ( W Post, Jan 10177, A-26) 

January 17: NASA announced plans to launch NATO 111-B, second in a 

new series of comsats to serve the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 

from the Eastern Test Range at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Jan. 27 as 

NASA’s first launch of 1977. The three spacecraft in the Phase I11 series, 

funded entirely by NATO, were built by Ford Aerospace; the third 

would be launched in 1978. The Delta rocket provided by Goddard Space 

Flight Center that would put NATO 111-B in orbit had successfully launched three previous NATO satellites: Nato ZI-A and -B, in March 1970 

and Feb. 1971, and Nato 111-A in April 1976. (NASA Release 77-5) 

0 Rockwell Intl.’s B-1 Division announced award of contracts for more 

than $3 million to two Phoenix, Ariz., firms-Sperry Rand Flight 

Systems Division and AiResearch Manufacturing Co. - for work on the 

new USAF B-1 strategic bomber. The B-1 Division was system contractor to the Air Force for the program, which received DOD production 

approval on Dec. 2, 1976. Sperry would receive a $1 840 500 contract to 

build a gyrostabilization subsystem and a vertical situation display for a 

B-1 prototype that would enter flight testing in 1979; AiResearch would 

receive a $1 218 102 contract to produce a secondary power subsystem 

for the same prototype. The gyrostabilization subsystem would provide 

the €3-1 crew with the aircraft’s course heading and flight angle with relation to the horizon; the secondary power subsystem would provide extra 

power for engine start and operation of support systems on the B-1. 

(Rockwell Release LA-1) 

January 18: MSFC announced that the state of Georgia would be first in 

the nation to have its own Landsat digital-analysis system, under a contract between the Georgia Institute of Technology and MSFC enabling 

state planners to assess land-resources usage and to monitor changes, 

and to set up a standard data base for a statewide land-use program. The 

two Landsat satellites now in near-polar orbit would provide images and 

recorded magnetic tape transmitted to a ground receiving station. A 

data-retrieval system developed by Johnson Space Center would help in 

establishing a state organization structure to distribute the data to 

regional, county, and local users. A local official could find out how a 

tract as small as 10 acres was being used, merely by dialing a central computer at Ga. Tech and getting a printout by telephone into a local terminal. (MSFC Release 77-8) 

January 19: NASA announced it would share with the city of Hampton, 

Va., the cost of building a refuse-burning, steam-producing plant to 

7 
JANUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

serve the city and four federal agencies in the Tidewater area. First of this 

type of community facility to be jointly sponsored by a city government 

and federal agencies, the project was the result of studies at Langley 

Research Center on better use of potential energy sources and improvement of the environment. Cost of the plant, about $8 million, would be 

shared by Langley Air Force Base, the City of Hampton, and LaRC, and 

should be amortized within 2Oyr. Beginning in 1979, it would consume 

about 70% of the city’s waste and all refuse from LaRC, the air force 

base, the Army’s Fort Monroe, and the VA hospital in Hampton, and 

would produce about 306 million lb of steam per yr. Bcilt on NASAowned land, the plant would remain the property of NASA though leased to and operated by the city for at least 2Oyr. Ash produced through 

special incineration at up to 1800°F would be sterile, nonorganic, and 

nonpolluting, amounting to a seventh of the refuse bhrned. (NASA 

Release 77-8) 

0 A Trident missile successfully launched from Cape Canaveral had 

passed its first flight test and met all major test objectives, according to a 

NY Times account. The U.S. Navy reported that the missile, carrying an 

inert payload, flew nearly its 9500km range to an area near Ascension Is. 

in the South Atlantic. Like its predecessors, the Polaris and Poseidon 

strategic missile systems, Trident would become the nation’s primary 

undersea intercontinental weapon. At a cost of $21.5 billion, the Trident 

missile would be operative well into the 1980s. New Trident class submarines would carry 24 of the new missiles, whereas the Polaris and 

Poseidon had carried only 16. Ohio, first Trident class submarine under 

construction, and costing $882 million, would be ready for patrol duty in 

1979 with a full complement of 24 Trident missiles, the report said. 

(NYT, Jan 19/77, A-14; W Post, Jan 19/77, A-16) 

0 The Dept. of Defense announced plans to begin full-scale development 

of cruise missiles made by Boeing Go. and General Dynamics Corp., 

with the first to be available in 1979, the Wall St. Journal reported. 

Cruise missiles (small low-flying pilotless jet planes designed to evade 

enemy radar) could carry either nuclear or conventional warheads and 

could be launched from ships, planes, or trucks, or submerged submarines. Boeing and General Dynamics had each developed a cruise 

missile: Boeing the Air Force version, and General Dynamics, the Navy 

version called the Tomahawk, designed for launch from submarines and 

surface vessels. Although the two versions used different airframes, they 

used the same engines, guidance systems, and warheads. After reviewing 

both versions, the DOD decided to continue both, and established a joint 

program office under the direction of Navy Capt. Walter Locke, whose 

orders required maximum cooperation with the Air Force. In addition to 

8 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JANUARY 

its “short” cruise missile, 1083cm long with a range of 1127km, the Air 

Force supported development of a stretch version 1470cm long with a 

range of 2254km for more distant targets. The DOD also expressed support for advanced technology to refine missile accuracy and for a supersonic version to exceed present speed of 885kph. It had asked Congress 

for $402.7 million for the programs in FY 1978, up from $198.7 million 

in 1977. (WSJ, Jan 19/77, 38) 

January 20: The Netherlands had “finally decided” at the end of 1976 to 

join the U.S. and ESA in financing a second astronomy satellite (IRAS, 

the infrared astronomy satellite), but not all its citizens were enthusiastic 

over the anticipated expense, said a report in Nature magazine. Starting 

with a preliminary definition study in Jan. 1975, followed by 13 proposals for experiments in response to a NASA announcement, a U.S. 

study team of 11 astronomers had begun discussion with Dutch 

colleagues on the scientific program and had reached agreement at the 

beginning of 1976. 

NASA had expected signing of a memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and the Netherlands by July 1976; the Dutch government 

had agreed in principle in July, but it had taken 6mo to find the money 

for the project. The U.S. and the Netherlands would each pay about 110 

million guilders, and the United Kingdom Science Research Council, 

which had taken active part in the US-Dutch negotiations, would contribute 10 million guilders. Plans were to launch IRAS from the Western 

Test Range in the spring of 1981, to trace and map about 10 million infrared sources. Dutch associations of scientific workers had protested in 

1974 against further space activity, especially in behalf of 

underdeveloped countries lacking means to take advantage of such effort. (Nature, Jan 20/77, 202) 

* The Max Planck Institute of Astronomy announced that, for the first 

time, astronomers had observed the presence of water outside earth’s 

galaxy, indicating the possibility of life in outer space, the NY Times 

reported. Astronomers from the U.S., France, and West Germany, using the 32.91m Effelsberg radiotelescope, largest in the world, found 

rotating molecules of water at the edge of nebula IC 133, 2.2 million 

light-years from earth. The water molecules, when struck by light, apparently emit excess energy and (like laser beams) vibrate in unison, giving off radio signals. The discovery meant that other solar systems with 

the same physical conditions as earth’s might exist, along with planets 

and stars also formed by condensation of dust and gas, with the same 

type of lifespan. 

“What is decisive,” according to Otto Hachenberg, director of the 

9 
JANUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Bonn Institute for Radio Astronomy, “is that we find the same conditions of physical matter one billion light years away from earth as on 

earth.” Discovery of water vapor in another galaxy was expected to inspire scientists to look for such vapor in other galaxies. (NYT, Jan 

20/77, 23) 

January 2Z: The United States planned to orbit in 1983 a 9080kg 645cm 

telescope that would observe images almost to the edge of space and the 

beginning of time, Thomas O’Toole reported in the Washington Post. 

“Without the blurring of the atmosphere,” said Dr. John Bahcall of 

Princeton Univ.’s Institute for Advanced Study, “we would be able to see 

things that are 10 times smaller than we have seen, or 10 times farther 

away. It would be like reading the writing on a quarter that we could only 

tell was round before.” 

If approved by Congress, the $435 million Space Telescope would be 

carried from earth by astronauts manning the Space Shuttle. The 

telescope would investigate quasars radiating thousands of times the 

energy generated by ordinary stars of the same size, and would observe 

the birth of stars, map nearby planets and galaxies, and compute 

distances to the nearest stars. 

In addition to optics half the size of Mount Palomar’s, the Space 

Telescope would carry lenses and instruments to scan ultraviolet and infrared spectra not accessible to earthbound telescopes because of atmospheric blockage. The telescope would relay its views to earth using 

geostationary satellites over the U.S. NASA would send Shuttle 

astronauts to the telescope every 5yr to replace wbrnout or damaged 

parts. (W Post, Jan 21/77, C-24) 

0 The Communications Satellite Corporation announced that its earth 

stations in Andover, Maine; Etam, W.Va.; and Jamesburg, Calif., had 

operated with two TV channels in each of four Intelsat satellites to 

transmit coverage of President Jimmy Carter’s inauguration to about 70 

countries around the world. Total transmit-receive time for the satellite 

TV coverage was 61-1/6 half-channel hr. The European Broadcasting 

Union (EBU), the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), the Armed Forces 

Radio and TV Service, and other organizations had reached audiences in 

both western and eastern Europe through the ComSat network. Countries in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and Australia had 

seen inaugural events transmitted either live or on film and videotape 

news services transmitted by the satellites. (ComSat Release 77-8) 

The Soviet Union had radioed commands to its orbiting Salyut 5 space 

station to position it for rendezvous with a forthcoming Soyuz launch, 

according to a story in the Washington Post. Ideal time for a Soyuz 

launch would be within the next 5 days, the report said, and two Soviet 

tracking ships were already on station in the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea to keep in touch with the cosmonauts. (W Post, Jan 21/77, C8) 

10 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JANUARY 

January 24: NASA Hq announced appointment of R.D. Ginter as assistant administrator for energy programs, effective Jan. 2. Ginter had 

been acting in that position since Sept. 1975, following the departure of 

astronaut (now U.S. Senator) Harrison H. Schmitt (R-NM). 

Ginter had joined NASA in 1960 after 8yr as a missile project officer 

with the U.S. Navy and served in a variety of positions, including chief 

of the Scout launch vehicle program, director of the Technology Applications Division, and director of the Energy Systems Division. He 

received NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal in 1966 for his work as program manager for the Atlas-Centdur launch vehicle. (NASA Release 

77-9) 

January 25: MSFC announced selection of a Huntsville, Ala., firm for 

award of its largest contract to a minority business under the Small 

Business Act. Robinson Printing Co. would receive $998 474 to provide 

reproduction, documentation, and photographic services for the 

Michoud Assembly Facility at New Orleans; the cost-plus-fixed-fee contract would be for lyr with two lyr renewal options. Robinson would be 

one of four minority firms working at Michoud under MSFC contract. 

(MSFC Release 77-12) 

0 MSFC announced that four of its engineers had received awards conferred by the Soviet Union for participating in the Apollo-Soyuz test 

project of 1975. Dr. William R. Lucas, director of MSFC, presented the 

S. Korolev medal to Harold Ledford (now of the Shuttle projects office) 

for “outstanding management and technical proficiency as chief engineer 

for science and engineering” from beginning to end of the ASTP. 

The USSR also sent Yuri Gagarin diplomas for “exemplary leadership” 

to three engineers who had chaired stress-corrosion review teams after 

prelaunch inspection of the long stored Saturn 1B launch vehicle revealed 

a cracked fin. The teams had investigated all launch stages and 

associated hardware, independently assessing use of corrosionsusceptible materials. Jewel W. Moody’s review team and a Chrysler 

Corp. team assessed flightworthiness of the Saturn 1B; Charles E. 

Cataldo’s team, with personnel from McDonnell Douglas and the 

Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell, investigated the S-IVB stage and 

rocket engines used on the various launch stages to assure they were 

flightworthy; and Paul H. Schuerer’s team, with personnel from IBM 

and the Bendix Corp., assessed flightworthiness of the Saturn instrument 

unit and inertial-guidance platform. (MSFC Release 77-1 3) 

0 The Natl. Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced plans to use a new tool- satellite pictures - in establishing hunting regulations for Canada geese and other arctic-nesting game birds. 

Wildlife managers in Canada and the U.S. would use imagery from the 

Noaa 5 polar-orbiting satellite, showing snow and ice conditions in tradi11 
JANUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

tional nesting areas too remote for on-site inspection, to monitor habitat 

conditions. 

Identification of probable areas of castastrophic or outstanding goose 

production would enable managers to impose restrictions to prevent 

overkill of birds or to bring the populations to levels suitable for hunting. 

Factors affecting the nesting of arctic geese would include the timely 

disappearance of snow and ice, and availability of melt water to allow 

rearing of young; late seasons or adverse weather could prevent nesting 

or reduce clutch or brood sizes. (Dept. of Commerce/NOAA Release 

77-13) 

* Timothy Leary, once described by the media as “high priest of LSD,” 

visited Washington, D.C., on behalf of his latest enthusiasm, space 

migration, according to a story in the Washington Star. Leary, at his first 

press conference in 7yr, described “a raging epidemic of hope in this 

country” and sqid it was time to find a new frontier. He wanted his support taken seriously, and cited the studies by Gerard K. O’Neill of 

Princeton Univ. and those of the L-5 Society. “Soon people will find it 

cheaper to build a new world than to fight over an old one,” he added. 

When would space migration become a reality? “Ten years after people 

stop laughing about it,” Leary replied. ( W Star, Jan 25/77, D-3) 

January 26: Lewis Research Center announced it would participate in 

programs to demonstrate the feasibility of using an airborne infrared 

scanner to pinpoint residential heat loss. The cities of Cleveland, Ohio, 

and Springfield, Ill., would reimburse the center for its services. A 

NASA C-47 aircraft, flown over areas designated by Cleveland’s city 

council as eligible for low-interest winterizing and rehabilitation loans 

from the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), would 

record on magnetic tape the images of rooftops showing hot areas as 

white, warm areas as gray, and cool areas as black. Homeowners in the 

target areas could view the results at community centers and apply for 

block grant money from HUD as necessary. The city of Springfield had 

requested similar assistance for a HUD loan program. LeRC had used a 

thermal infrared technique in 1975-76 to scan NASA centers for energy 

loss, saving the agency about $350 OOO in the first yr of the program. 

(NASA Release 77-13; Lewis News, March 11/77, 3) 

0 A television relay satellite 22 OOO miles in space was the focus of an experiment Jan. 25 in using TV transmissions to conduct judicial proceedings, reducing the travel time and cost of witnesses and lawyers, and 

to increase the efficiency of the courts, the New York Times reported. 

The project, result of a yr’s planning between the Univ. of Maryland 

law school in Baltimore and that of Ohio Northern in Lima, was only 

12 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 JANUARY 

partly successful because the yr-old communications technology satellite 

Cts orbiting over the equator south of Denver repeatedly sent to 

Baltimore the jagged horizontal lines of TV “snow” during the closing 

arguments of the mock hearing at Lima. Also, the voice-activated TV 

cameras, two at each location to cover the two pairs of lawyers and 

judges, would take over the projection screen whenever anyone wearing 

a lapel microphone coughed or cleared his throat. 

The Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting, which sponsored the 

experiment, had paid nothing for use of the system, and the Cts project 

leader (Herbert Nunelly of Westinghouse Electric Corp.) operating the 

teleconference for NASA said he could not compute the cost of an hour’s 

or day’s use of the satellite. The American Bar Assn. had approved the 

mock appeals hearing before Judge Joseph F. Weis, Jr., of the U.S 

Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and three lawyers before whom 

law school students were arguing the case. Judge Weis’s ABA project 

director, Howard Primer of Chicago, cited several actual trials conducted with TV assistance. (NYT, Jan 26/77, B-1) 

First appraisals pf a Soviet MiG-25 aircraft flown by a Soviet pilot to 

Japan on Sept. 6, 1976, had been revised, according to U.S. Air Force 

specialists quoted by the NY Times. Further analysis had revealed that 

the airctaft did not lag behind the advanced technology of U.S aircraft, 

as previously stated, but contained some surprises. After 7wk of study, 

officials reported the MiG-25’s radar to be more powerful and less 

vulnerable to enemy jamming than U.S. radars, although operated on 

vacuum-tube technology. The Soviet aircraft’s radar also lacked the 

“look-down” capability of U.S. aircraft, so that Soviet MiG-25’s could 

not detect low-flying enemy aircraft that blended in with the earth’s surface. Similarly, Air Force specialists described the MiG-25’s Tumansky 

jet engines as 15yrs outmoded: the flight computer - called impressive 

even though it too was based on vacuum-tube technology -required 

extra space, maintenance, and cooling mechanisms. The USSR apparently was reluctant to entrust its pilots with total control of their aircraft, 

which explained the “very sophisticated data base” which could not only 

handle fire control and sensor systems but could also return the craft to 

any of four predesignated landing fields. “The biggest advantage,” said 

one U.S. Air Force officer, “is that we allow, we train, our men to think, 

to adapt. This does not occur in many cases with the Soviet air force.” 

Designed in 1960 to combat the U.S. B-70 bomber, which never went 

into production, the MiG-25 had been altered later for use against the 

highflying Lockheed SR-7 1 reconnaissance plane. (NYT, Jan 26/77, 

A-1 1) 

* The New York Times reported that France had inaugurated its first 

13 
JANUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

operating solar power plant, in what officials predicted would b.e a race 

with the U.S. to sell solar power to Arab and third world countries. The 

plant, located at Odeillo in the Pyrenees mountains of southern France, 

would contribute about 64 kilowatts to the national electricity grid 

(enough to run about 60 household electric irons, the NYT said). JeanClaude Colli, the government’s director for new energy sources, noted 

that the French could claim operational equipment, whereas “the 

Americans are presenting futuristic projects.” France expected to sign a 

major solar energy development contract with Saudi Arabia within the 

week and to host a sales meeting at the end of the week wiih 26 countries 

from the Persian Gulf and Mediterrranean regions. The new plant was 

said to receive about 180 days of sun per yr, and to use collector mirrors 

for reflecting the rays to a boiler heating steam to drive a turboalternator 

that would produce the electricity. (NYT, Jan 26/77, A-9) 

January 27: NASA announced publication of a “space photo album”: an 

atlas-size book containing 400 images of earth’s natural and cultural 

features taken by the Landsat earth resources satellite, most of the pictures in full color and ne& full-page size. Authors were three scientists 

from GSFC (Drs. Nicholas M. Short, Paul D. Lowman, and Stanley C. 

Freden) and Dr. William A. Finch, Jr., from San Diego State Univ. 

Designed as a reference, a textbook, a teachers’ guide, and a 

supplemental tool for research specialists, the book devoted 40% of its 

content to images of the 50 United States but included images from all 

over the world, and repeated some standard views to show seasonal 

changes. The pictures had a grid-number system for quick location of 

geological and geographical features described in the captions. The book 

included sections telling the story of the Landsat program, its systems, 

applications, and accomplishments, and a supplemental teacher’s guide 

with glossary and suggestions for classroom use. (NASA Release 77-14) 

January 28: NASA launched from the Eastern Test Range on a Delta 

vehicle the second in a series of three communications satellites for use 

by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, into an orbit with 35,797km 

preliminary apogee, 35 777km perigee, 1436.2min period, and 2.6” orbital inclination. The cylindrical Nato ZZZB spacecraft had a covering of 

solar cells for power generation and was gyrostabilized, providing stability for the antenna system which would counter-rotate to point to the 

earth at all times. All active communications components were redundant, having an identical backup part on board. After fifth apogee, 

about 48hr after launch, firing of an apogee motor would put Nato ZZZB 

into a circular synchronous orbit at about 35 900km altitude, where its 

onboard reaction-control system would take it to a predetermined loca14 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JANUARY 

tion. The U.S. Air Force’s satellite-control facility would operate these 

activities on behalf of NATO, which had funded three Phase I11 comsats 

built by Ford Aerospace to replace the Nato IIsatellites in the NATO integrated communications systems. (NASA Release 77-5; Spacewarn 

SPX-280; Sf Satellite Digest, July-Aug 77, 298) 

* NASA announced resumption of communication with the four 

Viking-mission vehicles -two landers and two orbiters - at the end of the 

“conjunction” period during which contact was degraded and temporarily lost because of the changing position of Mars, behind the sun with 

relation to the earth since Nov. 1976. 

The Viking mission extended into the post-conjunction period would 

use the functioning spacecraft to obtain seasonal-variation data, do long 

duration sampling for statistically important experiments, and gather additional information not possible during the primary mission because of 

time or observational constraints. No known limitations would preclude 

completion of tit least a year of extended mission and probably more, the 

announcement said, as the orbiters had made minimal use of their consumables during the early mission and had performed a minimal number 

of battery-recharge cycles. Lander B’s location at Mars 44”N would encounter temperatures below the qualification limits in the winter season, 

but the effect of this was unpredictable because lander tests had not gone 

beyond qualification limits. 

Extended-mission data collection had actually begun last Nov. when 

controllers had used the spacecraft transponders passively to measure 

ranging, tracking, signal-time delay, and solar-corona-induced perturbation. The extended mission would continue through May 1978, the announcement said, and data analysis would continue through Sept. 1977; 

requirements for data analysis beyond FY 1978 were under study. 

(MOR-S-8 15-75-01 /02) 

* NASA announced plans to join with the Energy Research and 

Development Administration (ERDA) in a program to use solar energy 

for heat and hot water supply at 6 space centers from Va. to Calif. 

NASA would invest $500 000 and ERDA $1.25 million in up to 10 

separate projects that had been scheduled for completion at NASA 

facilities by the end of the fiscal year, Oct. 1977. The programs could 

reduce utility bills by up to a quarter million dollars/yr. 

Five of the solar projects, all at MSFC, would heat an office building; 

heat liquid nitrogen to a gas, for experiments and manufacturing at 2 

MSFC facilities; supply hot water for the cafeteria and restrooms in a 

10-story building; and heat a warehouse used for storing hydraulic equipment. Other projects would supply hot water for cafeterias at Dryden 

Flight Research Center in Calif. and KSC in Fla.; hot water for photo 

15 
JANUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

labs at Ames Research Center in Calif. and LaRC in Va.; and heat and 

dehumidification for areas containing sensitive computer and other electronic equipment in the mission control center at JSC in Tex. NASA 

would also provide funds for 5 smaller solar heat projects at ARC, KSC, 

and MSFC, to be operational by the end of Aug. The program should 

demonstrate the possibility of offsetting the comparatively high initial 

cost of solar energy systems through substantial savings on oil, gas, and 

electrical energy. (NASA Release 77-15; MSFC Release 77-15; ERDA 

Release 77-18) 

0 The European Space Agency (ESA) announced that its 1977 budget 

for scientific and general activities had been unanimously approved by 

the ESA Council meeting in Paris. Individual budgets for projects 

Aerosat, Ariane, Marots, Meteosat, OTS, and Spacelab had already 

been approved by their respective program boards. The Council had 

reduced by 3 million accounting units (MAU) the total 481.8 MAU proposed for all ESA work in 1977, approving the equivalent of $526.68 

million in U.S. dollars. (In 1977, one AU was equal to 1.1 U.S. dollars.) 

(ESA news release, Jan 28/77; ESA newsletter, Jan 77, 1) 

January 29: H. Julian Allen, originator of the concept of bluntness as an 

aerodynamic technique for reducing heating of spacecraft reentering 

earth’s atmosphere, died of a heart attack at Stanford Univ. hospital at 

the age of 66. A major figure in modern aerospace technology, Allen’s 

work had made possible the safe return to earth of U.S. astronauts and 

had revolutionized the design of ballistic missiles. After earning 

bachelor’s and engineering degrees from Stanford, Allen in 1936 had 

joined the Natl. Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) at its 

Langley laboratory in Hampton, Va., and had returned to Calif. in 1941 

when the Ames installation came into being. He had worked there ever 

since, serving as ARC director from 1965 to 1969. 

His scientific contributions included a general theory of subsonic airfoils which led to use of low-drag airfoils in World War I1 on aircraft 

such as the Mustang fighter. He led in developing high-speed wind tunnels at ARC, now recognized as primary national resources for advancing aircraft design and national defense. He had received national and international honors, including NASA’s distinguished service medal and 

medal for exceptional scientific achievement. He was a fellow of many 

societies, including the Royal Aeronautical Society of London. (ARC 

Release 77-06) 

January 30: The possibility of teleportation-transfer of objects from one 

place to another by radio waves came closer with the announcement of a 

new way to create identical copies of a three-dimensional object by using 

16 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JANUARY 

a sculpture-photography system based on the same principles of 

chemistry and electronics now used in making printing plates. As 

reported in the Chicago Tribune, Wyn Kelly Swainson, a young man 

with a degree in English literature and some training in science, had obtained his first patent on a device being developed with the help of the 

Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. 

Swainson began with the idea of reproducing great works of sculpture 

without painstaking handwork: a plastic material hardened by light rays 

would be targeted by intersecting laser beams, controlled by a computer 

programmed with the image of the object to be copied. Swainson said 

IBM had already produced an instrument to record computerized 

shapes, convert the electronic data into light rays, and feed them through 

the lasers scanning a container of plastic. Where the beams intersected, 

they would cause a chemical reaction hardening the plastic; washing off 

the unhardened material would leave an exact copy of the object 

previously computerized. In theory, a three-dimensional hologram of an 

object even of complex metals could be analyzed for its precise composition, converted to electronic data, transmitted, and reproduced as often 

as desiqd. (C Trib, Jan 30177, 1-5) 

Space Shuttle orbiter Enterprise, with tailcone covering engine-nozzle location, 

moves on a 90-wheel rig January 31 from the Rockwellplant to DFRC35mi away 

in preparation for approach and landing tests. (NASA 77-H-77) 

January 30-Febmary I: Enterprise, the first Space Shuttle, towed atop 

a %-wheel trailer from Rockwell Intl.’s plant in Palmdale, Calif., made 

its first trip to Edwards AFB 57km away. Escorted by a convoy of security and patrol cars, the Enterprise moved at 8kph and drew hundreds of 

spectators to view its configuration (24m wingspan and 21m vertical 

tailfin). Tests of the 38m-long space vehicle would begin Feb. 18 with a 

series of “captive” flights; first manned flight to an unpowered landing 

would occur July 22. (WStur, Jan 30/77, A-7, NYT, Jan 31/77, 12; W 

Post, Feb 1/77, A-3) 

17 
JANUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

January 31: MSFC announced that on Jan. 28 NASA had invited industry to submit proposals for supplying design, development, and 

manufacture of Space Telescope support systems module and optical 

telescope assembly. The telescope should permit observation of about 

350 times the volume of space now acessible to ground-based telescopes. 

MSFC said it expected award of contracts by Oct. or Nov. 1977 if Congress authorized the mission and appropriated the necessary funds. 

The 2.4m telescope, included in NASA’s FY 1978 budget recently submitted to Congress, would weigh about 10 tons. The Space Shuttle would 

carry it as a payload in 1983, launching it to orbit ai about 500km 

altitude at an inclination of 28.8” to the equator. Once there, it could 

serve for a decade as an in-space observatory operated remotely from the 

ground, but would be designed for maintenance and servicing by a spacesuited astronaut or for retrieval and return by Shuttle for overhaul and 

subsequent relaunch. NASA would announce to the scientific community in Feb. an opportunity to submit proposals for scientific instruments 

to be carried on the Space Telescope for its initial launch. (MSFC Release 

77-16; NASA Release 77-19) 

0 LaRC announced that Alex Haley, author of Roots, would be the 

speaker Feb. 7 at an LaRC colloquium and at an “Our Future in the 

Cosmos” public lecture. Demand for tickets to the lecture, part of a 

series sponsored by LaRC and the College of William and Mary, was so 

great that LaRC had shifted the Haley lecture from the Hampton high 

school to the Hampton Coliseum. Title of Haley’s talk was “A Saga of 

Black History.” (LaRC anno Jan 31/77) 

0 The U.S Air Force Systems Command announced plans to experiment 

with dispersal of cloudcover by sowing minute amounts of silver iodide 

into supercooled clouds over a sparsely populated area of Michigan, 

using two small civilian aircraft, one to dispense the chemical and the 

second to photograph effects of the treatment. North American Weather 

Consultants of Goleta, Calif., contractor to the AF Geophysics 

Laboratory, would conduct the experiments to disperse cloudcover that 

could interfere with military or civilian flight operations. 

The experiments, aimed at clearing specific areas of cloud during landings, would occur only on days that were overcast with little or no 

precipitation, said Bruce A. Kunkel, project scientist for AFGL. Clouds 

sought for the tests would be supercooled (consisting of water drops remaining liquid though below freezing temperature) so that they would 

form ice crystals when treated with the chemical and would fall from the 

sky, clearing up to a few square miles for up to an hour. Some snow 

might reach the ground, but most should evaporate after falling from the 

18 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JANUARY 

cloud, and the amount of silver iodide needed would be extremely small 

notwithstanding its visually dramatic effect. (OIP Release 004.77) 

Canadians monitoring the mysterious radio signals emanating from 

the Soviet Union, said to have disrupted worldwide communications [cf. 

A&A76, Oct. 29 and Nov. 10-111, suggested that the signals might correspond to transmission of electrical energy without the use of wires, 

through a process developed by Nikola Tesla, Yugoslav inventor who 

died in 1943. 

A&ording to a story in the Wash. Star, the Canadian Department of 

Communications received a request some months ago to have its nine 

listening posts analyze the radio signals in an effort to identify electricalenergy problems in eastern Canada. By this time, the signals had caused 

complaints from European governments and were becoming shorter in 

duration. Although the signals were high frequency (3 to 30megahertz) 

and Tesla’s experiments had been on low frequencies (6 to 10k cycles per 

second), the Canadians theorized that the transmissions might have been 

harmonics of VLF transmissions. Tesla had discovered in 1900 that the 

earth itself could serve as a conductor of electricity, being “responsive as 

a tuning fork” to electrical vibrations of a certain pitch; he had succeeded 

in lighting 200 electric lamps from a distance of 25mi without wires. One 

scientist working with the Canadians suggested that the signals might aid 

in modifying weather by affecting electrically charged particles in the upper atmosphere. (W Star, Jan 31/77, A-5) 

During January: The Natl. Aeronautic Assn. reported that 1975 was one 

of the safest years experienced by scheduled U.S. airlines, with a 

passenger-fatality rate of 0.07 per 100 million passenger miles, beating 

the railroads’ record of 0.08 fatalities per 100 million passenger miles. In 

1975, over 205 million passengers on scheduled U.S. airlines (almost as 

many as live in the entire country, the newsletter noted) had flown more 

than 162 million passenger miles; only 124 persons had died in 3 U.S.aircarrier accidents, whereas highway accidents had killed 44 690. On the 

basis of the 1975 accident rate, the newsletter calculated a passenger’s 

chances of safe arrival at destination to be 99.99998%. (NAA newsletter, 

Jan 77, 3) 

0 MSFC employees Alfred G. Orillion, Advanced Projects Office, and 

James E. Downey, 111, deputy director for program develspment, received special awards for the Alabama section of the American Inst. of 

Aeronautics and Astronautics at the AIM honors banquet in 

Washington, D.C., Jan 13. The awards were for a 1975 space 

industrialization symposium at MSFC of which Downey was general 

19 
SA N U A R Y ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 

chairman; Orillion was chairman of AIAA’s Alabama section. (MSFC 

Release 77-9) 

Av Wk reported that James S. Martin, Jr., manager of the Viking project, would receive the Goddard award for “brilliant leadership of the 

Viking project to land an instrumented, automated spacecraft on the 

planet Mars.” (AvWk, Jan 10/77, 9) 

0 Cosmonaut trainees from Czechoslovakia, Poland, and East Germany 

had arrived at Zvezdnoy Gorodok, USSR, late in Dee. to begin training 

for flight positions on Soyuz/Salyut missions. Flight candidates from 

Bulgaria, Hungary, Cuba, Mongolia, and Romania were to arrive for 

training at the center during 1977. (AvWk, Jan 10/77, 9) 

20 
February 

February I: NASA announced it had received 1147 applications for its 

Space Shuttle astronaut candidate program, with openings for at least 15 

pilot and 15 mission specialist candidates. Deadline far applications 

would be June 30, 1977. Those selected would report July 1, 1978, to 

Johnson Space Center at Houston for 2yr of training and evaluation; appointment as astronaut would depend on satisfactory completion of the 

course. 

NASA had mailed 11 822 applications to persons outside the agency, 

and another 350 to employees at NASA centers. All the applications 

received so far had been from civilians; the astronaut selection board 

would receive applications from members of the military services just 

before the deadline. Most of the applications were for the mission 

specialist category: 922 for that group, 225 for pilot, and 118 for both. 

Pilot astronauts would control the Shuttle during launch, orbit, and 

landing, and would be responsible for vehicle systems. Mission 

specialists would be responsible for coordinating Shuttle operations with 

the commander and pilot in areas of consumables usage, experiment 

operations, and crew activities. Crews would number up to seven: commander, pilot, mission specialist, and as many as four payload specialists 

(who need not be NASA employees and would be nominated by sponsors 

of the payload being flown). Payload specialists would operate specific 

payload equipment needing special skills. NASA would seek especially to 

recruit qualified minorities and women as Shuttle astronauts. (NASA 

Release 77- 1 8) 

* Kennedy Space Center reported that NASA had awarded the Univ. of 

Ariz. a $50K contract extension to continue studying thunderstorm electrical fields and other phenomena in the Spaceport area. Total value of 

the contract, awarded in April 1974 and now extended to Jan. 15, 1978, 

would be $1 16 OOO. 

Under the direction of Dr. Phillip Krider of UA’s Inst. of Atmospheric 

Physics, scientists working with UA graduate and undergraduate 

students would use KSC’s sophisticated instrumentation during summer 

thunderstorms to study electrical-field changes and recovery curves 

created by lightning under varied conditions, and would create computer 

programs to determine and display the location of lightning discharges 

and thunderstorm characteristics. Techniques resulting from the study 

21 
FEBRUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 

would help make Space Shuttle vehicle-processing, launch, and landing 

at KSC safe and efficient even in marginal weather. 

The U.S. studies would supplement a program known as TRIP 

(thunderstorm research international program), cosponsored by the Am. 

Geophysical Union and the Am. Meteorological Society, under which 

teams of atmospheric scientists would conduct research at KSC between 

1976 and 1978. (KSC Release 33-77) 

At least 7 defense contractors had performed studies on space defense 

systems, Aerospace Daily reported, predicting that spending on this activity would double in the upcoming federal budget (from $61 million to 

$126 million in FY 1978, and double again to $265 million in FY 1979). 

In its concern for detection of hostile satellites, especially in the infrared frequencies, the Dept . of Defense had officially confirmed four 

USSR intercept launches last yr. DOD considered comsats and earlywarning satellites in synchronous orbits most vulnerable; the USAF was 

also concerned about its reconnaissance satellites, especially the Big Bird, 

only one of which is normally in orbit at a time. 

Contractors working on the problem were Science Applications, Inc., ' 

doing a $60 OOO study of charge-coupled device (CCD) sensors for a terminal optical-warning system; Rockwell Intl., with a $50 OOO study of 

potential maneuvers for the NavStar global-positioning satellite to be 

used for guidance aid in tactical-weapons delivery; TRW, Inc., a $50 OOO 

study to identify maneuvering possibilities for the AfSatCom (USAF satcom) system; and three other firms studying standby survival launch 

capabilities applicable to all USAF missions (Hughes, $250 OOO; Boeing, 

$250 OOO; and Lockheed, $100 OOO). The Air Force also reported that 

Westinghouse had made a $50 OOO study of an impact sensor to detect attacks with non-nuclear pellet warheads against a spacecraft in orbit. 

(ASD, Feb 1/77, 158) 

Western Union Corp., first of the 1OOO largest U.S. industrial companies required to publish replacement-cost data called for this year by 

the Securities and Exchange Commission, claimed that its 1976 earnings 

of $34 million would be erased had it based its depreciation charges on 

current costs of replacing its entire physical plant. New York Times 

reporter Robert D. Hershey, Jr., cited the argument of many companies 

that releasing the figures required by the SEC would depress prices of 

their stocks. WU said its plant and equipment would have cost $1.61 

billion to replace at the end of 1976, not the $1.11 billion its books 

showed as historical cost. The SEC ruled that, for fiscal yrs beginning 

after Dec. 1975, the annual reports of companies with at least $100 

million in physical assets representing at least 10% of total assets must 

give actual replacement-cost data, to let stockholders see the effect of inflation on financial statements. (NYT, Feb. 1/77, 37) 

22 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 FEBRUARY 

0 The Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science at the Univ. of Tokyo 

announced postponement (until Feb. 15 or later) of the launch of a 

satellite-carrying MU-3H rocket, because of mechanical trouble. An inspection had revealed problems with the rocket’s attitude-control system, 

the announcement said. (FBIS, Tokyo Kyodo in English, Feb 1/77) 

February 2: The new administration of President Jimmy Carter was 

reevaluating the NASA budget submitted by President Ford, and would 

study the possibility of increases, however marginal, in that budget, 

Defense/Space Dairy reported. NASA’s energy program, budgeted at 

$4.5 million in FY 1958 ($1 million to study satellite solar power and $3.5 

million for energy technology that could be transferred to ERDA), 

would probably be recommended for increase within the next few weeks, 

the report said. (D/SD, Feb 2/77, 185) 

February 3: Tass reported that Soviet space station Salyut 4, launched 

Dec. 26, 1974, to house cosmonauts working in space up to 90 days, 

disintegrated over the Pacific Ocean when it moved on ground command 

into “a descent trajectory” and burned up. Tass noted that the station 

had flown for 3mo joined to the unpiloted space capsule Soyuz 20. The 

longest, most successful career of a Salyut in the 16yr-old USSR space 

program had included what Tass called “an extensive program of medical 

and biological research” as well as study of the sun, stars, and planets in 

the electromagnetic spectrum; views of Soviet territory in the middle and 

southern latitudes; and a great amount of data on physical processes in 

earth atmosphere and in space. 

Cosmonauts Georgy Grechko and Aleksey Gubarev had docked Soyuz 

17 with Salyut 4 for 29 days between Jan. 10 and Feb. 9, 1975; Vasily 

Lazarev and Oleg Makarov failed to dock with Salyut 4 on Apr. 5 of that 

yr; and Pyotr Klimuk and Vitaly Sevastyanov had docked Soyuz 18 with 

Salyut 4 May 25 and remained for 63 days, during which they talked with 

their compatriots on the ASTP mission and returned July 24 with the 

Soviet duration record for a manned mission. SaQut 4 had completed 

12,188 orbits around the earth before being destroyed, Tass said. (Today, Feb 4/77, 1OA; FBIS, Dom Svc Rusn, Feb 3/77) 

February 4: NASA announced a yr-long schedule of test runs and 

captive-flight tests on the first-built Space Shuttle orbiter, Enterprise, 

that would take place at the Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, 

Calif. Called approach and landing tests (ALT), the series of flights with 

a modified Boeing 747 serving as a ferry aircraft and airborne launch 

platform would begin with several taxiing tests with the orbiter atop the 

carrier; following would be six inert-captive flights in which the jumbo 

jet would carry the unmanned orbiter to a 762Om (25 OOOft) altitude. Unmanned flights would verify performance of the two vehicles in mated 

23 
FEBRUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 

flight. Then would come a series of captive-active flights with the 

orbiter’s systems powered up and the Enterprise manned by 2 astronauts. 

The first orbiter off the assembly line arrived at DFRC Jan. 31 from 

Rockwell Inti.% Palmdale plant; upon completion of ALT, the carrier 

would take the prototype to Marshall Space Flight Center for groundvibration tests. After these tests, NASA said, the Enterprise would return 

to Palmdale to be prepared for orbital flight in the early 1980s. The orbiter now under construction (OV-102) would be the first used in actual 

orbital-flight tests, now scheduled to begin in mid-1979; six test flights 

would demonstrate the orbiter’s capabilities in earth orbit before the start 

of operational flights, scheduled to begin in 1980. (NASA Release 77-16) 

0 Two giant crawler-transporters that had ferried Saturn V rockets to 

the launch pad at KSC and were scheduled for similar work in the Space 

Shuttle program had been designated National Historic Mechanical 

Engineering Landmarks, Today newspaper reported. At ceremonies held 

Feb. 3 beneath one of the vehicles, more than 100 persons watched the 

unveiling of a plaque noting the creation of the 18th national landmark 

identified since the Am. Society of Mechanical Engineers began singling 

them out in 1973. 

Present at the ceremony were KSC employees who had helped build 

the pair of 2.7-million-kg platforms; ASME officials and members from 

across the U.S. on their way to a national meeting in southern Fla.; and 

former astronaut Donn F. Eisele, who had been command-module pilot 

on the 1968 Apollo 7 flight that resumed moonshots more than a yr after 

the fatal fire in an Apollo training exercise. Eisele had since become a 

manager for Marion Power Shovel Co., the Ohio firm that built the 

transporters at a cost of $14 million. Ray Clark, KSC director of design 

engineering, accepted the plaque from Dr. Stothe P. Kezios, presidentelect of ASME, with the comment that the transporters were “barely 

broken in” with mileage on each at just over 800km; they might accumulate 10 times that amount carrying Shuttle equipment during their 

second yr of operation, he added. (Today, Feb 4/77, 1OA) 

JSC announced award of a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract worth 

$9 083 303 to Northrop Services, Inc., for operation and maintenance at 

JSC of life sciences and engineering laboratories and the lunar curatorial 

facility, effective Feb. 1, 1977, and expiring Jan. 31, 1978. (JSC Release 

77-08) 

February 7: NASA revealed the contents of the space and aeronautics exhibit that would appear in the U.S. pavilion at the 32nd Paris Air Show, 

under the theme “The Continuous Challenge: 50 Years Since 

Lindbergh.” NASA planned to display concepts of space communities 

24 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 FEBRUARY 

and their construction; living, farming, and manufacturing in space; and 

solar-power stations in space, together with a 3-screen presentation of 

the 50yr of flight since Lindbergh. A 2.4m Shuttle model would include 

the European Space Agency's Spacelab, part of a major international 

cooperative space program, in its cargo bay. 

Also on display would be the Galileo 2 flying laboratory, its interior 

configured to simulate the reusable Spacelab with facilities for space experiments in medicine, manufacturing, astronomy, and production of 

pharmaceuticals. A life-size model of Mars landscape viewed by the Viking lander would demonstrate space exploration, and Landsat stereo 

photographs of earth would show the increasingly routine use of space to 

survey crops and natural resources, monitor pollution and weather, and 

collect global weather data. Other models and presentations would show 

the scope of NASA programs such as government-industry work to halve 

fuel consumption by transport aircraft and to develop safer, more efficient, and more environmentally acceptable civil aircraft. (NASA 

Release 77-20) 

0 MSFC announced award of a 15-mo contract worth $99 663 to Desert 

Research Institute - part of the Univ. of Nevada system - for development and fabrication of a prototype particle generator for possible use in 

the Atmospheric Cloud Physics Laboratory (ACPL), a payload scheduled for an early Shuttle or Spacelab flight. The generator would form 

nuclei with diameters of a hundredth to a thousandth of a micron (one 

thousandth of a mm) upon which water would condense to form clouds. 

Researchers would use the zero-gravity environment on Shuttle flights to 

perform cloud-physics experiments leading to an understanding of 

microphysical processes in the atmosphere, and to eventual prediction, 

alteration, and control of weather. (MSFC Release 77-19) 

0 MSFC announced that a special hammer developed in the 1960s for 

Saturn fabrication had solved a major problem of manufacturing external tanks for the Space Shuttle. Martin Marietta Aerospace, prime contractor for the tanks, in welding four large sections of a liquid-oxygen 

container at the Michoud assembly facility, had found that peaking of 

the weld joints left some areas as much as 5" out of tolerance. The special 

tool MSFC had created for removing distortions in component welds 

would not impact a surface in the usual sense but, when in contact with 

the metal, would send a hydrodynamic force uniformly into the thickness 

of the metal when an electrical charge dumped into the hammer's coil 

created an expanding magnetic field. The field would exert an evenly 

distributed three-dimensional force that would remove the distortions 

without leaving hammer marks on the target. 

After Robert M. Avery of MSFC's Materials and Processes 

25 
FEBRUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 

Laboratory showed how to use the tool at the Michoud facility, the contractor was able to remove most of the distortions during the week of 

demonstration. Two working hammers would remain at the plant for 

future use. (MSFC Release 77-21) 

0 U.S. aviation experts had changed their minds about the USSR’s 

MiG-25 “Foxbat” interceptor plane and now considered it superior to 

western planes of its type, the Chicago Tribune reported. New Scientist 

magazine had quoted aviation experts who had examined the Foxbat 

flown to Japan last Sept. by defecting pilot Viktor Belenko; their conclusions were completely opposed to earlier assessments that described the 

Foxbat as crude and outdated. 

Shortly after its landing in northern Japan, the Foxbat had been 

described as a “manned rocket” less advanced than previously thought. 

The magazine said that U.S. officials now considered it unsurpassed in 

ease of cockpit maintenance and a masterpiece of standardization unmatched in the US. The experts said they were impressed not only with 

the speed and rate of climb, but also with the electronics on the Foxbat, 

now believed to have the most powerful airborne fire-control radar in the 

world as well as a highly sophisticated computerized flightcommunications system that could perform most of the missions without 

the pilot [see Jan. 261. U.S. and Japanese experts had examined the Foxbat for 2mo before returning it to the USSR; Belenko, now in the US., 

was still being debriefed. (C Trib, Feb 7/77, 1-2) 

February 7-25: The Soviet Union launched a manned Soyuz spacecraft 

from its Baykonur space center at 9:12 local time (1612 GMT) to try for a 

rendezvous with the Salyut 5 space station, following an unsuccessful 

docking attempt last Oct. Soyuz 24 carried as commander Col. Viktor V. 

Gorbatko, who had flown on Soyuz 7 in Oct. 1969 as part of a 7-man 

mission using 3 Soyuz spacecraft, and rookie engineer Lt. Col. Yuri 

Glazkov, who became the 39th cosmonaut launched into space. Lt. Gen. 

Vladimir Shatalov, chief of cosmonaut training, described the Soyuz 24 

mission as routine, adding that the scientific and economic possibilities 

for using the Soyuz-Salyut combination were “inexhaustible.” 

Orbit parameters reported Feb. 8 were: 281km apogee, 218km perigee, 

89.2-min period, 51.6” inclination. This first manned launch of the year 

was part of a USSR program of earth-orbital research using the Soyuz 

capsules on a one-mission basis, according to NY Times reporter 

Christopher S. Wren, who noted that the USSR had continued manned 

flights while the U.S. was waiting until the Space Shuttle became 

available in 1979 or 1980. Thomas OToole reported in the WPost that 

the cosmonauts might stay in orbit as long as 2mo; both pilots had been 

26 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 FEBRUARY 

trained for space walks, and the choice of an all-Air Force crew indicated 

that Soyuz 24 might be a military mission, 

Tass reported successful docking and occupation of the Safyut 5; it 

later described housekeeping and biological experiments, plus communications with ocean-going vessels, studies of crystal growth and surface tension, and use of an infrared radiometer for long-distance nighttime observation of earth’s surface and temperatures. The cosmonauts 

continued exercising with special equipment to measure body functions. 

On Feb. 21, they tried a new system for recharging the space‘station atmosphere: Tass said the air was satisfactory, but the test would verify the 

system for future prolonged flights. A multifunctional system would 

supply compressed air to control stabilization or to ctmpensate for leaks 

in the compartments. Tass announced Feb. 23 that the crew had begun 

preparations for leaving the station. 

(The unexpectedly early termination of the Soyuz 24 mission recalled 

reports that the Soyuz 21 mission ended ahead of time because the Safyut 

5 environmental-control system had produced an “acrid odor” that 

“became unbearable” [A&A 76, Oct 181.) 

A commentary recorded by Gen. Shatalov for broadcast Feb. 24 on 

the Moscow Domestic Service noted “a whole series of cyclones and 

strong winds with snow” over the landing site in Kazakhstan. However, 

the cosmonauts landed safely at dusk Feb. 25 on a farm near Arkalyk on 

the Kustanay steppe, and were brought to the local airport by helicopter 

and flown from there to Baykonur. They held a press conference at 

Baykonur Feb. 24, in which Glazkov called the Safyut 5 spacecraft “a 

fine old work horse” that had brought them home safely. (NYT, Feb 

9/77, 11, B6; WPost, Feb 8/77, A16; Feb 9/77, A12; C Trib, Feb 9/77, 

1:12; FBIS, Tass in English, Feb 7-26/77; Moscow Dom Svc Rusn, Feb 

IO-25/77; Moscow Intl Svc Rusn, Feb 9-25/77; W Star, Feb 25/77, A4) 

February 9: Fifteen yr almost to the day after the U.S. placed its first 

man in earth orbit, NASA would begin flight tests of the Enterprise- first Space Shuttle orbiter off the assembly line- to be carried 

piggyback on a Boeing 747 on Feb. 11, 1977, for its first trip through 

earth’s atmosphere. The flight of Marine Lt. Col. John H. Glenn on Feb. 

20, 1962, lasted less than 5hr; since that flight, the U.S. had accumulated 

22 504 man-hours in space by using 43 astronauts on 3 1 separate manned 

missions that included 9 trips around the moon, 6 moon landings, and 

3mo earth-orbital missions on Skylab. 

Glenn’s Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7 weighed only 1315kg, with 

barely enough room for the pilot and a few instruments, and had 

parachuted into the Atlantic after its one-time use. The orbiter would 

weigh 67 500kg empty, could carry up to 7 crew members, and was 
FEBRUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 

designed to land on a runway and be prepared for another flight within 

weeks. In contrast to Glenn’s 3-orbit flight, Spacelab missions carried by 

the Shuttle might last from 7 to 30 days. First of 6 orbital tests of the 

Shuttle was set for 1979, and operational flight for 1980. (NASA Release 

77-21; NASA pre-ALT rept Feb 11/77) 

0 NASA announced it had certified the General Aviation Design and 

Analysis Center at Ohio State Univ. airport in Columbus to make 

analyses of single-element airfoils, a first step toward providing a complete service for the general aviation community. Developed under a 3yr 

contract with LaRC and OSU’s aeronautical and astronautical research 

laboratory, the ADAC would provide directly to aircraft designers and 

manufacturers services such as analysis and design of 2-dimensional airfoil shapes, investigations of high-lift devices and aerodynamic controls, 

compilation of airfoil aerodynamic characteristics, and technical 

assistance (including consultation and data interpretation) for windtunnel and flight testing of airfoils. ADAC would provide the services on 

a fee basis. ADAC personnel under Dr. G.M. Gregorek would work with 

NASA on refining present codes used in computation; as NASA 

developed new techniques and improved codes, ADAC would use the improvements to solve more difficult design problems. (NASA Release 

77-22) 

0 JSC and the Lunar Science Institute announced plans for the 8th annual lunar science conference in Houston, March 14-18. More than 600 

scientists from around the world would discuss new data about the 

moon, derived from studies of lunar samples and from Apollo surface 

and orbital experiments, as well as new interpretations of previous 

models of lunar origin and history. Several Soviet scientists would attend, to give NASA materials from the Luna 24 mission for analysis. Dr. 

Michael G. Duke, acting chief of JSC’s Lunar and Planetary Sciences 

Division, and Dr. Robert Pepin, outgoing director of the Lunar Science 

Institute, would cochair the conference. 

The conference would also be the second meeting on “planetary” 

science, continuing the practice of the 1976 conference, where planetary 

interests were discussed for the first time as a result of the accumulation 

of data from NASA and USSR missions to Venus, Mercury, Mars, and 

the outer planets. The assembled data on planetary origin and evolution 

had proved of primary interest to lunar scientists. (JSC Release 77-09) 

February 10: KSC announced it would reduce its dependency on fossil 

fuels as early as Oct., when 3 of its buildings would begin heating water 

with solar energy: the Visitors Center cafeteria and the Banana River 

repeating station, which should be operating on solar by’late May, and 

28 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 FEBRUARY 

the KSC headquarters building. Up to 70% of hot water for the cafeteria 

would be heated in a flat-plate collector on the ground next to the 

cafeteria, with a conventional water heater as backup for long periods of 

cloudy weather. 

A larger flat-plate collector would provide up to 70% of the energy 

needed by the Banana River station, an electronic-communications relay 

near the eastern shore of Merritt Is. , for hot water used in heating and air 

conditioning reheating. All three systems would be able to heat water to 

about 370K, although flow through the collectors wou’rd move the hot 

water into storage tanks at a maximum 333K. The flat-plate collectors 

would face south at a 28” angle for maximum efficiency. ERDA would 

fund the headquarters conversion jointly with NASA, which would fund 

the other projects alone. Energy savings over an 8yr period would be 

about $185K. (KSC Release 56-77) 

* Soviet news agency Tass reported the death at age 82 of Sergei V. 11- 

yushin, designer of more than 50 planes from dive bombers of World 

War I1 to modern passenger jets. The report did not give the date or 

cause of death. 

Mobilized into the czarist army in 1914, Ilyushin had begun as a 

sweeper in an airplane hangar, became a mechanic, and graduated from 

flying school in 1917. Shortly after the Russian revolution, he entered the 

Soviet army and rose to be a lieutenant general. After graduating from 

the air force engineering academy, where he had designed and built 

gliders, he was put in charge of airplane construction and after 1931 

devoted himself exclusively to aircraft design. His most famous design 

was the 11-2 attack plane called the Stormovik, one of the first to prove 

the effectiveness of small single-engine craft operating near ground level. 

The 11-2, a two-seater carrying a rear gunner behind the pilot, was the 

first close-support plane to fire rockets to any degree and was known to 

the German forces in WWII as the “flying death.” The 11-62, a 4-jet 

passenger plane, had begun Aeroflot passenger service from Moscow to 

New York in July 1968. 

Ilyushin was fourth of the “big six” Soviet aircraft designers to die: 

A.A. Mikoyan, who with M.I. Gurevich designed the MiG series of 

fighter planes, died in 1970; A.N. Tupolev, father of the Tu-144 supersonic transport, in 1972; Gurevich in Nov. 1976. Survivors were O.K. 

Antonov, designer of An-12 and An-22 cargo planes, and Ilyushin’s close 

associate A.S. Yakovlev, whose Yak fighter usually teamed with the 

11-2. Ilyushin’s son Vladimir, a test pilot, might have beaten Yuri A. 

Gagarin into space in 1961 by several days; officials denied this. (NY 

Times, Feb 11/77, A24; W Post, Feb 1 1/77, C6) 

Japan’s Natl. Space Development Agency announced that launch of a 

29 
FEBRUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

three-stage “N” rocket carrying an engineering test satellite had been 

postponed to Feb. 14 because of trouble in the control system of the 

rocket’s first stage. Launch had been scheduled originally for Feb. 6 

from the space center at Tanegashima Is. (FBIS, Hong Kong AFP in 

English, Feb 10/77) 

February ZI: Langley Research Center announced award of a cost-plusfixed-fee contract worth about $1.8 million to Vought Gorp. for design, 

development, and qualification of a Scout launch-vehicle guidance 

system. Teledyne would do the designing under subcontract and Vought 

would integrate the system into the Scout. Work would proceed at the 

Vought plant in Dallas and Teledyne’s plant in Northridge, Calif., under 

LaRC direction. (LaRC Release 77-3) 

0 NASA announced it had adjudged successful the mission of Gravity 

Probe A (GP-A), launched June 18, 1976, on a Scout vehicle from 

Wallops Flight Center. Trajectory parameters computed for GP-A were 

within preflight predictions, and the experiment and support systems had 

operated normally. Principal investigator Dr. R.F.C. Vessot had begun 

data reduction and reported achieving an accuracy of 150 parts per 

million, surpassing the prelaunch accuracy objective of 200ppm. 

Associate Administrator for Space Science Dr. Noel W. Hinners noted 

that the payload had impacted in the Atlantic Ocean as planned and was 

not recovered. (MOR S-879-76-01 [postlaunch], Feb 14/77) 

Analysis of telemetry data and flight films from the SPAR 111 mission 

launched Dec. 14 at White Sands Missile Range indicated successful performance of the electromagnetic levitation device designed to provide the 

first “containerless” way to process materials in space, MSFC announced. 

ContainerIess processing, in which materials could be suspended, 

melted, and resolidified without touching a container, was thought to 

permit a degree of purity never before achieved in high-temperature 

processing, as the material in a conventional container would always exhibit contamination in some degree from the container itself. Apparatus 

used on SPAR I11 to process beryllium satisfied all operational requirements, like two other items in the payload: thermal migration of 

bubbles, and liquid mixing. An apparatus anomaly resulted in only “probable” success of an experiment on epitaxial growth; a fifth experiment, 

on coalescing of viscous bodies, apparently failed but would be carried 

again on a later flight. SPAR 111 rocket flights could offer 5min of nearweightlessness in suborbital coast. (MSFC Release 77-23) 

0 WPost staff writer Thomas O’Toole quoted administration sources as 

saying President Carter had chosen Dr. Frank Press, head of the depart30 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 FEBRUARY 

ment of earth and planetary sciences at the Mass. Inst. of Technology, to 

be White House science adviser. Press, considered one of the world’s 

leading seismologists, had been one of a team of geophysicists who first 

described Antarctica as a continent rather than as an island of ice 

floating on earth’s crust. He had also helped design and build the 

seismometers left on the moon by six crews of Apollo astronauts. A 

member of the Natl. Science Board, Press had been consultant to 7 

federal agencies including DOD, the State Dept., and the Arms Control 

and Disarmament Agency. Offered the job of science adviser to the 

president, Press apparently had not accepted it at once, and said by 

telephone from MIT that “nothing is settled.” ( WPost, Feb 11/77, A-2) 

February 13: NASA announced it had commanded the Viking 1 lander 

on Mars to dig a ft-deep trench in the surface and bring up soil samples 

to use in finding out more about the complex chemistry of the planet. 

The sequence, which would continue through March 15, would include 

pictures taken by the lander to show mission controllers how the digging 

progressed. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory had sent commands to the 

Viking 2 lander Feb. 10 and would start the Viking 2 lander’s digging sequence about Feb. 16. Viking 1’s orbiter would make a series of close 

passes near Mars’s satellite Phobos to take pictures and measure its 

temperature, while observing the effect of its gravity on the course of the 

spacecraft. Afterward, mission controllers would drop the orbiter to 

about 300km altitude over Mars from the current close-approach altitude 

of 1500km. (NASA Release 77-24; JPL Release Feb 10/77) 

February 25: A project known as DUMAND (deep underwater muon 

and neutrino detection) would use a large area of the Pacific Ocean near 

Hawaii to detect the arrival of extremely high-energy particles from 

space, Walter Sullivan reported in the NY Times. 

Neutrinos, considered the clues to several astronomical mysteries, had 

been hard to detect because of their lack of mass or electrical charge; 

moving at the speed of light, they apparently could pass entirely through 

the earth with no trace. A new science, neutrino astronomy, would use 

an array of microphones laid out on the sea bottom northeast of the 

island of Maui, in an area shown to be “pool-table flat” by survey ships 

from the Hawaiian Inst. of Geophysics, to listen for sound impulses 

generated by high-energy neutrinos colliding with atoms in the sea water. 

Collision would produce particle showers that should generate sound 

pulses as well as flashes of light known as Cerenkov radiation, resulting 

from the passage of particles through the water at speeds faster than the 

speed at which light proceeds through water. The original plan would 

have recorded the flashes to detect particles ejected by stellar explosions 

31 
FEBRUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 

(supernovas); Soviet scientists had offered the use of 10 OOO photodetectors for the experiment. 

The first stage of the project would probably use acoustic detection, 

however, because of its greater sensitivity and economy: sound waves 

would travel through water far more efficiently than light would, the 

report said, and the project could use microphones spaced as far apart as 

900meters in an array measuring lOkm*, linked by a 56km undersea cable 

carrying data to a laboratory on Maui and supplying electrical power to 

the detectors. Recording the precise arrival time of a pulse at each detector would indicate the direction from which the neutrino came. As the 

neutrinos’ paths (unlike those of other particles) would not be bent by 

magnetic fields in space, the way in which they had come would point to 

the source, first clue to cosmic ray origins. The high-energy particles and 

the muons produced when they hit the atmosphere were among the most 

energetic radiation known. (NYT, Feb 15/77, 14) 

0 Telesat Canada expected to award contracts in Nov. 1977 for three 

commercial telecommunications satellites, the Wall Street Journal 

reported. The new comsats would use higher frequency bands than the 

three Telesat Canada satellites now providing television, telephone, and 

message communications throughout Canada. First of the highfrequency comsats would be delivered early in 1980 pd launched later 

that yr. (WSJ, Feb 15/77, 3) 

February Id: NASA announced selection of 222 scientists representing 

the U.S. and 14 other countries to participate in the first Spacelab flight 

scheduled for 1980. More than 2 OOO candidates had responded to invitations to participate in the joint NASAIESA mission. NASA chose 86 of 

the scientists, 81 from the U.S. and others from India, Japan, Canada, 

France, and Belgium. ESA had selected 136 from 10 other ESA-member 

states plus Austria and Norway. 

Prime objective of the first Spacelab flight would be to verify systems 

and subsystems performance and to measure the environment around the 

Shuttle; secondary objective would be the scientific, applications, and 

technology data that would demonstrate Spacelab’s ability to perform 

space research. First-flight emphasis would be on stratosphere and 

upper-atmosphere research, with other experiments in plasma physics, 

biology, botany, medicine, astronomy, solar physics, and earth observations, plus areas such as thermodynamics, materials processing, and 

lubrication. 

Manager of NASA’s Spacelab 1 payload would be the Solar Terrestrial 

Division of the Hq Office of Space Science; manager of ESA’s payload 

would be its office of Spacelab Payload Integration and Coordination in 

32 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 FEBRUARY 

Europe (SPICE) at Porz-Wahn in West Germany. (NASA Release 77-26; 

MSFC Release 77-27) 

0 NASA announced it had developed a new system with the U.S. Army 

Corps of Engineers to monitor the Mississippi River from St. Louis, 

Mo., to the Gulf of Mexico this spring, providing information to the 

Corps on the vast water resources of the river valley, including the Atchafalaya River basin in La. 

Using off-the-shelf space technology, the system - called Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) Data-Acquisition 

System - would take vital measurements using data transmitters at 

strategic locations along the river and its tributaries, and would relay information on river or reservoir water level, rainfall, and water quality 

through the GOES satellite to a central ground station. There, Corps 

workers would process, store, and display the data on a board that would 

give water-control managers real-time data on the river’s status. NASA 

had set up the system at the request of the Lower Miss. Valley Div. of the 

Corps, to permit quicker response to flood situations and leveereinforcement calls than in the past. The automated system would start 

with 80 stations, 20 now operating. (NASA Release 77-25) 

0 Launch preparations had begun for the 2-spacecraft mission to outer 

planets Jupiter and Saturn scheduled for late summer 1977, KSC announced. The center described them as “almost a replay” of the Mars 

Viking launches in 1975. 

Launch date for the first Mariner Jupiter/Saturn (MJS) at complex 41 

would be Aug. 20, with the second scheduled 10 days later. Preparation 

for two major launches within a 10-day timeframe had required “the 

choreography of an intricate ballet,” the center said. Checkout of the 

Titan Centaur rockets 6 and 7 was in progress; operations personnel expected arrival Apr. 11 of a pathfinder spacecraft to be used for pad tests, 

along with 2 flight craft expected Apr. 25 and May 23. The MJS 

spacecraft would weigh 3 times more than the Pioneer 10 and ZZ that 

reached Saturn in 1973 and 1974, respectively, and would carry additional instrumentation such as narrow- and high-resolution wide-angle 

TV cameras, cosmic-ray detectors, and infrared spectrometers and 

radiometers to study the outer planets and satellites. 

John Noble Wilford reported in the NYT that the new vehicles would 

have a new name-either Voyager or Discovery-fitting the new design 

for outer planet environments characterized by pale sunlight and great 

radio distances. The new craft looked like “a giant round ear,” Wilford 

said, consisting of a dish antenna with struts and booms resembling 

spider legs. The powerful lightweight radio-transmitter tubes that had 

33 
FEBRUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 

been the major problem in building the spacecraft had arrived from the 

contractor a year behind schedule, reducing the time for “life tests” of 

their durability and performance. 

Each of the spacecraft would also carry a 3-computer system to handle 

failures during flight, in view of the 2.5hr required for round-trip radio 

signals between earth and Saturn. Trajectories chosen should provide 

data on particles and magnetic currents (magnetosphere) around Jupiter 

and Saturn, and if possible Uranus; on the atmospheres of those planets, 

believed to have gaseous rather than solid surfaces; and on the surfaces 

of any solid moons of the outer planets. The Uranus encounter would occur in Jan. 1986, nearly 8.5yr after launch from earth. (KSC Release 

65-77; NYT, Feb 22/77, 15) 

Februury 17: NASA announced that Lewis Research Center had named 

Kaman Aerospace Corp. of Bloomfield, Conn., to build the world’s 

largest windmill blade: 45.7 meters, more than twice as long as the 19m 

blades powering the lOOkw generator at LeRC’s Plum Brook station in 

Sandusky, 0. The $Zmillion contract would cover design, fabrication, 

and test and evaluation of the giant turbine-rotor blade, representing the 

type needed for production windmills generating 1.5 megawatts of electricity, enough for several hundred homes. 

Artist’s concept of the 15-story wind-turbine blade, world‘s largest at 150 ft and 

weighing about 17 tons, to be built of gIassj?ber ai a cost of $2 million for LeRC 

by Kaman Aerospace of Conn. (NASA 77-H-156) 

The 15-story blade, weighing about 19 400kg and made of glass fiber, 

would require expensive special tooling and technology advances to permit large-scale production of such blades in future. NASA and ERDA 

planned detailed design studies on 2-megawatt wind turbines using two 

e giant blades to produce power in average winds of 22km per hr. 

A’s decision to develop giant wind turbines had followed studies 

34 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 FEBRUARY 

showing that the big machines could produce electricity at lower cost per 

kwh. (NASA Release 77-27) 

* LaRC announced it had awarded a contract worth about $3 million to 

Lockheed Aircraft Corp. for development and flight testing of activecontrol concepts for subsonic commercial-transport airplanes. Scheduled 

for introduction in the 1980s, the concepts (including maneuver load 

control, gust alleviation, elastic-mode suppression, augmented stability, 

and envelope limiting) would help make future aircraft safer, quieter, 

more comfortable, and more energy-efficient. Work uvcler the contract 

would be done at Lockheed’s Burbank plant over the next 2yr. (LaRC 

Release 77-4) 

MSFC announced that United Space Boosters, Inc., the firm that 

would assemble and check out the solid-fuel rocket for the Space Shuttle, 

had begun a manpower buildup that would eventually include about 150 

employees. The present contractor work force of about 60 had been 

housed in Bldg. 4666 at the center. The firm, a subsidiary of United 

Technologies Corp. of Sunnyvale, Calif., had received in Dec. 1976 a 

contract for work at both MSFC and KSC to include stacking, launch 

operations, and refurbishing the reusable rockets. Responsibilities would 

include designing tools for applying thermal-protection materials to the 

boosters, electrical and instrument-verification testing, and installing instrumentation on the booster structure and on the booster aft skirt for 

tests scheduled at MSFC and at the Thiokol plant in Utah. Employees of 

USB doing MSFC work at KSC later in 1977 would number from 150 to 

200, but the contractor would keep a cadre of about 80 at MSFC through 

the Shuttle test period. (MSFC Release 77-26) 

0 LaRC announced that Katherine G. Johnson, aerospace technologist 

at LaRC’s flight dynamics and control division, was among 24 black 

scientists and inventors honored in Philadelphia who had “advanced 

technology and helped move the world forward.” For Black History 

Month, Philadelphia’s Afro-American Historical and Cultural Museum 

had unveiled a display including Johnson’s portrait among “examples of 

singular achievement in technology” to “inspire the young, gratify the 

old, and encourage all who are made aware of these accomplishments.” 

Johnson was cited for her work on interplanetary trajectories, space 

navigation, and spacecraft orbits. (LaRC Release 77-5) 

President Carter would propose budget changes to reduce emphasis on 

nuclear power and increase research on energy conservation, predicted 

Les Gapay in the Wall Street Journal. Sources in and out of the Carter 

administration said that Carter would amend the Ford budget for FY 

35 
FEBRUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 

1978 by cutting money for two major nuclear-power research projects: a 

multimillion-dollar program to develop a fast-breeder nuclear reactor 

that would produce more fuel than it consumed, and research on nuclear 

fusion, a new technology intended to provide commercial electrical 

power within several decades. Fusion was said to be more environmentally acceptable than other nuclear programs, and the U.S. had been spending several hundred million a yr on this research. Funds cut from the 

Energy Research and Development Administration would go toward 

research on energy conservation; ERDA had been studying ways to save 

fuel in building, transportation, and industrial processes. The Ford 

budget had asked for a 28% increase in energy research for FY 1978 

(from $2.9 billion to $3.7 billion), most of it for ERDA and for nuclear 

power studies. (WSJ, Feb 17/77, 3) 

February 18: The $500-million Space Shuttle with no crewmembers 

aboard took its first ride over the Calif. desert, carried piggyback on its 

converted Boeing 747 for a 2hr test at nearly 5km altitude. Operating the 

747 were veteran NASA test pilot Fitzhugh L. Fulton, Jr.; copilot 

Thomas C. McMurtry; and flight engineers Victor W. Horton and Lewis 

E. Guidry, Jr. The Enterprise, prototype of the reusable craft designed 

to carry cargo and scientists into space in the 1980s, was secured to the 

747 by mounts at its nose and tail; the combination craft stood almost 

20m from the ground to the top of the orbiter’s tail. The explosive bolts 

provided to separate the two craft in free flight were armed during this 

first test, in case of emergency. 

NASA officials said the weight of the Enterprise (about 65 000kg) did 

not strain the capacity of the 747, which weighed nearly 200 00Okg empty 

and had carried much greater loads in cargo and passengers. “Most of 

the time we couldn’t even tell the Shuttle was here,” Fulton said after the 

flight, which reached ‘speeds of about 450kph as the crew turned and 

banked the combined ships, shut down some of the 747 engines, and performed other maneuvers to check stability. The Enterprise would be unmanned during the next 5 combined test flights; in May, a 2-man crew 

would conduct 6 more tests of the 747/orbiter combination, and in July 

the orbiter would be released from its carrier for a series of unpowered 

flights. (W Post, Feb 19/77, A3; W Star, Feb 19/77, A-8) 

0 The U.S. Air Force announced plans to launch an Honest John-Hydac 

rocket from Santa Rosa Is. near Pensacola, Fla., after sunset on Feb. 22 

to release a high-altitude multicolor cloud visible throughout the 

Southeast. Release of a 48kg payload of barium 72km above the Gulf of 

Mexico would reveal whether or not the resulting cloud would interfere 

with radio signals between an airplane and a comsat, a USAF spokesman 

36 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 FEBRUARY 

said. A similar test Dec. 1, 1976, created a colored cloud visible as far 

away as Tennessee. (WPost, Feb 18/77, A23) 

0 NASA announced it had signed an agreement with McDonnell 

Douglas Corp. allowing the company as a commercial venture to design, 

manufacture, and test an upper-stage system, including integration services, for Space Shuttle missions having payloads weighing up to 2000kg. 

Carried into low earth orbit on the Shuttle, the upper stage called SSUSA (for spinning solid upper stage, Atlas Centaur class) would take 

payloads into transfer orbit where a kick motor would put it into a circular geosynchronous orbit 35 900km above earth. 

A similar agreement last yr with McDonnell Douglas was for an upper 

stage called SSUS-D (for Delta class) suitable for use with payloads 

weighing up to 1100kg, like those being orbited on Delta vehicles. NASA 

had planned to procure SSUS-A systems only from firms with which it 

had such an agreement; under the agreements, firms would be free to sell 

stages either to NASA or directly to customers. The agreements would 

specify performance requirements, define a delivery schedule to meet 

NASA’s Shuttle schedule, and establish unit ceiling prices and a ceiling 

profit. (NASA Release 77-29) 

@ Six NASA rockets launched from Australia in Feb. would investigate 

stars, hot stars, white dwarfs, and exploding galaxies, NASA announced. Goddard Space Flight Center’s Richard M. Windsor, working 

as project manager with the Australian government, the Univ. of 

Adelaide, and several U.S. universities and scientists, would oversee 

launch of the lorn-long Aerobee sounding rockets from the Woomera 

range during the wk of Feb. 16-24. The Aerobee, which could lift a 

l8lkg payload to an altitude of 210km, had carried nearly a thousand 

scientific payloads since it came into use in 1947. 

U.S. investigations would include a Columbia Univ. study of bursting 

x-ray stars to see if they resembled black holes; a Naval Research 

Laboratory study to determine whether the Large Magellanic Cloud 

resembled earth’s galaxy, comparing x-ray stars for luminosity, 

temperature, and fluctuation; another NRL study of x-ray sources in the 

Coma Cluster; a Johns Hopkins Univ. study of Alpha Centauri A, 4.5 

light-years distant, and other stars similar to earth’s sun, for evidence of 

a solar corona in far ultraviolet; another JHU study, this one in UV 

measurement of early or “hot” stars, to obtain data for use in calibrating 

satellite-borne UV telescopes; and a GSFC study of the Large Magellanic 

Cloud using UV filters on a Schwarzchild camera to define distribution 

of hot stars, galactic dust, high-energy gas, young remnants of supernovas, and other celestial phenomena. (NASA Release 77-28) 

31 
FEBRUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AER~NAUTICS, mi 

February 19: Global communications systems used by the Dept. of 

Defense were inadequate, inefficient, and incapable of surviving nuclear 

attack, according to the investigation subcommittee of the House Committee on Armed Services. 

A United Press report carried in the W Star quoted subcommittee 

criticism of the Pentagon’s topsecret command post which, “while 

located in the basement of the Pentagon, [showed] little possibility that 

the National Military Command Center would survive a nuclear attack 

directed against it.” The report cited “dismay over the department’s inability to deploy a satellite communications system after 16 years of effort,” “security deficiencies” in the computer software of the worldwide 

Military Command and Control System, weaknesses in the Tri-Service 

Tactical Communications program, and “urgent need for early deployment of improved voice security equipment throughout the military services.” The report commended the use of airborne command posts such as 

the converted Boeing 747 “doomsday plane” that had taken President 

Carter to Georgia the previous wk. (WStar, Feb 19/77, A-3) 

Canadian scientists recovered a fragment weighing about 2kg from a 

meteorite seen streaking across the sky over Alberta earlier in Feb., the 

Associated Press reported. Ian Halliday of the Natl. Research Council 

noted that the find was only the third time a meteorite had been located 

after it had been photographed coming down; most meteorites reportedly had burned up or exploded before reaching earth. The AP report 

noted that four fragments of a meteorite that exploded Jan. 31 over 

Louisville, Ky., had been recovered, and that all four had struck manmade objects (two rooftops, a house window, and an automobile hood), 

reportedly a rare occurrence. (W Post, Feb 20/77, A19) 

The Univ. of Toyko’s Inst. of Space and Aeronautical Science 

launched a 13kg experimental satellite called Tansei 3 from the 

Uchinoura space center into an orbit with 3940km apogee, 826km 

perigee, using a 3-stage MU3H rocket developed at the university. The 

rocket, used in preparation for next yr’s launch of Japan’s 5th auroraobservation satellite, was 23.8m long and weighed 49 tons. The MST-3 

satellite, 7th launched by the university and 9th by Japan, carried control 

equipment for testing and would sent back scientific data for an 

estimated 15 days. (FBIS, Tokyo Kyodo in English, Feb 10/77) 

February 20: Distant planets Uranus and Neptune had turned out to have 

spin rates similar to earth’s, so that their days correspond to earth days 

and they had probably come from the same debris that earth did, 

reported Kitt Peak astronomers Michael J.S. Belton and Bethanne 

Hayes. Using the observatory‘s just-over-400cm telescope, world’s sec38 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 FEBRUARY 

ond largest, the astronomers found that (contrary to previous theory) 

spin rates of the outermost planets (except for Pluto) resembled not those 

of Saturn and Jupiter but rather those of earth and Mars. The discovery 

indicated they were solid ice-like bodies, not big balls of gas, Dr. Belton 

said. 

Using a smaller telescope at Kitt Peak, a separate 4-member team of 

scientists had reported the first observation of weather patterns in the upper atmosphere of Neptune. Dr. Richard Joyce and 3 scientists from the 

Univ. of Hawaii had found a marked increase in Neptune’s reflectivity 

between April 1975 and March 1976, suggesting the presence of thin 

transient clouds high in that planet’s atmosphere. Astronomers had been 

using the planet as a standard measure of brightness, thinking that it experienced no atmospheric changes. ( W Post, Feb 20177, F16) 

0 Meteorites-so rare that museum collections around the world contained no more than 2000, and no curator had reported finding one on 

his own- had turned up in quantity in Antarctica several years ago when 

a team of Japanese scientists found an area of the ice-covered continent 

where hunting meteorites was “as easy as picking mushrooms,” the 

Chicago Tribune reported. 

Dr. Edward J. Olsen, chief of geology at Chicago’s Field Museum and 

curator of one of the largest meteorite collections, had returned from the 

first U.S. meteorite expedition to Antarctica reporting that his team had 

found pieces of 11 different meteorites, weighing about 450kg in all, at 

two sites more than 200km northwest of the U.S. research station on 

McMurdo Sound where movement of the ice cover had concentrated 

meteorites at certain spots. 

Scientists valued the meteorites as the oldest objects yet located, dating 

back as far as 4.5 billion yr, whereas earth’s oldest rocks were only 3.7 

billion yr old. Meteorites in pristine condition, preserved by the ice, 

might contain information about organic chemicals in space, Olsen said, 

and cosmic-ray traces might show whether the sun was running down or 

getting hotter. (C Trib, Feb 20177, 1-3) 

February 22: A lack of sunspots during the past yr and a half might have 

caused recent unusual cold weather and drought in the U.S., Dr. John A. 

Eddy of the Natl. Center for Atmospheric Research told the 143rd 

meeting of the Am. Assn. for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Eddy, an 

astronomer who had studied the complex relation between solar activity 

and historic and climatic events, had traced short- and medium-term effects over several thousand yr in history records and as far back as 

7000yr by measuring carbon-14 levels in tree rings. 

The theory was that sunspots increased the solar wind (solar particles 

and radiation that fan the earth) which determined the amount of cosmic 

39 
FEBRUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

and galactic radiation striking the earth. Tree-ring studies echoed abnormal conditions of cold weather and drought when the rings exhibited 

high levels of carbon- 14 resulting from reduced solar-wind activity, 

resulting from fewer sunspots. 

. . The record of climate [has] a one-to-one correspondence that’s 

so good I don’t want to believe it,” Dr. Eddy told the Denver meeting. 

History reported the reign of King Louis XIV of France (1643-1715) as a 

time of high carbon-14 levels; Eddy said the most severe temperature 

drops on earth in the last thousand yr occurred in that period. Crops 

failed in the British Isles, a Norse colony in Greenland perished of cold, 

and Spanish conquistadors had ridden their horses into Mexico across a 

frozen Rio Grande. The aurora borealis produced by solar particles striking earth’s magnetic field did not appear during that period; astronomer 

Ehund Halley was 60yr old when he first saw northern lights in 1715, 

when the “little ice age” ended. “The fact is, we should have been into a 

rise of solar activity in the autumn of 1975,” Eddy noted, “and here we 

are a year and a half overdue into getting that rise.” ( WPost, Feb 22/77, 

A-3; NYT, Feb 22/77, 13) 

/ 

Japan’s Natl. Space Development Agency announced rescheduling to 

Feb. 23 of the launch of a 3-stage N rocket carrying the first geostationary meteorological satellite to be orbited by Japan. The launch had 

been postponed because of trouble with the system controlling the 

rocket’s first stage. (FBIS, Tokyo Kyodo in English, Feb 21/77) 

February 22: Pressures from inside and outside the scientific community 

might result in restricting the freedom of inquiry that had enabled science 

to flourish since the Renaissance, the annual meeting of the Am. Assn. 

for the Advancement of Science heard. Walter Sullivan reported in the 

NY Times that a session on the role of science as the key to man’s 

political future had as discussion leaders George W. Ball, senior director 

of Lehman Bros. investment bankers; Lord Zuckerman, former chief 

science adviser to the British government; and Charles J. Hitch, president of Resources for the Future, Inc., of Washington, D.C. The panel 

cited controversies in the Cambridge, Mass., city council over regulating 

use of genetic material in that city’s research laboratories; the Calif. 

legislature’s proposal to regulate research on genetic hybrids; and other 

attempts to control the directions of research. 

The panel expressed the feeling that checks and balances within the 

scientific community should be able to deal with such problems, and said 

that misgivings about “too much knowledge” harked back to prehistoric 

and classical times when mankind feared probing into nature’s secrets. 

Although restraints on export of equipment and knowledge might delay 

the spread of nuclear weapons, Ball noted that the only real control 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 FEBRUARY 

would be “to create a climate where nations don’t find it [nuclear 

weaponry] useful.” (NYT, Feb 23/77, B-4) 

February 23-27: Japan’s Natl. Space Development Agency announced 

launch Feb. 22 of its engineering test satellite ETS-I1 from the space 

center at Tanegashima at 550 local time (0850 GMT) on a 3-stage 32.5m 

N rocket developed with the help of U.S. technology. The rocket 

weighed about 90 tons and had a thrust of 148 tons at liftoff. 

The satellite, a 1.4lm-diameter cylinder 93cm long, carried a transmittedreceiver and five small rockets for attitude control, orbital shift, and 

speed adjustment. At about 6:45 pm local time, the satellite (called Kiku 

2 in orbit) reached an elliptical transfer orbit with 191km perigee and 

apogee of about 36 000km, the altitude at which it would go into synchronous orbit within a few days. Its synchronous station would be at 

130”E over Indonesia, the announcement said. This was the third 

satellite orbited by the agency and the tenth by Japan. (FBIS, Tokyo 

Kyodo in English, Feb 23/77; NYT, Feb 25/77, A7; CSM, Feb 24/77,2) 

NSDA officials announced Feb. 25 that Kiku 2 would change orbit a 

day early, on its seventh pass over the Indian Ocean, as data from tracking stations in Japan and on Christmas Is. had confirmed its success in 

elliptical orbit. The satellite would reach station by March 5 if all went 

well, the announcement said. (FBIS, Tokyo Kyodo in English, Feb 

25/77) 

The NY Times carried a Feb. 26 item from Associated Press confirming that “Japan’s first experimental stationary satellite” had shifted to a 

circular orbit. (NYT, Feb 27/77, 7) 

NSDA announced Feb. 27 that Kiku 2’s apogee motor ignited at 2:32 

pm local time on Feb. 26 to move the satellite from an elliptical to a circular orbit with apogee of 35 756km and perigee of 34 034km, close to 

preflight predictions and fast enough to permit drift to its permanent station over Indonesia at 35 800km altitude. (FBIS, Tokyo Kyodo in 

English, Feb 27/77) 

February 24: JSC announced plans for NASA Symposium 77 to be held 

at the center March 1-3 for more than 2000 students from junior and 

senior high schools in Texas, a first-of-its-kind event for NASA, designed to motivate youth (especially female and minority students) to 

seek careers in engineering and science. Special guest at the event would 

be actress Nichelle Nichols, best known as Lt. Uhura, communications 

officer on the Star Trek television series. JSC and contract employees 

would conduct workshops and describe their own careers as scientists or 

engineers, and would take the students on tours of various work areas at 

the center. 

41 
FEBRUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

The symposium would include a seminar for college and university administrators from schools having high enrollments of minority and 

female students, giving information on NASA research, training, and 

employment opportunities. NASA had conducted programs similar to 

Symposium 77 at 3 universities, but not at a field center. (JSC Release 

77-10) 

The initial phase of Shuttle approach and landing tests (ALT) that 

began Feb. 18 at DFRC might end ahead of schedule, DFRC announced, 

if the 4th and 5th flight of the combined 747-and-orbiter vehicles continued to meet program objectives. Donald K. Slayton, ALT program 

manager, said that if performance measured up to previous successful 

flights, the 6th test (now scheduled for Mar. 4) would be dropped. Program officials had praised the performance of the 747 and its piggyback 

passenger, Slayton said; flight data had verified preflight wind-tunnel 

test results and simulations conducted by Boeing. 

Early completion of inert tests with an unmanned orbiter would put 

the orbiter in its hangar a week ahead of schedule to prepare for its next 

flight, in the captive-active phase. Five flights scheduled in this phase 

would carry astronaut crews to perform systems checks and go through 

crew procedures as the 747 went through maneuvers up to, but just short 

of, actual release of the orbiter. Tests later in the summer would release 

the orbiter for an unpowered landing on DFRC’s dry lakebed. (NASA 

Release 77-36; DFRC Release 8-77) 

February 25: NASA announced selection of Hughes Aircraft Co.’s Space 

and Communications Group, El Segundo, Calif., for negotiation of a 

cost-plus-award-fee contract valued at between $37.5 and $43.5 million, 

depending on the option selected, for design and fabrication of a 

thematic mapper to be used on Landsat D, scheduled for launch early in 

1981. The thematic mapper would be a remote-sensing instrument offering improved data for land-resources management by making observations with repetitive temporal coverage and delivering to the users information with better spatial and spectral resolution (mapping on a 

1 :250 OOO scale compared to 1 : 1 OOO OOO on the present Landsat.) 

The basic contract, including assembly, test, and qualification of a 

prototype flight model and one set of bench-test and calibration equipment, as well as support services, would have two options: either an additional flight unit with an additional set of test equipment and support 

services, or two additional flight units and support services. Completion 

and delivery of the prototype would be scheduled for late 1980. GSFC 

would manage the thematic-mapper program. (NASA Release 77-34) 

* NASA announced development of ultrathin large-area silicon solar 

42 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1971 FEBRUARY 

cells thinner than a sheet of newspaper for increasing the power-toweight capability of solar arrays, considered a major breakthrough in applying solar energy to missions requiring multikilowatts, even millions of 

watts, of electricity. The Solarex Corp. of Rockville, Md., had made the 

thin cells some 40 to 50 microns thick (only one-sixth as thick as cells in 

present solar arrays) in sizes up to 38cmZ, proving both structurally flexible and less fragile than expected. Energy conversion of the new cells virtually equaled that of conventional cells, 11% compared to 12 or 13% 

for the thicker cells. 

Lightweight cells would mean larger solar arrays for ion-propulsion 

systems in extended space exploration, and could supply power for platforms and remote-satellite power stations in the future. Solarex had 

delivered hundreds of the new cells to JPL at Pasadena, Calif., for test, 

evaluation, and design-application studies. (NASA Release 77-3 1) 

* More than half the 1497 reports received under the NASA aviation 

safety reporting system (ASRS) in its second quarter of operations included unsolicited recommendations for solutions of a variety of airtraffic problems, NASA announced. The reports, dealing with air operations nationwide, reflected an increase in the quality of reporting for the 

period ending Oct. 14, 1976, the agency said. NASA’s ASRS had been 

designed as an “early warning system” consisting of voluntary reports 

submitted by pilots, air traffic controllers, and others in the national 

aviation system. 

During the first and second quarters, an average of 100 reports came in 

each wk; the number of reports from pilots declined during the second 

quarter, with reports from controllers now constituting half rather than a 

third of the total. At least three-fourths of all reports concerned incidents 

occurring in controlled air space, and some type of flight plan had been 

filed in 84% of the flights described. NASA had prepared and sent to the 

Federal Aviation Administration a total of 58 alert bulletins during the 

report period. 

NASA personnel had initially screened all ASRS reports to remove the 

names of persons reporting; the reports went for analysis to the ASRS 

office of Battelle’s Columbus Division in Mountain View, Calif. Attempts to verify information in 340 of the reports, by telephone contact 

with the reporter, were successful in 270 instances. Names of persons 

were removed to protect the right of free comment without fear of 

reprisal, and 80% of the reports were reviewed within 2 working days of 

their receipt. (NASA Release 77-30) 

* NASA issued requests for proposals from industry to design and 

manufacture the Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) recently approved 

by the U.S. and the Netherlands. Scheduled for launch in March 1981, 

43 
FEBRUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 

the observatory would use a telescope furnished by the U.S., a spacecraft 

built by the Netherlands, and a control facility supplied by the United 

Kingdom. The IRAS in a 900km polar orbit would survey the entire sky 

for a yr, at infrared wavelengths not usable by earth-based telescopes 

because of atmospheric interference, to study stars forming and at the 

end of their life cycle. 

JPL would manage the project and would design and operate a facility 

to produce an infrared sky map and a catalog containing up to 1 million 

infrared sources. NASA’s Ames Research Center would be responsible 

for the 60m-aperture infrared telescope. Prof. Gerry Neugebauer of the 

Calif. Inst. of Technology (operating JPL for NASA) would head the 

U.S. scientific team, working with as many as 500 U.S., Dutch, and U.K. 

scientists, engineers, and technicians. Industry proposals were due by 

Mar. 1, with contractor selection later in 1977. (NASA Release 77-33) 

0 MSFC reported NASA’s Michoud assembly facility had shipped the 

first of four major pieces of test hardware for the Space Shuttle external 

tank, an intertank structural-test article scheduled to arrive by barge at 

MSFC about Mar. 5. It would go from New Orleans to Huntsville by 

way of Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee Rivers, the route NASA had 

used to ship Saturn stages for testing during the Apollo program. The 

other test articles (liquid-hydrogen tank, liquid-oxygen tank, and 

another intertank) would arrive later in 1977. 

The external tank, one to be used for each Shuttle mission, would hold 

containers for liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, connected by the intertank; the combined assembly would measure about 47m long. Test data 

would serve to verify the intertank‘s structural integrity before static test 

firing of the Shuttle’s main propulsion system at the Natl. Space 

Technology Laboratories later in 1977. The test firings would use a fullsize external tank, three Shuttle engines, and an Orbiter aft-structure 

simulator, attached to the test stand through the intertank. (MSFC 

Release 77-30) 

0 JSC announced it had awarded a cost-plus-award-fee contract worth 

$12 million to Lockheed Electronics Co. for a third yr of site-support 

services to JSC’s White Sands Test Facility at Las Cruces, N.M. 

Estimated total value of the 3yr contract was $24 million. (JSC Release 

NASA Administrator Dr. James C. Fletcher gave the agency’s 

distinguished public service medal to United Nations Secretary General 

Kurt Waldheim, at a ceremony at the Natl. Air and Space Museum. Dr. 

Waldheim received the award for outstanding leadership as chairman of 

the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space from 1965 to 

1968 and from 1970 to 1971, and for “enduring contributions to the 

77-1 1) 

44 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 FEBRUARY 

development of a constructive international consensus, during the 

critical formative years, on the challenging issues presented by man’s first 

uses of outer space.” (Text of presentation) 

February 28: NASA announced that MSFC had issued requests for proposals from industry to make studies of, and supply data for NASA to 

use in developing techniques for packaging, transporting, fabricating, 

erecting, and operating large structures in space, in preparation for a major demonstration in space in 1983 or 1984. An early Shuttle flight would 

carry an automated beam-fabrication module to make aluminum structural members; later flights would demonstrate use of both aluminum 

and composite materials. After a few beams were manufactured on early 

flights, later missions would perform limited assembly, culminating in 

fabrication and erection of a large structure for continuing use, such as a 

lOOkw solar-power facility to supplement onboard Shuttle power for 

various experiments. 

The capacity demonstrated in these missions would aid in creating a 

more complex assembly as part of a space-construction base in 1985 or 

thereafter. The proposal called for completion in 9mo and another 2mo 

to prepare a report. MSFC would receive proposals until Mar. 18, 1977, 

and would manage the study project for the Office of Space Flight. 

(NASA Release 77-35) 

0 JSC announced it had awarded a contract worth $2 million to 

Hamilton Standard Division, United Technologies Corp., Windsor 

Locks, Conn., to supply space suits for Shuttle crews. The system, an extravehicular mobility unit (EMU), would consist of a suit with integrated 

life-support backpack for use outside the Shuttle orbiter’s pressurized 

cabin. The suit would come in small, medium, and large upper- and 

lower-torso standardized sections, to replace the individualized suits of 

earlier manned programs. The contract called for equipment and spares 

for seven suits and supporting hardware, plus training, manpower, and 

field support at JSC and other NASA centers, at an estimated ultimate 

cost of about $18.5 million. (JSC Release 77-12) 

0 JSC reported it had signed a contract valued at $200K with American 

Airline’s maintenance and engineering center at Tulsa, Okla., for 

maintenance and operations support of NASA’s Boeing 747 Shuttlecarrier aircraft NASA 905. Work would be done primarily at DFRC, site 

of the first atmospheric and glide-flight landing tests of the Shuttle orbiter. Eventual value of the contract could reach $806K. (JSC Release 

77-13) 

During February: Japan, one of five countries that previously had agreed 

45 
FEBRUARY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

to be major investors in a $200 million international maritime satellite 

organization (Inmarsat), had declined to participate in a preparatory 

committee set up to act until formal documents were ratified, AvWk 

reported. 

Forty countries would be Inmarsat members; besides Japan, the other 

four major shareholders were to be the U.S., the U.K., the USSR, and 

Norway. The preparatory committee had met in London in Jan. under 

sponsorship of the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization, an arm of the UN, and had set up three panels: one on satellitesystem parameters; one on economic, marketing, and financial matters; 

and one on organization procedures, all of which were to meet in the interval before the next committee meeting set for Oct. 1977. Japan gave 

no reason for withdrawing. (AvWk, Feb 7/77, 23) 

46 
March I: NASA announced the first use of a link between the communications technology satellite Cts and the portable earth terminal 

(PET): a teleconference between Housing and Urban Development 

Secretary Patricia Roberts Harris in Washington, D.C., and a group of 

California mayors at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, 

Calif. Mrs. Harris conferred with the mayors from the PET bus parked 

outside the HUD building. Cts, a joint effort between the Canadian 

Dept. of Communications and NASA, had been built and integrated by 

Canada; NASA provided the 200w transmitter and developed the PET at 

Lewis Research Center. The PET bus, based at LeRC, would travel 

around the U.S. demonstrating how to save money through teleconferencing. (NASA Release 77-40) 

0 NASA announced it would join the Interior Dept.’s Bureau of Land 

Management in using Landsat, the earth resources monitoring satellite, 

to inventory wild land resources (major streams, ground cover and 

vegetation types, reservoirs, and fire hazards) in south central Alaska, 

northwestern Arizona, and southwestern Idaho. The project would examine each of the 3 different regional ecologies for about lyr. During the 

3yr project, the BLM and NASA would set up an automated inventory 

system to provide accurate and timely data on BLM land as another example of Landsat usefulness in solving public and private resourceoriented problems. (NASA Release 77-37) 

Marshall Space Flight Center announced it had awarded a $634 250 

contract to Grumman Aerospace Corp. to design, build, and test a 

machine that would demonstrate, on earth, the automatic fabrication of 

beams for space construction. Ground demonstration would be needed 

to develop a safe and efficient facility for use in space. Beam fabrication, 

part of the Space Industrialization Program, would be the first step in 

building large space structures. (MSFC Release 77-33) 

MSFC reported that the contractor for the first high-energy astronomy 

observatory (HEAO-A), TRW Systems of Redondo Beach, Calif., 

would ship the spacecraft to Kennedy Space Center on Mar. 7. HEAOA, a 2660kg unmanned mission scheduled for launch Apr. 15 into low 

41 
MARCH ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

circular earth orbit, would survey celestial x-ray sources and gamma-ray 

flux. (MSFC Release 77-32) 

March 3: President Carter’s first budget proposal contained additional 

funds for NASA, Nature magazine noted. The new administration had 

recommended $15 million for studies of potential missions to Mars after 

Viking; the previous administration had requested $5 million. Planetary 

scientists, pleased with the increased budget request as well as with 

Carter’s recent remarks on the Space Shuttle, viewed these actions as 

presidential support of the space program. (Nature, Mar 3/77, 5; 

Spaceflight, Mar 77, 8) 

NASA announced it had used Landsat, the earth resources monitoring 

satellite, to inventory irrigation systems in Nebraska. The 12 OOO centralpivot irrigation systems proved easily recognizable by their circular shape 

in photos from Landsat’s 1480km-altitude orbit. Annual inventory of the 

irrigation systems had become necessary when the number of centralpivot sites increased by 40 to 60% each yr, affecting property values, 

land use, and fuel and water allocation. Landsat had proved the cheapest 

way to acquire an accurate and timely inventory. (NASA Release 77-38) 

Prof. James L. Elliot of Cornel1 Univ. reported sighting a large 

number of objects -possible satellites of Uranus, the seventh 

planet - while he was using the 91cm telescope on NASA’s Kuiper Airborne Observatory flying above the Indian Ocean. Another U.S. 

astronomer, Dr. Robert Millis of the Lowell Observatory in Ariz., 

reported similar observations while viewing Uranus from Perth in 

Australia. Each of the scientists claimed that the planet might have as 

many as 100 satellites ranging from 18 to 24mi in diameter. If confirmed, 

the new observations would give Uranus more satellites than any other 

planet in the solar system. (NYT, Mar 3/77, 77; C Trib, Mar 12/77) 

March 4: NASA announced the return to Johnson Space Center of 

former astronaut Dr. Edward G. Gibson, science pilot on the 84-day 

Skylab 4 mission in 1973-74, after a yr with ERN0 of Bremen, W. Germany, prime contractor for Spacelab (a future Space Shuttle payload). 

Gibson, a Ph.D. in physics and engineering, had left NASA in 1974 to 

become senior staff scientist at Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, Calif. 

Gibson would be working in JSC’s Mission Specialist Office, now headed 

by astronaut Joseph P. Kerwin, M.D. (NASA Release 77-43) 

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that, as part of the 

Solar Sail Development Project, it had awarded 6 contracts to build a 

spaceship powered by solar wind. The craft, using large extremely thin 

48 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 MARCH 

Artist’s concept of solar sail making rendezvous in 1982 with Halley’s comet. 

Launched from an orbiting Space Shuttle, an 800m-sq structure could carry an 

800 to 900kg spacecraft on such a mission. (NASA 77-H-128) 

metallic sails to capture the energy of solar photons, would tack like a 

sailboat into the “wind” to head toward the sun or would use photon 

energy to head for the outer planets. Speed of the ship would vary with 

distance from the sun, following the inverse-square law that solar intensity would decrease as the reciprocal of the distance from the sun, squared. 

Cost of the contracts for fabricating sail material and designing sails, 

booms, and navigation systems would total $800 OOO. (NASA Release 

77-39) 

0 A 25-article series in ScienceNews by Jonathan Eberhart on the Viking 

mission won the 1976 AAAS-Westinghouse science writing award Feb. 

22, Science reported. Henry S.F. Cooper’s New Yorker article on the 

Space Shuttle received honorable mention. (Science, Mar 4/77, 864) 

March 7: Dr. James C. Fletcher, NASA administrator, announced that 

the planetary probes scheduled for launch Aug. 20 and Sept. 1 would be 

named Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. The two craft would view Jupiter, 

Saturn, and their respective satellite systems, and might also look at 

Uranus and Neptune. JPL had designed and built both probes. 

In March 1979 Voyager 1 would pass within 357 OOOkm of Jupiter, the 

solar system’s largest planet, and go on to rendezvous with Saturn in 

Nov. 1980, passing within 209 OOOkm of the ringed planet’s cloud tops 

and within 6430km of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon and the only satellite 

in the solar system known to have an atmosphere. (NASA Release 77-41) 

49 
MARCH ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 

0 NASA’s upcoming 5yr plan (1978-1982) had projected annualbudgets 

for fiscal yrs 1980-1982 in excess of $4.7 billion, Aviation Week 

reported. The plan, an internal document used to guide the agency, 

would allow NASA as many as 7 major new mission starts in FY 1979, 

including a Mars rover and a Halley’s Comet rendezvous. (Av Wk, Mar 

7/77, 47) 

MSFC announced it would consider using the Space Shuttle’s external 

fuel tank (ET) as a permanent space platform. James E. Kingsbury, head 

of MSFC’s Science and Engineering Directorate, proposed to replace 

57m3 of an ET’S liquid oxygen with provisions for 90 days, then launch 

another Shuttle to bring a crew, a Skylab-airlock module and multipledocking adapter, and a solar electric-conversion wing to the orbiting ET 

to constitute a habitable space station. All the required equipment, now 

in storage or on display in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space 

Museum, had been flight-tested. (MSFC Release 77-36; NASA Release 

77-42; Htsvl Times, Feb 20/77, 8) 

JSC announced it would use CAMAC, a European innovation used in 

worving between computers and hardware to produce standard scientific 

electronic subassemblies, as a link between Shuttle computers and onboard experiments. CAMAC would reduce costs by permitting actual 

onboard assembly of major electronic sections from a CAMAC 

subassembly pool. MSFC had been studying the equipment to ensure 

reliability during Shuttle operations. (JSC Release 77-14) 

0 JSC announced award of a $2 752 OOO contract to Hamilton Standard 

Division of United Technologies Corp., Windsor Locks, Conn. , for 

development and production of a Space Shuttle portable oxygen system 

for use independently or connected to the orbiter’s oxygen system. Consisting of a face mask, rebreather loop, heat exchanger, oxygen bottle, 

and recharge kit, the system would operate during emergencies and for 

prebreathing before spacewalks to denitrogenize the crew’s circulatory 

systems. (JSC Release 77-18) 

NASA might undertake a Cosmic Background Explorer satellite program, Av Wk reported. The satellite would examine the character of 

cosmic background radiation claimed by many scientists to prove the 

big-bang theory of the universe’s formation. (Av Wk, Mar 7/77, 11) 

A cryogenically cooled infrared telescope carried aboard the Space 

Shuttle would become the major infrared research instrument in space, 

AvWk reported. NASA studies had indicated such a telescope could 

50 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 MARCH 

gather spectroscopic data on objects 1000 times fainter than now visible. 

(AvW., Mar 7/77, 11) 

* New infrared detectors at Kitt Peak Natl. Observatory might have 

detected frozen methane on the surface of Pluto, AvWk reported. If 

verified, the observations would indicate a smaller size for Pluto and 

would change current theories of Pluto’s interaction with other planets. 

(AvWk, Mar 7/77, 11) 

March 8: MSFC announced a $1 046 100 amendment of a contract with 

Rocketdyne Division of Rockwell Intl. Corp., Canoga Park, Calif., contractors for the Space Shuttle main engine (SSME). The amended contract, totaling more than $66 million, would include equipment to build 

SSME. (MSFC Release 77-37) 

c 

March 9: NASA announced that Ronald E. Evans, former commandmodule pilot of Apollo 17, would leave Mar. 15 to become executive vice 

president of Western American Energy Corp. (WAEC) and director of 

marketing for WES-PAC Energy, coal-producing subsidiary of WAEC. 

Evans, selected as an astronaut in 1966, flew on Apollo 17 in 1971 and 

made a lhr 6min spacewalk. He had been in charge of plans for the ascent 

phase of Space Shuttle orbital-test flights scheduled for 1979. (NASA 

Release 77-44) 

* Reduction of data from NASA’s 1976 gravity probe (GP-A) experiment had confirmed the equivalency principle, a cornerstone of 

Einstein’s general theory of relativity, MSFC reported. Using data from 

two identical atomic maser clocks, principal investigator Dr. Robert 

Vessot of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in Cambridge, Mass., had demonstrated that time actually went faster in a 

weaker gravitational field, one removed from the earth’s mass. The clock 

that had been carried aboard a rocket to an altitude of 10 OOOkm had run 

faster. (MSFC Release 77-41) 

MSFC reported plans to request another $18 610 000 in NASA’s FY 

1978 budget for construction or modification of facilities to be used in 

building the Space Shuttle external fuel tank (ET) at the Michoud 

assembly facility (MAF) near New Orleans. With addition of a chemical 

waste-treatment plant and alterations of the manufacturing, verticalassembly, final-assembly, and checkout buildings, MAF could produce 

28 ETs each yr. (MSFC Release 77-35) 

March IO: NASA launched Palapa 2 (formerly Palapa-B), an Indonesian 

51 
MARCH ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

telecommunications satellite, from the Eastern Test Range at Cape 

Canaveral on a Delta at 2316 GMT, into a transfer orbit with 36 499km 

apogee, 231.2km perigee, and inclination of 24.6”. Palapa 2, second Indonesian domestic comsat, would use its apogee kick motor Mar. 12 to 

move into synchronous orbit above the Indian Ocean. Forty ground stations throughout the archipelago would link the islands with the 2 

satellites, each capable of handling 4OOO phone calls or 12 simultaneous 

color TV channels. (MORS M-492-208-77-02, [prelaunch] Feb 2/77, 

[postlaunch] Apr 12/77; NASA Release 77-23; FBIS, Jakarta Domestic 

Service in Indonesia, Mar 1 1/77) 

0 MSFC reported it had established a project office responsible for 

managing all Space Telescope activities. Manager and deputy would be 

William C. Keathley and James C. McCulloch. (MSFC Release 77-38) 

NASA planned to send a roving laboratory over the Martian surface 

during the next Mars landings, Nature reported. Dr. Gerald A. Soffen, 

chief Viking project scientist, said that, although no future Mars missions were officially scheduled, the outlook was favorable given the 

scientific success of, and public enthusiasm for, the two Viking landers. 

Speaking at a Paris conference to disseminate Viking information, Soffen invited U.S. and foreign scientists to participate in examining Viking 

data and in developing experiments for the next generation of Mars missions. (Nature, Mar 10/77, 112) 

0 President Carter had suggested the U.S. and USSR “forgo the opportunity to arm satellite bodies and also forgo the opportunity to destroy 

observation satellites,” the W Post reported. Recent Soviet antisatellite 

experiments had alarmed Pentagon officials, who revealed that the U.S. 

military space program budget for FY 1978 was $478 million greater than 

the FY 1977 appropriation. (WPost, Mar 10/77, A-11) 

March 11: The W Post reported that NASA Administrator James C. 

Fletcher would resign effective May 1. Appointed by President Nixon in 

1971, Dr. Fletcher had headed the agency during the end of the Apollo 

project; the successful Skylab missions; the Apollo-Soyuz test project; 

and numerous unmanned missions including the launch of the earth 

resources monitoring system, Landsat, and the Mars probe Viking. Dr. 

Fletcher planned to return to private life after his resignation. ( W Post, 

Mar 11/77, A3; NASA Release 77-48) 

0 NASA announced it had awarded a cost-plus-fee contract worth about 

$43.5 million to McDonnell Douglas Technical Services, Inc., Spacelab 

Integration Division, Huntsville, Ala., for Spacelab integration. The 

52 
ASTRONAUTlCS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 MARCH 

contract, lasting from March 1977 thmugh Dec. 1983, would include 

design, development, manufacturing, and operational testing of NASA's 

Spacelab components. NASA planned to provide all operational services 

including flight operations, crew training, and maintenance, after the 

European Space Agency delivered the lab. Spacelab would remain in the 

Space Shuttle cargo bay to perform earth observations and experiments 

in materials science, physics, life science, communications, navigation, 

and space systems. (NASA Release 7747) 

* MSFC reported that parachutes to recover the Space Shuttle's reusable 

solid-fuel rocket boosters (SRB) were undergoing dynamic testing at 

Martin Marietta Corp., Denver, Colo. Scheduled for completion Mar. 

31, the tests simulated in-flight parachute deployment from the SRB. 

(MSFC Release 77-44) 

March 14: NASA announced appointment of Maj. Gen. Kenneth R. 

Chapman, USAF (Ket.), as assistant administrator for its Hq Office of 

DOD and Interagency Affairs, effective Apr. 1. He would replace Lt. 

Gen. William. W. Snavely, USAF (Ret.), who left NASA in Sept. 1976 

to accept a position in Saudi Arabia. Chapman, a nuclear chemist, was 

formerly director of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). (NASA Release 

77-50) 

0 NASA announced that LeRC had supplied news media in the 

Cleveland area with readings of daily solar energy available for use during the winter. Using a pyranometer, a device to record total solar energy 

reaching a surface, LeRC staff measured the kilowatt hrs of solar energy 

received on a 150mz surface facing south at a 37" angle. Other NASA 

centers had made similar measurements, all related to solar energy 

research being pursued by the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA). (NASA Release 7749) 

* JSC announced construction of a new lunar curatorial facility, a $2.02 

million 4200m2 addition to the old facility, Bldg. 31. The new facility, 

being built by Spaw Glass, Inc., of Houston, would provide clean secure 

storage space as well as processing, experiment, and simulation labs for 

NASA's 480kg of lunar samples. (JSC Release 77-20) 

0 NATO had not made a choice between the US.-built Boeing AWACS 

(airborne warning and control system) or the British Hawker Siddeley 

Nimrod as its airborne-radar plane, the W Star reported. Britain and 

France favored selection of the already operational Nimrod in retaliation 

for U.S. refusal to grant New York landing rights to the Anglo-French 

Concorde, and in order to preserve 7000 jobs on the Nimrod production 

53 
MARCH ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

line. Nimrod's performance on North Atlantic patrol might hamper sale 

of the AWACS to NATO, the Star noted. ( W Star, Mar 14/77, A-1 1) 

Researchers at Goddard Space Flight Center using data from Orbiting 

Solar Observatory 8 (Os0 8) determined that iron-line x-rays had come 

from hot gas between the galaxies in the Milky Way's local cluster, 

AvWk reported, meaning that the space between galaxies in the local 

cluster was not a perfect vacuum, but the amount of matter between 

local galaxies was probably about the same as that present within the 

galaxies. (AvWk, Mar 14/77, 11) 

NASA had planned to fly approximately 150 research missions on its 

Gates Learjet during 1977, Av Wk reported. Eight different research 

groups, using the 30cm telescope on board, would conduct infrared 

observations to obtain upper-atmosphere and magnetodynamic data. 

(AvWk, Mar 14/77, 11) 

0 A NASA earth resources monitoring satellite, Landsat 1, had experienced a malfunction in band 1 of its multispectral scanner on Mar. 3, 

Av Wk reported. Although the malfunction affected only band 1 (a green 

spectral band identifying sunlight reflected from green plants), NASA 

had shut down the entire scanner pending a safety investigation by controllers. Landsat 1 had performed satisfactorily since its 1973 launch. 

(AvWk, Mar 14/77, 16) 

0 The USSR had increased its military use of space, AvWk reported. 

Killer-satellite systems tested during 1976 appeared operational. The 

Soviets in 1976 had launched 33 reconnaissance missions (the core of 

their military space program) and apparently had added to their military 

comsat system as well. (Av Wk, Mar 14/77, 63) 

March 15: DQD would request $2.77 billion for space-related activities in 

FY 1978, $478.5 million more than its FY 1977 appropriation, Defense 

Daily reported. The increase, resulting from procurement of the Navstar 

global positioning satellite system and increased DOD activity on the 

Space Shuttle, would include costs of ground security at JSC and KSC 

for defense-related Shuttle payloads. DQD had planned to use the Shuttle for critical manned military observations, and had agreed on a formula to reimburse NASA for launching military payloads. (DD, Mar 

15/77, 57) 

March 16: MSFC announced award of a $279 714 contract to Sperry 

Support Services, a division of Sperry Rand Corp., Huntsville, Ala., for 

design, construction, and delivery of equipment for the mated vertical 

54 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 MARCH 

ground-vibration test (MVGVT) of the Space Shuttle, scheduled for 

1978. The test would confirm the theoretical model used in dynamic 

analyses of the Space Shuttle, external tank, and solid-fuel rocket 

boosters. (MSFC Release 77-39) 

0 Dr. Albert Rango of GSFC and Dr. K.I. Itten of the Univ. of Zurich 

announced that orbiting earth satellites could monitor winter snowpacks 

and their runoff as accurately as ground-based or airborne observations, 

NASA reported. Their findings appeared in the journal Nordic 

Hydrology. Comparing costs and relative accuracy of ground, airborne, 

and satellite measurements, the two scientists decided that the use of 

NASA’s Landsat earth resources monitoring satellite and the Natl. 

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s environmental satellite Noaa 

2 would provide timely and accurate information at lower cost than the 

alternatives. (NASA Release 77-52) 

March 17: A short-circuit in the power supply of Viking Z’s gaschromatograph mass spectrometer (GSMS) had forced controllers at 

JPL to turn off the instrument Mar. 12, NASA reported. JPL received 

confirmation of the command from the Viking system Mar. 14. NASA 

had shut down the GCMS, which had analyzed the composition of Martian atmosphere and soil early in the mission, to avoid damage to other 

instruments such as the onboard computer and communications system. 

(NASA Release 77-51) 

March 18: NASA reported that an F-8 aircraft using the digital fly-bywire control system would simulate the Space Shuttle’s flight-control 

system during a series of 3 flights at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research 

Center. The flights, simulations of orbiter maneuvers after separation 

from the Boeing 747 Shuttle-carrier aircraft, would determine the 

thresholds of sensor failure and would test the programming of the Shuttle’s flight-computer system. (NASA Release 77-53; DFRC X-News, Mar 

25/77, 2) 

0 NASA announced a successful 60-sec firing of the Space Shuttle main 

engine on Mar. 12 at rated thrust conditions of 2 082 560 newtons. 

Employees of the Rocketdyne Division, Rockwell Intl. Corp., contractor 

for the SSME, conducted the test at NASA’s Natl. Space Technology 

Laboratories. (NASA Release 77-54) 

NASA announced it had turned over the Saturn-rocket test stand at 

NSTL to Rockwell Intl. Space Div. for testing the Shuttle’s main propulsion system. Modification of the 90m-high stand to accept Shuttle 

elements ended in late 1976. Static firing tests would begin in Dec. 1977. 

(NASA Release 77-55) 

55 
MARCH ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

March 21: Candidates for the post of NASA administrator, according to 

the WPost, included Christopher C. Kraft, director of JSC; Al Kelly and 

Rocco Petrone, former NASA officials; and Frank Moss, former chairman of the Senate Space Committee and an early Carter supporter. ( W 

Post, Mar 21/77, A3) 

ESA and Canada’s Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) announced 

they had signed an agreement to cooperate in studying remote-sensing 

applications, developing microwave remote sensing, and improving 

ground stations for processing satellite data. (ESA release, Mar 21/77) 

March 22: NASA reported that MSFC had awarded a lyr $150 000 contract to the Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute (IITRI) in 

Chicago to set up a team to find uses for aerospace technologies in 

manufacturing. The team would work with U.S. industries, industrial 

associations, and professional groups in areas related to machine tools, 

electronics assembly, and light fabrication and assembly. The team 

would be another of the groups created by NASA’s technologyutilization office to expand the use of aerospace technology on earth. 

(NASA Release 77-57) 

0 TROPEX, an international tropical weather experiment sponsored by 

the Soviet Union, would use USSR satellites with research vessels from 

some of the 70 participating countries to gather data on atmospheric conditions, the FBIS reported. (FBIS, Moscow Tass in English, Mar 22/77) 

March 23: NASA announced it had invited scientists to submit proposals 

for use and development of the unfunded Space Telescope [see Feb. 11. 

Capable of holding five different instruments at the focal plane of its 

2.4m mirror, the Space Telescope would expand the volume of observable space 350 times beyond that of the largest ground-based telescope, 

offering new information for astronomers and other scientists interested 

in fundamental questions of cosmology and astronomy. GSFC would 

manage operations of the telescope’s missions and develop its instrumentation; MSFC would be responsible for overall management of the 

telescope system. (NASA Release 77-58) 

March 24: The White House had ordered a review of NASA’s 28 advisory committees with the idea of abolishing all those lacking a compelling need for their services, a balanced membership, or open conduct of 

business within the framework of the law and their mandate, NASA 

reported. The review should serve to reduce the number of committees 

except as required by statute and to ensure quality and utility in their 

recommendations. (NASA Release 77-59) 

56 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 MARCH 

0 ARC announced selection of 10 women volunteers aged 35 to 45 with 

nontechnical backgrounds as test subjects in an experiment to help set 

medical standards for future Space Shuttle passengers. The experiment, 

we of a series using varying ages and sexes, would require 9 days of total 

bedrest to simulate weightlessness, and occasional spins in a centrifuge to 

simulate Shuttle reentry. Results would show whether or not age and 

gender affected the ability to cope with spaceflight. (ARC Release 77-15; 

NASA Release 77-61) 

e The eighth annual session at JSC of the Lunar Science Conference had 

discussed the possibility of mining asteroids for the raw materials of 

space industrialization, the Chicago Tribune reported. Dr. David 

Criswell, associate scientist at the Lunar Science Institute, said that two 

developments would make asteroid mining feasible: an engine capable of 

towing an asteroid, and a method of locating asteroids rich in needed 

resources. Materials from asteroids would be loo0 times cheaper than 

materials launched from earth into orbit. (C Trib, Mar 24/77, 4-11) 

e The Soviet Union had successfully tested a submarine-based missile 

with a range twice that of its U.S. counterpart, the Chicago Tribune 

reported. Two SSN-8 missiles fired from a Soviet Delta-class submarine 

in the Barents Sea had traveled approximately 9120km to targets in the 

Pacific Ocean. Ships carrying the missiles reportedly could endanger 

U.S. targets without leaving their home-port areas. (C Trib, Mar 24/77, 

1-2) 

March 25: KSC announced award of a $25 970 contract to the research 

institute at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta to develop an 

automatic manatee-tracking system for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Attempts to track the manatee, an endangered aquatic mammal, had 

failed because of poor monitoring systems. Tracking the movements of 

about 100 manatees in the Banana and Indian Rivers and Mosquito 

Lagoon near KSC would provide scientists with data on their living 

habits. (KSC Release 77-77) 

March 26: The U.S. should orbit solar-power stations and mine the 

moon for raw materials, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov told President Carter in an open letter printed in the Chicago Tribune. Citing the 

benefits of orbital stations capable of transmitting solar energy in 

microwaves to earth stations, Asimov stressed the need for international 

cooperation in using space and in preventing the extinction of humanity. 

(C Trib, Mar 26/77, 1-7) 

March 28: Direct-readout equipment for GOES, the geostationary 

57 
MARCH ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

operational environmental satellite, installed in the USAF global weather 

center at Offutt AFB, Neb., to support Air Force meteorology requirements, would improve the center’s forecasting and accuracy, Av Wk 

reported. (Av Wk, Mar 28/77, 11) 

Project Halo (high-altitude large optics), a space-based system proposed by DOD’s Advanced Research Projects Agency to detect and track 

foreign missiles and aircraft, would require 6 Space Shuttle payloads to 

orbit its structures and equipment, A v Wk reported. ARPA’s Halo 

research had focused on systems analysis, infrared focal planes, optics, 

cryogenic cooling, power sources, data utilization, and phenomenology. 

(Av Wk, Mar 28/77, 11) 

0 The USAF Rocket Propulsion Laboratory had successfully test-fired 

small solid-fuel rocket motors having nozzles molded into the end of the 

propellant grain instead of externally mounted, Av Wk reported. Use of 

integral nozzles would reduce costs of manufacture and would allow 

more propellant per rocket. (AvWk, Mar 28/77, 11) 

0 Japan’s Natl. Space Development Agency planned to launch 2 

satellites in 1978 to replace missions that failed during 1976, AvWk 

reported. Scheduled for Feb. 1978 was an ionospheric-research mission 

to replace an identical craft that malfunctioned in orbit in March 1976. 

An x-ray research satellite similar to a mission that failed during launch 

Feb. 4, 1976, might lift off in Aug. or Sept. 1978. (AvWk, Mar 28/77, 

26) 

March 29: NASA announced it had ended an aerial survey of the Pacific 

Ocean along the west coast of the U.S. that was an operational prelude to 

the use of SeaSat-A, the oceanographic satellite scheduled for launch in 

May 1978. The survey had used high-flying NASA aircraft to test four 

sensors from SeaSat-A: a synthetic aperture imaging radar, a wind-field 

scatterometer, a scanning multifrequency microwave radiometer, and a 

radar altimeter. The mission was a rehearsal in research cooperation that 

scientists would need when SeaSat became operational. (NASA Release 

77-62) 

0 The future of Japan’s space program was not a sure thing, the Wall 

Street Journal said. Those who had claimed that a program of launching 

satellites for resource-rich, technology-poor nations would increase 

Japan’s technological growth and ensure a supply of raw materials had 

met with complaints that the program wasted tax money and that Jape 

should have relied on the U.S. and NASA to orbit the payloads. Japan’s 

58 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 191 MARCH 

space agency would have to convince official and public skeptics of the 

program’s value, the paper said. (WSJ, Mar 29/77, 44) 

* A yr-long (Dec. 1978-Nov. 1979) international program of global atmospheric research using Soviet and U.S. satellites would attempt to 

construct a model of the atmosphere, Tass reported. (FBIS, Moscow 

Tass in English, Mar 29/77) 

* Soviet satellites might help predict the cotton harvest in South 

Transcaucasia, Tass reported, through enhanced photographs of the 

regional cotton crop. (FBIS, Moscow Tass in English, Mar 29/77) 

March 30: NASA announced that Project FIRES (firefighters integrated 

response equipment system), a joint program of NASA’s Technology 

Utilization Office and the Natl. Fiie Prevention and Control Administration, had begun with NASA’s award of a $478 375 contract to Grumman 

Aerospace Gorp., Bethpage, N.Y., for new standards in firefighting 

clothing and for development and fabrication of a complete ensemble. 

The project would use space technologies to achieve greater safety and 

maneuverability of firefighting equipment. A Users Requirements Committee of firefighters and safety officials would evaluate Grumman’s 

products and fire-test them in 10 cities under actual firefighting conditions before commercial production began. (NASA Release 77-64) 

MSFC announced that NASA had invited researchers to propose 

materials-processing experiments to be performed on the Space 

Transportation System (STS), as the Shuttle missions would be called. 

The experiments, basic or applied research projects in materials science, 

would exploit the weightless and ultra-high vacuum conditions of space 

to demonstrate their applications in materials science and technology. 

(MSFC Release 77-52) 

The Pentagon had been working on an interceptor spacecraft capable 

of knocking Soviet satellites out of orbit, DOD officials told Congress. 

The Washington Post reported that the program, begun under President 

Ford, had aimed at producing weapons to protect U.S. space systems 

from attacks by foreign satellites. (W Post, Mar 30/77, A-8) 

March 31: Dr. James L. Elliott of Cornel1 Univ. announced he had 

found 5 rings around the planet Uranus. Observations above the Indian 

Ocean with a 91cm telescope on NASA’s Kuiper airborne observatory 

had revealed the rings during Uranus’s occultation of a bright star (SA0 

158687). Dr. Elliott had concluded earlier [see Mar. 31 that Uranus was 

59 
MARCH ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

surrounded by 100 moons; during the occultation, the same objects appeared as rings, not moons. Uranus and Saturn were the only two planets 

in the solar system found so far to have ring systems. Dr. Elliott’s 

original mission was to check Uranus for atmosphere and diameter; 

discovery of the rings was unexpected. (NYT, Mar 31/77, 63) 

0 Developing future telecommunications systems would pose few 

technical problems, Nature reported: the real bottlenecks would be finding the financial resources to build, and estimating the’social implications of, such systems. A British Royal Society conference on “Telecommunications in the 1980s and After” had discussed the possible social effects of highly developed telecommunications systems, especially the 

ability of a system to foster integration in different populations or to increase isolation of individuals within their local groups. (Nature, Mar 

3 1 /77,409) 

During March: A House subcommittee on aviation and transportation 

R&D had called on NASA to expand its program on aircraft energy efficiency (fuel conservation), said Astronautics and Aeronautics magazine. 

The subcommittee report with 16 specific recommendations, signed by 

chairman Rep. Dale Milford (D-Tex), said the U.S. should establish a 

comprehensive national policy on civil aviation R&D. (A&, Mar 77, 7) 
April 

April I: NASA reported it had begun working on its plan to make Ames 

Research Center the lead center for helicopter research. Approved last 

summer, the plan resulted from NASA’s assessment of its research to see 

where realignment would improve effectiveness and reduce costs. As lead 

center, ARC would do research on small- and large-scale helicopter hardware using its aeronautical facilities such as the 40 x 80ft wind tunnel and 

flight-simulation equipment, and flight-test items like the tilt-rotor and 

rotor-systems research aircraft. 

A helicopter program office at NASA Hq would direct the overall 

helicopter program and coordinate research between ARC and the 

Langley and Lewis Research Centers. LaRC, working mainly on 

helicopter structures, would continue its studies of acoustics, airfoils, 

aeroelasticity, and avionics. LeRC would continue to emphasize propulsion, its first task being a proposed new program in helicopter transmission technology leading later to work on helicopter engines. 

NASA estimated that over the next 3yr the change would result in adding 72 positions to the ARC staff; LaRC helicopter work would phase 

down during that period but would continue to employ 72. The expected 

growth in long-haul aircraft technology at LaRC would add up to little 

long-term impact on that center’s manpower or the local economy. 

(NASA Release 77-8; ARC Release 77-19) 

0 Dryden Flight Research Center announced it had commenced studies 

on turbulence caused by insects sticking to aircraft wings. It would use a 

small jet transport flown at low altitudes to collect insects on the wings, 

in turbulence tests at higher altitudes and greater speeds. The Johnson 

and Kennedy Space Centers would assist the studies aimed at developing 

high-speed fuel-efficient aircraft, by taking advantage of their differing 

insect populations. (DFRC Release 13-77; KSC Release 93-77) 

0 KSC reported that the number of visitors in the first 3mo of 1977 was 

283 734; the number in March, 114 845, highest so far this yr was 2.8% 

below the March 1976 level. The 3mo total was 9.3470 less than the first 

3mo of 1976. The visitor center had displays, exhibits, space science lectures, and space movies, plus a new hall of history opened in 1976. 

Visitors could see the vehicle assembly building for Space Shuttle 

preparations and the Apollo Saturn on display nearby, drive around Pad 

61 
APRIL ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

A where Shuttle operations were in progress, and visit the Cape 

Canaveral Air Force station. (KSC Release 87-77) 

0 LaRC announced that Dr. Charles Thiel, director of the Natl. Science 

Foundation's advanced environmental research division, would speak at 

the LaRC colloquium Apr. 11 on earthquakes. Dr. Thiel had been in 

charge of U.S. research on earthquake phenomena for the past 5yr and 

had traveled the world to view effects of quakes, analyze prediction 

techniques, and evaluate construction practices in quake-prone regions. 

His illustrated talk would cover causes and probabilities of quakes, with 

modern methods of forecasting and monitoring them. (LaRC Release 

77-9) 

NASA announced appointment of Dr. John R. Carruthers as first 

director of a new division in the Hq Office of Applications that would 

manage materials processing in space. Dr. Carruthers, formerly of Bell 

Labs, had headed crystal-growth and glass research in developing optical 

fibers for lightwave communications. (NASA Release 77-67) 

0 Reform of the aviation industry was in order, Transportation Dept. 

Secy. Brock Adams told the aviation subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Regulatory changes 

should include freer entry into the system, competition in routes and 

rates, and provisions for exiting the system. Any changes should protect 

service to smaller communities, he said, and should address the problems 

of how market shifts would affect airline users and of financial damage 

to airport owners and airline investors. Secy. Adams noted that the president should retain his authority over international aviation, since the 

Constitution required him to conduct foreign policy there as well as in 

other fields. (DOT Release 44-77) 

April 4: The rapid approach of the Martian winter, whose temperatures 

would fall below - 123"C, had halted science experiments using the Viking 2 lander, NASA announced. Problems with the lander's sample arm 

had forced controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to cancel a final 

biology experiment. The meteorology station and the seismic instrument 

would use power to gather data during the winter; all other power would 

go toward maintaining survivable heat levels inside the lander. (NASA 

Release 77-69) 

0 Aviation Week reported that President Carter had nominated 

Langhorne M. Bond, state secretary of transportation for Illinois, to 

head the Federal Aviation Administration, and Quentin Taylor, FAA 

62 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 APRIL 

director in New England, as deputy administrator. (AvWk, Apr 4/77, 

23) 

The Apollo program was a tough act to follow, Space Shuttle pilot Lt. 

Col. Charles Fullerton said in a Today wire service report. Acknowledging the declining public interest in space, Fullerton noted that, after 

Apollo, “Everything else has to be anticlimactic.” (Today, Apr 4/77, 1A) 

April 5: NASA, which had issued a press kit on plans for an April 15 

launch of the high-energy astronomy observatory HEAO-A, said it had 

postponed the launch because of a malfunction in one of the gyroscopes 

controlling altitude, essential to the mission. The agency had not set a 

new date for the launch; it had returned the defective gyroscope to the 

manufacturer, Bendix Corp., in Teterboro, N.J. (NASA Releases 77-45, 

77-71; Marshall Star, Apr 6/77, 1) 

NASA announced it would join EPA and the Univ. of Md. in sponsoring a conference on the use of remote sensing to solve Chesapeake Bay 

ecological problems. The 80 participants would discuss use of satellites 

(particularly NASA’s earth resources monitoring satellite Landsat) to obtain information on land use, resources exploitation, and pollution. 

(NASA Release 77-70) 

0 Marshall Space Flight Center announced award of a $918 523 contract 

to T.H. Taylor Construction Co., Montgomery, Ala., for construction 

of permanent and semipermanent steel working platforms on the 

modified dynamic test stand. The stand would hold an entire Space Shuttle assembly during mated vertical ground-vibration tests scheduled for 

1978. (MSFC Release 77-54) 

0 NASA announced that Miles Ross, KSC deputy director since 1971, 

had resigned to become European regional manager in Brussels for his 

previous employer, TRW Systems Intl. (NASA Release 77-76; KSC 

Release 88-77) 

April 6: NASA announced it would join the EPA in field-testing a new 

detector of fecal coliform bacteria at the New York Bight off Craven 

Point, N. J. The electrochemical monitor, developed by Dr. Judd 

Wilkins of LaRC, was a buoy with 10 coliform-sampling units and a 

transmitter to relay data to a monitoring center in a NASA truck on 

shore about 3mi away. Surveillance of fecal coliform concentrations 

would measure the environmental impact of public sanitation. (NASA 

Release 77-73; LaRC Release 77-1 1) 

63 
APRIL ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

0 NASA reported that Goddard Space Flight Center engineers had 

tracked a sailboat through the Bermuda Triangle to test the use of 

satellites for small craft search-and-rescue missions. Signals from a small 

transmitter on the vessel, relayed by meteorological satellite Nimbus 6 

and applications technology satellite Ats I, allowed GSFC controllers to 

monitor the ship’s position. The experiment also successfully tested a 

push-button distress-alarm system designed by retired NASA engineer 

James L. Baker. (NASA Release 77-72) 

0 MSFC announced it had awarded a $276 597 contract to Bryson Construction Co., Decatur, Ala., for modification of the Redstone Arsenal 

airfield to accept the Space Shuttle and its Boeing 747 carrier aircraft. 

The contractor would install a concrete pad 75m long and 55m wide for a 

derrick to unload the orbiter from the 747. (MSFC Release 77-56) 

0 LaRC reported that its visitor center was showing a NASA film, 

“Universe,” one of 5 documentaries recently nominated for a motion picture Academy Award. The 28min Graphic Films Corp. movie, showing 

an imaginary trip through space, offered a new look at the solar system, 

the release said. (LaRC Release 77-10) 

0 The Carter administration would not request government funds to 

develop a supersonic airliner, OMB Director Bert Lance assured Sen. 

William Proxmire (D-Wis). The Chicago Tribune story noted that Proxmire, who had worked to defeat the U.S. supersonic transport program 

in 1972, was concerned because the House Committee on Science had 

asked NASA to do a feasibility study on advanced supersonic aircraft. (C 

Trib, Apr 6/77, 1-5) 

April 7: MSFC announced it had begun test assembly of large-scale space 

structures in its neutral buoyancy facility. The NBF, a 12m-deep water 

tank simulating the weightless environment of space, was in use for the 

first time since the Skylab program. (MSFC Release 77-57) 

The liquid-oxygen tank of the Space Shuttle’s external tank had 

undergone successful hydrostatic tests at NASA’s Michoud Assembly 

Facility near New Orleans, MSFC reported. Martin Marietta Aerospace, 

prime ET contractor, had scheduled additional tests to simulate flight 

pressures. (MSFC Release 77-58) 

NASA officials, assuming a constant purchasing power for the agency 

over the next 10 to 15yr, had made plans for some 560 Shuttle flights between 1980 and 1991, averaging 60 flights per yr between 1985 and 1991, 

Nature reported. Assuming a maximum payload of about 29 500kg, 

64 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 APRIL 

Shuttle users (including NASA, DOD, other government agencies, 

private industry, and foreign organizations) would pay fees from $3000 

for a simple automatic payload to $20 million for the entire cargo bay. 

NASA had claimed a 40% savings in launch costs for the Shuttle compared to expendable rockets; a higher discount for U.S. users would increase its cost-effectiveness. Nature said early Shuttle critics, like space 

scientists who viewed it as a competitor for limited NASA resources, 

were now supporting the Shuttle as a research tool. (Nature, Apr 7/77, 

489) 

* Spacelab, ESA’s manned reusable space laboratory scheduled to fly on 

the Space Shuttle, would perform experiments in life, physical, and 

materials science, Nature reported. Although Spacelab’s multinational 

management and unique financing scheme (ESA members would pay for 

the laboratory on a voluntary basis) could limit its scientific potential, 

participants would receive a proportionate share of construction contracts and experiment facilities. Management problems included the 

question of apportioning payment of NASA’s $10 million launch fee. 

(Nature, April 7/77, 491) 

* ComSatCorp, in a notice of its upcoming election of directors, said the 

nominees for a first term were Howard J. Morgens, director and chairman emeritus of Procter & Gamble; and Charles J. Pilliod, Jr., board 

chairman and chief executive officer of Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. 

The other 10 nominees were current board members. (ComSat Release 

77- 14) 

April 8: President Carter announced that the U.S. would “defer indefinitely” commercial reprocessing and recycling of plutonium from 

nuclear power plants, and would stop developing a commercial breederreactor (a nuclear power facility producing more fuel than it consumed), 

the Chicago Tribune reported. Critics had contended the reactor would 

increase proliferation of nuclear weapons. The administration would 

significantly increase funding for solar energy research and synthetic 

production of oil and gas from coal, the paper said. (C Trib, Apr 8/77, 

1-2) 

* INTELSAT, the Intl. Telecommunications Satellite Organization, 

reported it had appointed three deputy directors general to serve under 

Director General Santiago Astrain: Reginald Westlake of the U.K. for 

finance; Andrea Caruso of Italy for administration; and H. William 

Wood, formerly with the U.S. Navy and Defense Communications 

Agency and systems management director for ComSatCorp, to supervise 

operations and development. Transfer of functions from ComSat, cur65 
APRIL ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

rent contractor for management services, to the INTELSAT executive 

would occur over the next 2yr. (INTELSAT Release 77-5-1) 

April 9: Kitt Peak astronomers had suggested designs for a telescope 5 

times larger than the 4.5m telescope at Mt. Palomar, Calif., to complement the Very Large Array radiotelescopes in New Mexico and the 

planned Space Telescope, the NY Times reported. An instrument using 

multiple-mirror technology (several mirrors connected by laser, aligned 

by computer to within an eighth of the wavelength of the observed light) 

would have the light-gathering potential of a huge single mirror without 

the high cost of manufacture or maintenance. The resolution possible 

with such telescopes would permit observation of weather patterns on 

other planets. (NYT, Apr 9/77, 22) 

* Operators of the Anglo-French supersonic airliner Concorde had 

claimed that new flight procedures would lower Concorde noise levels to 

those of subsonic aircraft, and should get it approved to land at Kennedy 

Intl. airport. 

A 40-page report to the NY Port Authority, obtained by the NY 

Times, said that Concorde takeoff noise (though it would affect a larger 

area than noise from other aircraft) was actually comparable to noise 

from the long-range Boeing 707. The Concorde had also met airport 

noise standards. Residents of the Five Towns area of Long Island, who 

had opposed Concorde overflights, would be subject to fewer than 

originally planned, the report added. Port Authority commissioners, 

scheduled to meet during the upcoming week, had refused to make a 

decision without spending more time on the report. (NYT, Apr 9/77,22) 

April ZZ: Av Wk reported that French space technicians would be allowed 

on site at the USSR’s Kapustin Yar launch facility for the first time when 

the Soviets launched Signe 3 in June. Swedish technicians had been present there last July 27 when Intercosmos 16 carried a Swedish solar experiment into space. Third French satellite scheduled for launch by the 

USSR, Signe 3 was designed by France’s Natl. Center for Space Studies 

(CNES) for astronomical and atmospheric research; it had arrived at the 

USSR Cosmic Research Institute recently for launch preparation. 

(Av Wk, Apr ZZ/77, 9) 

April 12: GSFC controllers and Navy meteorologists at the U.S. Navy 

Fleet Weather Facility in Suitland, Md., had used since 1971 a 

microwave radiometer on weather satellite Nimbus 5 to track an Antarctic iceberg the size of Rhode Island, NASA reported. Satellite tracking 

had allowed Navy forecasters to minimize ice damage to ships in polar 

ice fields. (NASA Release 77-68) 

66 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 APRIL 

April 13: NASA announced that principal investigators for Spacelab experiments would attend briefings at MSFC Apr. 13 to 15 on Spacelab 

mission management as an Investigative Working Group (IWG). Dr. 

C.R. Chappell, mission scientist at the MSFC space sciences laboratory, 

and Dr. Bernt Feuerbacher, ESA project scientist, as IWG chairman and 

vice chairman, would channel recommendations on selection of payload 

specialists directly to management. (NASA Release 77-77; MSFC Release 

77-61) 

0 The Dept. of Commerce reported that a Boeing 747 in regular 

passenger service for Pan American World Airways had been doing double duty as a flying laboratory for 2 government agencies, NASA and 

NOM, carrying an electronic package collecting data from the plane’s 

instruments to show that ordinary planes could get weather information 

in flight and relay it to the ground. This yr, five more packages would be 

put on planes of international carriers. 

The prototype package, weighing about lSkg and the size of an electric 

typewriter, used about 200w power and transmitted at 401.7MHz. LeRC 

had built the package under technical management from GSFC to tap 

into the inertial-navigation systems of widebodied jets like the 747 and 

DC-10 series, recording data on air temperature, wind direction and 

speed, and aircraft location and altitude. The package converted the data 

to a format transmitted hourly to the ground through NOAA’s Goes 1. 

The idea was to enable planes flying over areas where such information was sparse or unobtainable to collect and transmit the data as a help 

to aircraft operations as well as to weather prediction and analysis. 

NOAA had begun negotiations with foreign weather services and international airlines to put the packages on their aircraft, especially those 

flying over equatorial regions. (NOAA Release 77-91) 

. 

0 The Natl. Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., counted its 7 

millionth visitor, Mrs. Elizabeth Weber of Queens, N.Y. However, she 

and many other visitors exemplified the fading public interest in space: 

none of them recognized the date as the 16th anniversary of Yuri 

Gagarin’s historic feat, man’s first spaceflight. 

A NY Times article contrasted the festive feeling at the museum (the 

capital’s largest tourist draw) and the almost melancholy mood at NASA 

Hq across the street. NASA employees had cause for despair, said the article, with a space program rarely in the public eye and funding that had 

delayed long planned projects. Even President Carter, during a cursory 

30-minute inspection of the museum, omitted mention of the space program or the space agency. (NYT, Apr 13/77, D-10) 

April 14: NASA reported that it and the’European Space Agency (ESA) 

67 
APRIL ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

had invited scientists to propose experiments for a joint out-of-ecliptic 

(OOE) mission in 1983 that would study the interstellar/interplanetary 

medium as a function of solar latitude. Although the mission still lacked 

Congress’s approval, the agency wanted proposals for investigations that 

would allow definition of the undertaking and give it a prompt start 

when approved. 

As planned, the Shuttle would launch 2 spacecraft (one supplied by 

NASA, one by ESA) on similar paths from earth to Jupiter, deflected by 

that planet’s gravity into trajectories at right angles to the plane of earth’s 

orbit. One craft would enter over the sun’s northern hemisphere, the 

other over the southern; both would reach solar latitudes near the sun’s 

pole. So far studies of the sun had covered only a narrow region on the 

ecliptic plane; the OOE, or solar polar, mission would look at the sun 

over a full range of heliographic latitudes and enable more accurate 

assessment of the total solar environment. The mission would last about 

5yr. (NASA Release 77-79) 

0 NASA announced award of $350 OOO design study contracts both to 

McDonnell Douglas Corp., St. Louis, Mo., and to a team representing 

Hughes Aircraft Co., El Segundo, Calif., and General Electric Co. in 

Philadelphia. The companies would develop for NASA’s Jupiter-orbiter 

mission a probe able to measure the Jovian atmosphere during descent. 

The mission wouId reach Jupiter in 1984 if the project were approved for 

FY 1978. ARC would manage development of the probe under JPL’s 

general direction. (NASA Release 77-78; ARC Release 77-20) 

0 KSC announced it had awarded a $39 812 contract to Ky. State Univ. 

for continuing research on effects of prolonged exposure of experimental 

animals to variations in the atmospheric level of oxygen. Previous studies 

in the field had been on short-term exposure to 100% oxygen, but little 

was known about prolonged exposure to oxygen at low to moderate 

concentrations. 

Ky. State’s first grant for this work in March 1974 had exposed vinegar 

flies to higher levels of oxygen than normal and drastically shortened the 

life span, whereas exposure to lower than normal levels had greatly 

reduced reproductive capacity. This work had also suggested that certain 

individuals might prove better adapted genetically for survival in abnormal oxygen environments. The findings would be useful in planning atmospheres for long-term manned space missions aboard the Space 

Shuttle or on space colonies. (KSC Release 91-77) 

0 KSC announced award of a $95 025 OOO contract to the Space 

Division, Rockwell Intl. Corp., Downey, Calif., for activation of the 

Space Shuttle facilities and systems, and for Orbiter support during 

68 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 APRIL 

checkout, launch, and postflight operations, in the first six Space Shuttle 

missions. Rockwell would also support postflight operations at the 

DFRC landing site for the first four missions. (KSC Release 92-77) 

0 MSFC announced it had requested price quotations on designing a 

space spider (a device capable of building large-scale structures). The 

spider, containing prefabricated materials, would attach itself to the core 

of a planned structure and spin a larger structure, of any diameter, 

around the core. MSFC engineers had sought estimates of costs and data 

on the best size of spider to fit inside the Space Shuttle. (MSFC Release 

77-62) 

0 Wallops Flight Center announced it‘ would welcome visitors to the 

rocket launching facilities on Wallops Island Apr. 23-24 as part of a 

special observance by federal actkties in the area. Assateague Natl. 

Seashore Park, Chincoteague Coast Guard Base, Chincoteague Natl. 

Wildlife Refuge, the Natl. Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 

and Wallops Flight Center had all planned special exhibits or tours. 

Visitors to Wallops Island could drive their own cars to see launch pads, 

rocket storage structures, long-range tracking radars, weather towers, 

blockhouses, rocket assembly shops, actual launch vehicles, and related 

range facilities. Cameras would be welcome. The main NASA base 

would not be included in the visit. (WFC Release 77-2) 

9 Nature magazine reported further on the recognition of ring systems 

around the planet Uranus announced earlier by Dr. James L. Elliot of 

Cornel1 Univ. [see March 311. The occultation (shutting off from view) 

by Uranus of a bright object (star SA0 158687 in Libra) had been 

predicted by the Royal Observatory at Greenwich as visible only from an 

area on earth extending from equatorial Africa across the Indian Ocean 

to western Australia. No useful observations of a Uranian occultation 

had been made before; astronomers considered such observations 

important because they could furnish data on the size of the planet or 

stellar object, on limb darkening, and on extent and composition of any 

atmosphere, as well as an accurate measurement of the object’s position, 

valuable in calculations of celestial mechanics. 

Heavy rain at Johannesburg prevented observations there on March 

10, but astronomers on the Kuiper observatory plane flying over the 

southern Indian Ocean east of Kerguelen Is. were able to see an occultation lasting about 25min with secondary occultations lasting 8 to 9min 

before and after. Observers at Madras and Perth also viewed the event 

and decided independently that the extended occultation resulted from 

satellites forming a belt about 48 OOOkm from the center of Uranus. The 

belt was apparently circular, lying in the plane of the planet’s equator, 

69 
APRIL ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

and about 12 OOOkm wide. Nature reported that Dr. Elliot was continuing detailed study of the event, and that direct observation of the belts 

might be possible with a sufficiently large telescope. (Nature, April 

14/77, 587) 

April 15: JSC announced award of a $5 189 500 supplement to an existing contract with Rockwell Intl.’s Space Division, Downey, Calif., 

covering 8 engineering changes in the Space Shuttle orbiter to 

accommodate the European-built Spacelab in the Shuttle’s cargo bay. 

(JSC Release 77-26) 

0 Industrial exploration had made sweeping changes in today’s society, 

ranging from thumbnail-size computers to Space Shuttles operating with 

the regularity of commercial airlines, Rockwell Intl. chairman W.F. 

Rockwell, Jr., told the annual Explorers Club dinner in New York City. 

A microprocessor small enough to balance on the end of a thumb could 

compute 10 times faster than a 30-ton device introduced in 1946, and 

would cost $15 to $20, compared to the millions of dollars that the old 

computer cost, he said. Forecasting the potential of the Shuttle, being 

developed largely by Rockwell for NASA, he reviewed possible payloads 

including solar power satellites and navsats; he ended by comparing explorers setting out in search of new discoveries and new knowledge with 

the explorers in industry searching to improve products and service. 

(Rockwell Release R- 18) 

0 ERDA announced it had selected Shenandoah, Ga., as the site for 

building a second solar total-energy experimental plant. The factory, 

manufacturing knitwear, would be the first in the U.S. to get all its 

electric power, steam, heating, and cooling from solar energy. A West 

German firm, Wilhelm Bleyle K.G., would operate the factory and the 

Georgia Power Co. would operate the solar-energy plant to provide up to 

200kw of electricity and 1200kw of heat energy. Construction should 

begin in 1979 and be completed in 1981. 

Robert Fri, acting ERDA administrator, said the knitwear factory 

would demonstrate the production of hot water and steam as byproducts 

of solar-power generation, making year-round use of the heat that would 

otherwise be wasted during the mild weather of spring and fall in that 

area. ERDA had planned another experimental total solar-energy plant, 

scheduled to begin construction in 1978 to serve Ft. Hood army base in 

Killeen, Tex. (ERDA Release 77-70) 

April 18: The Viking I lander’s gas-exchange experiment had developed a 

leak during the final analysis of soil from a deep trench at the Chryse 

Planitia landing site, NASA reported. Failure of the gas-exchange 

IO 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 APRIL 

package, designed to detect respiration in soil samples, would not affect 

the lander’s other biology experiments. (NASA Release 77-82) 

0 MSFC reported it had purchased 5 large solar collectors to heat an exhibit at the Ala. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. The collectors 

would provide 70% of the heat for the Lunar Odyssey, a space voyage 

simulation in a modified Sdturn launch vehicle. (MSFC Release 77-65) 

MSFC announced it would sponsor a 2-day symposium May 11-12 on 

engineering and productivity advances from space technology. The 

center’s technology utilization office and the Huntsville chapter of the 

Ala. Society of Professional Engineers would cosponsor discussions by 

speakers from industry, universities, NASA, and other government 

agencies on industrial uses of space technology in energy management, 

materials processing, and electronics. (MSFC Release 77-66) 

0 A Space Shuttle orbital-maneuvering system engine had completed 

acoustic environment testing at JSC, and a second engine had fired lo00 

times in life-cycle testing at the White Sands, N.M., test facility, Aviation Week reported. The latter achievement demonstrated the engine’s 

ability to perform 100 missions, a project requirement. (AvWk, Apr 

18/77, 13) 

Rockwell Intl.’s Space Division and Autonetics group had won an Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) design competition for a Teal 

Ruby sensor to detect and track aircraft targets from space, AvWk 

reported. The DOD sensor, using up to a quarter million mosaic infrared 

detectors with charge-coupled processors, would fly on the Space Shuttle 

in 1980. A Lockheed-Grumman team had also competed. (AvWk, Apr 

18/77, 13) 

0 During confirmation hearings, Dr. Frank Press, President Carter’s 

nominee as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, had 

stated that NASA should broaden the scope of its technology-transfer efforts and its planned use of the Space Shuttle, AvWk reported. The administratiofi should continue funding planetary exploration and space 

science (areas adaptable to the Shuttle’s unique capabilities), but should 

also make NASA’s technological knowledge available to industry. Press, 

former chairman of MIT’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 

had specialized in earthquake research and detection of underground 

nuclear tests. (Av Wk, Apr 18/77, 21) 

Israel Aircraft Industries had modified an Arava twin-turboprop 

transport plane using winglets designed by Richard T. Whitcomb of 

71 
APRIL ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

LaRC, Av Wk reported. Winglets would reduce drag during takeoff and 

enhance short takeoff and landing capabilities. (AvWk, Apr 18/77, 21) 

NASA had decided to plan construction of an orbiting space station 

~ -from existing hardware because the Carter and Ford administrations had 

refused funds for major space station development, Av Wk reported. 

Four station concepts were under examination: increasing the duration 

of Space Shuttle missions, using Skylab Apollo telescope-mount 

components to supply additional electricity for any extended mission; 

making a Space Shuttle external fuel tank into a Skylab-type station [see 

Mar. 71; launching unmanned platforms to be occupied in the future; 

and modifying the ESA-NASA Spacelab to fly as an independent 

orb$ing laboratory, without Space Shuttle. (Av Wk, Apr 18/77, 42) 

* Comsat General, wholly owned subsidiary of the Communications 

Satellite Corp., announced that former FAA administrator Dr. John L. 

McLucas had been elected president and a member of the board of 

directors. ComSatCorp. president Dr. Joseph V. Charyk said the 

subsidiary would benefit from Dr. McLucas’s “long and distinguished 

career as administrator, engineer, and scientist.” Holding a Ph.D in 

physics and electrical engineering from Penn. State Univ., Dr. McLucas 

had been president of the Mitre Corp. before serving as assistant 

secretary general for scientific affairs of NATO, undersecretary and 

secretary of the Air Force, and FAA administrator before April 1977. 

Programs engaged in by Comsat General included Marisat (maritime 

satellite communications), Comstar (domestic satcoms), and Satellite 

Business Systems, in which it shared with IBM and Aetna Casualty plans 

for a US. domestic satcom system. (CGC Release 77-2) 

April 19: The gyroscope malfunction [see Apr. 51 that delayed the launch 

of HEAO-A planned for Apr. 15 would postpone the launch until midJune or later, NASA reported. HEAO-A, which could observe the electromagnetic spectrum at altitudes inaccessible to ground-based 

observers, would seek out celestial x-ray sources. (NASA Release 77-83) 

0 ASSESS 2 (airborne science/Spacelab experiment-system simulation), 

scheduled on May 16-26 at ARC, would simulate a Spacelab mission using NASA’s flying laboratory Galileo 2 (a converted Convair-990 jet 

transport) to acquire data on earth resources, atmospheric pollution, and 

infrared astronomy. A mobile van would isolate the crew (mission 

specialist Karl Henize of JSC and four payload specialists: Robert T. 

Menzies and David S. Billiu of JPL, and Claude Nicollier and Michael 

Taylor of ESA) when they were not flying. ASSESS 2 would also serve to 

12 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 APRIL 

rehearse Spacelab’s joint NASA-ESA management. (NASA Release 

77-80; ARC Release 77-21; MSFC Release 77-67) 

April 20: NASA launched Geos I, planned as the first “purely scientific” 

geosynchronous satellite, for ESA from Eastern Test Range on a Delta 

rocket at 1015 GMT, into an anomalous transfer orbit (11,710km 

perigee, 241.5km apogee, 26” inclination) because of premature separation of the Delta second and third stages. Failure to achieve spin 

stabilization would prevent Geos I from attaining the desired geosynchronous orbit. ESA planners said they would meet April 26 with the 

mission’s prime investigators in an-attempt to salvage the $12 million 

mission. Geos 1, chief tool of the Intl. Magnetospheric Project, carried 

instruments to gather data on effects of the solar wind on earth’s 

magnetic field. (NASA Release 77-66; MOR M-492-302-77-01 [preflight] 

Apr 13/77, [postflight] Aug 10/77; ESA Release Apr 22/77; W Post, 

Apr 21/77, B10) 

* Rockwell Intl. Corp. reported higher earnings and sales for the second 

quarter of FY 1977 in spite of a 3wk strike in its automotive operations 

and an energy crisis last winter. Earnings of $36.2 million ($1.05 a share) 

increased 13% over same quarter earnings in 1976, $32.1 million ($0.95 a 

share). Robert Anderson, president of Rockwell, said the earnings 

resulted partly from improvements in the aerospace operations area, 

which had done more business in military aircraft. (Rockwell Release 

R- 19) 

April 21: The USAF reported it had begun joint research with LeRC on 

use of synthetic fuels in military and commercial jet aircraft, which currently accounted for about 8% of the nation’s petroleum consumption. 

The proposed lOyr study, costing $8 million, would look into the refining 

required to use as fuel liquids derived from coal or oil shale. 

The USAF energy conservation effort arose from increasing fuel costs, 

which more than tripled for military jets alone in the last 18mo. NASA 

and the USAF had contracted with Exxon Corp. to define chemical and 

physical properties of coal and oil shale synthetic crudes compared to 

fuels derived from petroleum. Usability of the crudes would depend on 

their adaptability to existing engine and component requirements and on 

the environmental impact of such fuels. Processing (mostly hydrogenation) of the synfuels would be costly but could be affected by more 

specific data on engine and fuel system needs. Saving only 1 CC per gallon 

would save the USAF alone more than $50 million a year, the report 

said. (USAF Release OIP 070.75) 

0 Columnist Jack Anderson reported in Today that a Senate sub73 
APRIL ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

committee had asked the Pentagon for military equipment, including 

planes, radar, sensors, and satellites, to be used in the “battle against 

drug abuse.” 

Senators Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Charles Percy (R-Ill.) had sent a 

private letter to Defense Secy. Harold Brown saying that drug abuse was 

costing the U.S. $17 billion a yr and that more than 5000 Americans were 

dying each yr from drug abuse. DOD alone had the vehicles needed to 

pursue and overtake the drug traffickers, the senators said, calling the 

fight against drugs a “war.” “When fighting a war,” they added, “you use 

the best resources available and make every effort to win. This is not being done.” A spokesman for the Pentagon said an answer was being 

prepared. (Today, Apr 21/77, 16A) 

April 22: JSC reported that its engineers had designed, built, and installed an emergency communications console at the medical center in 

Odessa, Texas, control center for the 17-county Permian Basin 

emergency medical system. The prototype console would allow physicians and nurses to consult with paramedics in the field, receive incoming 

electrocardiograms, set up radio-to-telephone patches, page hospital 

staff members, and automatically dial special care centers and other 

facilities in the area. After field tests and modification, JSC engineers 

would make console plans available to interested communities, 

according to a NASA announcement. (JSC Release 77-27; NASA 

Release 77-86) 

MSFC announced receipt from Bendix Corp., Teterboro, N.J., of the 

first two integrated electronic assemblies for the Space Shuttle’s solid fuel 

rocket boosters. Each SRB would contain 2 electronic assemblies to control communications and internal power distribution. (NASA Release 

77-68) 

April 25: NASA reported it had selected Trudy Tiedemann, former 

public information specialist at DFRC, as its first female commentator. 

She would serve as announcer during the Shuttle orbiter flight-test program. (NASA Release 77-84) 

0 MSFC announced award of a 1-yr $450 540 contract to Sperry Univac, 

Washington, D.C., for on-site maintenance of the center’s Univac 1108 

computer system. (MSFC Release 77-69) 

April 25-28: Controllers at ESA’s European space center at Darmstadt, 

West Germany, had fired Geos Z’s apogee kick motor at 0738 GMT to 

boost the satellite into a new 12hr elliptic orbit (38 498km apogee, 

2131 km perigee, 25.85’ orbital inclination) that would maximize return 

74 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 APRIL 

of scientific data. Although ESA officials had hoped to delay the orbit 

change until after a meeting of Geos experimenters scheduled for April 

26, the spacecraft’s anomalous transfer orbit, caused by a malfunction 

during launch Apr. 20, had endangered its solar cell power supply. (ESA 

Release Apr 25/77) 

ESA officials and Geos satellite experimenters during a meeting April 

26 at the European space operations center in Darmstadt agreed on a sequence for experiment activation and boom deployment. After increasing satellite “visibility” at the Odenwald ground station near ESOC by 

moving the Geos I apogee from 90”E to 35”E, controllers planned to extend the short radial booms completely and the long booms to 10cm. If 

this ploy worked, the 20m-long radial booms would extend completely 

Apr. 30 to help establish the satellite’s moment-of-inertia ratio and 

dynamic stability. (ESA Release Apr 27/77) 

Scientists of Geos I believed its new orbit, whose apogee was high as 

that of the intended orbit, could salvage most of its scientific objectives, 

Nature reported. The new path would put Geos I where ESA had 

planned to orbit its spare “qualifications” geosynchronous satellite in 

1979; launch costs had made use of the spare unlikely, the report said. 

(Nature, Apr 28/77, 767) 

April 26: Central Florida officials who had counted on Space Shuttle 

employment to stimulate the local economy hoped it would differ from 

the boom-and-bust cycle of the Apollo program, the NY Times reported. 

The Apollo program had brought about 26 000 employees to KSC, but 

the economy declined with layoffs when the missions ended. NASA had 

estimated an 11 000-employee strength at KSC for the first Shuttle mission; the Shuttle program should continue for.at least 5yr, agency officials said. (NYT, Apr 26/77, 13) 

April 27: A series of Stanford Univ. experiments had apparently verified 

the existence of quarks, hypothetical fundamental pieces of matter 

possessing fractional electric charges, the NY Times reported. Dr. 

William Fairbank, professor of physics at Stanford, described the findings - first evidence of quarks since their theoretical exposition in 

1964-at the Am. Physical Society annual meeting in Washington, D.C. 

If matter consisted of protons, electrons, and neutrons (carrying charges 

of + 1, - 1, and 0, respectively), quarks-the building blocks of these 

particles-would have fractional charges of + 1/3, - 1/3, +2/3, and 

- 2/3. Fairbank emphasized that the results were not final, and that the 

university had scheduled follow-up tests. (NUT, Apr 27/77, A18) 

April 29: MSFC announced award of a $110 096 contract to General 

Dynamics Convair Div., San Diego, Calif., to study and define ideas for 
APRIL ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

an automatic structural-beam fabrication machine for use in the Space 

Shuttle [see Mar. 11. The beams, made of a composite material, would 

support large scale space structures and act as electrical and thermal insulators. (MSFC Release 77-72) 

0 MSFC announced award of a $695 OOO contract to Rockwell Intl. 

Space Div., Downey, Calif., for a study of solar power satellite systems. 

The study would identify and suggest solutions for technical and social 

problems that might occur in harnessing solar energy from space. (MSFC 

Release 77-73) 

During April: The Natl. Aeronautic Assn. reported that Kingswood 

Sprott, Jr., had broken his own world class hot air balloon altitude 

record March 26 when he reached 41 Oooft over Lakeland, Fla. The 

previous record set March 26, 1977, also by Sprott, had been 38 789ft. 

(NAA newsletter Apr 77) 

0 Recent photographs of the inner Martian satellite Phobos, obtained by 

the Viking I orbiter in Feb., had revealed “the nature of that satellite in 

unprecedented detail,” said Scientific American. Earlier pictures by 

Mariner 9 or the Viking 2 orbiter were at a distance of 880km; the new 

pictures were taken at a distance of 660km to as little as lOOkm, with 

resolution that permitted distinguishing objects smaller than 10m across. 

The surface of Phobos was known to be pitted with craters from the impact of meteorites; the new images showed chains of irregular craters like 

those seen on the surface of the moon, although Phobos’s crater chains 

paralleled the plane of its orbit around Mars. Pictures from Viking 2 had 

shown grooves on Phobos concentrated near its northern pole; the new 

pictures defined the grooves as crater chains possibly caused by objects 

hundreds of meters across. Further study of the images should reveal 

more about the nature of Phobos, the magazine said. (SciAm, Apr 77, 

57) 

0 Nature reported that the largest radiotelescope in the world-the 

Soviet RATANdOO - was “at last” officially in operation at Zelenchuk, 

USSR. A formal message of congratulations from Soviet leader Leonid 

Brezhnev had been issued March 20. Constructed jointly by the USSR 

Academy of Sciences, the Ministries of Power and Electrification and of 

Power Plant Construction, and the Univ. of Moscow, the device had 

four sections each able to operate independently. Part of the RATAN 

had been receiving signals since 1974, Nature said, and had already 

undertaken studies of the moons of Jupiter, the galactic nucleus, and the 

fine radio structure of the sun. (Nature, Apr 7/77, 493) 

76 
May I: RCA (formerly the Radio Corporation of America) observed the 

17th anniversary of the first weather picture received from space through 

the first Television Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS), Today 

newspaper reported. The 26011b TIROS delivered “a pretty shabby product compared to today’s images from space,” RCA admitted. The 

company had since built a series of 24 other weather watchers that had 

taken 3.5 million pictures and logged more than 7 billion miles in orbit. 

Managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the 

spacecraft had gone from pinpointing major storms to predicting runoff 

from snowmelt, helping ships navigate through icefields, and assisting 

commercial fishermen to find promising areas for their efforts. RCA was 

currently developing a fourth-generation TIROS. (Today, May 1/77, 

1 8A) 

May 2: Aviation.Week reported that a controversy within the U.S. intelligence community had kept the U.S. National Security Council and 

the president from learning that the USSR had developed a directedenergy weapon designed to destroy U.S. intercontinental and submarinelaunched ballistic missile nuclear warheads. (Directed-energy weapons 

was a term coined to include both laser beam weapons and high energy 

lasers.) Events that convinced some U.S. analysts that USSR weapons 

were nearing prototype test stage included: 

-Detection by a USAF early-warning system of large amounts of 

gaseous hydrogen in the upper atmosphere with traces of tritium, considered relics of charged particle beam device tests carried out since 1975 

at Semipalatinsk. 

-USSR ground tests of a small high energy laser destined for spacecraft 

launch, possibly related to manned space station activities. 

-Tests of a new magnetohydrodynamic generator to provide power for 

a charged particle beam system near the Caspian Sea, monitored by a 

TRW early-warning satellite stationed over the Indian Ocean. 

-Establishment of a new test site at Azghir, the Caspian Sea location, 

under direct control of the USSR national air defense force. 

-Confirmation by a USAF-sponsored team of U.S. physicists and 

engineers that the USSR had achieved success in 7 areas of high energy 

physics needed to develop a beam weapon. 

-Admission by previously unconvinced U.S. physicists that the USSR 

77 
MAY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

could have developed the technology for a charged particle beam device. 

-Hints by a visiting Soviet physicist last summer that the USSR was far 

ahead of the U.S. in controlling fusion by compression of small pellets of 

thermal nuclear fuel, and thus in potential weapons based on fusion 

technology. The information given by Leonid I. Rudakov during his visit 

to the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory had later been classified top 

secret by DOD and ERDA. 

Maj. Gen. George J. Keegan (USAF, Ret.), former head of Air Force 

intelligence, had in 1975 reported to CIA head William Colby on Soviet 

beam technology; the CIA’S nuclear intelligence panel had written a 

report, no CODY of which was ever given to USAF intelligence. 

AvWk sad Colby just before a meeting on strategic arms limitation 

had notified then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger of a Soviet facility 

“related to nuclear functions that were unknown”; except for that, no 

mention of the beam weapon potential had ever been made to the 

president, the secretary of state, or the National Security Council. Av Wk 

also charged that influential U.S. physicists had sought to discredit Gen. 

Keegan’s report, their general attitude being that “if the U.S. could not 

successfully produce the technology to have a beam weapon, the 

Russians certainly could not.” (AvWk, May 2/77, 16) 

The next issue of AvWk quoted President Jimmy Carter’s reply to a 

query from the Washington Post’s Dave Broder on the report of a Soviet 

breakthrough in high energy weapons: “. . . Is there any such development and does it threaten the U.S. strategic deterrence?” Carter replied: 

“We have no evidence, Dave, that the Soviets have achieved any major 

breakthrough in the kind of weapon described . . . the assessment of the 

report in the aviation magazine has been exaggerated.” (AvWk, May 

9/77, 13) 

May 3: Langley Research Center announced award of a 5yr $23 million 

contract to Wyle Laboratories for electronic instrument support to test 

and research facilities at the center. The contract, running from Oct. 

1977 through Sept. 1979 with options to extend for another 3yr, covered 

inspection, calibration, maintenance, and satisfaction of measurement 

requirements on some 30 OOO instruments and transducers valued at 

more than $50 million; also, design, modification, and maintenance of 

hardware and computer programs associated with digital data systems 

and special purpose computers used in the research facilities. (LaRc 

Release 77- 15) 

The Senate confirmed the nomination of Dr. Richard C. Atkinson as 

director of the National Science Foundation. (NASA Legis. Act. Rpt., 

May 3/77) 

78 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 MAY 

May 4: Marshall Space Flight Center announced it had awarded to the 

Rocketdyne Div., Rockwell Intl., a contract modification for additional 

work and services to the Space Shuttle main engine program, covering 

long leadtime hardware and material procurement to provide follow-on 

engines. Each engine, designed for use up to 50 times before overhaul, 

would be capable of 1 668 075 newtons (375K lb) of thrust at sea level 

and 2 090 654 newtons (470K lb) at altitude. (MSFC Release 77-78) 

0 Ames Research Center reported that on May 10, 10 female volunteers 

would complete a month-long test [see March 241 to set standards for 

passengers on future spaceflights. The test included 9 days of total bed 

rest, to simulate effects of weightlessness, and centrifuge rides to 

simulate reentry into earth atmosphere. ARC had scheduled a press conference to announce and discuss the results of the test; Dr. Harold 

Sandler, principal investigator, would attend with members of his staff 

and the volunteers. (ARC anno’May 4/77) 

May 5: NASA announced it had awarded McDonnell Douglas Aircraft 

Go. 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 Vo . LaRC would manage work under 

the contract at the Douglas plant in Long Beach. (NASA Release 77-89; 

LaRC Release 77-16) 

0 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 

79 
MAY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

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) 

May 6: MSFC announced its engineers had found a new way to recondition and lengthen the lifespan of nickel-cadmium batteries used in low 

earth orbit space missions. Using a device with a converter circuit and 

load-resistor relays to ensure proper discharge and avoid damage to the 

cells, the engineers had tested batteries with 2yr normal life in orbit, and 

had kept them running for 4.5yr, the equivalent of 23 600 orbits. Maintaining stored energy on low-orbit missions had been a NASA concern, 

especially after a power failure during the Skylab I mission had meant a 

loss of battery capacity that equipment then available could not correct 

in orbit. Besides offering longer life and higher reliability, the new device 

could detect low cell voltage and bypass failed cells. MSFC would build 

and test a battery of 116 series cells, using the new device for protection 

and reconditioning. (MSFC Release 77-8 1) 

MSFC announced it had awarded Martin Marietta Aerospace’s Denver 

division a $928 217 contract for construction work on a test stand for the 

Space Shuttle program. Modification of the giant hydrodynamic support 

system last used for Saturn V dynamic tests in the 1960s would allow 

mating all elements of the Shuttle for vertical ground tests scheduled to 

begin in 1978. The complete vehicle (orbiter, external tank, and two solid 

fuel rocket boosters) would occupy the stand together for the first time. 

(MSFC Release 77-79) 

0 Earth-orbiting satellites had improved forecasts of water availability 

and warned of impending low water supply as a valuable tool to water 

management agencies in Arizona, California, Colorado, and Oregon, 

NASA announced. Other cooperating agencies included the U.S. 

Geological Survey, the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, the U.S. Bureau 

of Reclamation, and the Bonneville Power Administration. The 4 states 

had begun a combined 4yr operational program using NASA Landsat 

earth resources satellites and Natl. Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration meteorological satellites to produce imagery of the snow 

lines along the Sierra Nevada that was faster and less expensive than conventional aerial surveys. Satellites also offered repeated mapping of the 

same snow cover area with a relatively constant perspective. 

A continuing drought in the western U.S. had resulted from belownormal snowfalls in the mountains, source of stream flow water supplies; 

80 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 ORjGi 

Landsat images of the same area of the Sierra Nevada show the difference in 

snowcover between Feb. 1975 and Feb. 1977. The 1977 snowline was 2OOOft 

higher than in 1975, a yr of near-normalsnowfall. Lake Tahoe is in the center of 

both pictures. (NASA 77-H-225, -226) 

reservoirs on the western slopes of the mountains had already dried up. 

Some areas had experienced drought for a longer period than others; 

Calif. had been hardest hit, with minimal snowfall in the Sierra Nevada 

for the second consecutive yr. (NASA Release 77-91) 

0 ESA announced it had completed a revised program of switching on 

and testing the Geos satellite launched Apr. 20, since a malfunction of 

the launch vehicle had prevented the spacecraft from achieving its intended geostationary orbit. The 7 experiments were reported operational, and the two 20m booms had been extended to 2.5m without difficulty. Although the satellite could transmit 8hr of data a day, only half 

would be outside 5 earth radii (where the experiments had been designed 

to operate). The booms should deploy fully during the upcoming wk; the 

journal Nature called for prompt launch of the backup Geos. (ESA anno 

May 6/77; Nature, May 5/77, 8; May 12/77, 100) 

* Science magazine carried an article by Drs. T.B.H. Kuiper of the Jet 

Propulsion Laboratory and M. Morris of the Calif. Inst. of Technology 

on the search fo1 extraterrestrial intelligence, based on extrapolations of 

known physical processes and known behaviors of terrestrial animals 

and humans. Concluding that interstellar travel would be practicable and 

that advanced beings might have reasons for making contact with 

humans, the authors reviewed the options and the interstellar-beacon frequencies proposed for use in such contact. (Science, May 6/77, 616) 

May 9: Australia’s Minister for Science J. J. Webster announced that his 

department had studied the technical feasibility of installing a temporary 

81 
MAY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

NASA satellite-tracking laser in the western area of the continent for use 

in geodetic research, mapping, and earthquake prediction. NASA would 

operate the laser for about a yr, beginning in mid-1978, but neither 

government had made a final commitment. The proposed site in western 

Australia would be part of a future network of tracking lasers scattered 

around the world for use by geologists and geophysicists, in conjunction 

with NASA’s Seqat and existing lasers such as the one near Canberra at 

the Orroral Valley satellite-tracking station, to gather data for use in 

research such as refining the measurement of the shape of the earth. 

(NASA Release 77-92) 

0 Kennedy Space Center reported it had loaned its hyperbaric chamber 

to the Univ. of Fla. College of Medicine at Gainesville, for use in 

research. KSC had installed a hyperbaric (or recompression) chamber in 

its operations and checkout building to treat astronauts affected by 

decompression sickness (the “bends”) during manned altitude-chamber 

tests of the Apollo spacecraft. Conditions such as the bends, embolisms, 

carbon monoxide poisoning, or gas gangrene might require administration of hyperbaric oxygen (under increased pressure in a sealed chamber) 

for periods up to 24hr. 

The end of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975 had ended NASA’s 

immediate need for the altitude or the hyperbaric chambers, but KSC 

had kept them for possible use in Space Shuttle training. (KSC Release 

101-77) 

May 10: MSFC reported that the NASA barge Poseidon was on its way 

to Seal Beach, Calif., to pick up a Space Shuttle orbiter simulator and 

deliver it to the Natl. Space Technology Laboratories at Bay St. Louis, 

Mo., to stand in for the orbiter during firings next year of the main propulsion test article, consisting of the simulator with an external tank and 

thrust structure covering 3 main engines. MSFC had used the Poseidon 

in the 1960s to move stages of Saturn rockets. (MSFC Release 77-84) 

0 MSFC announced completion of pressure and structural-load tests on 

the liquid hydrogen tank that would be part of the Shuttle external tank 

being built at the Michoid assembly facility by Martin Marietta 

Aerospace. The tests to certify that the tank met design and manufacturing standards included filling the tank with nitrogen at 42psi for 14hr and 

applying hydraulic loads as high as 600tons where the orbiter and solidfuel rocket boosters would be attached. Largest of 3 major elements of 

the external tank, the hydrogen container about 30m (97ft) long and 

8.3m (27.6ft) in diameter would now go for cleaning, corrosion protection, and insulating. (MSFC Release 77-83) 

82 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 MAY 

May ZZ: Johnson Space Center announced it had awarded a $399 600 

cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to ESL, Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., for using 

Landsat data in a vegetation inventory for eastern Alaska under a NASA 

project conducted jointly with the Bureau of Land Management. The 

BLM had begun an automatic inventory system for 474 million acres 

under its jurisdiction; the Alaska area would represent a tundra ecology. 

If the joint task were successful, NASA had options for work on 

grassland and sagebrush ecologies. (JSC Release 77-3 1) 

NASA announced it had awarded a $2.3 million contract to Douglas 

Aircraft Co., as part of its aircraft energy efficiency (ACEE) program, 

for improving wing lift-to-drag ratio to reduce fuel use. Douglas would 

design and test a supercritical wing like that invented by LaRC’s Dr. 

Richard Whitcomb, shaped to decrease shock waves on wing surfaces, 

with a high aspect ratio (long span relative to its width). LaRC would 

manage work to be done under the contract at the Douglas plant in Calif. 

(NASA Release 77-93; LaRC Release 77-17) 

0 MSFC announced it had awarded a 45mo contract to the Universities 

Space Research Association of Houston to provide support for development of the Atmospheric Cloud Physics Laboratory, scheduled to fly as 

a partial payload twice a year on Spacelab beginning in 1980 or 1981. The 

Texas-based consortium would review proposals for scientific experiments and provide a liaison between NASA and the cloud-physics 

community as an aid to the project scientist. (MSFC Release 77-86) 

0 Strategic arms limitation might suffer another blow, the Washington 

Post said in a column by Victor Zorza, from the USSR’s test of a killer 

satellite viewed by the U.S. as a new weapon intended to deactivate U.S. 

observation satellites if and when the Soviets decided to launch a first 

strike. Zorza noted that current agreements did not cover hunter-killer 

satellites; by the time a aew agreement was reached, both powers might 

have passed another point of no return in the arms race. ( W Post, May 

11/77, A21) 

May 12: The U.S. Air Force launched a pair of “jam-proof” Triple-7 

defense satellite communications system spacecraft from Cape 

Canaveral Air Force Station at 10:27am on a Martin Marietta Titan 3C 

booster, largest developed by the USAF, into an elliptical parking orbit 

with 35 943km (22 333mi) apogee, 285km (177mi) perigee, and 26.6” inclination. At 5:30pm the USAF confirmed that the two 13001b spacecraft 

had separated and had been fired by the Titan third stage into stationary 

orbit at about 22 300mi where they would remain for 2mo above the 

Galapagos Islands in the Pacific for system checkout. 

83 
MAY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

The two satellites (fourth attempt in 6yr to launch a Triple-7 package, 

but only the second successful one), with a DSCS already in orbit and 

another pair scheduled for launch in November, would form a global 

communications network that the USAF had been trying to establish for 

several yr. A Titan 3C malfunction in 1975 had prevented an earlier pair 

of spacecraft from akhieving orbit. (Today, May 12/77, 12A; May 

13/77, 1A; C Trib, May 14/77, 1-9; NYT, May 11/77, 19; AvFVk, May 

16/77, 19) 

0 NASA announced that simulation of a 1980s Spacelab mission using 

the Galileo I1 (a Convair 990 jet transport converted to a sophisticated 

flying laboratory) would begin May 16 with the first of nine daily 6hr 

flights from ARC carrying four payload specialists and a mission 

specialist. Known as ASSESS (airborne science/Spacelab equipmentsystem simulation), the flights would rehearse NASA and ESA personnel 

in the roles they would perform in actual Spacelab missions, giving the 

managers practice in coordinating payload management between experiment operators on Spacelab and investigators on the ground [cf. Apr. 

191. The actual missions would be the first chance for scientific personnel 

without astronaut training to obtain in orbit data on earth resources, infrared astronomy, medicine, and atmospheric pollution. 

The Spacelab program that began in 1972 had included 6 simulations 

to gather data on Shuttle-Spacelab operations; the first set of flights, 

called ASSESS 1, had consisted of 5 simulations on Galileo over 6 days 

in June 1975. The new series, ASSESS 2, would fly a different route each 

of the 9 days, ranging over the Pacific and to the northern and southern 

borders of the United States, as far east as the Dakotas, and would end 

May 26. The Galileo I1 would fly to Paris May 30 for exhibition at the 

Paris Air Show, then fly to Cologne in West Germany where the ESA experiments would be removed. 

Mission specialist on ASSESS 2 would be astronaut Karl Henize of 

JSC with astronaut Robert Parker, also of JSC, as backup. NASA 

payload specialists on ASSESS 2 would be David S. Billiu and Robert T. 

Menzies of JPL, with Leon Weaver of MSFC as backup to both; ESA 

payload specialist would be Claude Nicollier of Switzerland, with 

Juergen Fein of West Germany as backup. The other payload specialist 

position would be shared by Michael Taylor of England (on 6 flights) 

and Klaus Kramp of West Germany (on 3 flights). The simulation would 

confine the crew to the aircraft and an adjacent mobile van containing 

living quarters similar to those available on the Shuttle. (NASA Release 

77-94; ESA anno May 10/77) 

* The Natl. Space Club announced that Dr. Robert S. Cooper, director 

of GSFC since July 1976, would speak at its May 26 luncheon. Dr. 

84 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 MAY 

Cooper came to NASA from DOD, where he had been assistant director 

for research and engineering since 1972, heading establishment of the 

joint services NavStar global positioning system. He had begun at Mass. 

Inst. of Technology in 1958 as instructor of electrical engineering, was 

assistant professor there from 1963 to 1966, and had been a manager at 

MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory until joining DOD. (NSC anno May 12/77) 

May 13: JSC announced that three life sciences specialists would begin a 

7-day simulation of a typical Spacelab mission planned for the Space 

Shuttle in the 1980s. Living aboard a high-fidelity mockup of the 

Spacelab and Shuttle-orbiter crew deck would be physician Dr. William 

E. Thornton, mission specialist, and Dr. Carter Alexander, payload 

specialist, both of JSC, plus payload specialist Dr. Bill A. Williams of 

ARC. Dr. Thornton would perform medical monitoring and health services for the simulation crew. 

ARC had shipped a rack of 20 life sciences experiments to JSC for the 

simulation, and JSC had provided 6 other experiments. Life sciences 

payloads like the simulation experiments would be flown on the Spacelab 

missions to show the effects of space on living organisms, improve health 

care for the crews of actual missions, and help in designing life-support 

systems for space and earthbound clinical research and health care. (JSC 

Release 77-32) 

May 15: NASA announced the expected arrival of a USSR research ship 

off the Virginia coast near Wallops Flight Center about June 1 to participate in a series of rocket launches to investigate ionization sources in 

earth’s upper atmosphere. The research ship Professor Vize would 

operate offshore as the Soviet launch platform. The joint AmericanSoviet particle intercalibration (JASPIC) project would compare techniques used by both nations to measure the intensity of electrons and 

protons entering the lower ionosphere, and to define the role of these 

particles in nighttime ionization of the lower ionosphere in the 

midlatitudes , thought to cause high-latitude auroras. 

The researchers would base comparisons on results of 4 soundingrocket launches from Wallops and 5 Soviet MF-12 rocket launches from 

the ship. One of the NASA rockets would release a chemical cloud that 

might be visible over the east coast. A similar joint activity in Aug. 1976 

had launched 22 pairs of rockets over a 2wk period. U.S. and Sov et 

scientists had decided in 1975 that discrepancies shown by the scientific 

literature in measurements of ionosphere energetic particles might arise 

from instrumentation differences, and had agreed to joint measurements 

and subsequent comparisons at the same time and place. (NASA Release 

78-7 1) 

85 
MAY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Airline service between the U.S. and the United Kingdom might be 

disrugted by failure to agree on new rules for sharing the traffic, 

Transportation Secy. Brock Adams told the Washington Post. The Bermuda Agreement that had governed air transportation between the two 

countries since 1946 would expire in June, and talks had begun in Sept. 

1976 on new provisions. The British government was said to want exactly 

half the passengers traveling between the two nations or their territories 

to fly on British carriers, although almost two-thirds of the passengers 

were Americans. U.S. officials were reported in dismay at the British demand for a bigger share of the traffic, although the U.K. had earned $1.4 

billion in revenues from aviation and tourism combined, 55% of the 

total between the two countries. 

The U.S. had generally viewed international aviation as part of its 

overall foreign policy, whereas other nations generally had a single carrier either publicly owned or publicly supported whose officials were interested solely in increasing their carrier’s share of passengers; U.S. 

philosophy had favored more rather than less competition in both 

domestic and international aviation, U.S. Ambassador Alan S. Boyd, 

who would head the U.S. delegation to the talks, said he could give “a 

succinct summary of our differences . . . The United States wants equal 

opportunity for all carriers; the British want equal benefits.” A complication would be the New York port authority’s refusal to allow British and 

French Concordes to land at JFK Airport, declared unlawful by a recent 

court decision presently under appeal. (W Post, May 15/77, K1) 

The W Post reported that 9 USSR ships would join U.S. ships during 

June in “Polimode,” a joint study of ocean currents in the so-called Bermuda Triangle where numbers of ships over the years had disappeared 

without trace, inspiring best-selling books on the subject. A USSR 

research team had detected by satellite “powerful whirl formations” extending hundreds of miles and resembling cyclones on land, the 

Washington Post said. Tass, the Soviet news agency, said the formations 

apparently reached from the surface to a depth of several thousand 

yards. (W Post, Parade, May 15/77, 6) 

0 Threats to the earth’s ozone layer remained a matter for concern, 

Walter Sullivan reported in the NY Times, especially fluorocarbons 

widely used as aerosol propellants and accumulating as chlorine 

byproducts in the atmosphere where they would break down ozone and 

expose the earth to more ultraviolet light. Health records from the 

United Nations had shown that people living in low latitudes where the 

ozone layer was thinner and sunlight more abundant had a markedly 

higher rate of skin cancers, especially of the often fatal melanoma. 

86 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 MAY 

Although some scientists noted that atmospheric ozone would normally 

vary with latitude, season, and even with the sunspot cycle, public health 

officials said any total increase in ultraviolet exposure would probably 

increase the incidence of cancer. 

Other dangers to the ozone layer included supersonic planes and other 

high-flying aircraft, nuclear explosions, and the heavy use of nitrogen 

fertilizers. The Natl. Academy of Science had proposed outlawing 

fluorocarbon gases as propellants except in medical products. (NYT, 

May 15/77, 4-9) 

May 26: NASA announced that the 10th annual U.S. industrial film 

festival had presented the Chairman’s Special Award, Best of Festival, to 

NASA’s motion picture “Universe.” Finalists among 970 movies from 5 

nations were the NASA film, the Smithsonian Institution’s “TO Fly,” and 

IBM’s “Parade of the Tall Ships.” Produced for NASA by Graphic 

Films, “Universe” had also received an Academy Award nomination, a 

CINE gold-eagle rating, and awards from the San Francisco and Golden 

Gate Festivals. It Would be the U.S. entry in a number of international 

film festivals during 1977. (NASA Release 77-96) 

0 The Natl. Aeronautic and Atmospheric Administration announced it 

would conduct a pilot project this summer with the U.S. Dept. of 

Agriculture to improve accuracy of crop forecasting, based largely on the 

amount of solar radiation, available moisture, and air temperatures for a 

given area. Using devices on NOAA spacecraft to measure cloud cover 

and relate it to the amount of sunlight reaching ground-based 

pyranometers, NOAA and USDA investigators would compare hourly 

readings from the Goes I geostationary satellite with measurements from 

a network of pyranometers across the Great Plains, to determine the 

amount of solar energy available to crops in any given period. 

The researchers emphasized solar energy as a vital factor in plant 

photosynthesis and in evapotranspiration (loss of water directly from the 

soil by evaporation and from plants by transpiration). A Great Plains 

Agricultural Council representing land grant colleges in Texas, N.M., 

Okla., Colo., Kans., Nebr., S.D., N.D., Wyo., and Mont., and the 

USDA agencies serving those states had requested the pilot project as an 

aid in the production of corn, wheat, and sorghum. (NOAA Release 

77-122) 

Aviation Week reported that NASA had chosen “key missions” for the 

six orbital flight tests of the Shuttle and had assigned payloads as well as 

the weight and volume available for additional experiments. Chester M. 

Lee, director of Space Transportation System operations, would give 

Associate Administrator John E. Naugle a list to begin assigning ex87 
MAY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

periments on the basis of the key payloads. For the first mission (tentative schedule, March 1979) the Shuttle would carry only a developmental flight-instrumentation unit that would also ride on other flight hsts. 

On the second mission (July 1979), the first true Shuttle payload would 

be an instrumented pallet for scientific research amounting to only a 

small weight in the payload bay but offering the NASA program office a 

first research opportunity on the Shuttle. 

On subsequent missions the Shuttle would carry (Sept. 1979) a remote 

manipulator built by Canada to maneuver a payload on the end of a 

jointed arm, plus a scientific payload; (Dee. 1979) a large spin-stabilized 

upper stage to boost an undetermined spacecraft payload into a higher 

orbit; (Feb. 1980) an interim upper stage for attachment to Skylab, to 

boost it into a higher orbit, or an alternate payload such as the longduration exposure facility; (March 1980) a possible classified payload 

(such as the USAF Teal Ruby system for detecting and tracking aircraft 

from space) plus a GSFC-designed multimission spacecraft. The seventh 

orbital mission set in May 1980 would probably be a NASA-ESA 

Spacelab launch, unless another flight test was needed. NASA noted that 

unforeseen circumstances could change the key-payload schedule for the 

first orbital flight tests. (AvWk, May 16/77, 13) 

May Z7: NASA announced it had investigated a unique propulsion 

system for sending a spacecraft to rendezvous with Halley’s Comet in 

1986. The comet had made some 30 visits since 467 B.C., and its next appearance would offer NASA an opportunity to find out more about the 

origin of the solar system. 

A device using solar electric propulsion, suggested by MSFC and 

tested for several yr at Lewis Research Center, would aim solar energy 

concentrated by reflectors at conventional solar cells to provide electric 

power for a system of 8 ion engines capable of taking a spacecraft to an 

encounter with the Halley comet around Christmas Day 1985 just outside 

earth’s orbit. The spacecraft would reach the comet during its most active 

state as it passed near the sun, and could send pictures of the comet to 

earth, possibly sending a probe through the comet’s tail toward its 

nucleus to define its properties. NASA would decide in August 1977 

whether to use the solar electric system, or a solar sail being developed by 

JPL, in its rendezvous with Halley’s Comet. (NASA Release 77-97; 

MSFC Release 77-87) 

0 NASA announced it would launch on or about May 28 a new environmental monitoring satellite GOES-B, latest in a series to be 

operated by NOAA, to keep watch over the eastern half of the U.S. and 

the Atlantic Ocean, just in time for this yr’s hurricane season. Built like 

the first three in the series by Ford Aerospace Corp., GOES-B would 

88 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 NAY 

replace Goes 1 as NOAA's east coast satellite at about 75"W; Goes I 

would move to standby status at about 105"W. (NASA Release 77-88) 

0 NASA announced it had awarded Computer Sciences Corp. a $41 

million contract for support services to communications and instrumentation at KSC, the major site for Space Shuttle launches beginning in 

1979. 

Services would be in 2 categories: the first, covering 3yr, would include 

modification, installation, operation, and maintenance of an operational 

intercommunications system, operational TV system, and checkoutcontrol-monitor subsystem. The second category, lyr with 2yr option to 

renew, would cover KSC work on communications, measurements, 

telemetrics, computer services, data storage and retrieval, program planning, and reliability and quality assurance. (NASA Release 77-104; KSC 

Release 104-77) 

0 MSFC reported that the Energy Research and Development Administration had selected 80 new projects for installing solar heating and 

cooling, on 27 of which MSFC would monitor technical design and construction. MSFC was already monitoring 32 commercial demonstration 

projects selected by ERDA in April 1976 as the first of a series; ERDA 

would issue a third solicitation for proposals later this summer, the announcement said. 

Dr. Henry H. Marvin, director of ERDA's division of solar energy, 

said cooperative agreements negotiated by MSFC with the 27 proposers 

of projects would be signed within approximately 3mo. Government 

funding on a cost-sharing basis would cover only the solar portions of 

the projects; more than 90% of the funds would go to projects with 

substantial small business participation, and more than half the awards 

would go to teams using solar energy systems supplied by small 

businesses. (MSFC Release 77-89) 

9 NASA announced that it and the Soviet Academy of Sciences had 

agreed to continue joint technical, scientific, and operational activity 

developed in the Apollo-Soyuz mission July 1975 by starting studies of 2 

programs, one for a joint orbital manned flight, the other for an international space station. 

The agreement signed May 6 by Acting NASA Administrator Dr. Alan 

M. Lovelace and May 11 by Anatoly P. Aleksandrov, president of the 

Soviet Academy of Sciences, envisioned preliminary project documents 

within 6 to 12mo and definitive documents within a yr, noting that the 

working groups should proceed on the assumption of a first flight in 

1981. Working groups to study experiments, basic and applied, and the 

89 
MAY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

operation of a Salyut-Shuttle mission would be named within 3 days 

after the agreement became effective; a third group, which would consider development of an international space platform, would be appointed within 2mo. NASA stressed that neither side would be committed beyond initial studies, and either could proceed with its own space 

station interests. (NASA Release 77-98; NYT, May 18/77, A15) 

May 18: NASA announced it would launch on or about May 26 the third 

Intelsat IV-A commercial comsat from KSC on an Atlas Centaur for 

service over the Atlantic Ocean, initially as a backup for Intelsats IV-A 

F-1 and F-2 offering communications services to countries from Central 

America to Iran. The IV-A spacecraft built by Hughes Aircraft Co. had 

communications capability almost two-thirds greater than the Intelsat IV 

series now operating: it had a 7yr design life and capacity to relay more 

than 6 OOO simultaneous telephone calls and two TV programs. (NASA 

Release 77-99; MOR E-491-633-77-05 [prelaunch] May 20/77; 

INTELSAT Release 77-10-M) 

0 NASA reported that its research and technology advisory council 

(RTAC) panel on general aviation technology had named stalls and spins 

as the greatest safety problem for designers of light aircraft, accounting 

for 30% of all fatalities in those planes. LaRC had established a program 

in response to requests for additional research on the problem, including 

definition of the aerodynamic characteristics of aircraft at high angles of 

attack; ways to avoid stalling; ways to recover from spin; and ways to ensure satisfactory spin characteristics. The program would also cover 

development of test methods such as use of radio-controlled models, and 

consultation services to industry. LaRC had been a leader in such studies 

since the 1930s when it began operating a 15ft spin tunnel, enlarged in 

1941 to 20ft and used since then in testing more than 400 aircraft designs; 

this was still the only operating spin tunnel in the U.S. (NASA Release 

77-100; LaRC Release 77-21) 

0 NASA reported that its data-analysis facility at KSC had been using a 

GE multispectral image analyzer developed for screening Landsat imagery to detect early stages of breast cancer, where diagnosis would normally be difficult and rapid multiplication of cancerous tissue would require massive surgery. The only solution previously available had been 

repeated diagnoses by x-ray, itself a health hazard. 

Radiological examinations of x-rays had been limited by the range of 

intensity detectable by the human eye, which was unable to distinguish 

more than 32 shades of gray, meaning that much of the data would be effectively invisible. However, the microdensitometer on the GE analyzer 

was able to differentiate 256 shades of gray with great accuracy. The 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS. 1977 MAY 

computerized output of the densitometer would enter the analyzer with 

orders for enhancement, so that data previously invisible to a doctor’s 

eye could be available for earlier diagnosis. 

Robert L., Butterfield, electronics engineer at the KSC data-analysis 

facility, had worked with radiologist Br. William L. Walls of Titusville, 

Fla., for 2yr on a process for automatic enhancement of mammograms 

to detect early stages of breast cancer before radical surgery would 

become necessary. The aim of the study had been to differentiate women 

at low risk of breast cancer from those at high risk, based on the rate of 

change in the gray shades of the enhanced images, to reduce the need for 

repeated x-ray diagnoses. (NASA Release 77-102; KSC Release 105-77) 

The Intl. Academy of Astronautics announced that the 28th congress 

of the Intl. Astronautical Federation would take place from Sept. 25 to 

Oct. 1,1977, in Prague, in conjunction with the 1 lth symposium on contributions to the history of rocketry. Theme of the congress would be 

“Using Space-Today and Tomorrow.” Dr. Charles Stark Draper was 

IAA president. (IAA anno) 

May 19: NASA reported that MSFC had received 119 proposals for experiments in materials processing to be performed on Space Shuttle and 

Spacelab flights. As lead center for the Spacelab program, a cooperative 

venture of NASA and ESA, MSFC had been given project management 

responsibility for the first three Spacelab payloads. An MSFC team had 

evaluated the proposals, and the center would announce selection of between 10 and 20 experiments by the end of July. (NASA Release 77-103; 

MSFC Release 77-91) 

NASA announced it had issued proposals to buy 6 spinning solid fuel 

upper stages (SSUS) for boosting spacecraft launched from the Space 

Shuttle into higher orbits. The decision was the first step following agreement earlier this yr with McDonnell Douglas and Boeing Aerospace, 

allowing them to design, build, and test the devices and market them independently of NASA. The agency as part of a procurement agreement 

would normally bear cost of development and production; the current 

bidding would be limited to the 2 companies that had agreed to develop 

the stages with private funds. 

The purchase would include hardware, analyses, logistics, and services 

needed to put a spacecraft into higher orbit after launch and orientation 

by the Space Shuttle. The contractor would build the vehicle, provide 

services, and operate the systems. First delivery in Dec. 1979 would be a 

flight demonstrator; 3 others would launch advanced Intelsat V comsats; 

the other 2 would serve for other missions. (NASA Release 77-101; 

MSFC Release 77-90) 

91 
MAY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

0 Press reports said a 23 9001b solid-fuel rocket had fallen off a Delta 

launch vehicle standing on its pad at KSC May 18 awaiting the mid-June 

launch of ESA’s high-frequency communications test satellite (CTS). In 

its 12ft fall, the booster had plunged through a platform and damaged 

the Delta’s liquid-oxygen tank; the entire assembly would have to b% 

removed for repairs. Cause was probably failure of one of the attachments holding the motor in place, a spokesman said; an investigation 

was under way. The Delta had on its first stage 9 of the solid-fuel 

boosters, each more than 36ft tall and 4ft in diameter, normally jettisoned about a minute and a half into flight. (Today, May 19/77, 8A; 

photo, 1A; AvWk, May 23/77, 27) 

Nature magazine reported that the NASA budget had met unexpected 

opposition in Congress, endangering 2 major scientific missions: the 

large space telescope, long regarded by space scientists as NASA’s toppriority project, and the Jupiter orbiter probe planned as a twin launch 

in 1982 of craft to orbit the planet and send probes into its atmosphere. 

Lobbying by NASA and the scientific community might rescue the projects, but loss of either would be a serious blow to the agency’s program. 

Nature said this yr’s efforts would be crucial because space science 

money had been squeezed out of NASA’s budget for 4yr to pay for the 

Space Shuttle, and further delay would probably kill future chances for 

approval of these missions. (Nature, May 19/77, 196) 

0 The Chicago Tribune reported that US. Secy. of State Cyrus Vance 

and USSR Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko had begun high-level arms 

control talks in Geneva by signing a convention against environmental 

warfare and extending a previous agreement on space that had governed 

the 1975 hookup between Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft, calling for 

cooperation in space science such as exchange of data on Mars, Venus, 

and the moon. (C Trib, May 19/77, 1-1) 

May 20: LaRC announced it had developed an ocean-surface wind sensor for SeaSat-A, managed by JPL and scheduled for launch in 1978. 

SeaSat instruments would record wind and pressure data over the 

oceans; lack of this information had prevented accurate long-range 

weather forecasting. LaRC research had shown the sensitivity of 

microwave scatterometers to sea-surface winds; LaRC’s sensor for 

SeaSat contained a scatterometer able to measure wind speed and direction over a thousand-kilometer area. (LaRC Release 77-20) 

* ARC reported successful completion May 19 of a test to qualify the 

Pioneer/Venus probe for entry into the Venus atmosphere. One of the 

two spacecraft scheduled for the Pioneer/Venus mission arriving there in 

YZ 

C-2- 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, MAY 1977 

1978 would carry a main probe and three smaller probes to be dropped 

off at 8000km intervals to measure the Venus atmosphere from top to 

bottom. At 47km above the surface of Venus, the probe would separate 

from its heatshield, leaving its parachute behind, to descend as far as 

possible before the planet’s heat destroyed it. Venus surface temperature 

would exceed 500°C (92OoF), hotter than the melting point of zinc. 

At White Sands Missile Range, N.M., the U.S. Air Force’s Geophysics 

Laboratory launched a high-altitude plastic balloon measuring 90K m3 

(about 3 million ft3) to an altitude of about 28km; about 8hr later when 

wind conditions were right, the balloon released from a height of about 

30km an instrumented probe equipped to record system performance 

while White Sands personnel tracked and recovered the probe pressurevessel and parachute. At an altitude of 15km above earth, the heat and 

density of the atmosphere and the probe velocity resembled those expected on Venus at 67km above the surface, the point of actual 

parachute deployment. (ARC Release 77-30) 

NASA announced it had awarded to Lockheed-California Co. a contract to demonstrate compositematerial technology in manufacturing 

L-1011 vertical stabilizers. NASA would cover $1.57 million of the cost 

of the 6.5yr contract, Lockheed $1.7 million, like others in the agency’s 

program to increase by 50% the fuel efficiency of civilian transport aircraft. LaRC would manage the contract. (LaRC Release 77-22; NASA 

Release 77-108) 

May 23: President Carter announced the nomination of Dr. Robert A. 

Frosch, 49, associate director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Mass. since 1975, to head the Natl. Aeronautics and Space Administration. Dr. Frosch would succeed Dr. James C. Fletcher, who 

resigned May 1 after 6yrs as administrator of the agency. 

A native New Yorker, Dr. Frosch had earned A.B., A.M., and Ph.D 

degrees from Columbia Univ. From 1973 to 1975 he was asst. secretary 

general of the United Nations and assistant head of its environmental 

program. From 1966 to 1975 he was asst. secretary of the Navy for 

research and development, working on naval-research projects at the 

Hudson Laboratories of Columbia Univ. where he had been director 

from 1956 to 1963. Dr. Frosch had received the Arthur S. Flemming 

award in 1966 and the Navy’s distinguished public service award in 1969. 

(NASA release 77-107; NYT, May 24/77, 19) 

0 MSFC reported results of a gamma-ray detector launched on a balloon 

May 11 from the Natl. Scientific Balloon Facility at Palestine, Tex., to 

study sources of bursting and pulsating x-rays and gamma rays during an 

93 
MAY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

18hr flight. MSFC scientists headed by Dr. Charles Meegan, principal investigator and associate of the Natl. Research Council, had sent a 

420 000m3 (15 million ft3) balloon carrying an array of 12 large-area 

detectors with total payload weight of 590kg (13001b) to an altitude of 

39km (126 OOOft) to transmit data back to the launch site for recording. 

High winds had interrupted the successful mission and brought the 

balloon down with some payload damage. Investigators would use the 

data for the scheduled June 30 launch of NASA’s high-energy astronomy 

observatory (HEAO). (MSFC Release 77-93) 

0 NASA announced that the Arizona Dept. of Transportation and 2 

federal agencies had demonstrated solar energy potential by using an array of solar cells to power a dust-storm warning system in central Ariz. 

The state had installed the system over an 80mi area on Interstate 10 between Phoenix and Tucson, and west on Interstate 8 near Casa Grande, 

to help motorists avoid accidents in low-visibility conditions resulting 

from blowing dust. In normal mode, the signs would display directional 

information; when dust storms struck, the message would change to give 

motorists the radio frequencies on which storm-alert instructions would 

be available. 

The state agency (working with LeRC, which had managed the applications project for the Energy Research and Development Administration) would replace propane-fueled 6Ow generators at 40 signs in the 

system with solar arrays, halving the cost. Each sign would use solar electricity to power the lighting, changeable-message feature, and radio communications activated by a link from Phoenix when dust storms were imminent. (NASA Release 77-106) 

0 MSFC reported that Teledyne Brown Engineering Co. had built for 

Shuttle tank testing at the center an “upper reaction structure” resembling a mammoth doughnut, 42ft in diameter, 12ft high, and weighing 

124 500kg (137tons), so large that the manufacturer had to remove a wall 

at its plant to get it out of the building. The structure, riding on a special 

32-wheel lowboy trailer with a 16-wheel dolly, would block roads during 

a 3 to 4hr trip from the builder to the MSFC test stand where Bendix personnel would install it at the 46m (150ft) level, to support the structural 

test article simulating the external tank and to record test loads and 

stresses. (MSFC Release 77-94) 

May 24: The Washington Star reported that the USAF had launched a 

“spy satellite” from Cape Canaveral at 2: 13pm May 23 as part of a series 

to monitor rocket tests in the USSR and PRC and give early warning of 

any missile attack. Defenseh’pace Daily said the “experimental payload” 

launched on an Atlas Agena was either a test of improved early-warning 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 MAY 

equipment or part of a more advanced early-warning system. Orbit 

parameters deleted from NORAD and NASA records but reported by 

the UK Royal Aircraft Establishment were 40 800km apogee, 30 200km 

perigee, and 9” inclination. The USAF had not announced the launch, 

visible to residents of the area, before liftoff and issued only a brief statement afterward. ( W Star, May 24/77, A-3; D/SD, May 25/77, 138) 

0 NASA announced it would launch no earlier than May 25 GOES-B, 

second in a series funded by NOAA to meet DOC requirements for a 

geostationary operational environmental satellite system. Sms I and Sms 

2, prototypes funded by NASA and still in orbit, had been launched in 

May 1974 and Feb. 1975; Goes 1, first operational spacecraft funded by 

NOAA, was launched Oct. 1975. GOES-B would augment existing 

coverage of earth weather and would become part of the global atmospheric research program (GARP). (MOR E-608-77-04 [prelaunch] 

May 24/77) 

0 ESA announced it had postponed launch of its experimental comsat 

OTS (orbital test satellite) originally scheduled to, go June 16. The 

spacecraft had left Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport May 9 headed for 

prelaunch checkout at ETR; it had not been mounted on its launch vehicle at the time when one of the solid-fuel booster rockets fell off and 

damaged the first stage [see May 191. An inquiry into the April 20 

malfunction of a Delta carrying ESA’s GEOS had already delayed the 

OTS launch for at least a wk. (ESA release May 24/77) 

* MSFC announced it had completed modifications of the Saturn test 

stand used in the 1960s for static-test firings of the first stages of the 

Saturn 1 and 1B and scheduled for structural tests of the Space Shuttle 

solid-fuel rocket booster. The tests would use a short-stack SRB (lacking 

two center segments, measuring 18.3cm less than the actual boosters) to 

simulate prelaunch, flight, and recovery reactions. Each Shuttle launch 

would need two SRBs each simultaneously generating 11.79-million 

newtons (2.65 million lb) of thrust at liftoff; separating at burnout from 

the external tank, the casings would parachute into the ocean for 

recovery and reuse in as many as 20 flights. (MSFC Release 77-95) 

0 NASA reported that Dr. Herbert Frey, a NASA-Univ. of Md. scientist 

working at GSFC, had prepared a paper for presentation June 2 at the 

meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C., suggesting that asteroid bombardment more than 4 billion yr ago that 

created earth’s ocean basins had resulted in the development of life on 

this planet. 

Building on the work of other scientists, including that of GSFC’s Dr. 

95 
MAY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Paul Lowman on earth’s crustal evolution, Dr. Frey used data from 

Apollo lunar landings and photography from spacecraft studies of the 

moon, Mercury, and Mars to show that during the reference period all 

the inner bodies suffered heavy asteroid impacts which must have affected earth as well. The impacts led to geological changes on earth that 

resulted in plate tectonics and the formation of seabeds. If the presence 

of life had eventuated from catastrophic bombardment by asteroids, the 

paper noted, then life elsewhere might also depend upon such events. 

(NASA Release 77-105) 

May 25: Dryden Flight Research Center announced it had developed an 

autopilot device during flight tests of the YF-12 aircraft that would 

enable future high-speed planes to fly closer to the preset flight path. Experience gained from aircraft cruising at high speeds and high altitudes 

had shown deviations up to f 4OOOft in altitude and more than 30mph in 

speed from those planned. An aircraft flying across the country at Mach 

3 could encounter normal changes in temperature and pressure as rapid 

changes that could affect the Mach number; conventional techniques to 

correct for those changes had caused large altitude deviations and poorquality passenger comfort. The deviations could degrade aircraft performance or overrun the plane’s operating limitations. The new control 

system combining surface motion and throttle motion, aot previously 

used together, with newly developed data sensors, had kept the YF-12 on 

a highly precise flight path even at high-speed conditions over extended 

periods of time. (DFRC Release 19-77) , c 

0 KSC announced it had awarded to the Univ. of Fla. a $16 200 supplemental grant to continue a study of the effects of lightning strikes. 

University personnel had been doing research on lightning under this 

grant since 1973; working as consultants, they had used advanced instrumentation available at KSC together with engineers from the space 

vehicle operations and information systems directorates to measure highfrequency radiation from lightning activity within a cloud, intensity of 

lightning strikes, and the extent of damage to structures or aerial and 

underground cables. The study would improve handling of Shuttle 

launch, processing, and landing under marginal weather conditions. 

(KSC Release 108-77) 

0 A KSC spokesman said work was proceeding slowly on dismantling 

the Delta vehicle that had lost one of its solid-fuel rocket boosters May 

18 while waiting on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Today newspaper 

reported. The second stage of the Delta had already been removed to 

clear the way for detaching the boosters from the first stage and then 

removing the first stage, damaged when one of the 9 boosters crashed 

% 
MAY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

12ft through a support platform. The accident, which interrupted an 

ESA comsat launch scheduled for June, had also delayed launch of a 

US. weather satellite. (Today, May 25/77, 12A) 

9 The Natl. Science Foundation reported that Census Bureau figures for 

the end of 1975 had shown a 5yr decline in private industry employment 

of scientists and engineers. Private industry had been by far the largest 

employer of scientists and engineers, using about 2/3 of all those 

employed. Engineers constituted 72% (850000) of all <that group 

employed by private industry, the largest numbers being electrical 

engineers (292 OOO) and mechanical and aeronautical engineers 

(201 OOO). Computer scientists were the largest group (143 OOO) among 

scientists, as well as the largest group (100 OOO) employed by nonmanufacturing industries. Among physical scientists (104 OOO), the most 

numerous specialty was chemists (65 OOO), more than 3/4 of them working in nondurable goods manufacturing industries including chemical industries. Private industry employment of scientists and engineers 

decreased 5670 between 1970 and 1975, compared to a 14% gain in 

1965-1970 and a 19% gain in 1960-1965. The drop in employment between 1970 and 1975 was mostly in durable goods manufacturing; nonmanufacturing industries showed an 11% increase in engineers employed 

during that period. (NSF 77-132) 

May 26: NASA launched Intelsat IVA F-4, third in the series of Intelsat 

IVA global comsats, from Cape Kennedy on an Atlas Centaur at 5:47pm 

EDT into a transfer orbit with 35,904.4km apogee, 548.9km perigee, 

21.8" inclination, and 641.87min period. ComSatCorp, U.S. member of 

the Intl. Telecommunications Satellite Corp. (INTELSAT) and its 

management services contractor, fired the apogee kick motor at 850pm 

EDT May 27 over the western Pacific, putting the spacecraft into a nearcircular synchronous orbit at about 35 784km (22 24Omi) altitude to drift 

eastward to its station over the Atlantic at 34.5"W after a mo of communications tests. INTELSAT, owner of the comsat series, would reimburse NASA for costs of the launch vehicle and launch services. 

The Hughes Aircraft-built spacecraft weighing 1515kg (33401b) at liftoff measured about 7m (23ft) tall and 2.4m (8ft) in diameter and carried 

a new design of antenna that would provide coverage from Central 

America to Iran by using shaped beams. The 320MHz bandwidths pointing east and west were sufficiently isolated to allow the frequency spectrum to be used twice, once eastward and once westward, doubling the 

use of that spectrum. The spacecraft with a 7yr lifetime would offer 

about 6250 two-way voice circuits plus 2 TV channels, two-thirds more 

capacity than that of the Intelsat IV series. It would initially serve as 

backup to the two Atlantic area comsats, Intelsat IVA F-I at 24.5"W and 

97 
MAY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Intelsat,IVA F-2 at 29.5”W. (NASA Release 77-99; KSC Release 103-77; 

MOR E-491-633-77-03 [prelaunch] May 20/77, [postlaunch] Aug 30/77; 

INTELSAT Release 77-11-M) 

DFRC announced that the first manned test flight of the Space Shuttle 

orbiter, previously scheduled for May 26, had been postponed to a date 

no earlier than June 9, depending on successful completion of orbiter 

ground tests. The manned test would begin the second phase of Shuttle 

approach and landing trials to verify aerodynamic and flight-control 

characteristics of the orbiter. Cause of the postponement was delay in orbiter systems checkout and verification testing after completion in March 

of the first flights of the orbiter linked to its 747 carrier. (DFRC Release 

18-77) 

0 KSC announced it had awarded to Planning Research Corporation, 

McLean, Va., a $25 720 364 contract extension for engineering support 

services to the Space Shuttle program and other activities where the 

design-engineering directorate at KSC had design responsibilities. The 

12mo cost-plus-award-fee extension through May 1978 had brought the 

value of the contract originally awarded in May 1974 to $72 616 061. The 

company employed more than 1100 workers at KSC and Cape Canaveral 

Air Force Station in Fla., and at DFRC and KSC’s Western Launch 

Operations Division in Calif. (KSC Release 11 1-77) 

May 27: MSFC announced it had issued requests for proposals to build a 

tethered satellite system for launch on an orbiting Space Shuttle. The 

idea had been to provide long-duration measurement, observation, or 

performance time in earth’s atmosphere between 80 and 120km altitude, 

where density would be insufficient to support the flight of aircraft or 

balloons, but too thick for free-flying satellites. Exploration here had 

been limited to short-term flight of sounding rockets or low-level 

satellites. 

One concept had been to use a l00km cable to “troll” a tethered 

satellite from an orbiting Shuttle; the pull of gravity, with constant tension on the cable, would keep the captive craft at the end of its string, 

oriented toward earth. Typical missions for a tethered satellite would be 

global mapping of earth’s magnetic or gravity fields; cargo transfer between space vehicles; retrieval of satellites or space debris without Shuttle 

maneuvering; transfer of large amounts of energy to a remote experiment, or from a remote (possibly hazardous) power source to a space station. MSFC would manage tethered satellite activity for NASA’s Office 

of Space Flight. (MSFC Release 77-82) 

A NY Times editorial said that criticism of the Apollo-Soyuz mission 

98 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 MAY 

on the basis that the U.S. learned too little and the USSR too much was 

misguided: the U.S. space program from its beginning was open “to any 

Russian who reads American publications.” It was the Soviet program 

that was secret, and only because of Apollo-Soyuz had American 

observers been able to visit key Soviet space installations. Proposed 

cooperation in space would cost comparatively little and bring considerable benefit from sharing costs and improving relations. (NYT, May 

27/77, A-24) 

* Science magazine said the stir caused by Aviation Week’s claim [see 

May 21 that the USSR had tested a charged-particle beam capable of 

neutralizing U.S. strategic missiles had been “the sensation of the week” 

in Washington, giving rise to secret briefings for congressmen, an “infrequent” statement from the CIA, and even a presidential assurance that 

the US. was not in jeopardy. AvWk responded that the president had 

been “screened from vital technical developments” by the CIA and the 

Defense Intelligence Agency. Science said AvWk has made use of 

technical and intelligence information “too esoteric for easy evaluation” 

that Science had been unable to verify independently. 

An article in Nature magazine on the same subject said AvWk had 

based its charges of Soviet weapons testing on “hydrogen with traces of 

tritium in the upper atmosphere - which could mean almost anything.” 

(Science, May 27/77, 957; Nature, May 26/77, 304) 

May 3Z: JPL announced that its controllers had turned off the biology 

instrument on Viking lander 2 May 28 and that on lander 1 on May 30. 

Lander 1 had started biology investigations July 28, 1976, and lander 2 

on Sept. 1 1, both operating continuously since that time, depleting their 

high-pressure helium, nutrients, and other consumables. They had carried out all the tests originally scheduled and “several that hadn’t been 

planned,” the announcement said. Both of the landers would continue to 

operate except for the biology and organic analysis instruments, and 

both of the orbiters had continued to operate normally. Biologists in 

laboratories across the U.S. were trying various combinations of soil and 

chemicals to duplicate results from the biology instruments on the Mars 

landers. (JPL anno May 31/77) 

During May: Natl. Research Council’s News Report said a committee 

chaired by MIT’s Wilbur B. Davenport, Jr., had recommended that 

NASA resume support of comsat services research and development but 

stay out of the business of operating such services. The committee said 

that agency support of an operational program of public service satellite 

communications would “obscure the real costs of the public service”; 

99 
MAY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

agencies that needed to use or provide such services “would not be faced 

with the hard reality of determining whether a program is worthy of execution when compared with its actual cost,” the report said. (NRC News 

Report, May 77, 1) 

* The Natl. Aeronautic Assn. newsletter reported that the USAF industry team that produced and demonstrated the B-1 aircraft system was 

1976 recipient of the Collier trophy, rather than the NASA Viking project with its “spectacular success” in landing spacecraft and instrumentation on Mars. The AFSCNewsreview said that the B-l team represented 

the Air Force, Rockwell Intl. Corp., General Electric, Boeing Co., 

Cutler-Hammer’s airborne instruments laboratory division, and more 

than 3000 other subcontractors and suppliers. 

The NAA noted that 50yr earlier the solo flight of Lindbergh across 

the Atlantic, considered a shoo-in, had failed to receive the trophy given 

for “the greatest achievement in aviation in America, the value of which 

has been demonstrated by actual use during the preceding year”; that 

trophy committee had unanimously awarded it to Charles L. Lawrence, 

designer of the Wright Whirlwind aircooled radial engine that had 

powered not only Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, but also a number of 

other notable flights in 1927. (NAA newsletter, May 77, 1; AFSC 

Newsreview, May 77, 4) 

100 
June 

June 1: NASA announced it had appointed Gerald D. Griffin, deputy 

director of Dryden Flight Research Center since 1976, to be deputy director of Kennedy Space Center as of July 1. He would replace Miles Ross, 

who resigned from NASA in May. Griffin had worked at NASA Hq for 

3yr, as asst. administrator for legislative affairs, then as deputy associate 

administrator for operations in the Office of Space Flight. At Johnson 

Space Center, Griffin had been a flight controller during the Gemini program, a flight director on all 11 Apollo missions, and lead flight director 

on Apollo 12, 15, and 17. Among his awards were NASA exceptional 

service medals for his work on Apollo 12 and 15, the presidential Medal 

of Freedom group achievement award for Apollo 13, and the Hq creative 

management award. (NASA Release 77-109; DFRC Release 20-77) 

0 DFRC announced it would drop-test at the Natl. Parachute Test 

Range, El Centro, Calif., the parachutes for recovering the reusable 

solid-fuel rocket boosters on the Shuttle. The tests would be a series of 

air drops to evaluate design, deployment, performance, and structural 

integrity of full-scale parachutes loaded with two configurations of droptest vehicles offering various limit and overload conditions for the 

drogue and main parachutes at reefed and full open-canopy shapes. 

Engineers from Marshall Space Flight Center, which had responsibility 

for developing the Shuttle boosters, and from Martin Marietta, 

developer of the parachute system, would use the results to evaluate the 

adequacy of the system. (DFRC Release 21-77; MSFC Release 77-98) 

The Washington Post reported that biology instruments on both Viking landers on the surface of Mars had been shut off, according to a 

spokesman at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who added that they had 

detected no signs of life, although combinations of soil and chemicals 

like those on the landers were under test in laboratories across the U.S. 

trying to duplicate the unexpected results of the instruments on Mars. 

Those results were still being studied, and one test “leaves the question 

very much open.” Don Bane of JPL said the two landers were continuing 

other operations such as meteorology and telephoto transmission. (W 

Post, June 1/77, A-10; NASA Release 77-111) 

0 The W. Post reported that the latest test of a satellite-destruction 

101 
JUNE ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

weapon conducted by the USSR despite an appeal by President Carter 

had apparently ended in failure. In a test May 23, first by the USSR in 

about 5m0, the Soviet interceptor spacecraft had missed the target 

satellite by about 50mi, according to U.S. intelligence sources. The officials said that, without knowing the objectives of a test, it would be 

hard to assess results, but the consensus was that the operation had 

failed. Five USSR tests in the past 18mo had failed to destroy a target 

satellite; the attempts had not been aimed at any U.S. satellites but were 

confined to their own. Both nations had used observation satellites to 

monitor each other’s military activities, including strategic-weapons 

testing, missile-base construction, and similar indicators. Still in the 

research stage was a U.S. system to knock out Soviet satellites, with first 

flight tests at least 3yr away and first deployment estimated in about 5yr. 

( W Post, June 1/77, A-21) 

June 2: NASA announced it had selected Boeing Services Intl., Seattle, 

Wash., for final negotiations leading to award of a cost-plus-award-fee 

contract to provide ground-systems support for launch operations 

managed by KSC and for USAF operations at the Eastern Test Range 

and Cape Canaveral, to include operation and maintenance of launch 

systems and facilities; estimated cost of the 3yr contract would be 

$80 500 OOO. (KSC Release 77-113; NASA Release 77-113) 

9 U.S. interplanetary spacecraft had confirmed that the planet Jupiter 

was emitting high-energy electrons over a vast region of space, Walter 

Sullivan reported in the NY Times. The spring meeting of the Am. 

Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C. heard Dr. John A. Simpson of 

the Univ. of Chicago and others describe the Jupiter emissions as similar 

to pulsars - electromagnetic radiation appearing as pulses sweeping 

through space like airport beacons - but carrying the “signature” of the 

planet’s spin rate, picked up every lOhr as a rotation was completed. Dr. 

Simpson said Jupiter was not a direct analogy of pulsars but would offer 

common features that might provide clues to an understanding of both. 

Observations of the Jupiter emissions had come from Pioneer IO, 

which had passed Jupiter in Dec. 1973 and was now beyond the orbit of 

Saturn, and from Pioneer II, which had first passed Jupiter in Dec. 1974 

and was scheduled to approach Saturn in Sept. 1979. The volume of 

Jupiter’s magnetosphere had been estimated as 5 times that of the sun’s; 

Io, innermost moon of Jupiter, had an orbit within the magnetosphere 

and its radiation belt (a greatly intensified version of earth’s Van Allen 

belt), and the unusual brightness of Io on emerging from Jupiter’s 

shadow had been attributed to particle activity. The 2 Voyager spacecraft 

to be launched this yr toward Jupiter and Saturn would be programmed 

102 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JUNE 

to investigate further when they arrived nearby in March and July of 

1979. (NYT, June 2/77, B4) 

June 3: NASA reported that Pioneer ZZ would cross the orbit of Jupiter 

on June 10 for the second time on its trip to the outer reaches of the solar 

system. It had first flown past Jupiter in Dec. 1974 when the planet’s 

gravity had kicked it into a path that would go past Saturn in Sept. 1979. 

This was the first time a spacecraft had used the gravity of an outer 

planet to accelerate it toward a different planet; the Voyager spacecraft 

to be launched this summer would also use this maneuver. 

Pioneer ZZ had covered two-thirds of its 2.3-billion-km (1.5-billion-mi) 

journey from Jupiter to Saturn; passing Saturn, it would head out of the 

solar system in the direction that the solar system takes through the 

galaxy, nearly opposite the path of Pioneer IO, now between the orbits of 

Saturn and Uranus, also on its way out of the solar system. Ames 

Research Center had managed the Pioneer project for NASA’s Office of 

Space Science; TRW Systems, Inc., had built the spacecraft. (NASA 

Release 77-112; ARC Release 77-33) 

0 DFRC announced that a malfunction during a June 2 test of the Space 

Shuttle orbiter’s auxiliary power system would delay the orbiter’s first 

manned captive flight from June 9 for 1 or 2 weeks, depending on successful completion of ground tests. (DFRC Release 22-77) 

--- 

0 United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim and delegates from 

14 nations had recorded messages to be carried with music and natural 

sounds on a copper phonograph record by the Voyagers scheduled for 

launch from Cape Canaveral Aug. 20 and Sept. 1, Today newspaper 

reported. Messages were from Australia, Canada, the U.S., Chile, 

France, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Egypt, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Iran, 

Pakistan, and Indonesia. They included poems in French and Swedish, a 

passage from the Koran in Arabic, and various texts in Esperanto, 

English, Flemish, German, Spanish, Persian, Urdu, Indonesian, the 

Creole language of Sierra Leone, and the Efik language of Nigeria. 

In his message, Waldheim said: “AS the Secretary General of the 

United Nations, an organization of 147 member states who represent 

almost all of the human inhabitants of the planet Earth, I send greetings 

on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system 

into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are 

called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate.” NASA spokesman 

Timothy Ferris said the messages, aimed at extraterrestrial intelligences, 

would be “like a note in a bottle for the extraterrestrials, if they exist.” 

Voyager 1, which would reach Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980, would 

_.__~. - -- - -- 

103 
JUNE ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

pass out of the solar system several yr later. (Today, June 3/77, lOA, 

NYT, June 3/77, A4) 

* Scientists at the McDonald Observatory in Los Alamos, N.M., had 

discovered that the red-giant star Betelgeuse, familiar feature of the constellation Orion, was 3 250 OOO times larger than earth’s sun. Pictures 

taken at the observatory, using a new process with a special one-of-akind television camera tube produced by RCA, had shown the star expanding and throwing off matter into space at a prodigious rate; the 

photographs for the first time had viewed and measured the shell of matter around a red giant. 

Betelgeuse and its shell had proved to be 400 times larger than the orbit 

of Pluto; it had measured nearly 3 trillion miles across (2800 billion 

miles). Earth’s sun in comparison was 864 OOO miles in diameter at its 

equator, and earth itself was only about 8000 miles in diameter at the 

equator. The pictures had verified a theory that red-giant stars were a 

primary source of raw material for making new stars, according to 

astrophysicist Maxwell Sandford of McDonald laboratory. The red 

giants would routinely lose matter to relieve internal pressures built up by 

consumption of nuclear fuel, and the pictures had shown the loss to be 

much greater than previously thought. (Today, June 3/77, 11A) 

NASA belt-tightening measures that might cut pay for about 60 highranking JSC employees might have the same effect at KSC, Today 

newspaper reported. The Houston Post reported earlier that the JSC 

employees had heard their Civil Service job grades would be reduced, 

with possible loss of $5000 to $10 OOO in annual pay to follow 2yr later. A 

JSC spokesman said the grade reductions had resulted from a slowdown 

in space programs requiring reorganization of the center. Similar grade 

reductions were a possibility for KSC, which had been told by NASA Hq 

to cut its operating budget from $1 19 million to $109 million. KSC Director Lee Scherer had ordered a freeze on new hiring to allow a complete 

review of operations and consideration of measures to save money. 

KSC’s director of public affairs, Charles Hollinshead, said activities subject to possible funding cuts after Oct. 1 would be “things we can cut that 

don’t impact the launch schedule [for expendable rockets] or Space Shuttle preparations.” (Today, June 3/77, 16A) 

June 4: The NY Times reported that the General Accounting Office, 

Congress’s investigative arm, had told the lawmakers to consider delaying completion of the Space Shuttle fleet, originally planned to include 

five ships. Two had been built so far. GAO said Congress should go 

ahead will building a third Shuttle but should put off construction of the 

other two until “there is sufficient confidence in the shuttle development 

104 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JUNE 

program and more information is available on the space transportation 

system operations cost and plans for future space activity.” 

Today noted that this report was “the most sweepingly and harshly 

critical” of a number of negative assessments of the Shuttle issued by 

GAO. Among its charges were that the Shuttle would cause sonic booms 

over Calif. and Fla. upon landing; that its tires would blow out and cause 

a crash when it tried to land; that it could make too few orbits; that there 

was no proof it would reduce the costs of carrying cargoes into space; 

and that hardly anyone would want to use its services except DOD and 

NASA itself. GAO pointed out that other nations, led by Japan, had 

been developing their own launch vehicles and were likely to use them instead of paying to use the Shuttle; it also said NASA had erred in setting 

its fees low to encourage users to change over from expendable launchers. NASA’s plan to recover expenses later, when costs had fallen with increased use, might never be possible, the GAO said. 

Former NASA administrator James C. Fletcher said he disagreed with 

most of GAO’s comments: NASA would solve the technical problems as 

it had solved others, he said, and delaying acquisition of the fourth and 

fifth Shuttles would be wasteful. “If they are procured while tooling and 

assembly lines are in place, they unquestionably can be procured at far 

less cost than would be incurred by delay.” A 3-yr delay would run up the 

program cost by from $3 billion to $4.5 billion, he said. (NYT, June 

5/77, 43; Today, June 4/77, 8A) 

The NY Times reported that a new USAF A-10 antitank attack jet 

crashed June 3 at the Paris Air and Space Show, killing Howard W. 

Nelson, chief test pilot for Fairchild Industries. Nelson, who had flown 

105 missions during the Korean War and had over 10 OOOhr total flight 

time, had flown 5OOhr in A-10s; he was over the runway and hit the 

plane’s tail on the ground in view of his wife and thousands of spectators. 

No one else was injured. This was the 6th crash in 12yr at these shows, 

held yearly to exhibit the latest aircraft to the world market; at the 1973 

show, a Soviet Tupolev SST jetliner had crashed into a group of houses 

near the field killing 5 crewmembers and 8 residents. 

A Fairchild spokesman said the USAF would set up a board to investigate the crash. The USAF had bought 30 A-10s at $4 million each, 

and a squadron of these was scheduled to go into operation June 10 at 

Myrtle Beach AFB, S.C. This was the first major accident since the A-10 

was first flown in 1972. (NYT, June 4/77, 3; Today, June 4/77, 8A) 

June 6: MSFC announced that SPAR IV, fourth of the space-processing 

applications rockets, would be launched June 21 carrying four experiments including a new acoustic-levitation device for containerless 

processing and a device to magnify in-flight photographs of the materials 

105 
JUNE ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

being processed. Principal investigators would be Dr. Taylor Wang of 

JPL, using acoustic pressure to handle a drop of water without touching 

it; Dr. Donald Uhlman and Dr. Bennett Joiner of MIT, studying 

solidification of 7 different materials in low gravity; Dr. John Papazian 

of Grumman Aerospace, studying castings produced in low gravity; and 

Dr. Arthur Lord of Drexel Univ. with Jerry Wouch of General Electric, 

using the electromagnetic levitator to make an alloy in low-g and study 

its properties. (MSFC Release 77-80) 

INTELSAT announced it had awarded to Miteq Inc., Happauge, NY, 

a $34 800 contract for up-converter and down-converter units to be used 

with time-division multiple-access test-bed equipment. (INTELSAT 

Release 77-13-M) 

0 The Natl. Space Development Agency of Japan had decided to build a 

third version of its N launch vehicle before the mid-l980s, AvWk 

reported. The N-3 would be able to put into synchronous orbit a payload 

weighing 500kg (more than 1OOOlb). N-1, first of the series, had used a 

liquid-propellant first stage like that in the McDonnell Douglas Delta, 

with three Nissan-designed strap-on motors instead of the 9 on the Delta. 

(Av Wk, June 6/77, 203) 

June 7: The NY Times reported that Dr. Robert A. Frosch, testifying at 

the Senate hearing on confirmation of his nomination as NASA administrator, had told the committee that no U.S. manned landing on 

Mars could occur before 1990. If NASA had an operating Space Shuttle 

by 1980 that could be used to assemble a vehicle in space and to store the 

fuel needed for a trip to Mars, work on a manned Mars ship could begin 

in 1984 or 1985 at the earliest, Frosch said, with completion a year or two 

later. (NYT, June 7/77, 13) 

The Chicago Tribune reported that A. Thomas Young, NASA’s head 

of lunar and planetary programs, had presented to the Washington, 

D.C. meeting of the Am. Geophysical Union a planetary-exploration 

plan to launch two roving vehicles to Mars in 1984, a possible robotvehicle landing on Mercury, and flights to Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, 

Halley’s Comet, and four asteroids. The plan also included launch of 

automated ships to Mars in 1990 to collect samples of rock and soil and 

return them to earth. (C Trib, June 7/77, 4-16) 

June 8: NASA announced it had published a book, Space Settlements: A 

Design Study (NASA SP-413), describing construction and operation of 

permanent settlements in space where up to “lO,OOO people work, raise 

families, and live out their lives.” The 185p volume contained results of a 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JUNE 

10-wk study in 1975 sponsored by NASA and the Am. SOC. of Engineer- , 

ing Education at ARC and Stanford Univ. Chapter topics included 

physical properties of space, human needs in space, habitat design, space 

manufacturing, agriculture, and settlement locations. Concluding that 

permanent communities could be built and inhabited away from earth, 

the report said the obstacles to further expansion of human frontiers 

were “principally philosophical, political, and social rather than 

technical.” (NASA Release 77-1 18) 

The Wall St Journal reported that the government of France had announced plans for a major overhaul of its “financially troubled 

aerospace industry,” that would include partial nationalization of Avions 

Marcel Dassault-Breguet, maker of the Mirage jet fighter. A sharp drop 

in orders for civilian and military aircraft had forced companies to 

dismiss workers and cut down operations; the government hoped to introduce new products, step up sales, and increase cooperation with other 

European aircraft firms. ( WSJ, June 9/77, 13) 

June 10: ARC announced that a team of scientists using the 91cm (36in) 

infrared telescope on the Kuiper Airborne Observatory and the groundbased 230cm (9Oin) infrared telescope at Steward Observatory, Univ. of 

Arizona, had made the first discovery of planet formation in process and 

the first identification of a flat disc-shaped luminous stellar object. The 

object, MWC 349 in the constellation Cygnus, exhibited a surrounding 

mass of intensely glowing gas with a diameter 20 times that of the central 

body, emitting 10 times as much light; the luminous area would disappear in about a century as disc material spun into the central body. The 

find had been significant because it might show how planets had been 

formed in earth’s solar system. 

Members of the team were Drs. Rodger Thompson and Peter 

Strittmatter of the Steward Observatory, and Drs. Edwin Erickson, Fred 

Witteborn, and D.W. Strecker, all of ARC. Infrared instruments could 

view the object through dust shrouding the disc: the Kuiper telescope had 

detected infrared spectra that could not penetrate earth’s atmosphere, 

and the Steward telescope could offer higher resolution. (ARC Release 

77-33; NASA Release 77-119; NYT, June 16/77, A21; W Post, June 

16/77, B-11) 

NASA announced that the first manned test flights of the Shuttle orbiter Enterprise would begin at DFRC about June 16. In these captive 

flights (phase 2 of Shuttle approach and landing tests) all orbiter systems 

would be ON to verify crew procedures and determine the best separation profile for upcoming manned free flights. In the initial phase that 

ended Mar. 2, the orbiter fastened to its Boeing 747 carrier had made five 
JUNE ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

captive inert (unma&ed) flights at DFRC to check out its systems; in 

phase 2, the orbiter would make four flights still attached to the 747 but 

with crew aboard to check flutter, steering, and other performance 

items. (NASA Release 77-1 17) 

0 Two main items in NASA’s $4 billion budget request for FY 1978- 

the Jupiter-orbiter mission and the Space Telescope- had met with 

strong opposition in Congress, John Noble Wilford reported in the NY 

Times. The items were two of three major new starts sought by the agency; the third, a new earth resources monitoring spacecraft (Landsat-C), 

had not been opposed, nor had additional funding for Space Shuttle 

development. 

NASA officials had not expected opposition to the Jupiter project, 

which had the endorsement of numerous scientists and the White House 

and had been authorized for eventual development by both houses of 

Congress. However, Rep. Edward P. Boland (D-Mass) had persuaded 

the House appropriations subcommittee on independent agencies, which 

he chaired, to block funds for the Jupiter project in view of charges by 

many astronomers that NASA had spent “a disproportionate level” of its 

funds on planetary science rather than on deep-space astronomy, which 

would be the aim of the Space Telescope. The House Appropriations 

Committee had followed suit and the full House was expected to vote accordingly. 

NASA had concentrated &s Jupiter appeal on the Senate appropriations subcommittee headed by Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis), longtime 

critic of NASA spending, who had nevertheless been impressed by JPL 

officials who argued that the Jupiter project should receive immediate 

funding because of a favorable launch situation due in 1982 when Jupiter 

would be relatively close to earth, which would not occur again until 

1987. Without the new start, JPL would have to lay off 300 to 400 scientists and engineers because it would have no missions beyond the launch 

of two Voyagers this summer. If the Senate should approve the Jupiter 

project and reject the telescope, a conference committee would have to 

settle the matter; NASA might have to choose between the two projects, 

or to start both with greatly reduced first-year funding, Wilford noted. 

(NYT, June 10/77, A-17; Nature, June 23/77, 659) 

June 11: A new estimate of the cost of building three more Shuttle orbiters might run as high as $600 million apiece, Thomas O’Toole 

reported in the W Post. NASA had told Congress 3mo ago that the remaining Shuttles would cost $550 million apiece; the increase had 

resulted from the rising price-of aluminum and titanium, the two key 

metals in Shuttle construction. NASA had bought the materials for two 

108 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JUNE 

vehicles 3yr ago when prices were lower but had held off buying for the 

last three. 

Only one of the five Shuttles presently proposed had been completed, 

at a cost of about $500 million. A second being assembled at the 

Rockwell Intl. plant in Palmdale, Calif., would cost just over $500 

million. Christopher C. Kraft, Jr., director of JSC (the Shuttle-, 

management center), said that NASA expected “by the end of this month 

a new proposal from Rockwell for the last three spacecraft. . . . I don’t 

know how much Rockwel19s going to suggest but they’re for sure going to 

cost more than the last estimate we got.” 

NASA had hoped Congress would approve starting construction of 

the third Shuttle before the end of 1977. This vehicle was to be sent to 

Vandenberg AFB in March 1982 for Pentagon use. The fate of the last 

two Shuttles was not certain, since GAO had told Congress to delay further action on them. NASA and the USAF had expressed concern that 

delay would mean not only the shutdown around the country of contractor and subcontractor work forces that would be both difficult and 

costly to reestablish, but also further and more rapid escalation of prices: 

OToole quoted a NASA estimate that a 2yr delay would boost to about 

$1 billion the price of each Shuttle affected. (WPost, June 11/77, A-2) 

The NY Times reported that ERDA’s Sandia Laboratories in N.M. 

had produced the first fusion neutrons in the U.S. by firing a high-energy 

electron beam at pellets of heavy hydrogen. Use of electron beams was a 

late development in the search for economical methods of fusion-energy 

release. Existing atomic-energy plants had operated by fission, or the 

splitting of large atoms; fusion would squeeze small atoms to make 

heavier ones. Each reaction would convert a small amount of matter into 

large amounts of energy. Whereas fission generally used uranium, a 

relatively scarce material, fusion could use the heavy form of hydrogen 

called deuterium abundant in sea water. The process used at Sandia had 

differed from that used by researchers at Moscow’s Kurchatov Inst. who 

last year reported success in releasing fusion energy. (NYT, June 11/77, 

22; ERDA Release 77-99) 

June Z2: A new $1.6-million infrared telescope with a 92-in-dia. mirror 

(the world’s largest) to be installed soon in an observatory atop 9656-ft 

Jelm Mt. in Wyo. would be sensitive enough to measure the heat of a 

warm iron on the moon, according to Today newspaper. Professors 

Robert Gehrz and John Hackwell of the Univ. of Wyo. had supervised 

design of the telescope, which would incorporate a sensor also of their 

design: a computerized device sensing heat energy collected by the large 

mirror and converting it to an infrared contour chart depicting heat intensity as a topographical contour map would depict terrain. Jelm Mt. 

109 
JUNE ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

was considered the best site for the observatory because of the low water 

vapor in the area, a requirement for good IR reception. The two den- ’ 

tists had persuaded the state legislature of Wyo. in 1975 to appropriate 

$975 OOO for the project; remaining funds had come from the Natl. 

Science Foundation. (Today, June 12/77, 12A) 

June 13: NASA announced it had awarded Boeing Commercial Airplane 

Co., Seattle, Wash., a $1.7-million contract for work on control 

technology for the Boeing 747 civil-transport aircraft, part of a program 

to increase fuel efficiency of future aircraft by up to 50%. Work would 

include design, wind-tunnel tests, and evaluation of modifications such 

as winglets, wingtip extensions, and active controls for load maneuvers, 

gust alleviation, and suppression of structural vibrations. LaRC would 

manage the contract for work to be done within 2yr at the Boeing plant 

in Seattle. (NASA Release 77-120; LaRC Release 77-25) 

0 INTELSAT announced that the Republic of Chad had become the 

96th member of the organization, and the 23rd from Africa. The INTELSAT operating agreement had been signed June 9 by the Societe de 

Telecommunications Internationales du Chad. (INTELSAT Release 

77-14-1) 

0 NOAA reported it had used two of its operational environmental 

satellites with NASA’s Landsat 2 to obtain imagery that could give early 

warning of river ice melts causing ice jams and flooding. David F. 

McGinnis, Jr., and Stanley R. Schneider of NOAA’s Natl. Environmental Satellite Service (NESS) had studied the Ottawa River separating 

Quebec and Ontario provinces and joining the St. Lawrence River below 

Ottawa and Montreal over 12 days in April 1976 to find which sections 

were covered with ice. By the end of the period, all but three of the 14 

sections studied had been free of obstructing ice. Disappearance of ice 

monitored by the team in the Chaudiere River of SW Quebec had 

resulted from hydraulic transport rather than melting, which had occurred in the Ottawa River because of the blocking effect of dams, 

islands, and sharp bends in the river. (NOAA Release 77-145) 

The Energy Research and Development Administration reported that 

its scientists had deveIoped a new way to reclaim used automotive oils, 

removing solid and liquid impurities in a solvent-and-distillz@ion treatment. After heating the used oil to drive off volatile hydrocarbons and 

water, the process would add a solvent to make sludge of the contaminants; the remaining oil would go through normal processes of 

distillation, improvement of color and odor, and reformulation with ad110 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 JUNE 

ditives. Iowa State Univ. had run a vehicle-fleet test for more than lOmo 

using the re-refined oils with no abnormal wear or performance; the 

product had not generated polluting byproducts. Most commercial rerefining had used an acid-based technology producing wastes more 

polluting than the used oil itself. (ERDA Release 77-14) 

0 ERDA announced that the world’s largest aircraft would airlift one of 

the heaviest loads ever transported by air June 19 when a USAF C-5 

Galaxy carried a U.S.-built 40-ton magnet from Chicago to Moscow for 

tests of an experimental magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) process for 

generating electricity. The USSR’s U-25 facility near Moscow, operated 

by the Soviet Institute for High Temperatures, was the largest MHD test 

facility in the world. Dr. William D. Jackson, head of ERDA’s MHD 

program, said that using the Soviet plant would speed commercialization 

of the process in the U.S. at reduced cost to the American public. The 

magnet would aid in tests conducted jointly for about 2yr under the 

U.S.-USSR Energy Agreement of 1974. (ERDA Release 77-100) 

0 The new administration of President Carter would not initiate a working Landsat earth resources monitoring system until it found out how 

much money Landsat data users would invest in such a system, Av Wk 

reported. The president’s science adviser Frank Press, director of the 

White House office of science and technology policy, would set up a 

committee to study the user-cost question. Press had told the Senate subcommittee on science, technology, and space that it would be “premature 

to commit the federal government” to support of an operational system 

because of many uncertainties about remote sensing; he said that 

development of a sector to be served by Landsat data had not evolved “as 

rapidly as some anticipated several years ago,” and that “no comprehensive assessment” had been made “of the overall market structure for 

Landsat data applications. . . .” 

The subcommittee was considering a bill cosponsored by Sen. Wendell 

H. Ford (D-Ky) and former astronaut Sen. Harrison M. Schmitt (R-NM) 

that would establish an operational Landsat system, the space segment to 

be run by NASA and the ground data distribution by the Dept. of the Interior. Av Wk noted, however, that the Interior testimony had been 

altered at the last minute to deny support of the bill. (Av Wk, June 13/77, 

91) 

June 14: NASA annaunced that, because of recent flight and checkout 

problems, it had revised the launch schedule of its Delta rockets: GOESB, June 16; GMS (Japan’s meteorological satellite), July 14; Sirio (Italian 

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JUNE ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

comsat), Aug. 11; OTS/ESA (comsat), Sept. 8; ISEE-A/B, Oct. 13; 

Meteosat (ESA metesat), Nov. 3; and CS (Japanese comsat), Dec. 12. 

(NASA Release 77-123) 

* NASA announced that LaRC had undertaken a program called 

CLASS (cargo logistics airlift-systems study) to see whether tailoring an 

advanced air freighter design to an integrated transportation system 

could mean air-cargo growth and higher carrier profits. NASA had 

negotiated twin study contracts with Lockheed-Georgia Co. and with 

Douglas Aircraft Co. to survey air-cargo operations at major airports; to 

estimate present and future air-cargo demand, based on shipper response 

to reduced cost and improved service; and to study the need for improved efficiency in air-cargo operations, and for research and technology to 

support the design of future cargo aircraft. The studies had begun June 1 

and would continue for 1 lmo. LaRC would exchange information in the 

study with government and industry organizations including the Dept. of 

Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration, Dept. of Defense, and 

private companies such as airframe manufacturers, air shippers, commercial airlines, and freight forwarders. (NASA Release 77-122; LaRC 

Release 77-26) 

June 16: Rockwell Intl.'s B-1 division announced it had made significant 

savings in awarding a contract to Honeywell Inc.'s avionics division for 

equipment to test electronic systems on the USAF B-1 strategic bomber. 

B-1 division president Bastian Hello said the new equipment would use 

large amounts of off-the-shelf items and would be able to test a wide 

range of systems supplied by Rockwell, Boeing, and the AIL division of 

Cutler Hammer. The contract would direct Boeing and AIL to get test 

equipment from Honeywell under separate purchasing agreements. 

Rockwell should receive first deliveries of the equipment in 1978. The 

USAF would use the test equipment to maintain B-1 operations; Boeing 

(offensive-avionics integrator) and AIL (defensive-avionics contractor) 

would use the equipment in supplying electronic instruments to the program. (Rockwell Release LA-6) 

June 16-Aug. 18: NASA launched Goes2, second in a series of geostationary operational environmental satellites, from the Eastern Test 

Range at 6:51am EDT June 16 on a Delta vehicle into a transfer orbit. 

On second apogee the boost motor fired at 11:26pm EDT to put the 

spacecraft in a nominal orbit where it would move to a position specified 

by NOAA at 75"W, and be turned over to NOAA for operations in 

about 30 days. Orbital elements were 36 859km apogee, 188.6km 

perigee, 23.7" inclination, and 651.8-min period. 

NASA announced on Aug. 18 that it had turned Goes2 over to NOAA 

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ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JUNE 

for operational use on July 29 at 16002. NASA engineers had completed 

a planned orbital checkout to ensure proper operation, having moved the 

satellite to 66.5”W over the equator where most of the tests occurred. Of 

the original 801b of hydrazine carried for stationkeeping, more than 671b 

remained unused. The engineers had found minor problems in the datahandling equipment used to reliiy signals from earth-based datacollection platforms, and in the x-ray section of the solar-environment 

monitor; the data-collection problem had resulted from interference by 

VHF equipment that could be turned off for most of the mission, but the 

x-ray problem arose from faulty cabling that might require more calibrations. Goes 2 was officially certified as successful on Aug. 5-15, having 

achieved its mission objectives. (MOR E-608-77-05 [postlaunch] June 

20/77, [postlaunch] Aug 18/77) 

June Z7: NASA announced that preparations at KSC for launching the 

Space Shuttle had required only two new major constructions: an 

orbiter-landing facility, one of the largest runways in the world (roughly 

twice as long and twice as wide as an average commercial landing strip), 

with a microwave scanning-beam landing system to assist the orbiter to 

an automatic landing; and a large hangar called the “orbiter processing 

facility” with two high bays for checking out and servicing the orbiters 

immediately after landing. 

Existing facilities modified for Shuttle use were the Vehicle Assembly 

Building, 2 of its 4 high bays being altered for Shuttle assembly, and the 

launch-control center being equipped with an automated launchprocessing system developed for Shuttle checkout and launch, using a 

tenth of the manpower for Shuttle that had been used for Apollo: 45 persons, compared to more than 450. Final countdown for Shuttle launches 

would take only 2.5hr compared to the 28hr needed in countdown for an 

Apollo/Saturn V. Much of the work had been completed, NASA 

reported, and the eventual cost of the modifications would be about $240 

million, less than a fourth of the 1960s cost of building the Spaceport for 

Apollo. (NASA Release 77-124) 

MSFC announced it had awarded to Contractors Cargo Co., South 

Gate, Calif., a $227 120 fixed-price contract for moving the Space Shuttle orbiter Enterprise eight separate times during its testing at MSFC in 

1978. Now in the midst of approach and landing tests (ALT) at DFRC, 

Enterprise would fly on its Boeing 747 carrier to MSFC on March 17, 

1978, to be mated with an external tank and solid-fuel rocket boosters 

and erected on a dynamic test stand for vertical ground-vibration testing. 

The contract called for design, testing, and delivery to MSFC of an orbiter ground-transporter to travel about 6 km between the airfield and 

113 
JUNE! ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

the pretest-preparation building, a trip to be completed within 2hr on 

March 18, 1978. 

The “prime mover,” a 480-hp tractor with 10 wheels, would be attached to 2 rear dollies each having 32 wheels and a forward dolly with 16 

wheels. The segments would be joined by a “strongback” construction, 

and the entire rig would weigh about 24 OOOkg (52 9001b). Length of the 

transporter would be nearly 50m (about 16Oft), the width of about 24m 

would accommodate the orbiter’s wingspan, and the height from ground 

to top of a vertical stabilizer would be about 16m (about 54ft). For an 

operating demonstration before the arrival of the orbiter at MSFC, the 

transporter would carry a weightload of nearly 100 Owkg (220 0001b), 

half again the weight of the orbiter. Contractors Cargo was the same 

firm that had moved Enterprise from the Rockwell plant at Palmdale, 

Calif., to DFRC in Jan. 1977. (MSFC Release 77-106) 

Dr. Robert A. Frosch, awaiting confirmation as NASA’s fifth administrator, probably had “more experience in research administration” 

than any of his predecessors in that position, Science magazine said. The 

article pointed out that Dr. Frosch-former assistant secretary of the 

Navy for research and development, former assistant executive director 

of the UN environmental program, former associate director of the 

Woods Hole Facility, and director at age 28 of Columbia Univ.’s Hudson 

Laboratories - had been stressing science in his initial public statements. 

“I’d like to be remembered as the guy who was able to help NASA imagine new uses for space and aeronautics and who helped the agency do 

good science,” Frosch told Science in an interview. 

The magazine noted, however, that the new administrator would take 

office at a time when Congress was cutting NASA projects and taking 

the agency “completely by surprise.” NASA had enjoyed good relations 

with the chairman and ranking minority member of the Senate committee authorizing NASA programs, who were also ex officio members of 

the appropriations committee; but the old authorizing committee had 

been dismantled, and NASA had come under the jurisdiction of a subcommittee of the Senate commerce committee headed by Sen. Adlai E. 

Stevenson (D-Ill). Also, aside from his introduction to the president (“He 

sure gives a tough job interview,” Frosch said), the new administrator 

had not been dealing with the president or his immediate staff. Overall 

administration attitude toward the space agency was a big unknown, the 

magazine stated, and rumors had been circulating that NASA would be 

taken over by the Commerce Dept. or the Dept. of Defense, although a 

spokesman for Carter’s government reorganization chief had denied the 

rumors. Although Dr. Frosch might preside over a stronger science program for NASA, the article concluded, he might also preside over a 

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ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JUNE 

change in the agency to “some new, perhaps unrecognizable form.” 

(Science, June 17/77, 1301) 

Newspapers and news services reported the death June 16 of Dr. 

Wernher von Braun, 65, former director of NASA’s Marshall Space 

Flight Center, whose name had become synonymous with “America in 

space” when the team he headed used a Jupiter-C rocket developed by 

him for the U.S. Army to launch Explorer I, the western world‘s first 

earth satellite, on Jan. 31, 1958. Dr. von Braun had undergone surgery in 

1975; he had spent most of his time since Oct. 1976 in the hospital. 

Dr. von Braun, an enthusiast of space travel and astronomy from his 

childhood in East Prussia (now part of Poland), in his early teens came 

across a picture of a rocket traveling to the moon that illustrated an article by Hermann Oberth, pioneer rocket theorist who later was part of the 

von Braun team at Huntsville, Ala. When von Braun obtained Oberth’s 

book on rocketry, he realized he would need mathematics to progress in 

his studies, and went on to obtain a doctorate in physics from the Univ. 

of Berlin in 1934 at the age of 22 with a thesis on rocket engines. 

He had continued his interest in the amateur Society for Space Travel 

(Verein fur Raumschiffahrt, VfR) whose rocket experiments impressed 

the German army seeking weapons not forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. Employed by the ordnance department 

after 1934, von Braun had continued his work with rockets, up to the 

success of the V-2 used against Britain, until 1945. The von Braun team 

at Peenemunde then decided to go south and surrender to U.S. forces 

rather than be captured by the Soviet army. About 120 of von Braun’s 

associates were taken with him to the U.S. in Operation Paperclip to 

demonstrate their achievements with captured V-2 rockets. The group 

went to the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal in 1950 to work on a ballistic 

rocket called Redstone. When Sputnik I went into orbit in 1957 and the 

Navy’s Vanguard rocket blew up on its pad, a version of von Braun’s 

Redstone called Jupiter-C (Juno 1) put Explorer I into orbit for the U.S. 

in 1958, and another version carried Alan B. Shepard, Jr., on the first 

U.S. suborbital flight in 1961. Weeks later, when President Kennedy 

called for a moon landing within the decade, von Braun got the task of 

creating the rocket; his Saturn V won the race to put a man on the 

moon’s surface in 1969. 

When NASA was established in 1958, Dr. von Braun and his team had 

transferred to that agency from the army and he had become director of 

the Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Ala. After the moon 

landings, Dr. von Braun went to NASA Hq in 1970 as deputy associate 

administrator to promote post-Apollo space activities for the U.S. But 

public interest and support had declined, and Dr. von Braun resigned in 

May 1972 to become vice president for engineering and development at 

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JUNE ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Dr. Wernher von Braun, director of MSFC, photographed in 1969 near the actual 

Saturn V rocket AS-506 that would launch the first U.S. astronauts to the moon. 

(MSFC 9-00841) 

Fairchild Industries, Inc. In 1975 he founded and became first president 

of the Natl. Space Institute, a private group to increase public understanding and support of space activities; in 1976, when illness overtook 

him, he remained chairman and was actN in formulating policy. He had 

resigned from Fairchild late in 1976, effective in Jan. 1977. 

At a memorial service June 22 in Washington Cathedral, tributes came 

from former astronaut Michael Collins; Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, longtime 

associate of von Braun in development of rockets; and Dr. James C. 

Fletcher, former NASA administrator. An editorial in the W Post that 

described Dr. von Braun as “an American national hero in the 1960s 

after being an American national enemy in the 1940s” said that his life 

116 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JUNE 

should be judged “as one of the new breed of international scientists . . . You can think of him as a hired gun if you like. But you can also think of 

him as he apparently thought of himself - as a man indentured only to a 

dream . . . And, unlike most of us, he saw a large part of it come true.” 

(MSFC Release 77-1 11; AP wire service obit, June 17/77, nos. 17 & 20; 

WStar, June 17/77, A-1; NYT, June 18/77,1; WPost, June 18/77, A7; 

June 23/77, C11, A24 (ed); C Trib, June 18/77, 1; Today? June 18/77, 

1A; June 23/77, 8A) 

9 FBIS carried an announcement by Tass that the USSR had launched 

“this morning” the French satellite Signe 3, product of a 2yr collaboration between the Toulouse Space Research Center and the USSR’s Space 

Research Inst. of the Academy of Sciences. The spacecraft had carried 

French-made instruments to observe ultraviolet emission from the sun; 

objective of the mission was to continue study of “already discovered 

sources of gamma radiation in galaxies and also to replenish the catalog 

of stars.” The announcement said that originally the French were to 

design the spacecraft and provide the equipment, while the USSR ensured launch; however, “the Soviet colleagues suggested so many design 

novelties . . . that it is actually more correct to regard the Signe 3 as a 

Soviet-French satellite,” according to French project director Antoine 

Miosi. This launch had begun a second decade of USSR-French cooperation in space exploration: Soviet spacecraft had carried French-made instruments, and the French Araks experiment had orbited a Soviet electron accelerator to study polar lights. (FBIS, Tass in English, June 

17/77) 

June 19: The moon landing effort was possible only because the U.S. had 

laid the basic theoretical groundwork in the 1940s and 1950s, the WPost 

reported, quoting Richard C. Atkinson, new head of the Natl. Science 

Foundation. The man who “probably controls more basic research 

spending than anyone else in the world” said that Americans should not 

hope science would come up with an overnight solution to the energy 

crisis that would preserve their current lifestyle - “Science just doesn’t 

operate with those turnaround times,” he said. The fact that many people 

expected such solutions indicated “a basic incomprehension of what 

science is all about,” an ironic byproduct of the mind-boggling scientific 

achievement in the past 2Oyr. “After Sputnik . , . there was a big rush to 

catch up here . . . They put in a lot of high-powered curricula . . Now 

we have a small core of students really well educated in science and a 

huge group that just [drops out] . . . Those people never have any exposure again. Even college graduates now are really poorly informed on 

science matters.” 

Liberal education, Atkinson said, should include solid grounding in 

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JUNE ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

basic sciences so that citizens could understand issues like the fate of 

nuclear reactors and the gene-manufacturing possibilities of recombinant 

DNA. “I worry,” he said, “that the nation may turn to applied research 

so strongly that it neglects basic research, and basic research remains our 

fundamental commitment.” ( W Post, June 19/77, C-4) 

June 19-20: Newspapers carried reports of the first manned flight of the 

Space Shuttle orbiter Enterprise June 18, riding piggyback on its Boeing 

747 transport during the 54-min trip over DFRC, and carried to a landing. The orbiter, designed for reuse as many as 100 times, remained attached to its carrier by 3 struts, two aft and one on the nose, for its investigation of structural flutter on the craft’s brakes and flaps. Flying 

under the control of JSC in Houston, the two astronauts (Fred W. Haise, 

the civilian commander, and rookie USAF Lt. Col. Charles Gordon 

Fullerton) rode the piggyback craft to 15 0o0ft at 209mph for most of the 

flight. 

Earlier unmanned tests of the piggyback orbiter in Feb. and March 

had gone smoothly; since then, engineers had installed control systems, 

guidance instruments, and power units whose repeated malfunctions had 

delayed the manned tests originally scheduled to begin May 26. The June 

18 test had been delayed for 24hr by problems with the entry hatch and 

by the failure of guidance-system computers. The astronauts reported 

trouble with a cabin-pressure valve and with radio communications, and 

said they had experienced more airframe surface noise than expected. 

NASA had scheduled a second “manned inert” test for June 28, with the 

first free flight set for late July or early Aug. ( W Star, June 19/77, A-6; 

C Trib, June 19/77, 1-3; NYT, June 19/77, 19; W Post, June 19/77, 

A-18; June 20/77, A-6) 

June 20: JSC announced it had signed a $40 million letter contract with 

Rockwell Intl. Corp. Space Division for modifications to the first Space 

Shuttle orbiter Enterprise and for starting design of a third orbiter. 

Funded in part by the Economic Stimulus Bill, the contract had been 

directed at generating more employment opportunities. (JSC Release 

77-37) 

0 JSC announced it had signed a supplemental agreement with Rockwell 

Intl. Corp. Space Division deleting two items from the Space Shuttle orbiter contract: a neutral-buoyance trainer, and vibroacoustic tests on the 

aft fuselage of the orbiter. This work had been scheduled for Rockwell’s 

plant in Downey, Calif., with support from JSC and KSC field offices. 

The decrease of $25 334 750 had lowered the value of the cost-plusaward-fee contract with Rockwell to $3 013 971 603. (JSC Release 

77-38) 

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ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JUNE 

*Av Wk reported that the USSR and France had agreed on a joint mission to Venus in 1983 for which France would design a balloon 26 to 30ft 

in diameter to float in the planet’s atmosphere for up to l0hr collecting 

data, and the USSR would design an orbiter weighing more than 60kg 

(13221b). Jacques Blamont, chief scientist for the French space agency 

CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales), said a Soviet mission 

planned for Venus next year would also carry French multiwavelength 

ultraviolet spectrometers on at least two spacecraft scheduled for flybys. 

(Av Wk, June 201’77, 27) 

June 21: JPL announced that NASA had followed its recommendation 

and selected a 12-bladed spinning solar sail spacecraft as a candidate for 

the automated interplanetary shuttle to be used within earth’s solar 

system in the 1980s and beyond. Also known as a heliogyro, the set of extremely long blades or sails made of reflective aluminized plastic would 

be deployed in two tiers of six each by centrifugal force after its 

spacecraft had been launched from the Space Shuttle late in 1981. The 

spacecraft and its scientific payload, mounted at the center of the 

heliogyro, would be propelled by photon radiation from the sun to rotate 

once every 3min. The spinning-sail concept had been chosen by program 

engineers and designers for development as being more feasible than a 

square-sail concept that would have used an 850sq.m (half-mile square) 

sail configuration. NASA would choose in mid-Aug. between the 

heliogyro and a proposed ion-drive (solar-electric propulsion) spacecraft 

for a Halley’s Comet mission in 1986. JPL had been working with other 

NASA centers and a dozen industrial and research groups on parallel efforts to develop low-thrust long-life spacecraft for the 1980s. (JPL 

Release 826) 

June 22: MSFC announced it had received 26 proposals from researchers 

in the U.S., the U.K., and Italy for cloud-physics experiments to be performed on Spacelab. Cloud-physics research would try to explain cloud 

formation and release of precipitation. Preventing or limiting the effects 

of adverse weather such as severe storms or floods would enable man to 

avoid yearly losses of lives, property, and agricultural crops. MSFC 

teams would evaluate the proposals from engineering, management, 

cost, and scientific peer group standpoints; in July NASA would select 

experiments that would fly in 1980 or 1981. (MSFC Release 77-1 14) 

MSFC announced it had successfully tested the recovery system for the 

Shuttle solid-fuel rocket boosters June 15 at the Natl. Parachute Test 

Range. Engineers had used an SRB simulator, a drop-test vehicle 

weighing more than 21 773kg (48 0001b) released from beneath the wing 

of a B-52 aircraft at a speed of about 85 meters per sec (190mph) and an 

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JUNE ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

altitude of about 5500m (18 OOOft). Primary purpose of this test was to 

measure the maximum load on the drogue chute that would open first to 

stabilize the vehicle and pull out the other chutes. The measured load, 

about 114 OOOkg (a quarter of a million lb), was about that expected. The 

next test, scheduled for late July or early Aug., would measure loads on 

the other parachutes. Each Shuttle launch would use two SRBs, jettisoned at about 43km (27mi) altitude to descend by parachute into the 

ocean and be towed to shore for reuse. (MSFC Release 77-115) 

June 23: The USAF launched the Navy's navigation technology satellite 

Nts 2 from Vandenberg AFB on an Atlas F booster into a 12hr circular 

orbit of 63" inclination at about 11 6OOmi altitude. First of a system to be 

called NavStar, the Nts 2 carried two cesium-beam time standards 

(atomic clocks) to produce precise time signals and 14 solar-cell experiments for its builder, the Naval Research Laboratory. The jointservice NavStar system upon completion would consist of 24 satellites (8 

in each of 3 circular-orbit planes) to provide users with longitude, 

latitude, and altitude information around the clock in any weather. It 

would give a customer his location within 33ft, his speed within about 

4in/sec, and the correct time. Uses of NavStar would include tacticalmissile navigation and precision delivery of weapons; aid to space, air, 

land, and sea travel; grid mapping and geodetic surveys; aerial rendezvous and refueling; and search-and-rescue operations. The USAF had 

announced plans to launch five of its own satellites later in 1977 and 1978 

for NavStar testing. (D/SBD, June 20/77,279; June 27177,320; A v Wk, 

Oct 11/76, 47; NRL Release 20-7-77C; AQC Newsreview, Aug 77, 3) 

June 24: ComSatCorp (Communications Satellite Corporation) announced that the U.S. Navy's navigation technology satellite launched 

June 23 from Vandenberg AFB had been the first satellite to use a nickelhydrogen battery for energy storage. Nts 2 had carried two 7-cell storage 

batteries said to be rechargeable, highly reliable, and longer-lived than 

the nickel-cadmium batteries used by satellites, having three times the 

amount of energy stored per unit of weight and five times the cyclic 

lifetime of the nickel-cadmium type. The Naval Research Laboratory 

had sponsored development of the new batteries by ComSatCorp 

Laboratories in Clarksburg, Md. (ComSat Release 77-19) 

0 MSFC announced arrival June 24 at the Natl. Space Technology 

Laboratories of a huge steel structure to simulate the Space Shuttle orbiter in main propulsion-test article firings later in 1977. The article 

would include the simulator with an aft fuselage, an external tank, and 

three Shuttle main engines; first test would take place in Dec. The 

simulator, about 29m (95ft) long and weighing about 110 OOOkg 

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ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JUNE 

(243 OOOlb), had moved from the Michoud assembly facility near New 

Orleans to NSTL in Miss. on the barge Pearl River, having traveled from 

Calif. to Michoud via the Panama Canal on the NASA barge Poseidon 

[see May 101. (MSFC Release 77-118; NASA Release 77-132) 

0 NASA announced that Skylab 4 commander Gerald P. Carr would 

leave JSC June 25 to join a Houston firm, Bovay Engineers, Inc. Carr, 

one of 19 astronauts selected in Apr. 1966, had shared a spaceflightduration record of 2017hr (84 days) with Dr. Edward G. Gibson and 

William R. Pogue, and had retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in Sept. 

1975 to become a NASA civilian employee. His departure left 27 

astronauts on the active list at JSC. (NASA Release 77-129) 

June 25: MSFC officials had said the Space Shuttle main engine might 

cost nearly twice the original estimate, Today reported. In 1972 when 

Rockwell’s Rocketdyne Division got the contract to build the engine and 

deliver 24 units, the estimated cost was $500 million; latest estimate was 

$450 million more. Project director James R. Thompson and his deputy 

John Harlow said the increases had resulted not only from design problems and inflation but also from delays and changes ordered by NASA 

and Congress. (Today, June 25/77, 6A) 

June 27: NASA announced a new way to control the flight of its sounding rockets and point their instruments more accurately in astronomical 

and other scientific studies: a small TV camera in the nose cone would 

allow an operator on the ground to remotely aim the onboard attitudecontrol system precisely at the desired stellar object. In the first use of 

“manned” rocket observation Apr. 15 at the White Sands Missile Range, 

N.M., scientists from Johns Hopkins Univ. had made the first sighting 

of a quasar in the ultraviolet spectrum. The quasar (quasi-stellar object, 

a celestial source resembling a star but probably a galaxy) was 3 billion 

light-yr from earth; it was the faintest and most remote object observed 

from above earth’s atmosphere. Dr. Arthur Davidsen of JHU’s department of physics had operated the rocket controls while watching the TV 

screen; his colleagues were Professors William G. Fastie and George 

Hartig. Observations in the ultraviolet range would let scientists compare 

properties of relatively near and more distant quasars. (NASA Release 

77-13 1) 

* The U.S. superconducting magnet flown to a USSR magnetohydrodynamic facility near Moscow [see June 131 had been bolted into place 

June 20, ERDA reported. The successful installation, said Dr. William 

D. Jackson, head of ERDA’s MHD program, was comparable to the 

1975 linking of the Apollo and Soyuz spacecrafts. Final leg of the 

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JUNE ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

magnet’s journey had been a 10-mile trip on a U.S. truck flown in with 

the magnet on a USAF C-5 Galaxy aircraft, escorted to the facility by 

Soviet police. Operation of the system would begin in Oct., and about 20 

U.S. scientists and engineers would take part in the 2yr experiment. 

(ERDA update, June 27/77) 

0 Interest expressed by the USSR in joint development with the U.S. of 

spaceborne systems for navigation, air surveillance, and air-to-ground 

communications had come at an awkward time for the US., AvWk 

reported. Congress earlier in 1977 had killed the Aerosat program to 

launch two air-to-ground comsats sponsored jointly by the FAA and 

ESA with Canadian participation; ESA might seek its own joint effort 

with the USSR. Also, the Dept. of Defense’s NavStar system, designed 

mainly for military navigation users through a secure signal system, had 

offered a “clear” system for civilian use that the DOD had been trying to 

sell to airlines and other potential civilian markets. Soviet officials (who 

had told a visiting delegation from the U.S. radio-technical commission 

for aeronautics that they had been keeping tabs on NavStar development) were apparently more enthusiastic prospects for NavStar than 

U.S. users. (AvWk, June 27/77, 17) 

June 28: NASA announced that the second manned inert flight of the 

Shuttle orbiter Enterprise atop its Boeing 747 carrier, with astronauts Joe 

Engle and Richard Truly at the controls, was so successful that the agency had canceled a fourth test and would limit the captive flights to three. 

The third flight would be put off until July 28 to allow replacement of 

main landing-gear actuators and a leaky power unit, and installation of 

l00gal hydraulic reservoir tanks. The orbiter would remain mated to the 

747 during the work. 

The faulty auxiliary power unit had been activated on schedule about 

16min into the flight; a small leak noticed before the captive-active tests 

had not been thought serious enough to require replacement. After the 

747 had taxied to a ramp area for shutdown, the leak appeared to have 

increased. 

The June 28 test had included tasks originally scheduled for the second 

and third manned tests: low- and high-speed flutter and speed-brake 

evaluations; a separation-maneuver test; and a fly-through of the 

microwave scanning-beam landing system that would guide the orbiter to 

earth in its first free flight. The flutter test had begun about 3min after 

takeoff, moving the control surfaces first of the orbiter, then of the carrier aircraft. The pilots deployed the orbiter’s speed brakes to 60,80, and 

100% open positions, pausing between each setting for rudder-deflection 

test and flight assessment. The high-speed flutter tests at an altitude of 

about 20 OOOft and a speed of 270 knots, followed by speed-brake tests 

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ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JUNE 

between 20 OOO and 16 OOOft, were in the same sequence as the earlier 

tests except that the brake settings were in 10% increments. 

Upon completion of these testsi(34min into the flight) the carrier 

climbed to 20 600ft for a separation data run. “Pushover” occurred at 

43min into the flight; the data run terminated with an “abort separation” 

order at 14 OOOft. The carrier returned to 17 500ft for the automatic flythrough, followed by landing after a total flight time of 63min. 

Early data from this test indicated that separation conditions would be 

satisfactory for free flight; that the mated configuration was flutter-free 

for the flight envelope; and that operating the speed brake would produce no significant buffeting. (Postflight rept, orbiter ALT #7, captiveactive flt #2, June 28/77; W Post, June 29/77, A-3; B Sun, June 29/77, 

3; LA Times, June 29/77,2; W Star, June 29/77,2; Today, June 29/77, 

10A; AvWk, July 4/77, 18) 

June 29: NASA announced the E.S. (Todd) Groo, associate administrator for center operations since 1974, would leave the agency July 

23. Ray Kline would succeed him, remaining assistant administrator for 

institutional management. Deputy NASA Administrator Alan W. 

Lovelace said Groo had benefited the agency by clarifying the missions 

of the field centers and instituting training for future managers. (NASA 

Release 77-134; NASA anno June 29/77) 

June 30: The NY Times reported that a team of two Soviet crewmen, accompanied for a time by a woman plant expert, had completed a 4mO 

stay in an isolation chamber to test an artificial environment designed for 

long interplanetary space missions. The team had breathed oxygen and 

consumed water and food produced by miniature wheatfields and 

vegetable gardens occupying about half the space of their 1260ft2 test 

chamber called Bios 3. The plants, grown by hydroponics (mineralized 

solutions rather than soils), had exuded enough moisture for drinking 

and household needs and had provided a third of the proteins and fats 

and half the carbohydrates in the crew diet, supplemented with 

dehydrated rations of animal fats and proteins stored for the mission. 

The Times quoted an Izvestia story describing the experiment and 

reporting “no significant changes in the physiologic, biochemical and 

psychological functions of the subjects. Their weight has also remained 

virtually the same.” Dr. G. Lisovsky, head of the Controlled Biosynthesis Laboratory of the Krasnoyarsk Physics Inst. in Siberia, said that 

earlier experiments in the series begun shortly after the Gagarin flight of 

1961 had tried chlorellas (green single-cell algae) as a source of protein 

and B-complex vitamins for long space trips. The algae had yielded sufficient oxygen and water but did not provide a balanced diet; researchers 

had then used early-maturing wheat and vegetables. Agronomist Mariya 

123 
JUNE ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Shulenko had done the cooking while checking out the hydroponics; 

after she left, Gennady Asinyarov and Nikolay Bugreyev had shared the 

job. (NYT, June 30/77, 28) 

During June: John F. Yardley, NASA’s associate administrator for space 

flight, was one of 92 persons honored by election to membership in the 

Natl. Academy of Engineering. His citation was for “contributions to 

engineering theory and practice and leadership of organizations that 

pioneered major space programs.” (NAS News Report, June/77, 7) 

0 Nature reported that a May 13 meeting of the Royal Astronomical 

Society in London had discussed Mars’s moons Phobos and Deimos, the 

100th anniversary of whose discovery would occur in Aug. Observations, 

both ground-based and from satellites, had revealed oddities: Phobos, 

the only satellite in earth’s solar system that circled its central body faster 

than that body could spin on its axis, would appear to an observer on the 

planet’s surface to rise in the west and set in the east, whereas its fellow 

Deimos would appear to rise in the east and set in the west like earth’s 

moon. Also, the orbit of Phobos was coming nearer to the surface of 

Mars (a body approaching within 8700km would be pulled apart by differential tidal forces, the article said). A Soviet astrophysicist, I.S. 

Shklovsky, had claimed in the 1950s that the low density of Phobos indicated it was a hollow artificial satellite produced by an advanced 

civilization on Mars. Viking spacecraft images had shown that the moons 

were blackish gray rather than the red of Mars, indicating different composition; astronomer Joe Veverka of Cornel1 Univ. concluded that the 

moons had originated in the asteroid belt. Viking had found that the 

10km-diameter Stickney crater on Phobos covered 40% of the maximum 

diameter of Phobos itself. The two Mars moons had almost identical 

shapes (triaxial ellipsoids) and both rotated synchronously with their orbital periods and their long axes pointing directly at Mars (Nature, June 

30/77, 758) 

0 Reductions made by the House subcommittee on defense appropriations in funding for the defense satellite communications system (DSCS) 

and the USAF/Navy Fleet Satellite Communications (FltSatCom) program would force the DOD to lease its communications channels from 

commercial carriers, A v Wk charged. The subcommittee had eliminated 

the DOD’s entire $60-million request for R&D funds to proceed with a 

contract awarded in Feb. to General Electric for a qualification model 

and two flight-demonstration DSCS-3 satellites. It also had denied 

money for a fourth and fifth FltSatCom satellite to be built under a contract awarded to TRW in 1972; the Navy had been leasing capacity since 

March 1976 on the Marisat system managed by Comsat General. The 

124 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JUNE 

subcommittee, headed by Rep. George Mahon (D-Tex), had advocated 

continued leasing despite DOD testimony that leasing would be more expensive, and had refused the funds requested for two other DOD satellite 

systems: it had rejected outright DOD’s international global-positioning 

system to be built by Rockwell, and had reduced the $83.2 million requested by the USAF for a Hughes-built satellite data system by more 

than half, postponing procurement of a fifth spacecraft. (AvWk, June 

6/77, 60) 

JPL officials were considering an 8mo extension of the Viking mission 

through early 1979, instead of terminating it May 31, 1978, AvWk 

reported. Viking mission director G. Calvin Broome had estimated he 

would need a team of about 180 for a continuation mission; he currently 

had about 300 people working on it, and had had as many as 700 at the 

height of the mission. 

In the extended mission, the two landers would continue 

photographing the sites at Chryse Planitia and Utopia Planitia and 

transmitting data to earth; their biology instruments had been shut down 

earlier [see June 11. The orbiters would also continue to photograph the 

planet, as the flight team had conserved sufficient gas supplies for propulsion and attitude control. (AvWk, June 20/77, 79) 

125 

July 

Jury I: NASA announced it would conduct sounding-rocket tests with 

the USSR Hydromet Service for 2wk in Aug. to compare U.S. and Soviet 

measurements of upper-air temperatures and detect discrepancies in their 

meteorological instruments. NASA would launch a series of rockets 

from Wallops Flight Center and the Hydromet representatives would 

launch rockets from the research ship Akademik Korolev off the U.S. 

east coast. Under a 1971 agreement on space sciences and applications, 

the two nations in 1972 had begun exchange of data that had shown the 

temperature field in the eastern hemisphere to be consistently colder than 

that of the western hemisphere. Both sides had evaluated their rocket 

systems for sources of error; direct comparisons made in 1973 at 

Kourou, French Guiana, had again shown discrepancies in temperature 

and wind data. Improvements in instruments and techniques since 1973 

had made further comparisons necessary, NASA said. (NASA Release 

77-133) 

* Kennedy Space Center announced it would host for the second consecutive yr a gathering of more than 85 meteorologists and atmospheric 

physicists for TRIP 77 (Thunderstorm Research Intl. Program 1977), including 21 principal investigators and their associates, continuing their 

studies of lightning and thunderstorms and the hazards resulting from 

them. The 1976 program had yielded much data on electrical charges 

within and between clouds and from clouds to earth's surface. (KSC 

Release 127-77) 

0 Marshall Space Flight Center announced it had resumed the atmospheric variability experiments (AVE) begun in 1964 to study processes associated with the onset and development of severe storms. 

Originally conducted to aid in scheduling Saturn rocket firings at MSFC, 

the experiments were designed to detect unusual weather conditions common to different localities before sever storms occurred, to improve 

short-term predictions based on data from weather balloons, weather 

satellites, and ground-observation posts. Sixth of the AVE series recently 

conducted over 24hr in an area including Texas, Alabama, Illinois, and 

North Dakota had monitored severe storms with hail and tornadoes in 

Missouri and western Tennessee, and a frontal system with low-pressure 

disturbances in Alabama. (MSFC Release 77-122) 

E 

~~~~~~ f$3T F6b' 

127 UGk .I2 6 .--~~T€~~l0~ALl~ BLANK 
JULY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 

0 KSC announced it had awarded a $480 193 fiied-price contract to 

Reynolds, Smith and Hills of Jacksonville, Fla., for modifications to 

Complex 39B to adapt it for Shuttle launch operations as had been done 

to Complex 39A. KSC had used 39B to launch Apollo 10; Skylabs 2, 3, 

and 4; and the U.S. spacecraft of the Apollo-Soyuz mission. (KSC 

Release 125-77) 

July 5: NASA announced that its aviation safety reporting system begun 

in 1976 for the Federal Aviation Administration had been a success, as 

evaluated by a NASA Advisory Council subcommittee established in 

Feb. 1977. During the system’s first year, pilots, air traffic controllers, 

and others working in national aviation had voluntarily submitted about 

5500 safety-problem reports that had been fed into a computer to note 

trends and monitor corrections. Next evaluation would be in June 1979. 

(NASA Release 77-137) 

July 6: NASA announced publication of the first book of a series on the 

Skylab mission, Skylab, Our First Space Station (NASA SP-400), a 

general introduction to and overview of the mission’s problems and successes. The 10 chapters tell how Skylab grew from existing technology; 

how it nearly failed when its micrometeorite shield and one of its solar 

panels were lost, and how it was saved; how 3 manned visits occurred, 

one of them for a record 84-day occupation; and how it proved the 

possibility of living and working for extended periods in a space environment. (NASA Release 77-135) 

July 7: NASA announced it had awarded Boeing Commercial Aircraft 

Go. of Seattle a contract to design and ground-test composite structures 

for the Boeing 727 aircraft. NASA’s aircraft energy-efficiency program 

to decrease transport-aircraft fuel consumption by 50% had included 

contracts with several manufacturers to reduce aircraft weights by using 

composites (high-strength filaments in a polymer matrix, lighter than 

metal structures). Boeing would build five shipsets of composite 

elevators (five right- and five left-handed) using manufacturing techniques that might become standard procedure. Costs would be shared, 

$8 100 OOO contributed by the government and $890 OOO by the contractor. Langley Research Center wouJ’ manage contractor effort over 

3.5yr. (NASA Release 77-139; LaRC Release 77-27) 

0 MSFC reported that employees Whitt Brantley, Jr., and Robert W. 

Rood had invented a solar energy device capable of 300 OOO Btu per hr, 

enough to heat or air condition several buildings. It would offer a 50 to 

70% efficient solar energy option for uses requiring temperatures above 

128 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JULY 

200’F, costing as little as $5 per ft2 for units 25 to 50ft in diameter. 

(MSFC Release 77- 123) 

0 NASA announced that a team of astronomers at the HarvardSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics using data from NASA’s Uhum 

satellite had discovered what seemed to be “superclusters” of galaxies 

more than 150 million light-years in diameter, bounded by areas of extremely hot gas acting as x-ray sources. The mass of gas required to produce x-rays would be 5 to 10 times greater than all material seen at other 

wavelengths, and would suffice to bind the galaxies into superclusters. 

Primarily hydrogen and helium, the gas was thought to be “primordial 

material” from an explosion that created the universe. 

In the debate over origins, “open universe” theorists supported the idea 

of a big bang 20 billion yr ago expanding outward forever; “closed 

universe” advocates said gravitational collapse would halt expansion and 

the material would fall back on itself, perhaps to repeat the cycle. Traditional optical and radio techniques had not found enough material in 

space to supply the gravity needed to “close” the universe; the new data 

indicated the missing mass might exist as vast amounts of hot gas between galaxies. 

Uhum, first of a series of small astronomical satellites (SAS) for 

studying cosmic x-rays, had been launched Dec. 12,1970, as Explorer 42. 

The astronomers had noted the x-ray emissions while compiling the 

fourth Uhum catalog from observations in the early 1970s. The project 

was managed for NASA by Goddard Space Flight Center. (NASA 

Release 77-138) 

Jufy 8: NASA announced it and ERDA had contracted with Boeing 

Engineering and Construction Co. to design and build on a utility company site chosen by ERDA the largest windmill in history, a 2500kw 

generator with 300ft blades, to provide data on such systems coupled 

with conventional power plants. Lewis Research Center would manage 

the project for ERDA. (NASA Release 77-141) 

July 10: Television programs beamed by satellite to the whole world were 

unwelcome to some delegates at the Vienna meeting of the UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, the W. Post reported. Its reprint of 

a London Observer article said that the major technical problem remaining for global TV transmission was overcrowded frequencies, but 

political problems remained. 

A majority of UN members including the Soviet bloc had pressed for 

regulation of TV transmission, claiming the right to intervene between 

their citizens and the broadcasts they could receive. The Soviet group ob129 
JULY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 

jected to “propaganda” especially on its Eastern European borders where 

“Western TV programs, soap operas and all, are often more welcome 

than the home product.” Developing countries unable to afford their 

own TV broadcasts claimed that unrestricted foreign TV from satellites 

would result in “cultural imperialism.” 

The delegates seemed to want data from satellites scanning the earth to 

be generally available, but differed over what should go to whom. A 

U.S. satellite detecting a new Soviet oil field might have to ask permission before reporting the find; discovery by any satellite-operating 

nation of resources (uranium, for instance) in a developing country 

might start a “gold rush” by major powers wanting to “help” that country 

exploit those resources. The committee agreed to formulate guidelines 

for UN General Assembly approval, but western European and North 

American nations wanted to prevent anything resembling censorship. 

Because of a Belgrade conference in session “only a few hundred miles 

further east,” the Soviet bloc also was sensitive to any measures that 

could be interpreted as infringing human rights or the free exchange of 

information. ( W Post, July 10/77, A-14) 

July ZZ: MSFC announced it had selected General Electric Co. of Valley 

Forge, Pa., to negotiate a cost-plus-award-fee contract for a prototype 

Atmospheric Cloud Physics Laboratory (ACPL) to be flown on a 

number of Spacelab missions carried by the Space Shuttle [see June 221. 

The prototype with software and spares was due for delivery to MSFC by 

Oct. 1, 1979, and to KSC for Shuttle launch by Jan. 1, 1980. (MSFC 

Release 77- 124) 

July Z2: KSC reported that an experimental homemade airplane built by 

John Murphy of the center’s Technology Utilization Ofc. had used a 

NASA-developed winglet set to increase its efficiency by about 8%. 

Murphy had begun work on the plane in Dec. 1976 from plans by a 

California designer and had completed it on June 12. Except for the 

engine and engine mount, the plane consisted entirely of fiberglass and 

Styrofoam and weighed only 6301b. Its lOOhp Continental aircraft engine 

could carry two passengers at 2OOmph, requiring lOOOft for takeoff and 

about 2000ft for landing. Murphy, a graduate of Georgia Tech, had been 

flying for 30yr and owned another aircraft that he had built himself. He 

had completed 24 of the 50hr flying time needed for Federal Aviation 

Administration approval, so that he could fly it to the annual meeting of 

the Experimental Aircraft Assn. in Wisconsin later this summer and 

show it off to the designer. (KSC Release 128-77) 

0 LaRC announced it would close its Technology Utilization House to 

the public Aug. 1 to prepare for the arrival of the family that would live 

130 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JULY 

in the house €or a year to demonstrate the innovations built into it, many 

of them deriving from NASA space-program technology. The family 

consisted of a professor from Florida State Univ., his wife (a registered 

nurse), and their teenage daughter and 12yr-old son. The new equipment 

included solar energy collectors, special insulation, a water-recycling 

system, automated heating and cooling, emergency lighting, an improved fireplace, and a special security system. Materials in the contemporary style 3-bedroom house, chosen to save energy and water and thus 

reduce costs, could save more than $20 000 over a 20yr period. (LaRC 

Release 77-28) 

0 Political interference had delayed development of science and 

technology in China, according to Chien Hsueh-shen, director of the 

mechanics institute of the PRC Academy of Sciences. The W. Post 

quoted his statement in the journal Red Flag that China would “catch up 

with and surpass the world advanced levels.” Chien, now China’s “top 

missile scientist” according to the Post, had been a colonel in the U.S. 

Army Air Corps before returning to China in 1955. Meanwhile, provincial radio reports monitored in Hong Kong said that “political infighting” at a PRC base for nuclear weapons and missiles had “crippled 

defense construction” for months in 1976. (W Post, July 12/77, A-15) 

July Z4: NASA launched a 280kg (6201b) geostationary meteorological 

satellite (GMS) for Japan from Cape Canaveral at 10:56 EDT on a Delta 

vehicle into an elliptical orbit, to be boosted at third apogee into a geosynchronous orbit at about 35 500km altitude over the equator south of 

Tokyo. Gms I, known as Himawari in Japan, was that country’s contribution to GARP , the global atmospheric research project sponsored 

by the Intl. Council of Scientific Unions and the World Meteorological 

Organization. The cylindrical craft had carried a visible infrared spinscan radiometer (VISSR) and a space environment monitor to identify 

and photograph weather patterns from Hawaii to Pakistan and detect 

solar energy activity that might disrupt communications on earth. More 

than half the world’s tropical storms had begun in the western Pacific 

and eastern Indian Ocean, said Kazuo Watanabe, project manager for 

Japan’s national space development agency; Gms I could provide detailed weather photos and other data every 30min to give instant warning 

of typhoons in the area. Watanabe noted that Japan had been depending 

on data from a U.S. satellite in polar orbit that furnished images only 

twice a day. (NASA Release 77-1 10; MOR M-492-101-77-01 [prelaunch] 

July 12/77; Hughes Aircraft Co. release July 12/77; NYT, July 15/77, 

A-8; W Post, July 15/77, A-22) 

0 NASA Administrator Dr. Robert A. Frosch announced that President 

131 
JULY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Carter had declared July 16-24 as a U.S. Space Observance, the dates 

chosen by Congress to coincide with the anniversary of the Apollo ZZ 

moon landing as well as Apollo-Soyuz and the Viking I landing on Mars. 

Dr. Frosch said that the president’s recognition of NASA achievements 

“should serve as inspiration and encouragement to all of us.” (NASA 

anno July 14/77) 

July IS: NASA announced that more than 8000 persons had applied for 

the 30 to 40 openings as Space Shuttle astronauts after a yr-long 

recruiting effort. Candidates selected would report in 1978 for a 2yr 

training period at Johnson Space Center. Of the 8037 applicants, 6735 

were for mission specialist and 1302 were for pilot; 1142 of the applicants 

were women. NASA would announce selections in Dec. 1977. (NASA 

Release 77-145; JSC Release 77-39) 

0 LaRC announced it would dedicate on July 19 the site of a new wind 

tunnel, the National Transonic Facility, scheduled for completion in 

1980 at a cost of about $85 million. The only facility of its kind in the 

world, the tunnel would use cryogenic nitrogen to test aircraft models in 

a realistic flight environment; cooling the medium to - 300°F would permit accurate simulation of Mach numbers and atmospheric-density 

ratios. Although NASA and DOD would be principal users of the tunnel, 

the schedule would be shared by other federal agencies, private industry, 

and the scientific community. Speakers at the dedication would be Dr. 

John J. Martin, assistant secretary of the Air Force for research and 

development; Donald F. Hearth, LaRC director; and Oran W. Nicks, 

LaRC deputy director. A display of aircraft developed from LaRC transonic research would include a B-747 freighter; a wide-bodied DC-10 

passenger plane; USAF fighters F-14, F-15, and F-106; a Learjet business 

aircraft; LaRC’s B-737 flying laboratory; a T-38 jet trainer; and a 

UH-1H helicopter. (NASA Release 77-144; LaRC Release 77-29) 

July Id: About 300 people had assembled at Cape Canaveral, the W. 

Post reported, to celebrate the anniversary of the launch of Apollo II, 

the mission that first landed humans on the moon. On July 16, 1969, a 

Saturn V rocket launched from Kennedy Space Center had carried 3 

astronauts, none of whom attended the observance. (W Post, July 

17/77, A-18) 

July Z8: MSFC announced that one of its orbiting satellites, Pegasus I, 

silent since Jan. 13, 1968, had suddenly come to life; GSFC’s network 

operations group had picked up signals from its beacon June 27 as interference with data transmission by another satellite. Pegaus I had been 

launched Feb. 16, 1965, to.acquire meteoroid data on its 2300ftz of in132 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, JULY 19ll 

strumented surface and transmit its findings to earth stations. After a 

silence of nearly lOyr, its revival was a puzzle to NASA officials who 

were checking circuit drawings still available. After notifying MSFC of 

the occurrence, GSFC network operations had sent a command from 

Australia’s Orroral station to turn off the satellite’s AM beacon, only to 

find that the FM beacon was also working. The transmitters, operating 

when the vehicle was in full sunlight, were sending strong signals; the network group had recorded signal strengths of both transmitters before 

commanding them off. (MSFC Release 77-130) 

MSFC reported it had fired for 2min the largest solid-fuel rocket 

motor ever developed, at Thiokol Corp.3 installation 24mi from 

Brigham City, Utah, and 2mi from the nearest occupied building. The 

Thiokol motor, the propulsive part of the Space Shuttle booster, contained 502 454kg (more than 1.1 million lb) of propellant, half again as 

much as the next largest motor ever fied at the site. A composite fuel, 

mixed and poured into the 4 segments of the SRM, had been cured for 4 

days before the segments were joined horizontally at the test site by 

special handling devices. The segments would go by rail to KSC for vertical assembly. Each Shuttle launch would use two of the boosters, 

designed for reuse up to 20 times. (MSFC Releases 77-125, 77-133; 

NASA Release 77-142) 

0 NASA announced it had awarded a 12th grader from Calif. a prize in 

addition to the grand prize for 1977 in a nationwide student science competition. Jonathan Holman, who had worked with control mechanisms 

in blood clotting, received his award from his older brother Jeffrey, top 

winner in the 1976 competition and now a student at the Mass. Inst. of 

Technology. Jonathan had chosen his experiment because his family had 

a history of hemophilia, in which the blood fails to clot properly. The 

competition was sponsored by the Natl. Consortium for Black Professional Development. NASA coordinator for the program was Everett P. 

Colman, EEO officer at LeRC, who said it was a part of NASA’s effort 

to increase the number of people with scientific skills the agency would 

need in future. (NASA Release 77-140) 

@ MSFC reported that NASA had issued a request for proposals to integrate mission payloads, in preparation for the first three Spacelab missions and the sixth Space Shuttle orbiter flight test. Integration would include combining a number of experiments into a compatible payload; 

controlling the configuration during instrument development, testing, 

and flight operations; and disassembly of the payload after the mission. 

Proposals, due Aug. 15, would be reviewed by a source evaluation 

board. (MSFC Release 77-131) 

133 
JULY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

July 19: The Natl. Science Foundation reported that research and 

development spending in the U.S. would reach an estimated $40.8 billion 

in 1977, 9% more than the 1976 level of $37.3 billion. The federal 

government expected to increase its R&D outlay from $19.8 billion in 

1976 to $21.8 billion in 1977, emphasizing defense, space, and energy. 

(NSF Release PR77-73) 

0 The Natl. Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced it had completed the first phase of a project funded by the Natl. 

Science Foundation to learn more about earth’s magnetic field and nearspace environment. The task consisted of placing special magnetometers, 

devices to measure earth’s magnetic-field densities, at more than 25 

strategic and remote sites in Alaska, Canada, Brazil, and several Pacific 

islands. Two NOAA geostationary spacecraft of the GOES series (one 

over the Pacific and the other over Colombia, South America) would 

transmit data from the devices to Boulder, Colo., for immediate 

distribution to earth, atmospheric, and space scientists. 

Using the network of magnetometers with instant relay of the data to 

earth would permit continuous and precise monitoring of magnetic-field 

changes over the western hemisphere. The information would aid 

research on the possible connection between magnetic-field variations 

and climate changes; on reducing magnetic interference with communications and power systems; and on the use of magnetic fluctuations 

as a tool in locating geothermal, mineral, and other natural resources. 

(NOAA Release 77-195) 

July 20: WFC announced it would receive this week the first of two 

rotor-systems research aircraft (RSRA) for contractor flight tests. Sikorsky Aircraft, which would conduct the tests, had designed the RSRA (a 

joint project of NASA and the U.S. Army) to fly as a regular helicopter, 

as a compound helicopter (both rotors and wings), or as a conventional 

fixed-wing aircraft. As the RSRA’s engines or wings were changeable, 

NASA planned to use it as a “flying wind tunnel” for trying out various 

rotor systems: articulated, hingeless, or gimbaled, or with variable 

geometry, variable diameter, or controllable twist. (WFC Release 77-7; 

NASA Release 77-149) 

NASA announced that LeRC, under the agency’s general aviation turbine engine (GATE) program, had awarded study contracts totaling 

$300 OOO to 4 different companies for using in small lightweight planes 

with less than lO00hp the advanced turbine technology used in large commercial aircraft. The companies were Teledyne Corp. ; Garrett 

AiResearch; Detroit Diesel Allison; and Williams Research Corp. 

134 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JULY 

LeRC spokesman Bill Strack said most engines in the light-aircraft 

class (reciprocating engines of less than 4OOhp) dated from lOyr ago and 

lacked the advantages of turbines: reduced vibration and noise, less 

maintenance, lighter weight, and greater safety and reliability. The large 

production base existing for piston engines might make it hard to produce small turbine engines cost-effectively, he said. (NASA Release 

77-147) 

0 NASA announced it would conduct the third “manned inert” flight of 

the Space Shuttle orbiter Enterprise on or about July 26 at Dryden Flight 

Research Center. At the controls of the orbiter atop its Boeing 747 carrier would be astronauts Fred W. Haise and C. Gordon Fullerton, making their second piggyback run in this test series. They had made the first 

captive flight June 18; the second, on June 28, had Joe Engle and 

Richard Truly as pilots. 

In the first flight, lasting 56min, Haise and Fullerton had checked out 

the orbiter flight controls at low altitude and low speed. For the third 

test, the 747 would carry the orbiter to an altitude of 7895 meters 

(25 905ft) where it would “push over” in a practice separation; the orbiter 

and 747 crews would go through all the motions except actual separation. 

The flight would be a dress rehearsal for the first free flight of the orbiter, scheduled on or about Aug. 12. (NASA Release 77-146; JSC 

Release 77-41) 

July 2Z: INTELSAT announced that Paraguay had become the 97th 

member of the organization on July 18, and the 22nd nation in the 

western hemisphere to join. Paraguay’s ANTELCO (Administracion Nacional de Telecomunicaciones) had signed the operating agreement. 

Created in 1964, INTELSAT claimed to provide more than half the 

world’s transoceanic telecommunications and domestic communications 

for 9 countries through its global satellite system. (INTELSAT Release 

77-19-1) 

0 Today reported that Congress had approved June 20 the largest NASA 

budget in nearly lOyr, including new starts on three major programs. In 

conference committee, the House (which had cut $20.7 million requested 

by NASA to begin work on an unmanned 1982 Jupiter probe) had agreed 

with the Senate on $17.7 million for the project, which NASA said was 

enough to start with. The budget also contained $36 million for the large 

orbiting telescope, a frequently delayed major scientific project, and 

$26.6 million for Landsat-D, fourth of a series of earth monitoring 

satellites. The newspaper said the only real disagreement was over the 

Jupiter mission, which Rep. Edward P. Boland (D-Mass) wanted to kill 

[see June 101 because of its eventual cost, estimated to reach $435 million 

135 
JULY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

by the time it was scheduled for launch in 1983. The House conferees had 

finally accepted the Senate’s figure. Planned to take advantage of a 

favorable alignment of the earth with Jupiter in 1982, the mission would 

not only be the first to orbit Jupiter but would also drop a probe into the 

planet’s atmosphere. During its 20mo in orbit, the mission would also 

view Jupiter’s moons at close range. (Today, July 21/77, 20A) 

July 25: NASA announced it had on July 21 and 24 adjudged the Explorer 52 and 55 (Atmosphere Explorer) missions successful. Launched 

Qct. 6, 1975 (as AE-D) and Nov. 20, 1975 (as AE-E), the two spacecraft 

had carried instruments to study energy transfer and chemical processes 

in the atmosphere. AE-D had “performed properly” until Jan. 29, 1976, 

when a power system failure ended control of the spacecraft, which 

reentered earth’s atmosphere March 16. Its perigee had moved from 

equatorial at launch, northward to the winter pole and southward to the 

summer pole, producing “excellent measurements” at all latitudes. AE-E, 

still in operation, “continues to acquire and contribute worthwhile data” 

on the Atmosphere Explorers’ findings, which had resulted in 250 formal 

presentations at scientific gatherings and 130 publications in technical 

journals. (NASA MOR S-852-75-04/05) 

0 NASA announced it had selected Ball Bros. Research Corp., Boulder, 

Colo., to negotiate a $13.8 million contract for the telescope system on 

the infrared astronomy satellite (IUS), a joint US.-Netherlands mission to survey the celestial sphere in the infrared spectrum. The U.S. 

would provide a large cryogenically cooled instrument and the 

Netherlands would provide the spacecraft and would supervise integration. NASA would launch IUS from WTR early in 1981 on a Delta for 

its yr-long scientific mission. The Ball Bros. contract would cover design, 

fabrication, test, and launch support for the telescope, plus spares, an 

engineering model, and ground-support equipment. The Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory would manage the project, and Ames Research Center would 

be responsible for the telescope system (NASA Release 77-154) 

NASA announced it had selected Lockheed Missiles and Space Co., 

Sunnyvale, Calif., and Perkin-Elmer Corp., Danbury, Conn., to 

negotiate contracts totaling more than $131 million for two major 

elements of the Space Telescope. Lockheed would design, fabricate, and 

integrate the telescope support-systems module, provide systems 

engineering and analysis, and support NASA in ground and flight operations. Perkin-Elmer would design, manufacture, and deliver the optical 

assembly and equipment, including systems engineering, support of the 

launch, verification of the orbit, and plans for mission operations. The 

8ft-diameter telescope, scheduled for launch on the Space Shuttle late in 

136 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JULY 

1983, would offer an astronomical capability beyond anything possible 

from the earth’s surface or any telescopes launched so far because of its 

improvements in resolution, power, light sensitivity, and wavelength 

coverage. It would be refurbished periodically in orbit or could be 

returned to earth on the Shuttle for repair or upgrading. The support 

module would provide electric power, communications, data processing 

and storage, attitude sensing and control, and environmental control to 

the telescope assembly and up to 5 additional scientific instruments accommodated by the telescope. MSFC, which had overall project 

management responsibility, would manage the contracts for the support 

module and the optical assembly; GSFC would manage scientific instrument development. (NASA Release 77-153) 

* ARC announced that its 1977 summer study under the leadership of 

Dr. Gerard P. O’Neill on space settlements and industrialization using 

nonterrestrial materials would offer a briefing Aug. 2 on the technical 

areas covered: life-support systems, habitat design, materials transport 

and processing, and space manufacturing. (ARC anno July 25/77) 

July 26: NASA announced that the launch of HEAO-A (the high-energy 

astronomy observatory) originally scheduled for April 1977 had been set 

for Aug. 12. Problems with the spacecraft’s gyroscopes, required for attitude control, had caused the delay. Analysis and testing had produced 

design changes to improve gyroscope reliability for the expected 6mo 

mission lifetime. HEAO-A would be first of three astrophysical observatories orbited over the next 3yr to study radiation from stellar sources 

throughout the universe. (NASA Release 77-156) 

NASA announced it would hold a briefing at Hq Aug. 4 on the scientific studies to be conducted by the Voyager spacecraft scheduled for 

launch later this year towihl the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, and 

possibly Uranus. Participants in the briefing would be Dr. Noel W. Hinners, NASA’s associate administrator for space science; Dr. Edward 

Stone, Calif. Inst. of Technology, project scientist; John Casani of JPL, 

project manager; Dr. Bradford A. Smith, Univ. of Ariz., leader of the 

imaging science team for the Voyager project; and Dr. James W. 

Warwick, Univ. of Colo., principal investigator for planetary 

radioastronomy. (NASA Release 77-1 55) 

Jub 27: NASA announced that the Soviet ship expected to participate in 

comparisons of atmosphere-measuring instruments [see July 11 would arrive off the Virginia coast about Aug. 7 to serve as the platform for 

USSR rocket launches. The tests would consist of paired launches of 

about 22 U.S. Super Lokis and about 33 USSR M-lOOBs, plus 6 Super 

137 
JULY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Loki sphere systems to be launched by Wallops; statistical evaluation 

would require from 14 to 22 successful paired launches. (WFC Release 

77-8; NASA Release 77-151) 

0 NASA announced that a disaster simulation in Texas using the communications technology satellite - world’s most powerful comsat - had 

turned into an actual emergency operation providing communications 

between Red Cross headquarters in Washington, D.C., and floodstricken Johnstown, Pa. ComSatCorp and the Red Cross had set up an 

experiment to demonstrate emergency use of satellites in natural 

disasters; the Texas results had led Red Cross officials to ask for 

assistance in the actual emergency at Johnstown. 

The Cts equipment transferred from Houston to Johnston July 23 and 

set up at a vocational high school near the Univ. of Pittsburgh was a 

portable station with a 4ft antenna to send and receive signals to and 

from the synchronous satellite orbiting over the equator just west of 

South America. During the emergency it had sent messages through the 

Cts to ComSat offices in Clarksburg, Md., connected by land line to 

Washington. The disaster-related communications included requests for 

medical and physician services, supplies and administrative services, and 

transmission of situation maps. Johnstown’s residents also could use the 

Cts link to communicate with relatives around the U.S. when the Red 

Cross was not using the lines. The emergency had preempted Canadian 

and U.S. experiments scheduled for July 25-26. (NASA Release 77-157) 

0 WFC announced it had completed tests using rockets, balloons, and 

supporting ground observations to obtain data on the natural state of 

earth’s ozone layer and on stratosphere pollution, As part of the joint 

WFC-GSFC applications sounding-rocket program (ASRP), the tests 

July19-22 had measured daylong variations in the vertical distribution of 

ozone to establish a model for studying the effects of pollutants. (WFC 

Release 77-1 1) 

0 LaRC and WFC announced arrival of an LaRC airplane at Wallops 

for tests of spin characteristics, using four different tail designs 

developed at Langley as part of a larger program begun in 1972 to improve safety in light airplanes by investigating spin and stall [see May 

181. About 30% of fatalities in light planes resulted from spins or stalls. 

The low-wing, single-engine test plane had been modified to make use of 

the viyious tails and of a spin recovery parachute to counter the effects 

of some of the configurations. Two high-wing lightweight planes would 

share the tests. Besides full scale planes, the program would also use 

spin-tunnel models and powered radio-controlled free-flight models in- 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JULY 

strumented to give detailed information on each flight in real time. 

(WRC Release 77-10; LaRC Release 77-33) 

July 28: NASA announced plans to launch the first Italian experimental 

comsat Sirio on or about Aug. 17 from ETR on a Delta vehicle. A large 

segment of Italian industry interested in space technology had worked on 

the spacecraft and would use the experience for future international 

space programs. In synchronous orbit over the equator off the west coast 

of Africa, the comsat would transmit voice, data, and TV in the superhigh frequency (SHF) range from Europe to North America; its experimenters would study propagation of SHF during adverse weather 

conditions including rain, snow, and fog. Use of SHF had become 

necessary because conventional frequencies were overcrowded. 

Italy’s research agency, Consiglio Nazionale della Richerche (CNR), 

had contracted with NASA for launch and support services until the 

craft reached its station 30 to 45 days after launch. The name Sirio was 

an acronym for Satellite Italian0 Ricerca Industriale Orientata (industrial research-oriented Italian satellite). (NASA Release 77-152) 

KSC announced it had awarded a $7 325 OOO fixed-price contract to 

Algernon Blair Industrial Contractors, Inc., of Norcross, Ga., for converting a Saturn/Apollo mobile launcher to a mobile-launcher platform 

for the Shuttle program. Work would include removal of a 400ft umbilical tower and crane and replacement of the single exhaust opening in 

the original platform with three openings required by the Shuttle main 

engines. One of KSC’s three mobile launchers had almost completed conversion and the new contract would cover work on a second. The 

reusable Shuttle had been scheduled for its first manned orbital mission 

in the spring of 1979. (KSC Release 137-77) 

Comsat General Corp. announced that the U.S. Navy had agreed to 

extend its use of three Marisat satellites for an additional 2.5yr, ending in 

1981, at a cost of about $138 million [see During June]. The Navy had 

begun using the Atlantic Marisat in March 1976, the Pacific satellite in 

June 1976, and the Indian Ocean satellite in Jan. 1977. Each of the three 

Marisats had a design life of 5yr and could operate in three frequencies: 

UHF (ultrahigh frequency) for Navy service, and the L-band and Gband 

for commercial maritime users. The Navy had leased all UHF capacity in 

all three Marisats for communications between its own fixed and mobile 

terminals. The Marisat system was owned and operated by four companies under a joint-venture arrangement approved by the Federal Communications Commission: Comsat General, which acted as system 

manager, with nearly 87% ownership; RCA Global Communications; 

139 
JULY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Western Union Intl.; and ITT World Communications. (Comsat General 

Release CG 77-3; WSJ, July 29/77, 6) 

July 29: NASA declared the launch of Japan's geostationary 

meteorological satellite Gms I on July 14 successful, as of July 26-27. 

The satellite was being maneuvered over the South Pacific to a station 

about 140"E above the equator, due south of Tokyo. (MOR 

M-492-101-77-01 [postlaunch] July 29/77) 

0 NASA announced that the first 20 of about 200 Shuttle astronaut applicants would report to JSC Aug. 2 for a week of individual interviews 

and physical exams. Ten of the group were from the USAF, 7 U.S. Navy, 

2 Marines, and 1 civilian. Although all the initial group had been pilot 

applicants, NASA expected the number interviewed at JSC would divide 

evenly between pilot and mission specialist applicants. NASA would 

complete processing by mid-November and hoped to select as many as 20 

astronaut candidates in each of the two categories in December. Candidates would report to JSC in 1978 for 2yr of training and evaluation; 

final selection as astronaut would depend on satisfactory completion of 

training. (JSC Release 77-42) 

ERDA announced that the longest space mission ever planned-a lOyr 

trip by two Voyager spacecraft to the outer planets - would get power 

from RTGs (radioisotope thermoelectric generators) developed by 

ERDA as successors to nuclear systems that had powered earlier missions 

to Mars and Jupiter. 

ERDA's predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission, had begun the 

research on nuclear power for space missions. ERDA plans included 

developing high-efficiency thermoelectric materials and dynamic converters for NASA missions such as a Jupiter orbiter in 1982 or a Mars 

rover in 1984, and DOD satellites in the 1980s. (ERDA Release 

NF-77-20) 

ERDA reported that the U.S. atomic energy detection system had 

recorded seismic signals, presumably from a Soviet underground nuclear 

explosion, at lpm EDT on July 26. The signals had originated in central 

Siberia, north of the Arctic circle. (ERDA Release 77-129) 

During July: NASA reported that researchers at LaRC had devised a 

nuclear pumped laser output 100 times more powerful than that available 

from noble or inert gases, 3.5~ ina volume of only 1 cubic centimeter. A 

major step in laser technology, the experiment had converted kinetic 

energy from the splitting of atoms directly into photons (light energy, in 

140 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 JULY 

the form of laser beams) without the energy-wasting intermediate step of 

converting heat to electricity. 

The aim of the research had been to produce and transmit large quantities of power in space, using high-power laser beams as highly efficient 

energy conductors with transmitters and receivers measured in meters 

rather than in kilometers for similar microwave equipment. Laser beams 

could connect central power plants in space with settlements, materials 

processing centers, or scientific operations in earth orbit; laser powered 

vehicles could transport payloads to geosynchronous orbit from lower 

altitudes. (NASA Release 77-143) 

* An idea tried 61yr ago had come of age, NASA reported, with the 

piggyback flights of the orbiter Enterprise on its Boeing 747 carrier. In 

1916, to put a Bristol Scout airplane at an altitude where it could attack 

Zeppelin bombers over England, the British had loaded it on a threeengine Felixstowe flying boat for a single flight May 17 of that year. Both 

aircraft had landed safely, but the experiment had not been repeated. 

(NASA Release 77-148) 

NASA noted that Landsat I, first satellite to focus specifically on 

earth and its natural resources, had completed its 5th yr in orbit. Launched 

July 23, 1972, with a life expectancy of only lyr, Landsat had monitored 

air and water pollution, geological resources, agricultural production, 

and potential water supply. Dr. Wernher von Braun had predicted that 

this program alone could give the U.S. “a return exceeding its total space 

program investment,” (NASA Release 77-150) 

* In a W. Post column, science writer Daniel S. Greenberg commented 

on the “leaky embargo system that is supposed to deny the Soviets 

western technology of strategic value.” The principal feature of a new 

DOD plan drawn up for State and Commerce Dept. approval before 

presentation next spring to the Coordinating Committee of Nations 

(‘?VAT0 minus Iceland, plus Japan”) on restricting strategic export to 

Communist bloc nations was that “it isn’t confined to hardware,” 

Greenberg noted. The new embargo scheme, he said, was aimdd at 

technological know-how; its enforcement would admittedly encompass 

“the entire span of advanced American technology. . . . Hardware can 

be stopped at the loading dock, but know-how, being intangible or confined to paper, calls for different barricades.” 

The truth about the embargo, Greenberg charged, was that “virtually 

no one is interested in it except certain military and industrial elements in 

the U.S. Furthermore, most of what we won’t sell is easily available from 

sales hungry producers elsewhere. And, finally, there is ample evidence 

141 
JULY ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

that . . . the Soviets, despite their many technological shortcomings, can 

home produce whatever they deem necessary.” The proposed embargo, 

Greenberg concluded, might retard the Soviets a bit, but the presence of 

DOD “gumshoes in the American scientific and technological enterprise 

is a stiff price to pay” for that delay. (W Post, July 12/77, A19) 

* JPL reported that Donald Lynn and Jean Lorre of its image processing laboratory had shared in a scientific investigation of the Shroud of 

Turin, preserved in Italy since 1578. At the request of groups in N.Y. and 

N.M., Lynn and Lorre had used advanced NASA techniques 

(mathematical and contrast enhancement) to obtain a noticeably clearer 

image from negatives and color slides taken at a 1973 display of the cloth 

and the image appearing on it. (JPL Universe, July 1/77, 1; Natl Inq, 

July 19/77, 4) 

142 
August 

August 1: NASA announced it had scheduled the first free flight of the 

Shuttle orbiter for 8am PDT Aug. 12 at Dryden Flight Research Center. 

Briefing the press Aug. 11 would be Deke Slayton, ALT program 

manager at Johnson Space Center, and John Young, chief of the JSC 

astronaut office; Chet Lee, Hq director of Space Transportation Systems 

operations, speaking on payloads, pricing policies, and users; and Aaron 

Cohen, manager of the orbiter project at JSC, on orbiter systems. 

(NASA Release 77-158; DFRC Release 26-77) 

0 NASA announced it would put on each of the Voyagers to be launched 

in Aug. a phonograph record, “Sounds of Earth,” containing natural 

noises of surf, wind, and thunder, and of birds, whales, and other 

animals. The 12in disk would include greetings from earth in a number 

of languages [see June 31 and samples of music from different cultures 

and eras. The disk contained electronic data convertible by an advanced 

technological civilization into diagrams, pictures, and printed instructions designed to give beings that intercepted the craft an idea of 20th 

century earth and its inhabitants. “The spacecraft will be encountered 

and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations 

in interstellar space,” said Dr. Carl Sagan of Cornel1 Univ., originator of 

the message sent into space on Pioneers 10 and 11. The copper disk in its 

aluminum jacket could survive as long as a billion yr; the Voyagers might 

take 40 OOOyr to approach another star, and other predictable approaches would occur in 147 OOO and 525 OOOyr. (NASA Release 77-159) 

0 Langley Research Center announced that 21 area high school students 

had completed a 4wk hands-on career exploration program at the center, 

applying classroom concepts to actual situations. Each student had been 

assigned to a sponsor in science, computers, engineering, or mathematics 

to supervise the unpaid 8hr workdays. (LaRC Release 77-34) 

Despite U.S. revulsion at Soviet domestic oppression of scientists and 

the resulting condemnation of such practices, the U.S. and the USSR had 

found “enough common ground” in the sciences to renew cooperation 

for another 5yr, the Christian Science Monitor noted. Renewal of the 

1972 accord signed by President Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev was 

143 
AUGUST ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Technicians attach “Sounds of Earth” recording to Voyager 2 spacecraft before 

encapsulating it for launch, scheduled later in August. (NASA 77-H-509) 

“neither casual nor automatic,” CSM said. In view of charges that the 

agreement mainly benefited the USSR, a committee of the U.S. Natl. 

Academy of Sciences had reviewed scientific detente and had told 

presidential science adviser Frank Press that “positive benefits” for the 

U.S. made continued cooperation valuable. Subsequent negotiations, 

CSMnoted, went on without mention of human rights. “. . . There is only so much one nation can do in holding up a moral standard for 

another,” the article concluded, adding that “. . .Two powerful nations 

holding seemingly irreconcilable political views should . . . continue to 

seek ways to live peacefully together on the same small planet.” (CSM, 

Aug 1/77, 11) 

August 2: JSC reported the first 20 Shuttle astronaut applicants were due 

for screening. Center Director Christopher C. Kraft, Jr., said that the 

quality of the-applicants would make it “difficult to narrow the fieId . . . paring that number will be a real challenge.” (NASA Release 77-161) 

0 NASA announced it had appointed Isaac T. Gillam, IV, deputy direc144 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 AUGUST 

tor of DFRC, succeeding Gerald D. Griffin, recently appointed deputy 

director of Kennedy Space Center in Fla. Gillam, who had directed Shuttle operations at Dryden in the current approach and landing tests, had 

joined NASA in 1963 after serving in the USAF as a pilot, missile launch 

Jcrew commander, and ROTC instructor. After receiving a B.A. from 

Howard Univ., he had done graduate work at Tenn. State Univ. and had 

been assistant professor of air science there. NASA had appointed him 

assistant manager of the Delta program in 1966 and program manager in 

1968. In 1973, he became program manager for small launch vehicles, 

and had gone to DFRC in 1976. He had received NASA’s distinguished 

service medal for his work with launch vehicles. (DFRC Release 27-77; 

NASA Release 77-164; NASA anno Aug 4/77) 

August 4: NASA announced it had scheduled launch of two Voyager 

spacecraft toward the outer planets, one on Aug. 20 and the other about 

12 days later. The Voyager 2 would go first and the Voyager 1, flying a 

faster trajectory, would go later; it would reach Jupiter 4mo ahead of 

Voyager 2, probably in March 1979. By the time it reached Saturn, 

Voyager 1 would be 9mo ahead of the other craft. NASA planned to use 

the gravitational field of Jupiter to send the Voyagers on to Saturn by 

means of a “slingshot” technique; Voyager 1 would reach Saturn in 1980, 

3.2yr after launch, on a trip that would take 6.lyr without the gravity 

assist. Estimated cost of the Voyager project (not counting launch 

vehicles, tracking and data acquisition, or flight support) would be $320 

million. (NASA Release 77-1 36) 

* NASA announced that IBM Corp., under contract to LaRC, had 

developed the most efficient solar cell for space use reported to date. The 

new solar cells, derived from compound semiconductors gallium 

aluminum arsenide and gallium arsenide, had an efficiency of 18% instead of 13 to 14% for commercially available silicon-derived cells. Highefficiency cells could fill a power requirement with fewer numbers, 

meaning less weight to be launched and maneuvered as well as reduction 

in mission cost. The new cells had a “window layer” of gallium aluminum 

arsenide on the surface of the gallium arsenide cell. Absorption of 

sunlight in an ultra thin layer just below the surface of a solar cell had 

meant loss of some of the energy at the surface, accounting for the low 

efficiencies of previous cells; presence of the window layer had reduced 

this loss. (NASA Release 77-163) 

* JSC announced that a summer workshop at the Univ. of Calif., San 

Diego, would discuss scientific and technological exploitation of lunar 

and asteroid materials. Participants selected for the workshop were geoscientists and geoengineers from government, private industry, and the 

145 
AUGUST ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

university community. Univ. of Calif. professor and lunar researcher Dr. 

&James Arnold, chairman of the workshop committee, would present to 

NASA’s Office of Space Science the group’s recommendations on 

research to be attempted and on the exploitation possible at present levels 

of understanding. (JSC Release 77-43) 

August 5: NASA announced that Bradford Johnston, associate administrator for the Office of Applications since June 1976, would resign 

effective Sept. 30. Dr. Robert Frosch, NASA administrator, said that 

Johnston’s contributions to useful applications of space techniques had 

made the program more responsive to national needs. (NASA anno Aug 

5/77; NASA Release 77-166) 

0 The W. Post reported that London’s Intl. Assn. Against Painful Experiments on Animals had protested Soviet government use of white rats 

in space research, following USSR launch of a spacecraft carrying 

several white rats for an international study on weightlessness. ( W Post, 

Aug 5/77, A-13) 

August 8: NASA reported a first-time continuous operation by NASAfunded Univ. of Fla. researchers of a nuclear pumped gas laser reported 

earlier by LaRC scientists [see During July]. Confirming the results of 

the Georgia Tech experiment, the Fla. group had transmitted laser 

energy for 15min and reported that longer transmission was possible. 

Earlier nuclear pumped lasers had produced only short bursts of energy. 

(NASA Release 77-165) 

* NASA announced it had patented a way to control cell division that 

might mean a new treatment for cancer or replacement of lost cells in the 

brain or other parts of the human nervous system. Studying at LaRC the 

effects of space radiation on living cells, Dr. Clarence D. Cone, Jr., 

former head of LaRC’s molecular biophysics lab, now chief of the nearby VA molecular biology laboratory, had changed electrical potential 

across hamster cell membranes. Studies had shown cell division could be 

either blocked or stimulated by various agents, most of which could not 

produce both effects. Cone’s method of surrounding the cells with 

various concentrations of sodium, potassium, and chloride ions, patterned after ionic mechanisms used by the body to control cell division, 

could either turn on or turn off the process. 

Cone’s successful attempts to stimulate cells to divide or proliferate, or 

prevent dividing and proliferating, had not damaged the cells, and 

showed that the processes were reversible. Manipulating the ionic levels 

in human body cells might permit reversal or inhibition of uncontrolled 

proliferation, such as that of cancer cells. (NASA Release 77-162) 

146 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 AUGUST 

August 9: JSC announced it had awarded Lockheed Electronics Co. of 

Houston a 2yr cost-plus-award-fee contract estimated at $4 004 715 for 

technical support services at the Slidell Computer Complex’s earth 

resources facility in La. Lockheed would furnish about 80 persons to 

operate and maintain the data acquisition laboratory, data systems 

laboratory, data processing laboratory, and data preparation laboratory. 

(JSC Release 77-45) 

0 NASA announced that Dr. Hans Mark, former director of Ames 

Research Center, had been sworn in at the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., 

Aug. 9, as Undersecretary of the Air Force by Defense Secretary Harold 

Brown. Dr. Mark, ARC director from Feb. 1969 to July 1977, had 

taught nuclear engineering at the Univ. of Calif. at Berkeley and 

engineering at Stanford Univ.; he had also taught at Boston Univ. and 

the Mass. Inst. of Technology. 

Born in Germany in 1929, he had become a U.S. citizen in 1945 and 

had been a consultant to the Institute for Defense Analysis (1958-1961), 

the USAF Scientific Advisory Board (1969-1976), and other defenserelated and scientific organizations. C.A. Syvertson would be acting 

director of ARC until a successor was named. (ARC Release 77-38; 

NASA anno Aug 15/77) 

0 NASA announced that Dr. Bruce T. Lundin would retire as director of 

Lewis Research Center Aug. 26 after 34yr with NASA and its 

predecessor, NACA. LeRC deputy director Dr. Bernard Lubarsky would 

be acting director until a successor was named. In 1943, Dr. Lundin had 

begun working at the NACA Lewis Research Center on improvement of 

World War I1 aircraft engines. 

When NASA was established in 1958, Dr. Lundin became assistant 

director of LeRC; in 1961 he became associate director for development, 

working on space propulsion and power generation. In May 1968 he was 

deputy associate administrator at NASA Hq, then acting associate administrator for advanced research and technology. He became director 

of LeRC as of Nov. 1, 1969, and had led the center’s research on solving 

the nation’s energy problems. He had not announced his future plans. 

(NASA Release 77-167; NASA anno Aug 9/77) 

LaRC announced that the NASA/ASEE engineering systems design 

team would give a final presentation Aug. 12 on the role of aerospace 

technology in agriculture. The team of faculty from local colleges and 

universities would discuss agricultural aircraft, remote sensing, and impact on the social and physical environment. The Old Dominion Univ. 

would distribute the team’s written report later in 1977. (LaRC Release 

77-36) 

147 
AUGUST ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

August ZZ: NASA announced it had selected Hughes Aircraft Co.3 

Space and Communications Group for negotiation of a $33 million contract to build, test, and deliver three geostationary operational environmental satellites, GOES-D, -E, and -F, as follow-ons in the synchronous meteorological satellite (SMS) series providing near continuous 

high quality observation of the earth and its environment. The GOES 

spacecraft would carry a visible infrared spin-scan radiometer atmospheric sounder (VAS) to obtain day or night cloud cover photos of 

the portion of the earth viewed from geostationary orbit, with 

temperature readings at various levels of the atmosphere; the $33 million 

contract did not include the three VAS instruments being produced 

under contract by Santa Barbara Research Center. They would also carry 

a space environment monitoring system of three separate sensors to 

monitor solar emissions. 

Goddard Space Flight Center would be project manager for the GOES 

systems developed and procured by NASA on a reimbursable basis for 

the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which would 

operate the spacecraft after launch and checkout by NASA. (NASA 

Release 77-170) 

JSC announced that the second group of 20 Shuttle astronaut applicants would report Aug. 15 for individual interviews and physical examinations. Like the first group, all those in the second group had applied for pilot positions. The second group included 11 USAF applicants, 

7 Navy, 1 Marine, and 1 civilian. (NASA Release 77-171; JSC Release 

77-44) 

a LaRC announced that the Charles W. Swain family of Tallahassee, 

Fla., would move into the Tech House Aug. 15 for a yr-long demonstration of NASA designed systems in and around the house to save energy 

and water and make the home more secure. They would pay a prorated 

rent and all utilities during their stay. Dr. Swain, a humanities professor 

at Fla. State Univ., would work with LaRC personnel in career counseling and employee relations. Mrs. Swain, a registered nurse, hoped to 

continue in her profession while living at LaRC. Their two children 

would attend local high schools. LaRC had chosen the Swains from a list 

provided by the American Council on Education, a nonprofit organization sponsoring university professors for lyr assignments to the federal 

government. (LaRC Release 77-37) 

Calif. Gov. Edmund G. Brown, Jr., hailed the advent of the space age 

at a Space Day gala in Los Angeles sponsored by 11 aerospace companies 

and the United Bank of Calif. More than a thousand persons attended 

the exhibit, prelude to the Shuttle orbiter free flight Aug. 12 over the Mo148 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 AUGUST 

jave desert. The program included two space movies, as well as speeches 

by Carl Sagan on planetary exploration, Gerard K. O'Neill on space colonies, and Jacques Yves Cousteau on spaceflight and the oceans of the 

world. (WPost, Aug 12/77, A-9) 

August 12: NASA launched the first high-energy astronomy observatory, HEAO-A, from ETR on an Atlas Centaur at 2:29am EDT into a 

near circular orbit with 456.3km apogee, 431.4km perigee, 93.5min 

period, and 22.75" inclination. 

Heao I, nearly 19ft long and nearly 9ft in diameter, weighting 56261b 

at liftoff (including 29601b of experiments and an 8311b separation 

system), had a 6mo design lifetime but would carry enough consumables 

and orbit at an altitude to allow extension of its mission up to lyr. It 

would operate in 2 modes, pointing and scanning: its batteries would 

point continuously at the sun as the vehicle moved l"/day in the ecliptic 

longitude, and its detectors would scan in wide circles perpendicular to 

the plane of the ecliptic. TRW had built the spacecraft equipment 

module (SEW containing all the subsystems used by all the experiments 

for operation and control, and a mission unique experiment module 

(EM) filling the requirements of each payload segment. Dr. Fred Speer, 

HEAO manager at Marshall Space Flight Center, said the spacecraft, 

rotating end over end, would survey the entire sky within its 6mo 

lifetime. 

This launch was the first in a three mission program to study x-rays, 

gamma rays, and cosmic rays emitted by stellar sources, the other 

launches to be in 1978 and 1979. The HEAOs would carry large and 

heavy scientific instruments needed for observations at the high-energy 

and low-flux levels of these phenomena. Estimated cost of the 3 observatories was $237 million. 

The original plan in 1968 had been to launch a 4Oft vehicle weighing 

22 0001b; budget problems had reduced the size of the undertaking. 

However, the x-ray detector built by NRL as 1 of 4 experiments carried 

by Heao I was the largest instrument ever flown on an unmanned 

satellite, weighing almost 1OOOlb. The NRL package, called the large area 

x-ray survey, was a 7-module array 20 times as large as any of its 

predecessors that would map the sky by recording incident x-ray fluxes 

and would determine the spectrum, time, and intensity variations of newfound x-ray sources. NRL's Dr. Herbert Friedman noted that known 

x-ray sources now numbered about 200; Heao 1 might increase the list to 

several thousand. Celestial sources of x-ray emission included white 

dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes, products of stellar catastrophe, 

as well as quasars and radio galaxies; also, a class of ministars almost too 

small for detection by the biggest optical telescopes might emit radiation 

10 OOO times as great as all the radiant energy of earth's sun. 

149 
AUGUST ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

The other experiments on Heuo I were a scanning-modulation collimator to make parallel observations, using instruments designed by 

Harvard and MIT, to pinpoint locations of sources and determine their 

structure; a cosmic x-ray experiment designed by NASA and CalTech, to 

look for diffuse x-rays or cosmic rays; and another experiment from 

MIT and the Univ. of Calif. San Diego, to look for hard x-rays and lowenergy gamma rays. NASA planned a guest observer program for this 

mission, participants to be selected from responses to a “Dear Colleague” 

letter issued by the Office of Space Sciences. 

A malfunctioning rate gyro had delayed the planned June 30 launch; 

the Bendix-built instrument had been removed and returned to the 

manufacturer March 31, but further similar delays occurred [see July 

261. Early data from orbit showed spacecraft systems and experiments 

were operating normally. (NASA Releases 77-45, 77-56, 77-71, 77-83, 

77-87; OSS rept 5-832-77-01 [prelaunch] May 16/77, July 29/77; MOR 

5-832-77-01 [postlaunch] Aug 12/77, Apr 3/78; MSFC Releases 77-32, 

77-64,77-107,77-142; KSC Releases 85-77,140-77; Spacewarn SPX-284; 

NYT, Apr 10/77, 23; Aug 13/77, 33; NRL Release 23-8-77s) 

The Shuttle orbiter Enterprise made its first free flight at Edwards Air 

Force Base in Calif. with a “flawless landing” on a runway in the Mojave 

desert 53min Slsec after taking off at 8am local time (llam EDT) and 

Smin 22sec after release from its 747 carrier. Astronauts Fred W. Haise, 

Jr., and Charles Gordon Fullerton were the Enterprise pilots; veteran 

test pilots Thomas C. McMurtry and Fitzhugh L. Fulton, Jr., flew the 

Boeing 747. 

Spectators, estimated to number about 70 OOO, had begun arriving the 

previous night (Thursday, Aug. 11) to cheer the landing just after 9am 

local time with the desert temperature nearing 100°F. The orbiter had 

separated from its carrier 3min late because the heat of the air had 

slowed the climb. The 747 had “strained its engines” to carry the 73ton 

Shuttle as high as possible; it had climbed to 27 O0Oft (81OOm) before it 

started downward, in order to gain speed. The 122ft-long orbiter, released at 22 lOOft (6738m) altitude, had soared one way, the 747 

another, to ensure separation. Pilots of the T-38 chase planes following 

the flight had assured the crews of the 747 and the orbiter that they were 

clear of each other. “Thanks for the lift,” Haise told the 747 crew as the 

craft separated. 

Haise had rehearsed the free flight the previous day in a small twinengine jet modified to behave like the Shuttle. Actual separation, which 

could not be rehearsed in advance, was the only way to prove that the 

Shuttle would lift cleanly over the tall vertical tail fin of the 747. 

Separation had occurred without difficulty, however, and both pilots 

reported themselves delighted with the orbiter, which had handled in un150 
Space Shuttle orbiter Enterprise separates from its Boeing 747 carrier in first free 

flight, August 12, 1977. (NASA 77-H-552) 

powered flight as easily as design engineers had predicted. It was “a lot 

like flying a Concorde,” according to Haise, and Fullerton described it as 

a “very crisp, very stable airplane.” On the orbiter’s way down, Haise had 

pulled up in three inflight “flare” maneuvers to test its landing 

characteristics. One of the identical redundant computers on the orbiter 

had failed at separation, cutting off flight-control accelerometers, 

without affecting the flight. 

The Enterprise landed like a glider, without engines, relying on its battery of computers and “the most advanced control system ever installed 

in a spacecraft.” It had approached the ground at an 11 O angle, more 

than 3 times as steep as a commercial jetliner’s approach, and at a speed 

of 338kph (2lOmph) compared to a typical 747 landing speed of 170mph. 

The orbiter had touched down a mile in front of the aiming point, 

because Haise underestimated its glide capability; it had rolled another 

2mi before stoppping. 

For this first free flight, the orbiter wore a tail cone over its three aft 

rockets; on the fourth flight, scheduled for Oct., NASA would remove 

the cone, causing the orbiter to land more steeply (as it would upon 

returning from space). In regular use, the Shuttle as a weight-saving 

measure would have no power after firing its rockets to deorbit, no airbreathing engines for maneuvering in the atmosphere; it would be slowed 

by air friction only and would glide down at 200mph or more to a landing. For the actual spaceflight early in 1979, the Shuttle would ride into 

orbit pushed by solid-fuel rocket motors on a giant external tank and by 

the liquid-fuel rockets on its tail. 

151 
AUGUST ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Purpose of the free flight exercises was to verify the orbiter’s subsonic 

airworthiness, the operation of the integrated system, and the pilotguided vs. automatic approach and landing capabilities. The ability to 

land at an airport instead of parachuting into the ocean gave the Shuttle 

the “versatility and economy required to make space operations routine 

in the next decade,” according to the W. Star. (NASA Release 77-160; 

NASA Actv., Aug/77, 2; NYT, Aug 13/77, 1; WPost, Aug 13/77, Al; 

WStar, Aug 13/77, A-3; B Sun, Aug 12/77,7; C Trib, Aug 13/77, 1-1; 

Time, Aug 22/77, 64) 

* MSFC announced that a young student assistant under the first NASA 

research grant awarded Alabama A&M Univ. 12yr ago, now a nationally 

known organic mass spectrometrist, had become a NASA researcher 

again, representing Meharry Medical College and the Natl. Inst. of 

Health as a summer faculty fellow. Dr. Stanley L. Evans, one of 23 

researchers selected for the Aeronautics and Space Research Faculty Program sponsored by NASA and the Am. Society of Engineering Education, would study separation and preserving of cells in zero gravity. 

(MSFC Release 77-144) 

August 23: The W. Post reported that the U.S. Naval Observatory had 

honored the memory of its astronomer Asaph Hall with a 2:30am party 

attended by Hall’s descendants (“a fine crop of teen-agers and young 

adults”) on the 100th anniversary of his discovery of the moon of Mars, 

which he had named Deimos (flight) and Phobos (fear) after the horses 

that drew the war god‘s chariot. “It now turns out,” the Post added, that 

the little moons would crash into Mars within the next 70 million yr [see 

During June]. Other Naval Observatory observances honoring Hall included a reception, a group of technical meetings, a dinner, and a 100th 

anniversary memorial entry in the logbook of the observatory’s 26in 

refracting telescope. (W Post, Aug 13/77, B1) 

August 15: LaRC reported it had held a luncheon Aug. 11 to recognize 

the contributions of 26 inventors on the center staff to NASA’s patent 

program. Director Donald P. Hearth and Patent Counsel Howard J. 

Osborn presented awards, including one to Richard T. Whitcomb as 

1976 coinventor of the yr for his patent “Airfoil Shape for Flight at Subsonic Speeds,” shared with Robert T. Jones of ARC. (LaRC Release 

77-38) 

August 26: NASA announced it had chosen, from more than lo00 

respondents to invitations, 59 scientists (47 from the United States and 12 

from the United Kingdom) to participate in the second flight of Spacelab 

scheduled for launch in 1981. The Solar Terrestrial Division in NASA’s 

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ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 AUGUST 

Office of Space Sciences, responsible for managing Spacelab 2’s payload, 

would choose experiments to provide new data on very high energy 

cosmic rays; x-ray emissions in galactic clusters; diffuse cool objects in 

earth’s galaxy; and relationships between solar activity and magnetic 

fields. (NASA Release 77-172; MSFC Release 77-148) 

0 NASA announced that Kenneth S. Kleinknecht, assistant manager of 

the orbiter project at JSC, would begin an assignment in Paris Aug. 28 as 

deputy associate administrator for spaceflight (European operations) 

acting as senior NASA adviser to ESA on Spacelab. (NASA anno Aug 

16/77) 

August 17: MSFC announced it had begun the first of a series of tests on 

the external propellant tank of the Shuttle to verify its ability to stand the 

structural stresses of launch. The proportions of the tank required conduct of the test in phases; the first tests would check out the intertank 

structure joining the two main segments of the external tank and containing the forward attach points for the two solid-fuel rocket boosters carried by the Shuttle. The heaviest loading would occur at these points, 

both while the Shuttle was on its pad and while the boosters were 

thrusting during flight. 

The tests would apply upward loads as great as 4.35 million lb to the 

intertank cylinder subjected to opposing downward forces. The loads 

would come from computer-actuated hydraulic jacks, 28 on the forward 

end of the test article and as many as 10 in the center section. Chuck 

Verschoore, MSFC test engineer, said the forces exerted by the jacks 

could simulate bending and twisting effects as well as straight up-anddown loading, and could go as high as 140% of the tank’s design limits. 

Test engineers would receive data from as many as 2800 measurement 

channels. Follow-on tests would check the external tank segments containing the liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants. (MSFC 

Release 77-149) 

0 The NY Times reported an announcement by Hughes Aircraft Company that Telesat Canada had chosen it to negotiate a contract for a new 

generation of Anik comsats operating.at frequencies of 12 and 14 billion 

cycles per second, to replace in the 1980s the 4- and 6-billion-cps now the 

standard fot national and international communications systems. The 

higher frequencies would ease radiocommunications crowding in 22 300 

mile altitude equatorial orbits, and would expand the number of satellitecommunications channels to approach the number available on terrestrial microwave and cable links. 

Telesat Canada, which had operated that country’s domestic comsat 

system since 1972, said that two rival companies-RCA’s Astroelec153 
AUGUST ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1971 

tronics Div. and GE’s Space Division-remained in the running with 

Hughes for award of the contract, which could go as high as $50 million. 

RCA had built the Satcoms used by the U.S., and GE had built a directbroadcast comsat for Japan. The NYT said the electronics industry had 

been watching the competition closely because the same three companies 

had been vying to build 3 data-transmission satellites for Satellite 

Business Systems in the U.S. (NYT, Aug 17/77, 49) 

INTELSAT reported that the Peoples Republic of China on Aug. 16 

had become the 98th member of the organization. Peking’s Administration of Long Distance Telecommunications had signed the operating 

agreement, making the PRC the 28th Asian nation to join INTELSAT. 

China, which had used INTELSAT since 1972, currently had 3 ground 

stations, 2 near Peking and 1 near Shanghai. It currently operated 23 

full-time satellite circuits on the INTELSAT system and was using TV 

capacity on an as-needed basis. (INTELSAT Release 77-20-1) 

0 The Natl. Space Club announced that the guest speaker at its Aug. 

luncheon would be Col. W.J. Mellors, head of the Washington, D.C. office of the European Space Agency (ESA) since 1973. Col. Mellors had 

begun his career with the British army in 1942 and had become commander of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in the Middle 

East by 1965. After joining ESA in 1970, he worked until 1973 with 

ESTEC, the technology center in the Netherlands. ESA had united the 

programs of its predecessor organizations, the European Space Research 

Organization (ESRO) and the European Organization for Development 

and Construction of Space-Vehicle Launchers (ELDO); its members nations were Belgium, Denmark, France, West Germany, Italy, the 

Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. 

(NSC bulletin Aug 17/77) 

August 18: MSFC reported that a new pattern of painting Shuttle solidfuel rocket boosters for orbital flight tests in 1979 and 1980 could save 

the agency an estimated $300 000. The center’s system dynamics 

laboratory had changed the 6 black stripes running the length of the giant 

motors to 4 large rectangles in a spiral pattern that would let engineers 

measure roll and pitch rates of the boosters on reentry. (MSFC Release 

77-150) 

August 20: Today newspaper reported that two USAF fighter planes had 

dropped about 20 bombs July 8 across a lake bed runway used by aircraft 

from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which operates for NASA the deepspace network antennas at Goldstone. NASA and the Department of 

154 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 AUGUST 

Defense had been at odds over the Mojave desert airspace, and “the 

military is winning,” the paper said. 

Twice in the past 6mo a B-1 bomber had narrowly missed the 

multimillion-dollar tracking antennas, and over the past yr USAF planes 

with electronic devices had been jamming space signals to and from 

Goldstone. In the July 8 incident, all bombs from the USAF planes had 

fallen no more than half a mile from the 5 big-dish antennas serving as 

the sole links to satellites in orbit around the earth, the sun, and the 

planet Mars and to one spacecraft headed for the planet Saturn. 

The commandant of the Marine base at El Toro, where the planes 

came from, had grounded the pilots for 2wk, blaming the incident on 

“navigation error” and misreading of the target. However, on July 22, 

the B-1 bomber that had previously buzzed the Goldstone station flew 

with its chase plane low over the heads of station technicians to check the 

sky for radio interference from other military craft. According to JPL 

officials, - the B-1 was “far off the course it normally flies on a test run.” 

Fighter planes from the Georgia air force base had interfered “no 

fewer than 60 times” with Goldstone radio links to its space vehicles. Last 

Oct. a fighter pilot had “accidentally” turned on an electronic device and 

disrupted contact with the Viking orbiter at Mars for more than an hour. 

Had the spacecraft been in a maneuver or an emergency, the mission 

would have been lost, the Viking scientists said. (Today, Aug 20/77, 1A) 

August 20-29: Two yr to the day after launching the Viking mission to 

Mars, NASA launched Voyager2 at 10:29am EDT from ETR on a Titan 

IIIE-Centaur. Countdown was smooth except for a brief hold to check 

the status of a valve. Minutes after launch, problems began to appear: a 

suspected gyro failure, incomplete data transmission, and failure of the 

boom holding the science platform to deploy. 

NASA later reported the gyro was working and data transmission was 

satisfactory. The boom, which was supposed to deploy 53min into the 

flight, had not extended and locked. To determine its position, controllers 12hr after launch had activated a plasma instrument on the scan 

platform and combined its readings relative to a known axis and the 

direction of the solar wind (data supplied by GSFC) to show that the 

boom had extended to within 2” of full deployment. 

JPL reported Aug. 22 that the spacecraft had been stable since 3pm 

EDT Aug. 20, except for a pitch and yaw disturbance at 5am Aug. 21; 

flight controllers were investigating. It reported Aug. 25 that the craft 

had undergone another disturbance like that of Aug. 21; controllers had 

ruled out the propulsion module’s having bumped the spacecraft. On the 

morning of Aug. 29, JPL calibrated the sun sensors and removed the 

dust cover on the infrared interferometer spectrometer. It had tried Aug. 

155 
AUGUST ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 

26 to move the science boom to the locked position, but the computer 

system had aborted the command, showing that a problem existed. Controllers tried jettisoning the dust cover while reorienting the spacecraft, 

to jolt the assembly enough to open the boom hinge and lock it into position, but this was unsuccessful. JPL had decided to put Voyager 2 on 

hold to allow controllers to concentrate on the launch of the other 

Voyager Sept. 5. (Voyager mission status bulletins 3 through 6) 

August 23: MSFC announced that all systems aboard the Heao I observatory launched Aug. 12 had been turned on and were operating as 

planned. Dr. Fred Speer, project manager for HEAO, said the observatory was already acquiring x-ray sources. Experimenters using Heao I 

reported they were pleased with the early performance of their instruments. (MSFC Release 77-153) 

August 23-26: The NY Times reported JSC had announced it could no 

longer afford to monitor instruments left on the moon by Apollo 

astronauts. “I sure hate to see them go, but NASA headquarters has 

notified us there will be no funds for operations beyond Sept. 30,” said 

Wilbert F. Eichman, chief of JSC’s payload requirements and operations 

branch. 

Longest-lived lunar instruments were seismometers recording moonquakes and hits on the lunar surface by outer space objects; four 

seismometers were still operating, and scientists said some could send 

data for up to 4yr more. Data from other instruments, monitored in a 

small control room at JSC, had included measurements of the moon’s 

field of gravity, heat inside the lunar surface, and solar wind and lunar 

ionosphere samples. Roy Kelly, a senior engineer for Bendix (manufacturer of the instrument packages), said the transmitters would be left on 

with no operational support available. 

An Aug. 26 NYT editorial said NASA’s decision to abandon monitoring was unfortunate because, if it continued the program “for just 

another year, there will be that much more data on lunar seismography 

and structure.” Apollo had cost the nation close to $30 billion; shutting 

down to save a few hundred thousand dollars seemed to be “a repudiation of one of the finest chapters in American exploration,” the paper 

said (NYT, Aug 23/77, 16; Aug 26/77, A-20) 

August 25: NASA launched Italy’s first experimental domestic comsat 

SIR10 from ETR at 7:50pm EDT on a Delta into a transfer orbit with 

37 670km apogee, 229.7km perigee, and 23” inclination. At 1057am 

EDT on Aug. 27, its apogee boost motor fired it into a near-circular orbit 

where it would drift by Sept. 8 to a station on the equator above the west 

156 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 AUGUST 

coast of Africa at about 15”W. NASA would transfer operation to the 

Telespazio VHF/SHF control center at Fucino, Italy, about 45 days after 

launch. Italy’s National Research Council (CNR) would reimburse 

NASA for the cost of the launch vehicle and support services, estimated 

at $15.7 million, as agreed in March 1975. 

The Satellite Italian0 Richerche Industriale Orientata (industrial 

research-oriented Italian satellite), 2m (6.5ft) high and 1.4m (4.6ft) in 

diameter, weighing 398kg (8781b) at liftoff, would transmit TV and voice 

data at superhigh frequencies (SHF) from Europe to North America in 

adverse weather conditions. The project had begun in 1969 as part of an 

ELDO program, specifically to carry out a communications experiment 

in the 12 and 18GHz bands proposed by Prof. Francesco Carassa of 

Milan Polytechnic Inst. The idea of using higher frequency ranges (30 to 

60GHz) because of overcrowding on conventional frequencies had offered the advantages of greatly increased traffic in communications, less 

interference with present ground and satellite communications, and the 

use of small ground terminals. The Compagnia Industriale Aerospaziale 

(CIA) had designed and developed the spacecraft and was responsible for 

system management and orbit operations. 

Defense/Space Daily said the original Aug. 17 launch date had slipped 

because of possible interference between the SIRIO antenna and the 

third-stage system that might hinder separation. The NY Times said that 

“adverse wind conditions” Aug. 16 that delayed a test launch of the 

Navy’s Trident missile had automatically postponed the SIRIO launch. 

AvWk said that the SIRIO launch was important to Italy not only 

technically but also politically: it said NASA officials believed major 

changes would have occurred in the Italian government if the spacecraft 

had failed. (NASA Release 77-152; KSC Release 140-77; MOR 

492-209-77-01 [prelaunch] Aug 9/77, [postlaunch] Nov 9/77; D/SD, 

Aug 22/77, 275; NYT, Aug 17/77, A-11; A VWk, Sept 5/77, 23) 

0 NASA announced that a third group of 20 astronaut applicants, all in 

the mission specialist category, would report to JSC Aug. 29 for a week 

of individual interviews and physical examinations. Eight of this group 

were women; all 20 had Ph.D. or medical degrees, or both, and one had 

a degree in veterinary medicine. (NASA Release 77-176) 

0 MSFC announced plans for a 3-day meeting beginning Aug. 31 for the 

59 investigators selected earlier this mo [see Aug. 161 to collaborate on 11 

experiments for the second Spacelab mission. Dr. Eugene W. Urban of 

MSFC’s space sciences laboratory, mission scientist for Spacelab 2, 

would chair the meeting of the Investigators Working Group to brief the 

participants on engineering and management requirements. (MSFC 

Release 77-155) 

157 
AUGUST ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1971 

August 26: LaRC announced selection of RCA Service Company, 

Camden, N.J., to negotiate a $3.5 million contract for electronics 

fabrication services to the center. Work on the contract, covering a 2-yr 

period with options for three 1-yr extensions, would begin in Jan. 1978. 

(LaRC Release 77-40) 

0 The NY Times reported that “observers in the U.S. and abroad” were 

puzzling over a Soviet space vehicle called Cosmos 929 that had been orbiting for a mo and was large enough to be manned, but apparently carried no passengers. Orbital and radio telemetry characteristics of the 

vehicle were like those usually related to a manned mission; speculation 

was that the vehicle might be the first unit of a large space station to be 

assembled in orbit. 

Reports from Europe that the USSR would launch a space vehicle during the summer had assumed that the mission would be another Salyut, 

five of which had previously been orbited, the first early in 1971. Cosmos 

929, launched July 17, had drawn attention because of its size and its 

unusual telemetry, apparently two distinct systems, as though it were two 

objects joined together. On Aug. 18, after a major change in orbit, one 

of the two radio transmissions had also changed “significantly,” and part 

of the vehicle might have been detached at that time. Members of the 

Kettering Group, an international group of nongovernment space watchers, had confirmed that the vehicle was as large as a Salyut and that its 

5 1.6” orbital inclination had usually, though not exclusively, been used 

for manned flights as had its telemetry signals. Cosmos 929 had produced no voices, however, and the group was “virtually certain” that no 

crew was aboard. (NYT, Aug 26/77, A10) 

August 28: The W. Post reported that the leader of a USSR expedition 

on the first surface ship to reach the North Pole had told a news conference that his major problem was deciding when the ship had reached 

its destination. Soviet Minister of Merchant Marine Timofey B. 

Guzhenko said that, as the ship neared the pole Aug. 17, fog had made 

sun readings impossible; the polar daylight obscured the stars; and 

magnetic compasses were worthless when they “began to jump at the 

pole.” 

The vessel’s officers had to spend several hr determining whether they 

had reached the pole. They finally relied on a satellite navigation system 

accurate within about 800yd, and made two passes through the ice floes 

to make sure they had reached their goal. The crew of the 13-day 3582mi 

expedition on the nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika had planted a 

Soviet flag and capsule containing a copy of the USSR constitution to 

mark their accomplishment. ( W Post, Aug 28/77, A24) 

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ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 AUGUST 

August 29: NASA announced it had tentatively chosen 114 scientists to 

participate in the Jupiter-orbiter probe mission scheduled for 1981-1982. 

More than 500 scientists had submitted proposals for research in 

response to a 1976 invitation from NASA. Thirteen selectees would have 

interdisciplinary jobs, helping with mission plans and coordinating 

research and instrumentation to ensure best results from the mission. 

NASA would assign the others to 17 individual-experiment areas; principal investigators for 3 of those areas would be from nations other than 

the U.S. JPL would manage the Jupiter-orbiter project, and ARC would 

manage the probe system. (NASA Release 77-177) 

0 NASA reported that LeRC had been operating a power generator for 

30,OOOhr without a break and was aiming for 50 OOOhr of continuous 

operation, hoping to use the system in deep space missions. The Brayton 

space power generator, a closed-cycle gas turbine, had been running for 

more than 3yr under rigorous space environment conditions of 

temperature, pressure, and speed. 

For the test, ordinary electric lab heaters had provided energy to the 

generator; in space, the generator would draw energy from the sun or 

from a nuclear source. The Brayton engine had dispelled the “myth that 

only static nonrotating systems have the endurance potential for long 

space voyages,” said Jack A. Heller, LeRC engineer in charge of the advanced engine work. The system, he said, “not only is showing reliability 

but it is performing at a high energy-efficiency level of 25% or better 

without any signs of degradation.” (NASA Release 77-178) 

0 The WPost reported conflict between the USAF and NASA not only 

over use of the Mojave desert area [see Aug. 201 but also over use of 

radio frequencies that NASA considered the key to contacting alien intelligences, and that the Air Force wanted for a satellite globalnavigation system. The USAF wanted to use a band scientists called the 

“waterhole,” in which hydrogen and oxygen radiate natural radio signals 

into space (the combination of the two into water had given the band the 

name), thought to be the area in which alien civilizations might conduct a 

dialogue in space. The USAF had selected these frequencies for navigation signals as carrying less interference. Should the USAF have a 

navigation-satellite network in place by 1984, its signals would drown out 

any other signals on those frequencies. (WPost, Aug 29/77, Al) 

August 30: ARC announced that 7 U.S. biological experiments launched 

Aug. 3 on the USSR’s Cosmos 936 had landed by parachute in Siberia 

Aug. 22. The Soviet satellite also carried experiments from France, 

Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and East 

159 
AUGUST ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Germany. Five of the U.S. experiments had followed up those on the 

first cooperative U.S.-USSR biological satellite Cosmos 782 launched in 

Nov. 1975; 4 of them had Soviet coinvestigators, and all of them used 

some Soviet scientific or technical assistance. The last U.S. biosat was 

Biosatellite 3, launched in 1969; without the Soviet flight opportunity, 

the U.S. biology experiments would have to wait for Shuttle flights in the 

1980s. (ARC Release 77-37; NASA Release 77-169) 

0 MSFC reported that astronaut Paul Weitz had arrived on center to 

check out a procedure developed for jettisoning a jammed-open outer 

door of the Shuttle scientific airlock while on a space mission. Weitz 

would wear a pressurized space suit for the task, to be carried out in 

MSFC’s neutral buoyancy simulator. The 75ft-diameter tank filled with 

water 4Oft deep would duplicate movement of people or hardware almost 

as if weightless in space. Engineers and technicians could design instruments and procedures to handle almost any foreseeable problems 

before actual spaceflight, and unforeseen problems (such as solar array 

failure on Skylab) could be solved during a space mission. 

Center workers had been devising a way to remove the outer door of 

the airlock in case it could not be closed at the end of a mission, using a 

full-scale mockup of the Shuttle cargo bay in the simulator. Underwater 

TV cameras would record the astronaut’s movements on control room 

monitors, and both video and voice communications would be recorded 

for later study. Scuba divers in the simulator would help as needed. 

(MSFC Release 77-158, 77-166) 

0 NASA announced that the largest Space Shuttle component - its external propellant tank-would roll off the assembly line in New Orleans 

Sept. 9. The huge tank would then go by barge to the Natl. Space 

Technology Laboratories in Miss. for the first static firing of the Shuttle 

main engines. 

The external tank consisted of 2 propellant tanks and an intertank 

structural connector; the forward tank would contain liquid oxygen, the 

larger aft tank liquid hydrogen. It would be the main structural member 

carrying the orbiter and the two solid-fuel rocket boosters. At launch, 

the tank would feed cryogenic propellants to the three main engines on 

the orbiter; the solid-fuel rocket boosters on each side of the external 

tank would use their own fuel and would separate about 2min into flight 

for later recovery. The mated orbiter and external tank would thrust for 

another 6min, separating just before the Shuttle reached orbital velocity. 

The complete external tank was 47m (154ft) long; the Shuttle orbiter it 

would carry was 37.2m (122)ft long. (NASA Release 77-179) 

Aagw 31: NASA reported it would join NOAA in a 5mo test to detect 

160 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 AUGUST 

turbulence in the flight paths of 2 planes in the skies over Colorado, “a 

built-in turbulence laboratory,” according to Dr. Peter M. Kuhn. An 

earlier study by Dr. Kuhn and others from NOM’S atmospheric physics 

laboratory had used infrared radiometers to detect fluctuations in atmospheric water vapor, indicating turbulent areas ahead of a plane with 

81 070 reliability [see A&A 76, Nov 111. Successful tests could produce an 

inexpensive turbulence-warning instrument for a plane’s control panel. 

(NASA Release 77- 180) 

GSFC announced “a comprehensive programmatic and institutional 

review” of its FY 1978-1979 program to define the skills it needed to do 

its job “within its allotted resources.” The review would result in fewer 

Civil Service employees, the announcement said, and a work force adjustment would require a center-wide review and validation of position 

descriptions to match program redirection and “changes in manpower 

levels.” GSFC Director Robert S. Cooper called on all center employees 

to cooperate fully “in the updating of our position descriptions.” (GSFC 

anno Aug 31/77) 

0 The NY Times reported that the Voyager spacecraft being launched 

toward Jupiter and Saturn would use a little-known power source that 

had made possible much of the dramatic space activity of the last decade: 

a capsule of plutonium 238 producing heat convertible into electricity. In 

localities far from the sun, or on planetary bodies with drastic 

temperature swings between day and night, the plutonium capsule had 

proved far superior to solar cells. 

Early missions such as Skylab and Salyut space stations; the Mariner 9 

and 10 that surveyed Mars, Venus, and Mercury; and communications, 

weather, and navigation satellites had all used solar cells. But in 1959 

President Eisenhower had revealed the possibility of nuclear power for 

spacecraft, and in June 1961 a grapefruit-sized 2.7watt generator had 

gone into orbit on the Navy’s Transit 3A navsat. NASA had used a larger 

system called SNAP 19 on Nimbus 3. Later models powered the stillactive Pioneer 10 and 11 launched in 1972 and 1973 that reached Jupiter 

in 1973 and 1974, as well as the Viking landers that touched down on 

Mars in July and Sept. 1976 to search for evidence of present or past life. 

Another model called SNAP 27 had powered the still-active stations 

left on the moon by Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972; the Apollo 

12 station had lasted nearly 8yr, the length of time the late version 

nuclear capsule on the Voyagers would have to last to permit observing 

Uranus in 1985. The long-lived moon stations had attracted notice 

recently [see Aug. 23-26] when NASA announced it would stop monitoring them in order to save “something less than $1 million a yr,” the article 

said. 

161 
AUGUST ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 

The plutonium power sources, known as SNAP (system for nuclear 

auxiliary power) or RTG (radioisotope thermoelectric generator), had 

been a byproduct of U.S. production of power for nuclear weapons. The 

Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), destined to 

be part of a new federal Department of Energy, had undertaken a 

$30-million-per-yr development of even larger nuclear power systems for 

space, including selenide thermoelectric units with plutonium 238 heat 

sources for an orbiter with probe scheduled for launch toward Jupiter in 

1982, and a system generating between lo00 and 2000 watts being 

developed for DOD. (NYT, Aug 31/77, 45) 

During August: NASA announced it had detailed astronaut Russell L. 

(Rusty) Schweikart to the state of Calif. effective Sept. 1 as assistant for 

science and technology to the governor. The assignment would be for lyr 

under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act. 

Schweikart, one of the third group of astronauts, had come to NASA 

in 1963 and had flown the first lunar module in 1969 on Apollo 9. He had 

been backup commander for the first Skylab mission in 1973. In May 

1974 he had joined the NASA Hq office of applications, and in Sept. 

1976 became assistant for payload operations to the Assistant 

Administrator for Planning and Program Integration, working on 

policies and plans for payloads in the Shuttle era. In the new postion, 

Schweikart would coordinate the application of emerging technology to 

the state’s needs and become informed about the problems and 

challenges facing state governments. (NASA anno Aug 24/77) 

The Natl. Aeronautic Association announced that 127 planes had 

finished in the last Powder Puff Derby on the 30th anniversary of the 

transcontinental air race for women. Pilots represented 36 of the United 

States as well as Australia, West Germany, and the Bahamas; 3 were flying their 24th Powder Puff Derby. NAA had decided in 1976 to make 

this run the last because of shortages of fuel and financing. The 30th 

flight was not a race but a “sentimental journey,” the NAA said (NAA 

newsletter, Aug/77, 1) 

0 NASA announced it had established a fare structure for Space Shuttle 

payloads on flights scheduled to begin in 1980. Depending on the weight 

and volume of cargo, the price would run from less than $10 000 to more 

than $21 million. Other factors would be the optional services desired 

and whether the payload would go on a reserved basis or as a standby. 

Costing $10 000 or less would be the “getaway special” (GAS), a small 

research package weighing less than 2001b, self-contained, with a volume 

of less than 5ft3, flying on a space-available basis. The $21-million fare 

would be for a payload using the full capacity of the Shuttle on a reserva162 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1971 AUGUST 

tion basis by non-U.S. government customers. Lesser charges would apply to customers sharing flights with other customers; those willing to fly 

on a standby basis; and those having made a substantial investment in 

Space Transportation System development (e.g., The European Space 

Agency, its member nations, and Canada). 

Chester M. Lee, STS operations director, said NASA had set the prices 

to encourage Shuttle use by making costs attractive but still recovering 

operating expenses. Commercial and foreign users would pay fees covering depreciation of facilities and equipment, and amortization of orbiters. The pricing plan would undergo review in 3yr to make any 

necessary adjustments, Lee said; it contained provisions for cost increases due to inflation. NASA prices would include space in the Shuttle, 

with standard services such as design review, safety review, flight plans, 

transmission of payload data, and services of a 3-man crew. Optional 

services, costing more, would include special training, upper stages and 

services, special mission kits, revisit or retrieval of satellites, or any 

special equipment. (NASA Release 77-173) 

9 NASA announced it had identified about 40 payloads to be carried on 

11 Space Shuttle flights in its first yr of operation, beginning in 1980. 

Three civilian firms had deposited “earnest money” with NASA for 

payloads on 8 flights; NASA had plans for 5 payloads, and DOD had 

plans for one. 

Chester M. Lee, STS operations director, said NASA also had forecast 

12 non-NASA civilian payloads, 10 NASA payloads, and 4 DOD 

payloads for launch during 1980 and 1981. Allocating the payloads to 

specific flights would not be firm until about a yr before launch, he 

noted. A working model for Shuttle traffic in the first 12yr, totaling 560 

Shuttle flights, would show NASA flying about half the missions on its 

own; 20% would be DOD missions; 6%, other U.S. government agencies; 12070, commercial firms; and 12070, foreign customers. (NASA 

Release 77-175) 

0 NASA announced it had awarded Boeing Commercial Airplane Co. a 

contract to demonstrate advanced technology for fabricating composite 

horizontal stabilizers to be used on B-737 transport aircraft. Managed by 

LaRC, work under the contract would be done over a 4yr period on a 

cost-sharing basis, NASA contributing about $1 1.7 million and Boeing 

contributing about $1.3 million. Boeing would devise advanced 

manufacturing methods suitable for producing composite-material structures, and would carry out all analysis and testing needed to meet FAA 

requirements. Boeing Commercial Airplane Co. had previously received 

a similar contract to fabricate and devise techniques for using composite 

163 
AUGUST ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

materials in elevator shipsets for B-727 aircraft [see July 71. (NASA 

Release 77-174) 

* Researchers from the Soviet ship Akademik Korolev, anchored off the 

coast of Virginia near Wallops Flight Center for joint U.S.-USSR rocket 

launches, had discovered the charms of the Eastern Shore and were enjoying their contacts with the natives, according to reports in the 

Washington Star and Washington Post. The meteorological soundings 

had been completed by the last week of August, the newspapers said, and 

the 134 Russians waiting on the ship for results to be correlated had time 

to visit the mainland on trips planned by local officials in cooperation 

with NASA. 

Coming ashore in groups of about 50, the visitors (mostly young) had 

seen Pocomoke City, Md., a small U.S. city; the village of Chincoteague, 

Va.; the Assateague wildlife refuge; and a tour of Accomack county that 

included a visit to a private home, a farm, and a chicken-processing 

plant. Through NASA interpreters, the visitors asked scores of questions 

on topics from labor relations at the plant to the history of local 

buildings. They had joined in a Frisbee game with local youngsters, eaten 

largely of the local seafood, and bought out the entire beer supply of a 

local general store. 

Capt. Oleg Rostovsev, commanding officer of the 409ft research ship, 

said he had found the visit “a very interesting experience.” His assistant 

for scientific affairs, Evgeny Nelepov, said that many of the researchers 

had visited U.S. cities before, but that major cities everywhere had 

become more and more alike, “losing the individual characteristics and 

cultural tradition . . . To find these national characteristics one must go 

to the small villages and rural areas where traditions and local culture endures. That is why this visit here has meant so much to us.” The Russians 

had held a press tour and reception on the Akademik Korolev as a thank 

you before the ship departed for Baltimore. ( W Star, Aug 28/77, D-1; W 

Post, Sept 1/77, A-1) 

164 
September 

September 1: The Space Age might not yet be out of its teens, the 

Chicago Tribune reported, but the two decades that would end Oct. 4 

since the launch of Sputnik 1 had brought many wonders. The 

newspaper cited worldwide television; photographs from space of the 

blue-white earth in the vastness of space; color pictures of the surface of 

Mars; close-ups of the planet Jupiter; men walking - and riding - on the 

surface of the moon; astronauts living aboard a space station for 84 

days; and men “walking” in space, outside their ships. Satellites had 

changed human life as few other objects (the wheel, the printing press, 

gunpowder) had changed it, and had affected everything from the educational system to politics, from ideas about ecology to ideas about 

humanity itself and about its future. 

Predictions of things to come in the next 2Oyr of the Space Age included weather modification, energy transmission from space, and permanent outposts in orbit and on the moon. People would use satellites to 

monitor air and water pollution, find minerals, chart water currents, 

predict earthquakes, map land use, keep tab on crops, look for fish, and 

make worldwide live television commonplace, the paper said. (C Trib, 

Sept 1/77, 1-7) 

The Washington Post said NASA was looking for “someplace else to 

land the space shuttle.” Its second free flight had been postponed when 

Hurricane Doreen turned the planned landing strip (a dry lakebed at Edwards AFB) into a “mud puddle.” A NASA source said officials had investigated other sites for the flight, tentatively rescheduled to Sept. 7. ( W 

Post, Sept 1/77, A-27) 

Johnson Space Center confirmed that NASA would turn off science 

instruments on the lunar surface and would dismantle the JSC control 

center for Apollo lunar-surface experiment packages (ALSEP) as of 

Sept. 30. The five stations still operating were put there by Apollo missions 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17. In July 1969 the original moonwalkers of 

Apollo 1Z had left behind a prototype station with a design life of only 14 

days; it had smvived for 45 days and quit when its power supply failed. 

Specifications for rhe remaining five had included a lyr design life for 4, 

and 2yr for the Apollo 17 station; the Apollo 12 station was “well into its 

165 
SEPTEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1971 

Built to record and transmit long-term lunar-surface data, the stations 

with their long life had provided researchers with a real bonus: instead of 

data from only one seismometer at a time, for instance, the group had 

operated as a sensor network, greatly enhancing available information 

on the moon’s internal temperature and magnetic field, charged particles 

in its environment, and especially moonquakes and meteoroid impacts. 

Although the experiments would be terminated, the transmitters would 

continue to operate, serving earth as an astronomy reference point. The 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory would use the signals in deep space work such 

as astrometrics and spacecraft navigation or monitoring the motion of 

the lunar orbit against a background of extragalactic stars to test gravity 

theories. 

The lunar stations had had problems: The Apollo 14 ALSEP ran for 

4yr, quit for 2 days in March 1975, started up again, and had repeated 

this 6 times since. Understanding the trouble (temperature fluctuations 

resulting from the sun’s position had caused short circuits) would help in 

designing future science stations. (JSC Release 77-47; NASA Release 

77-203) 

September 2: Ames Research Center announced that NASA had chosen 

29 experimenters for the atmosphere probe portion of the Jupiter mission [see Aug. 291. The probe would carry 6 experiments into Jupiter’s atmosphere; 5 of the experimenters would be interdisciplinary scientists, 

and 24 would be assigned to the 6 experiments: helium interferometer, 

Dr. Ulf von Zahn, Federal Republic of Germany, principal investigator; 

mass spectrometer, Dr. H.B. Niemann, Goddard Space Flight Center; 

atmospheric structure, Dr. Alvin Sieff, ARC; nephelometer, Dr. Boris 

Ragent, ARC; net-flux radiometer, Dr. R.W. Boese, ARC; sferics 

receiver, Dr. L. J. Lanzerotti, Bell Laboratories. 

The probe would separate from the orbiter about 55 days away from 

the planet, continuing on a separate flight path for about 30min of highspeed descent while relaying information to earth through the orbiter. 

After the entry probe concluded its work, the orbiter would fly close to 

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede and near the large moons Io, Europa, and 

Callisto. 

ARC’S Dr. Lawrence Colin would be project scientist for the Jupiter 

probe; JPL would manage the Jupiter orbitedprobe project. (ARC 

Release 77-40) 

0 ESA announced selection of 53 candidates from 12 European countries for the single ESA opening on the first Spacelab mission scheduled 

for late 1980. By the end of 1977, ESA would pick 6 from the 49 candidates chosen by their respective countries and the 4 from ESA’s staff, 

166 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 SEPTEMBER 

to undergo further tests and evaluation by NASA between Jan. and April 

1978. By mid-1978,3 candidates would be appointed as European experiment specialists; several months before the mission, one would be the 

first West European scheduled to travel and work in earth orbit, the 

other two serving as backup. (ESA release Sept 2/77) 

September 4: FBIS reported a Tass announcement that the USSR had installed its first cameras designed to photograph bolides (celestial bodies 

invading the earth's atmosphere) in a 30-unit network in the Ukraine, 

The cameras would permit astronomers to calculate the trajectory and 

place of fall of the bolides, the release said. (FBIS, Tass in English, Sept 

2/77) 

0 FBIS carried the official report by L.A. Aleksandrov, chairman of the 

USSR-U.S. group on space meteorology, that the joint rocket launches 

over the Atlantic to compare instrument results [see July 11 had been a 

success. (FBIS, Krasnaya Zvezda in Russian, Sept 4/77) 

September 5-7: NASA launched the 18201b Voyuger I from Cape 

Canaveral on a Titadcentaur vehicle at 8:56am EDT Sept. 5 in a firing 

' described as flawless by project manager John Casani. A second burn of 

the Centaur at 9:49am boosted the spacecraft out of earth orbit; firing 

and jettison of the onboard propulsion module sent Voyager I on a trajectory toward Jupiter, where it should arrive 4mO before its sister ship 

launched Aug. 20. JPL reported Sept. 6 that Voyager 1 was proceeding 

"without any of the problems that plagued Voyager 2." NASA had 

postponed the Voyager I launch to permit installation of extra springs to 

lock the second spacecraft's science boom in place. The Voyager I launch 

would be the last time NASA would use the Titadcentaur, although the 

USAF would continue to use its Titan for future missions, most of them 

secret. (Voyager mission status bulletin 6; W Star, Sept 6/77, A-2; Sept 

7/77, A-14; NYT, Sept 6/77, 1, 22; Sept 7/77, A-18; C Trib, Sept 6/77, 

1-1, 1-24; W Post, Sept 6/77, A-2; P Ing, Sept 6/77; LA Times, Sept 

6/77; Today, Sept 6/77, 1A; D/SD, Sept 7/77, 8) 

September 7: NASA reported that Kenneth Souza of ARC and Dr. 

Eugene Benton of the Univ. of San Francisco had returned to the U.S. 

from Moscow Sept. 2 with the biological samples carried on the USSR 

biosat Cosmos 936 [see Aug. 301. This mission was the first to subject 

laboratory rats to artificial gravity in the'weightlessness of space. NASA 

would send the samples (tissue from the rats and live fruit flies, processed 

' and packed in dry ice at the mobile landing site in Siberia) with radiation 

records to U.S. laboratories at the Univ. of Calif., Berkeley; Univ. of 

Wash., Seattle; Univ. of San Francisco; Univ. of Southern Calif.; and 

ARC, for analysis. (NASA Release 77-182) 

167 
SEPTEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

* NASA announced that JSC’s space and life sciences directorate 

payload to be managed by the Hq Office of Applications on the second 

flight of Shuttle orbiter 102 (sister ship to the Enterprise used in recent 

approach-and-landing tests at Dryden Flight Research Center) in 1979 

would investigate earth resources, environmental quality, and severe 

storms. The instrumentation and other hardware carried on the second 

flight would be reusable, to permit adjusting or modifying it for later 

flights at relatively low cost. The first orbital flight would mainly record 

performance and monitor space immediately around the orbiter for contamination; the monitor would fly on all 6 orbital flight tests in 1979 and 

1980. NASA had estimated the cost of payload hardware, science and 

technical integration, and mission support at about $10 million. The 6 

orbital test launches from Kennedy Space Center would aim at preparing 

the Shuttle for regular operations by May 1980. (NASA Release 77-181; 

JSC Release 77-48) 

* ESA announced that NASA would launch the orbital test satellite 

OTS, ESA’s first comsat, from Cape Canaveral Sept. 13 or 14 on a 

Delta. The European launcher Ariane would launch the operational 

European comsat system to follow OTS between 1981 and 1990, carrying 

domestic telephone, telegraph, and telex traffic besides relaying Eurovision TV. OTS would operate in the 11- and 14-GHz bands, an advantage 

over the European 4- and 6-GHz links subject to radio interference in 

regional service. OTS’s original June launch date had slipped because a 

motor prematurely separated from the vehicle sitting on a launch stand 

in May. NASA had redesigned the bolt that failed, and had replaced the 

damaged motor and vehicle booster. (ESA Release Sept 7/77; MOR 

M-492-210-77-01 [prelaunch] Sept 8/77; NASA Release 77-168) 

September 8: NASA announced that GSFC and Marshall Space Flight 

Center would join the USAF in solving a yrs old problem of comsat 

makers and users: flying in a synchronous orbit at about 34 500km 

(22 OOOmi) altitude, the comsats routinely encountered electrically 

charged particles from the magnetosphere that built up static electricity 

on the spacecraft surface, causing arcing that could d ower 

cells and thermal insulation, interfere with signal and 

switch spacecraft functions erroneously. The joint project called 

SCATHA (satellite charging at high altitudes) wou in specific data 

on the phenomenon. The USAF planned to launch 

to study electrostatics at geostationary orbit. MSFC would 

light ion-mass spectrometers to measure speed, temper 

of low-energy ions and detect their points of origin. GS 

two instruments, one to measure space electric fields, the other to 

168 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 SEPTEMBER 

measure space magnetic fields. (NASA Release 77-183; MSFC Release 

77- 164) 

* NASA announced plans to develop a prosthetic urinary sphincter for 

patients losing control of bladder functions because of injury or disease. 

Patients now used external collection devices, implanted catheters, or 

prosthetics difficult to operate. John Richardson of MSFC’s technology 

utilization office said NASA’s biomedical applications office had recommended MSFC for this job because of its expertise in design, manufacture, assembly, and operation of miniature valving. MSFC would have a 

contractor design and test the device and prepare documents for Food 

and Drug Administration approval, as well as manufacture the device 

commercially. A successful device would permit safe and quick emptying 

of the bladder and avoid infection, the prime source of fatal kidney 

failure among those without bladder control. (NASA Release 77-1 84; 

MSFC Release 77-163) 

* NASA announced that the Office of Management and Budget had 

called for an agency ceiling of 23 237 permanent positions by the end of 

FY 1978, 500 fewer than current. Dr. Alan M. Lovelace, deputy administrator, said work force adjustments to meet the goal would include 

greater use of contractor R&D; consolidation of applications work at 

ARC, GSFC, and the Natl. Space Technology Laboratories; reduction 

of support manpower at JSC, KSC, and MSFC; consolidation of GSFC 

data management; transfer of helicopter research from Langley Research 

center to ARC; and reductions in support office and facility staff agencywide. MSFC would lose 150; Lewis Research Center, 108; JSC, 90; KSC, 

80; LaRC, 77; GSFC, 74. DFRC, Hq, and Wallops Flight Center would 

lose 30, 20, and 5, respectively. The shift in programs would add 45 to 

ARC and 6 to NSTL. (NASA Release 77-185) 

September 9: The quality of information from the Voyagers would greatly surpass that of earlier missions, said Philip Abelson in Science 

magazine. “A decade ago the level of knowledge concerning the planets 

and their satellites was such that almost any arm-waving explanation 

would fit the facts. This is no longer true.” Citing the potential of 5 of the 

11 instruments, Abelson noted the Voyager cameras could “achieve a 

resolution and observing time at Jupiter better by a factor of 40 than 

those of the Pioneer spacecraft. . . . The radio infrared, visible, and 

ultraviolet instruments can all participate in a mutually reinforcing 

fashion.” (Science, Sept 9/77, 1858) 

* ComSatCorp said the Federal Communications Commission had 

169 
SEPTEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

asked for a status report on the escrow account the FCC ordered set up in 

1976 to cover possible rate refunds to its customers. ComSatCorp said it 

had “meticulously complied” with the FCC order, but would respond in 

detail to the inquiry. (ComSatCorp Release 77-22) 

September IO: The Washington Star reported that the first Space Shuttle 

fuel tank emerged from the Michoud assembly facility near New Orleans 

on its way to tests at the Natl. Space Technology Laboratory in Miss. 

NASA contractor Martin Marietta had built the 520 OOOgal tank, half as 

long as a football field, at a cost of about $2.5 million. If successful, as 

many as 500 similar tanks would be built during the next 15 to 20yr. The 

153ft-long tank, almost 30ft in diameter, was built of aluminum alloy 

and was disposable, designed to fall away and disintegrate in the atmosphere just before the Shuttle reached orbit. Shuttle flights would cost 

about $10 million each, as compared to $150 million each for earlier 

launches. (W Star, Sept 10/77, A-3) 

September 12: NASA announced it had scheduled the second free flight 

of the Space Shuttle orbiter Enterprise on or about Sept. 13 at DFRC 

with astronauts Joe Engle and Richard Truly as pilots. The free-flight 

test series called for 3 more flights before the orbiter would go to MSFC 

for vibration tests early in 1978. (NASA Release 77-186) 

0 MSFC announced that Roy Gibson, director general of the European 

Space Agency, had visited the center for the first time to discuss the 

NASA/ESA Spacelab and other NASA programs with MSFC director 

Dr. William R. Lucas and his staff. Thomas J. Lee, manager of MSFC’s 

Spacelab program office, said the visit would familiarize the ESA official 

with NASA capabilities and programs “in which the Europeans might be 

interested as potential areas for future cooperative ventures.” (MSFC 

Release 77-167) 

JPL announced that NASA had selected an ion-drive propulsion 

system rather than the solar sail [see June 211 for use by automated interplanetary shuttles in earth’s solar system toward the end of this century. NASA scientists had studied the concepts for a yr before making 

the choice on the basis of lower risk and greater potential for growth. 

LeRC had orbited ion rockets, forerunners of the ion-drive spacecraft, in 

1969 as part of SERT (space electric rocket tests). Those rockets were still 

operating in space. An ion-drive ship would carry a cluster of mercuryion engines and generate power from solar-cell arrays converting sunlight 

to electricity. First use of the ion-drive system might be a Halley’s Comet 

rendezvous in 1986 by a spacecraft launched from the Shuttle in 1981 or 

1 70 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1971 SEPTEMBER 

early 1982. (JPL release Sept 12/77; NASA Release 77-187; WStar, Sept 

13/77, A-6) 

0 The Natl. Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported a new 

device to supply near-instantaneous information on hurricane growth 

and movement in the Caribbean and North Atlantic. The device, an airborne data collection platform on a weather research aircraft, would 

relay information on pressures, wind speeds, temperatures, and other 

hurricane data within 15sec from NOAA’s Goes 2 orbiting at 35 400km 

(22 OOOmi) to the Natl. Hurricane Center in Miami. Conventional 

transmission of voice radio from aircraft to a ground station would take 

5 to 15min. Quick transit of information as hurricanes approached 

populated centers would allow time for alerts. As no Atlantic hurricanes 

had occurred this yr until the end of Aug., NOAA had tested the device 

in actual flight over a tropical depression and would install it in 2 other 

planes next yr. (NOAA Release 77-240) 

September 13: The Shuttle orbiter Enterprise made its second free flight 

at Edwards AFB in Calif., a 5min unpowered glide from about 24 OOOft 

altitude, during which it reached a speed of more than 330mph and performed several maneuvers to test its handling before air brakes slowed it 

to a landing at 250mph. Separation from the Boeing 747 carrier was 

delayed 3min because a power failure at DFRC made mission control in 

Houston iose radio contact; the delay caused no problems. For about 

50min before separation, pilots Joe Engle and Richard Truly took turns 

at the controls and the computer to monitor the orbiter’s behavior at 

various speeds. Pilots of the 747 were Fitzhugh L. Fulton, Jr., and 

Thomas C. McMurtry. The flight had been postponed from Aug. 30 

because of a tropical storm [see Sept. 11; a third test was set for late Sept. 

(Postflight rpt, free flt 2, SpSh orbiter ALT; WPost, Sept 14/77, A6) 

September 13-November 9: NASA announced that the Delta vehicle on 

which it had launched ESA’s orbital test satellite OTS at 7:21pm Sept. 13 

from ETR had exploded 54sec after liftoff. The booster and 5 strap-on 

motors [see Sept. 71 had performed properly before the explosion. On 

Sept. 14 John F. Yardley, NASA’s associate administrator for 

spaceflight, had appointed a failure review board whose investigation 

concluded from flight data analysis, photo records, and “substantial” 

vehicle debris recovered near the launch site that the no. 1 strap-on 

motor had failed from causes unknown. NASA had scheduled an OTS 

backup launch for April 1978. (MOR M-492-210-77-01 [postlaunch] Nov 

9/77; NASA newsrm rept Sept 14/77; W Post, Sept 14/77, A9; NASA 

Release 77-193) 

171 
SEPTEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

September 14: NASA reported that its Nimbus 6 had helped rescue from 

the Atlantic off Iceland a 2-man balloon crew attempting a transatlantic 

flight. The balloonists-Maxie Anderson, 44, and Ben Abrmo, 47- 

were unharmed after an after-sunset pickup Sept. 12 by a USAF 

helicopter. They had lifted off Sept. 9 near Bedford, Mass., carrying a 

compact satellite-tracking unit giving out signals received by the satellite 

and relayed to GSFC, which plotted the balloon's location and forwarded it to the control center at Bedford. The balloon ran into a 

snowstorm that blew it off course and broke radio contact; it splashed 

down 1930km (12OOmi) short of its target in France. The crew owned the 

balloon, gondola, and tracking equipment, the latter purchased from a 

commercial firm. GSFC had cooperated earlier in search-and-rescue tests 

of the tracking unit. (NASA Release 77-190) 

The Natl. Aeronautic Assn. announced it would present the Wright 

Brothers Memorial Trophy for 1977 to Lt. Gen. (ret.) Ira C. Eaker, 

former chief of air staff and a central figure in U.S. military and civilian 

aviation. He would receive the trophy-a miniature silver replica of the 

original plane flown Dec. 7, 1903-at the annual dinner Dec. 9 sponsored by the Aero Club of Washington. 

Gen. Eaker had been commissioned lieutenant in the U.S. Army in 

1917 and received pilot rating at the age of 21. After World War I, he 

and other Army flyers set world flying records including the first 

transcontinental flight using refueling, and a transcontinental blind 

flight on instruments in 1936. In 1942 he had led the first attack by Army 

bombers in Europe. He had retired from the USAF in 1947; since then, 

he had been an executive for Hughes Tool Co., Douglas Aircraft, and 

the U.S. Strategic Institute, and had set up a program to hire physically 

handicapped persons in the aircraft industry. (NAA newsletter Sept 

14/77) 

September 15: LaRC announced it would open a major educational exhibit on energy Sept. 22 through 29. Assembled by the Energy Research 

and Development Administration, the exhibit in two 50-ft trailers would 

include films, animated sections, and visitor-operated consoles describing all types of energy now in use and possible future energy sources. 

Operating the displays for ERDA on the U.S. energy situation and what 

could be done about it would be Oak Ridge Associated Universities, a 

nonprofit educational and research organization of 45 colleges and 

universities in the southeast. (LaRC Release 77-41) 

September 16: NASA announced that a fourth group of 20 Shuttle 

astronaut applicants would report to JSC Sept. 19 for a week of physical 

examinations and individual interviews. All of this group were pilot ap172 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 SEPTEMBER 

plicants, one a civilian. Of the others, 12 were USAF; 4, U.S Navy; 3, 

U.S Marine Corps. A final group would report to JSC in mid-Nov. 

(NASA Release 77-192) 

NASA announced that ARC had awarded two San Francisco Bay area 

firms a $2.5 million contract for managing construction of a major 

modification to the largest wind tunnel facility in the western world. 

Turner Construction Co. and Lord Electric Co. would modify the ARC 

40-by 80-ft wind tunnel built in 1944 by adding a new 80- by 120-ft (24 by 

36m) test section and increasing drive power from 36 OOOhp to 

135 Ooohp. The modifications should enable ARC to handle new types of 

aircraft, especially large helicopters and vertical- and short-takeoff and 

landing aircraft. (NASA Release 77-191) 

0 Two balloonists attempting a transatlantic crossing from Bar Harbor, 

Maine, on or about Sept. 19 would carry a lightweight satellite-tracking 

beacon like the one that helped save Maxie Anderson and Ben Abruzzo 

when their balloon ditched near Iceland on Sept. 12. The FAA had required Charles E. Reinhard and Charles A. Stephenson to carry the 

device as an air traffic control aid and in case of a need for search and 

rescue. This type of beacon had previously gone around the world on a 

polar flight, and another rode a 33ft sailboat on a 6OOmi trip through the 

Bermuda Triangle east of Fla., both successfully tracked by a Nimbus 

satellite. The balloonists would cover the cost of the beacon; NASA 

would take no part except for use of the satellite link and ground 

systems, which would operate 24hr anyway. (NASA Release 77-194) 

0 NASA announced it had awarded to McDonnell Douglas Aeronautics 

Co. a contract to build spinning solid upper stages for the Space 

Transportation System. The contract, amounting to about $9 million, 

had resulted from previous NASA agreements with Boeing Co. and 

McDonnell Douglas that the firms could design, test, and market the 

stages independently. Bids had been limited to those two firms because 

velop the stages with private funds. The contract 

Dec. 1979 of the first SSUS with all hardware, 

173 
SEPTEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

tersputnik to use satellites and ground stations for international communications were Bulgaria, Hungary, the German Democratic Republic, 

Cuba, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, the USSR, and Czechoslovakia. 

(FBIS, Tass in English, Sept 16/77) 

* FBIS reported a Tass interview with Boris Petrov, chairman of the 

Intercosmos council, on the high points of the program, including 

cooperation with capitalist countries in exploration of space. France 1 lyr 

ago was the first capitalist country to cooperate; India’s satellite 

Aryabhata had orbited on a Soviet booster 2yr ago; Soviet-Swedish 

cooperation was developing; and the U.S. and USSR would work 

together on space biology, medicine, meteorology, environment, and the 

moon and planets. (FBIS, Tass in English, Sept 16/77) 

September 17: X-ray sensors on the U.K.’s Ariel satellite had detected an 

explosion of “catastrophic dimensions” in the constellation Ophiuchus 

[the Serpent-Bearer], the NY Times reported. Similar sensors on Heao 1, 

the U.S. high-energy astronomy observatory launched Aug. 12, had 

made the same observation. Dr. Daniel A. Schwartz of the HarvardSmithsonian Center for Astrophysics said intensity of x-rays from that 

area increased a thousandfold in the past 2wk, making it the second 

strongest source in the sky (that in the constellation Scorpius, a continuous source of x-rays, was the strongest). No star of comparable 

brilliance appeared in previous photographs of the region. Ariel had first 

detected the x-rays Aug. 31; Heao 1 began recording the source Sept. 7. 

An observatory in Australia that had received data on the explosion had 

also recorded it in visible light; Dr. Herbert Friedman of the Naval 

Research Laboratory said that a nova was rarely observed at widely 

separated wavelengths such as those of visible light and x-rays. (NYT, 

Sept 17/77, B8) 

September 19: MSFC announced it would sponsor a data-management 

symposium Oct. 18-19 jointly with the Univ. of Ala. in Huntsville 

(UAH) to discuss use of space-acquired or remotely sensed data in the 

1980s. MSFC deputy director Richard G. Smith would chair the session; 

Daniel J. Fink of General Electric’s Space Division would deliver the 

keynote addkess. Representatives of NASA and other government 

agencies, industry, and universities would deliver 3 1 papers during the 

meeting. Leonard B. Jaffe, NASA deputy associate administrator for 

applications, would speak at a banquet Oct. 18. (MSFC Release 77-172) 

* ESA announced that the U.S. delegation to an Aerosat Council 

meeting in Washington, D.C., Sept. 15-16, had notified it that lack of 

funds would prevent the Federal Aviation Administration from pro174 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 SEPTEMBER 

ceeding with the program as contemplated. The Aerosat memorandum 

of understanding had provided that ESA, the government of Canada, 

and a U.S. company (ComSatCorp was selected in 1974) would proceed 

with development, production, launch, and operation of the satellite, 

with ESA and the FAA (leasing from the U.S. firm) using the comsat 

capability in equal portions. (ESA Release Sept 19/77) 

September 20: NASA announced it would sign a $5.6 million contract 

with General Electric Co. to build an atmospheric cloud physics 

laboratory for launch on the Shuttle in the early 1980s [see July 111. 

NASA had already selected 8 of 26 experiments for the ACPL on early 

Spacelab missions. (NASA Release 77-197; MSFC Release 77-173) 

* NASA announced that Dr. Robert A. Frosch, the agency administrator, had approved awards totaling $39 800 to 7 NASA and 2 

contractor employees for their contributions to the agency’s program. 

The awards covered 5 major efforts: a central timing system for tracking 

stations using microwave signals bounced off the moon; a new silica 

insulation material to protect the Shuttle during reentry into the atmosphere; a temperature-resistant coating to cover the Shuttle insulation; an economical and durable black-chrome coating for commercialtype solar collectors; and a new optical glass surface to improve Landsat 

images. Largest single award, $10 OOO, went to Mahlon F. Easterling of 

JPL for development of the timing system. (NASA Release 77-195) 

NASA announced it had appointed Dr. Anthony Calio as Hq associate 

administrator for applications as of Oct. 1. Dr. Calio had served as 

deputy associate administrator for space science since Nov. 1975. He had 

begun working for NASA in 1963 at the electronics research center in 

Cambridge, Mass., then at NASA Hq. In 1968 he transferred to JSC and 

in 1969 became its director for science and applications. He had 

previously been a nuclear physicist with Westinghouse and the American 

Machine and Foundry Co., and was in the U.S. Army Chemical Corps 

from 1954 to 1956. Among his honors were NASA medals for exceptional service, 1969; exceptional scientific achievement, 197 1 ; distinguished service, 1973. (NASA anno Sept 20/77; NASA Release 

77-200) 

September 2Z: DFRC announced that employees John G. McTigue and 

Stanley Markey would share a $5000 award for working out a way to 

truck the Shuttle orbiter overland from the Rockwell plant in Palmdale, 

Calif., to DFRC rather than use the Boeing 747 carrier, eliminating the 

need for a mate/demate device costing $2.53 million and saving the Shuttle program nearly $800 OOO. The two men used their knowledge of local 
SEPTEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

terrain, geography, and manpower to set up a ground route with relatively minor problems. (DFRC Release 30/77) 

0 NOAA reported that airline passengers between Miami and Latin 

America could enjoy smoother flights because of satellite weather 

images. Lineas Aereos Nicaragua (LANICA) and 8 other carriers were 

sharing Goes 2 weather photos of the area from the southeastern U.S. 

into South America, including all of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. A LANICA official said that, until now, the airlines had little 

idea of the location of storms; now they could avoid them, or use the 

windflow to save time and fuel. (NOAA Release 77-247) 

0 ERDA announced it had selected Windworks, Inc., of Mukwonago, 

Wisc., to negotiate a contract for design and production of advanced 

small windmills for farms, rural homes, and other uses. The $388 OOO 

contract covered designing a machine to produce 8kw of electric power 

from 29ft-diameter blades in a 20mph wind, and delivering it for testing 

by prime contractor Rockwell Intl. at ERDA’s test facility in Colo. 

(ERDA Release 77-168) 

September 22: NASA announced that Thomas C. Duxbury, a guest investigator at JPL, would use the shadow of Martian moon Phobos on 

Sept. 20,24, and 28 to pinpoint the exact location of the Viking I lander 

on the planet’s surface. 

JPL explained that the spacecraft had landed within a known area but 

was too small for detection by orbiter cameras, which had been unable to 

tie in photographs of the site to the lander’s position. Duxbury had programmed both the lander and the orbiter to take a picture as the shadow 

of Phobos passed over the landing site; the time of the photograph and 

the exact position of the shadow on 3 occasions would permit calculation 

of the lander’s position. 

Duxbury was one of 20 chosen to participate in the Viking guest investigator program set up by NASA to offer experimenter opportunities 

beyond those originally planned for the mission. (NASA Release 77-199) 

0 The USSR announced it had launched a 910kg Prognoz 6 to continue 

study of galactic energetic particles and of solar activity impact on the 

magnetosphere and the interplanetary medium. (FB 

Russian, Sept 22/77), 

keroflot’s IL-62 jet passenger flagship had 

by a crew of 6 women, the IL-62 set a world 

distance record along a closed route of 10 388km d a world record for 

176 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 SEPTEMBER 

average speed along a closed 10 OOOkm route of 804kmph. (FBIS, Tass in 

English, Sept 22/77) 

September 23: The W Post said that the U.S. had “quietly decided” to 

build a device for destroying enemy satellites in space: a small (ft-long, 

8in-dia) heat-sensing vehicle “resembling a tomato can” without explosives but relying on collision at thousands of mph to accomplish its 

purpose. The Post said the USAF had “carefully camouflaged” this step 

in a Sept. 8 release announcing award to Vought Corp. of a $58.7 million 

contract “for development and test of hardware in support of the Space 

Defense Technology Program.” 

A 1967 treaty between the U.S and USSR had prohibited both nations 

from orbiting any object “carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds 

of weapons of mass destruction. . .”; both sides had apparently decided 

this did not outlaw shooting at their own target satellites. U.S. military 

officials deduced that certain USSR launches were tests of hunter-killer 

satellites with non-nuclear charges to blow up on approach to a target. 

William J. Perry, DOD research chief, told the Post that the U.S. could 

either build antisatellite weapons also, or provide more protection for 

U.S. satellites. The DOD had begun on defensive measures such as making satellite wiring less vulnerable, but had also decided on offensive 

measures as shown in the Vought contract. 

The small highly maneuverable U.S. device would have sensors allowing it to home in on slight temperature variations between a target 

spacecraft and its surroundings; it would be so light that a single launch 

vehicle could carry several into effective orbit. (WPost, Sept 23/77, Al) 

0 NASA announced it had joined with Rockwell Intl. Corp. in granting 

funds for a new solid-state electronics facility at Howard Univ., 

Washington, D.C., dedicated Sept. 20 at ceremonies with NASA Administrator Dr. Robert A. Frosch as speaker, attended by more than 200 

persons from NASA, Rockwell, Cornel1 Univ., ERDA, Bell Laboratories, and other public and private groups. Cornel1 Univ., a leading 

school in electronics research, had helped set up the Howard project at 

the request of Rockwell. (NASA Release 77-201) 

0 LaRC announced NASA had awarded Lockheed Aircraft Corp. a contract to produce advanced-composite ailerons to decrease weight of the 

L-1011 transport aircraft. Lockheed, working with Avco Corp. in 

Nashville, Tenn., would demonstrate techniques of designing and 

fabricating 10 shipsets of composite ailerons for FAA approval. Costs of 

the 4yr contract, like those with other firms in NASA ’s aircraft energyefficiency program (ACEE) to reduce fuel needs of civil-transport air177 
SEPTEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1971 

craft by 50% [see May 5, July 71, would be shared, $5.85 million to be 

contributed by NASA and $650 @ by Lockheed. LaRC would manage 

the contract. (LaRC Release 77-43; NASA Release 77-204) 

0 WFC announced it would officially open a new management education center Sept. 30 with Dr. Robert A. Frosch, NASA administrator, 

presiding. A unit of the Hq office of professional development, the 

center would offer short-term residential programs (3-day seminars to 

2-wk courses) designed to train future agency leaders. (WFC Release 

77-12; NASA Release 77-202) 

0 MSFC announced it was developing a coal mining machine using 

technology borrowed from the lunar rover to make mining safer, more 

productive, and more economical. The Interior Dept.’s Bureau of Mines 

had asked NASA to automate the mechanics of mining and eliminate the 

need for human operators in the unsafe and unhealthy environment of 

the cutting operation. 

The longwall-shearing machine in current use would gr:nd coal from 

the face of a seam in a linear direction, sending the coal out on a conveyor and advancing with its roof supports as it went deeper in the seam. 

Operators could not mine coal to the edge of a seam at roof or floor 

without breaking into surrounding shale, so that much coal was left unmined. An operator would find guidance difficult and progress slow 

because of poor visibility from dust. 

An automated guidance and control system would allow removal of 

nearly all the coal at a much faster rate, recovering more of the coal left 

by other methods, in a purer state with less rock and other matter. The 

system would also reduce wear on the longwall machine’s cutters and 

minimize downtime. The contractor to be selected would work with 

results of a 2yr MSFC study of a system using sensors such as gamma 

rays, radar, impact devices, and reflected light to guide a shear’s cutting 

drums. (MSFC Release 77-175) 

FBIS reported that the USSR had opened a television station in Duki, 

town of Khabarov Krai on the Pacific coast of Siberia near Bering Strait 

and the Sea of Okhotsk, permitting reception of both central and local 

programs in all villages of the area. (FBIS, Moscow Dom Svc in Russian, 

Sept 23/77) 

September 24: The press reported that the third free flight of the Shuttle 

orbiter Enterprise over Edwards AFB had successfully tested the 

microwave scanning-beam landing system originally developed for the 

Navy to land planes on ships at sea. Pilots Fred W. Haise, Jr., and USAF 

Lt.Co1. Charles Gordon Fullerton turned over orbiter control to the 

178 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 SEPTEMBER 

system for part of its steep glide down, and ground transmitters kept the 

craft in line with the runway during the 5min 34sec free flight. Installed 

at Edwards earlier in 1977, the system would also be installed at KSC to 

handle Shuttle landings there. 

Despite radio-transmission problems between the orbiter and 

Houston, the launch went off on schedule. At 24 OOOft in a shallow dive 

at 287mph the orbiter separated from its Boeing 747 carrier and reached 

a maximum speed of more than 333mph during its landing approach. 

(NYT, Sept 24/77, 24; W Star, Sept 24/77, A-5; W Post, Sept 26, A-4) 

September 26: JSC reported that another 20 Shuttle astronaut applicants 

would report for individual interviews and physical examinations; the 

group included 17 pilot and 3 mission specialist applicants. Eight of the 

applicants were from the USAF; 6, Navy; 2, Marines; 4, civilians. Of the 

more than 8000 applicants, about 200 would go to JSC for screening, the 

final group due in mid-Nov. and selections in Dec. (JSC Release 77-54; 

NASA Release 77-205) 

MSFC announced that solar energy would provide heat for some of 

the center this winter. A system already completed would supply 50% of 

the heat for one office building; solar cplilectors being installed on 

another would supply hot water. A flat-plate solar collector on the 

10-story center headquarters building would be supplying hot water by 

July 1978. (MSFC Release 77-178) 

September 27: MSFC reported on the dedication of the world’s largest 

solar-energy cooling system at a hotel on St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin 

Islands. The hotel, surrounded by the ocean on three sides, had used 

diesel fuel for energy. The $554 OOO system, part of ERDA’s solar-energy 

demonstration program, used 13 OOOft2 of solar collectors to air condition the 300-rm hotel, saving an estimated $100 OOO per yr over the cost 

of diesel fuel. 

MSFC engineer Bob Middleton, design and installation manager, explained that the system was unique in not storing energy: it provided air 

conditioning during the day only, and the oil-fired system took over at 

night, as the most economical arrangement available. MSFC had worked 

on installations at a total of 59 sites under ERDA’s demonstration program; ERDA had shared costs of this system with the hotel owners. 

(MSFC Release 77-179; NASA Release 77-207) 

0 INTELSAT announced that the People’s Republic of Angola had 

become the 99th member of the organization on Sept. 23, and the 25th 

African nation to join. Angola’s Empresa Publica de Telecomunicacoes 

179 
SEPTEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

(EPTEL) had signed the operating agreement. (INTELSAT Release 

77-25-1) 

September 28: NASA reported that LeRC research under the Aircraft 

Energy Efficiency Program (ACEE) might bring back the use of propellers, once considered obsolete, in fast commercial aircraft service. 

Advances in composite-material technology had led to design of smalldiameter 8-blade propellers that might save 20 to 40% in fuel over current turbofan engines. (MSFC Release 77-206) 

September 29: NASA launched Intelsat IVA F-5 from Cape Canaveral 

on an Atlas Centaur that exploded less than a minute after launch, dropping the 33321b spacecraft into the Atlantic Ocean. This Intelsat and an 

identical craft scheduled for launch in Nov. were to replace two Intelsat 

IVs now in orbit over the Indian Ocean and provide 6OOO telephone channels and 2 television channels for use by 40 countries, compared to 4OOO 

telephone and 2 TV channels offered by the Intelsat IV spacecraft. 

At 60sec into the flight a range safety officer destroyed the secondary 

Centaur stage which had separated prematurely from the Atlas. Failure 

of the $49.4 mission was similar to the Sept. 13 explosion of a Delta 

rocket carrying a $42 million orbital test satellite (OTS) NASA was 

launching for ESA. (NASA Release 77-214; W Post, Sept 30/77, A-3) 

An investigation concluded that a leak in the high-pressure gas 

generator system had ignited combustibles in the Atlas 35sec after 

launch, damaging engine components and terminating the flight. (MOR 

E-491-633-77-04 [postlaunch] Jan 5/78) 

FBIS reported that the USSR had launched space station Sabut 6 into 

an orbit with 275km apogee, 219km perigee, 89.lmin period, 51.6” inclination. A control center near Moscow would process information 

from the station aided by tracking stations on Soviet territory and on 

Soviet Academy of Sciences ships in the Atlantic. Onboard systems were 

functioning normally. (FBIS, Tass in English, Sept 29/77) 

Rockwell Intl. reported that George W. Jeffs, its president for space 

operations, had told the House subcommittee on space science and applications that the U.S. needed “bolder and more imaginative steps” 

toward space industrialization, and called on the federal government to 

demonstrate an aggressive “make it happen” program with a theme of 

Power from Space. 

Space industrialization funding in the 1980 budget, Jeffs said, should 

approach $500 million for building-block phases leading to manufacturing, communications, or space power centers operational by the yr 2000. 

1 80 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 SEPTEMBER 

Such funding would speed up the goal by at least 5yr and would encourage increased private investment. “As dramatic and technically 

rewarding as our space missions have been,” he concluded, “they were 

more significant for creating enormously promising opportunity.” 

(Rockwell Release SP-5) 

September 30: MSFC announced that NASA had selected Martin 

Marietta Corp. and Ball Brothers Research Corp. for negotiations of 

flxed-price contracts for parallel $290 OOO definition studies of a Shuttle 

tethered satellite system [see May 271. MSFC would manage the studies 

for the NASA Hq Office of Space Flight. (MSFC Release 77-181) 

- 

* The Natl. Aeronautic Assn. announced that the Federation 

Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) wodd present the gold space medal, 

given yearly as the world’s highest award for spaceflight, to former 

astronaut Michael Collins, director of the Natl. Air and Space Museum, 

at ceremonies in Rome Oct. 3. The award would recognize Collins’s total 

contribution to manned spaceflight; he had been command module pilot 

during the Apollo 11 mission that first landed humans on the moon. The 

U.S. would also receive 11 other international aviation awards at the 

world aviation body’s 70th annual conference: 3 USAF pilots had set 

records last yr, giving the U.S. 5 of 6 possible absolute world records. 

Capt. Eldon W. Joersz achieved top speed over a straight course of 

2193mph; Maj. Adolphus H. Bledsoe achieved speed over a closed circuit of 2092mph; and Capt. Robert C. Helt set an altitude record in 

horizontal flight of 85 068ft, all using a Lockheed SR-71 twin-engine aircraft. (The USSR held the altitude record of 118 897ft.) 

Other U.S. award recipients would include Paul E. Yost of S.D. for a 

world-record balloon flight of 2475mi from Maine to the Azores, lasting 

107hr, and Bruce Comstock of Mich. for being the only person to win 

the U.S. national hot-air balloon championship twice. Associate NASA 

Administrator Dr. Noel W. Hinners would receive a group diploma of 

honor awarded to the Viking project team, LaRC, JPL, and Martin 

Marietta for the first significant scientific information on Mars and its 

environment. 

The FAI, formed in 1905, was the world governing body for aviation 

records; NAA was its U.S. representative. (NAA release Sept 30/77) 

During September: INTELSAT announced it would award Hughes Aircraft Co.’s electron dynamics division a $126 099 contract to identify 

traveling-wave tube structures in the 4GHz frequency range with high 

reliability and uniform performance for use in future INTELSAT 

comsats. (Intelsat Release 77-24-M) 

181 
SEPTEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

0 ESA announced it had received a delegation of 9 telecommunications 

experts from the PRC’s Electronics Society visiting Europe Sept. 12-Oct. 

20 to see the principal national space facilities and industrial firms of 

ESA member nations. The visitors, headed by Lei Hung of the Electronics Society council, would discuss all aspects of communicationssatellite programs and would give ESA and European industrialists their 

first opportunity to meet with people from PRC in the space business. 

(ESA Release Sept 13/77) 

0 The Natl. Aeronautic Assn. reported Dr. Paul MacCready, U.S. 

aeronautical engineer famous for his manpowered Gossamer flying 

machines, had claimed the Kremer Competition prize offered through 

the Royal Aeronautical Society of 50 000 British pounds (about $86 OOO 

US) for having completed on Aug. 23 the required course of clearing a 

start/finish line loft high, flying a figure 8 around 2 pylons a half-mile 

apart, and completing the flight over the same loft-high finish line. 

The Gossamer Condor, a craft made of corrugated cardboard, balsa 

wood, aluminum, piano wire, Styrofoam, transparent tape, and 

cellophane, with a 96ft wingspan but weighing only 771b, was powered 

by Bryan Allen, an experienced hang glider and bicycle racer, who 

transferred energy through bicycle pedals to a propeller. The Kremer 

prize was the largest ever offered for a single aeronautical achievement. 

Dr. McCready’s claim was subject to RAS approval upon submission of 

flight documentation. Although the NAA, as RAS contact in the U.S., 

had distributed numerous copies of the Kremer rules, only 2 other 

vehicles had been constructed and actually flown in the U.S., one a solo 

manpowered craft like the Gossamer Condor, the other a multimanpowered triplane built by engineering students at MIT. (NAA 

newsletter Sept 77) 

The Natl. Aeronautic Assn. reported that Pan American Airways 

would mark the 50th anniversary of its first flight Oct. 28 by attempting 

a world-record round-the-world, over-the-poles flight in less than 48hr 

with a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. Carrying an official observer to certify 

record performance, the 747 would leave San Francisco, fly over the 

North Pole to London, then to Cape Town, South Africa, over the South 

Pole to Auckland, New Zealand, and back to San Francisco, a distance 

of 26 642 statute mi. A Boeing 707 had flown the polar route in 1965 in a 

record 62hr 27min 35sec. In May 1976 Pan Am’s 747 had set an east-west 

record, a bicentennial flight covering 23,137mi over a New York-DelhiTokyo-New York route in 46hr 50sec. That flight had carried 98 

passengers, many of whom would be aboard the polar flight in Oct. Pan 

Am’s first flight had taken place Oct. 28, 1927, when a Fokker F-7 

182 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 SEPTEMBER 

trimotor lifted off a dirt runway at Key West, Fla., for an hr-long flight 

over 90 miles of ocean to Havana, Cuba. (NAA newsletter Sept 77) 

* NASA announced its yrs-old promise that scientists would operate 

their own equipment in earth orbit would become a reality, with selection 

of payload specialists for the first Spacelab mission in 1980 not by NASA 

but by scientists participating in the mission. One of the two payload 

specialists would be a representative of the European Space Agency 

(ESA), developer of Spacelab. A special panel from an international Investigators Working Group had interviewed 19 US. candidates at MSFC 

and would soon interview candidates in Europe. The entire working 

group would select four trainees for a two-yr program at MSFC; one pair 

would fly on Spacelab 1. (NASA Release 77-1 89) 

* NASA Activities reported on international cooperation in space. Dr. 

Alan M. Lovelace last year had signed an agreement with the USSR 

Academy of Sciences, effective May 11 when signed by academy president A.P. Aleksandrov, to study joint operation of Shuttle and SoyuzSalyut spacecraft in scientific and applications “objectives of merit,” and 

the potential uses of a space platform and developing such a platform 

bilaterally or multilaterally. By the end of 1978, within a yr of beginning 

work on space-platform proposals, two study groups would bring in 

recommendations. The publication cited US-USSR cooperation in 

rocket instrument tests during Aug., the U.S. biological experiments carried on a Soviet launch, and the arrangement for delivery to NASA of 7 

lunar soil samples from the Soviet Luna 24 mission. 

NASA’s mandate called for “cooperation by the United States with 

other nations and groups of nations . . . and in the peaceful application 

of the results of that cooperation.” Best known current example would 

be Spacelab, funded by 10 member nations of ESA, and the concurrent 

development by Canada of the Shuttle’s remote manipulator system. 

NASA’s Landsat program had made data available to 130 countries, 7 of 

which had agreed to set up ground stations for direct reception of 

Landsat information. A joint NASA-AID project based on Ats 6 broadcasts of instructional TV to some 5000 remote villages in India had sent 

special films and live discussions to 27 countries in Asia, Africa, the 

Middle East, and Latin America. Other joint efforts included solarterrestrial studies, solar probes, infrared astronomy, the Space 

Telescope, and a satellite-assisted global search-and-rescue project. A 

major benefit to the U.S from such cooperation would be a favorable 

balance of payments resulting from foreign purchases of data from reimbursable launches. (NASA Activities, Sept 77, 14) 

183 
SEPTEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

The Naval Research Reviews reported on satellite use in the oceanic 

biology program of the Office of Naval Research, covering biodeterioration (growth of fouling and boring organisms), sound in the ocean 

(marine mammals), dangerous marine organisms, and special projects. 

Sound in the sea, second major research area in the program, had 

centered on whales and seals, especially sounds produced by whales. 

Navy scientists had implanted radio transmitters in large whales such as 

blues, fins, and grays, to track them by boat, plane, or satellite. 

Knowledge of whale behavior and movements would be valuable to 

designers and operators of naval equipment. (NR Rev, Sept 77, 6) 

0 FBIS reported on the 28th congress of the Intl. Astronautical 

Federation in Prague, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the launch of 

Sputnik I. Chairman Marcel Barrere of France reviewed at a press conference the "tempestuous impact of space exploration on the planet's industry," mentioning the joint U.S.-USSR approach to a manned flight 

project using the Shuttle and the Salyut orbital station. Presentations at 

the congress had included papers on the search for extraterrestrial 

civilizations, the U.S. scientists reporting on the Voyager mission, and 

the USSR on remote probes of planetary atmospheres for signs of gas exchange between soil and atmosphere. (FBIS, Tass in English, Sept 24/77, 

Sept 28/77) 

184 
October 

October I: The new federal Dept. of Energy opened its doors with 

Secretary James R. Schlesinger promising “to resolve our energy problems. . . through the effective work of all the people of this 

department.” Proposed by President Carter March 1, the department 

had become a reality Aug. 4 upon signing of its organization act and 

Schlesinger’s confirmation as secretary the following day. The department inherited nearly 20 OOO employees and had a first-yr budget of 

about $10.4 billion. Programs it would administer included conservation, resource development and production, research and development, 

data management, environment, and regulation. (DOE Release 

R-77-001) 

Reporting on the end of the Intl. Aeronautical Federation’s 28th conference in Prague, FBIS quoted “American scientist O’Neal” [Gerard K. 

O’Neill] on whether “his project of big settlements on near-terrestrial orbits was not too remote from reality”: “Mankind will never give up the 

idea of settlements in space . . . The question is only how fast will space 

industry and rocket technology reach the necessary level to enable people 

of the earth to start building the first cities in orbit.” 

The congress discussed for the first time the efficiency of space 

research, concluding that spacecraft created in different countries would 

inevitably have a uniform appearance, depending on their use. The idea 

of merging engineering ideas was “a dominant one.” Marcel Barrere of 

France was reelected president of the organization. (FBIS, Tass in 

English, Oct 1/77) 

October 3: Johnson Space Center aMounced that a sixth group of 20 

Shuttle astronaut applicants would report this week for individual interviews and physical examinations. This group, all mission specialist applicants, included one woman. (JSC Release 77-56; NASA Release 

77-215) 

Kennedy Space Center announced award to Intl. Business Machines 

Corp. of a $3 203 666 contract for a system to test Shuttle cargoes for 

compatibility with the orbiter before loading into the payload bay. The 

system, called CITE (cargo integration test equipment), would simulate 

185 
OCTOBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

the orbiter’s electrical and electronic environment, stimulate the 

payloads, monitor their response, and record the results. Keeping up 

with the fast turnaround time planned for Shuttle missions required 

payloads ready to plug into the orbiters without extensive onboard 

testing. The CITE would be mobile for use either in the assembly 

building to check out cargoes in vertical positions or in the operations 

building to check out horizontal payloads. (KSC Release 156-77) 

October 4: Postlaunch reports on the Voyagers said both were functioning as expected. The one launched first, called Voyager 2 because it 

would arrive second at Jupiter and Saturn, had had difficulty with attitude control as well as with its science-platform boom; its data showed 

that the craft was merely obeying faulty software, which ground control 

had corrected. The boom was stable enough to capture satisfactory starfield images. Voyager I, launched later, had not achieved the proper 

velocity during two trajectory corrections; Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

engineers said rocket exhaust was apparently pushing against the craft, 

and had changed the procedure accordingly. (NASA Release 77-209; 

MOR S-802-77-01/02 [postlaunch] Oct 6/77) 

NASA announced that its administrator, Dr. Robert A. Frosch, and 

Chairman A.B. Wolff of the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programs had signed a memorandum of understanding on the Infrared 

Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) project, a cooperative undertaking in 

which the United Kingdom would also share under a separate agreement. 

An earth-orbiting observatory built by the Netherlands and scheduled 

for launch in 1981 would carry a cryogenically cooled IR telescope 

furnished by the U.S. and a package furnished by the U.K. for command, control, and data acquisition. Nearly 500 scientists, engineers, 

and technicians from the participating nations would join in the first 

survey of the entire sky at infrared wavelengths undetectable by earthbased telescopes obscured by the atmosphere. The mission would have a 

lyr lifetime. Ames Research Center would manage the telescope, built by 

Ball Bros. Research Corp.; JPL would have U.S. project management 

responsibility. (NASA Release 77-210) 

0 Marshall Space Flight Center announced award to Intl. Business 

,Machines of a $1 344 950 contract for 134 site data-acquisition subsystems to monitor performance of ERDA’s solar heating and cooling 

demonstration program at sites throughout the U.S. The IBM machines 

would provide data on solar energy at each site, amounts used for 

heating, cooling, and hot water, and other areas of performance, 

efficiency, and fuel saving. Each site would feed data to a central computer in Huntsville, Ala., for compilation of reports to business, in186 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 OCTOBER 

dustry, and the general public on the most economical and practical 

systems tested. (MSFC Release 77-184) 

9 The Washington Post reported on Sputnik 1’s 20th anniversary as 

observed in the Soviet Union. Sputnik had set off a “search for 

nationhood in the United States even as it seemed to confirm it in the 

Soviet Union . . . Ask any Soviet citizen above the age of 24 and each 

can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when they 

heard . . . a Soviet satellite was in orbit.” 

The U.S. search ended “in a symbolic and real sense” with the moon 

landing 8.5yr ago. However, the certainty of power that Sputnik gave the 

USSR “has never quite materialized out of the void of space.” The A-2, 

early main launch vehicle for the USSR “civilian” program, was still that 

today. U.S. experts in the joint Apollo-Soyuz project had been 

“dismayed by the crudeness of Soviet space hardware”: one compared 

the Soyuz craft to a “hot water radiator . . . it works, but that’s about all 

you can say for it.” An aviation weekly, interviewing the experts, said 

they rated the Soyuz with the Mercury capsule, first US. manned 

spacecraft. “Their scientists are every bit as good as ours,” said one U.S. 

physicist, “but the technical gap is still huge.” 

The article noted that -the U.S. had dropped its space medicine program in the early 1970s but the USSR had kept on with its, and had maintained large space stations in orbit since 1971 manned with crews up to 63 

days at a time. The Soviet space program had had less trouble than the 

U.S. program “because of the closed nature of the system. . . no 

citizens groups or congressional critics to question the need for a manned 

space program.” Competition for limited resources was the same in both 

countries, but “lack of public debate allowed managers luxuries of continuity not available to their counterparts in a democracy.” ( W Post, Oct 

4/77, A-1) 

October 6: NASA announced that its administrator, Dr. Robert A. 

Frosch, and Hans Matthoefer, minister for research and technology for 

the Federal Republic of Germany, had signed a memorandum of 

understanding for participation in a Jupiter orbitedprobe mission to be 

launched by the Space Shuttle in 1982. 

The mission would send an orbiter and a probe on the most detailed investigation to date of the environment and moons of Jupiter, the first opportunity for 114 investigators to measure Jupiter directly as well as 

remotely from various orbital positions over a long period of time. The 

orbiter, carrying 10 instruments, would circle Jupiter for at least 20mo; 

the probe, carrying 6, would plunge into the atmosphere. West Germany 

wodd provide a retropropulsion module to inject the orbiter into its path 

187 
OCTOBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

around Jupiter, as well as ,the scientific instruments and the services of 14 

German investigators in preparing the two spacecraft and analyzing their 

data. JPL would manage the U.S. project, ARC the probe, JSC the 

Space Shuttle. An office in West Germany would manage FRG’s share. 

(NASA Release 77-21 1) 

0 MSFC reported that a highly sensitive gamma ray telescope carried to 

40km (25mi) altitude by a giant helium-filled balloon on a 40-hr flight 

had studied an unusual binary-star system (AM Herculis in the 

constellation Hercules) in which material from the larger star was falling 

onto the dwarf companion. 

Dr. Thomas A. Parnell of MSFC’s space sciences laboratory said the 

flight was seeking discrete gamma-ray emissions from particular celestial 

bodies to identify the chemical elements and isotopes existing there; AM 

Herculis was one of 6 unusual objects sought by the 0.75m-diameter 

(2.5ft) telescope loaned by Rice Institute to MSFC in a joint astronomy 

project. The balloon instrumentation was similar to part of the payload 

on Heuo I, launched Aug. 12 to make high-energy astronomy surveys. 

Detection of gamma rays in objects by Heuo I would be confirmed by 

the balloon flights, the two sets of information being complementary. 

Dr. Parnell noted that balloons had carried models of HEAO instruments in preliminary tests; another MSFC balloon launched last 

week had carried a cosmic-ray detector like one to be flown on HEAO-C 

in 1979. (MSFC Release 77-186) 

ARC reported that the city of Genoa, Italy, had awarded it the 

Columbus gold medal for the multibillion-mile flights of two Pioneers to 

Jupiter. The medal, presented annually during Columbus Day celebrations in the explorer’s birthplace, would be accepted Oct. 12 by acting 

ARC director Clarence A. Syvertson, who would be in Europe at the 

time. (ARC Release 77-42) 

Langley Research Center announced it would dedicate Oct. 11 the site 

of Project RECOUP (refuse-consuming utility plant), first jointly funded federal and municipal project of its kind, to generate steam from 

burning refuse [see Jan. 191. Construction would begin in 1978 and be 

completed in 1980; NASA would share the $8.4 million cost of the plant 

with the US Air Force and the city of Hampton, Va. The plant would 

burn more than 80% of the refuse from Hampton, LaRC, the Langley 

Air Force Base, the Army’s Fort Monroe, and the Veterans Administration hospital; in a 24-hr operation, it would burn about 200 tons a day, 

doubling the capacity of Hampton’s landfill. LaRC would use the steam 

generated by the plant to augment its present heating system, saving 

about 2.4 million gallons of oil per yr. (LaRC Release 77-46) 

188 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 OCTOBER 

October 7: ESA announced that NASA Administrator Dr. Robert A. 

Frosch and Roy Gibson, director general of ESA, had signed at a 

meeting in ESA headquarters a memorandum of understanding on 

cooperation in NASA’s space telescope program. 

The European contribution would include a faint-object camera for 

high-resolution imagery in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared portions of the spectrum, with associated photon-counting detector, to be 

left in orbit as long as considered scientifically useful; the solar array to 

power the scope; and support of a scientific operations center to be 

established by NASA for managing the observatory. ESA would get 15% 

of the observing time for the duration of the program in return for its 

participation, and would share data with astronomers in its member 

states and the international community. 

NASA would develop and integrate the telescope, launch it into orbit 

on the Shuttle, supply tracking and data-acquisition services, and maintain the telescope throughout the program. MSFC would manage the 

space telescope, Goddard Space Flight Center would manage instrument 

development and observatory operation, and the European Space 

Technology Center (ESTEC) would manage the ESA effort. (ESA 

Release Oct 7/77; NASA Release 77-212) 

0 LaRC announced that Sir Robert Mark, former director of New 

Scotland Yard (his official title was Commissioner of Police of the 

Metropolis), would be guest speaker at a center colloquium on terrorism 

and law enforcement as part of the public lecture series, “Our Future in 

the Cosmos.” The lecture would contrast philosophy and methodology 

of British and U.S. criminal justice systems, including the areas of 

capital punishment, terrorism, and political influence on police matters, 

reflecting the speaker’s feeling that a free society is governed by consent 

rather than by force. (LaRC Release 77-45) 

October 9-12: Newspapers reported the launch Oct. 9 of Soyuz 25 carrying two rookie cosmonauts - Vladimir Kovalenok and Valery 

Ryumin-toward a linkup with new space station Salyut 6 launched 

Sept. 29. Western observers said Soyuz 25-first manned Soviet mission 

since Feb., when Col. Viktor Gorbatko and Lt.Co1. Yuri Glazkov had 

spent 18 days aboard Salyut 5- was probably connected with the Sputnik 

1 anniversary and the upcoming 60th anniversary celebration Nov. 7 of 

the Russian revolution. The observance might include either an attempt 

at a new record of more than 63 days in orbit or the launch of another 

space station to link with Salyut 6 and form a huge orbiting laboratory. 

Officials had canceled Soyuz 25 only 26hr into the mission because of 

unspecified trouble, although the craft had come within 13Oyd of the 

Salyut 6. The Moscow domestic service in Russian said only that the 

189 
OCTOBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

linkup was called off “due to deviations from the planned procedure for 

docking.” The word that the flight was canceled came after 24hr of 

silence, which had caused fears for the safety of the crew. Tass said Oct. 

12 that the capsule had returned safely, landing in Kazakhstan at 6:25am 

local time Oct. 11. 

U.S. officials speculated that, like Soyuz 15 in Aug. 1974 and Soyuz23 

in Oct. 1976, this mission failed because the cosmonauts had overshot 

the docking point and could not make another attempt because their battery power allowed insufficient time to correct the navigational error. 

When a crew last overshot its Salyut, 4mo elapsed before another crew 

made a docking attempt. (W Star, Oct 10/77, A-1; Oct 11/77, A-6; W 

Post, Oct 11/77, A-1; Oct 12/77, A-21; FBIS, Tass in English, Oct 9/77, 

Oct 10/77, Oct 11/77) 

October 11: ARC announced that a tegm of its scientists had made a 

“major breakthrough” in explaining the origin of life. ARC’S Dr. James 

Lawless, team leader, presented a report on the work to the Pacific 

Conference on Chemistry meeting in Anaheim, Calif. Chemical evolution experiments in the past several yrs had applied electrical discharges 

to ammonia., methane, and water to produce basic life molecules, includiog amino acids and nucleotides, but with no indication how the 

molecules formed organic building blocks in ever more complex groups 

&til a group appeared that could replicate itself. 

The new experiments had used metal clays normally present on 

primordial earth and ocean shores. Mixing amino acid solutions with 

everyday metal clays showed that the clays attracted the thousand varying aminos out of solution. One nickel-containing clay preferentially 

attracted the 20 amino acids making up protein, main ingredient of living 

cells; of 8 clays tried, only the nickel clay did this. The other metal clays 

destroyed nonprotein-forming amino acids faster than protein acids, indicating how the life-forming acids were selected and concentrated. Experiments simulating tidal action on the clays produced chains of amino 

acids, as many as 8 so far; time would eventually produce the far longer 

chains found in life. A zinc clay, only one of 9 metal clays tried, had a 

similar effect on DNA building blocks; the presence of metals in life 

systems today had resulted from prebiological chemistry, Dr. Lawless 

said. (ARC Release 77-43; NASA Release 77-220) 

JPL announced appointment of Dr. Rochus E. Vogt, professor of 

physics at CalTech and principal investigator for the cosmic ray experiments on Voyagers I and 2, as chief scientist. (JPL anno Oct 11/77) 

October 12: NASA’s Space Shuttle orbiter Enterprise successfully went 

through its fourth free flight with its streamlined 57001b tailcone off, in190 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 OCTOBER 

creasing drag and reducing the altitude achievable by its 747 carrier (to 

about 18 0oOft) as well as the distance it could glide after separation. 

Three previous free flights, tailcone on, had lasted about 5.5min each; 

this time the Enterprise, fitted with 16 OOOlb of dummy engines with 

nozzles 8ft in diameter, wide enough for a man to stand upright in, 

would have a glide time of only about 3 min. 

Pilots Joe Engle and Richard Truly, alternating at the controls of the 

orbiter, brought it to a stop on a runway at Edwards AFB after recording 

a touchdown speed of 212mph and 5000ft of landing roll. NASA’s goal 

had been no more than 9OOOft of landing roll, showing that the orbiter 

could land at any major airport in the world. Fitzhugh L. Fulton, pilot of 

the 747 carrier plane, said the aerodynamic resistance created by the 

dummy engines had caused “heavy shaking” on both the orbiter and the 

747 during the hr-long ascent to launch altitude. Tom McMurtry, copilot 

of the 747, said the turbulence resembled “what you might get in a commercial airliner . . . only we couldn’t change altitudes to get away from 

it as an airline pilot does.” 

NASA officials said the last free flight, scheduled for Oct. 26, would 

end with the microwave landing system controlling the touchdown. 

(DFRC Release 31-77; postflt rept, free flt 4, SpSh orbiter ALT; NYT, 

Oct 13/77, A18; WPost, Oct 13/77, C-11; LA Times, Oct 13/77, 1; JSC 

Roundup, Oct 14/77, 1; WStar, Oct 13/77, A-10; C Trib, Oct 13/77, 

1-13) 

JSC announced that another set of 20 Shuttle astronaut candidates 

would report to the center Oct. 17 for physical examinations and individual interviews. All of this group would be mission specialist applicants, 8 of them women. Applicants screened at JSC so far had totaled 

140, 77 of them pilots and 63 mission specialists; the 17 women were all 

mission specialist applicants. (JSC Release 77-59; NASA Release 77-21 8) 

NASA announced that Dr. David R. Scott, director of Dryden Flight 

Research Center, would leave the agency Oct. 30 to form with others a 

firm in Los Angeles specializing in technology transfer. Deputy Director 

Isaac T. Gillam would be acting director until a replacement was 

selected. Before becoming director of DFRC in 1975, Dr. Scott had been 

deputy director since 1973. He had left the astronaut corps in 1972, having flown on Gemini 8, Apollo 9, and as spacecraft commander of 

Apollo 15 (fourth manned lunar landing, during which he was first to 

visit the moon’s Hadley rille and Apennine mountains). He had also been 

technical assistant to the Apollo program manager at JSC and special 

assistant in the Apollo spacecraft program office. (NASA anno Oct 

12/77; NASA Release 77-217; DFRC Release 34-77) 

191 
OCTOBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

October 13: LaRC announced that NASA had awarded Boeing Commercial Aircraft Co. a $1.5 million contract to develop advanced 

aerodynamic and active-control concepts for civil transport aircraft. The 

contract included 6 tasks that would apply studies of aircraft systems to 

initial design processers. LaRC would manage the contract. (LaRC 

Release 77-48; NASA Release 77-219) 

October 14: NASA announced plans for Noise-Con 77, third in a series 

of national conferences on noise control, to be held at LaRC Oct. 17-19. 

Sponsored jointly by the Institute of Noise Control Engineering and 

LaRC, the conference would center on transportation noise. Some 40 

technical papers would discuss control of noise from railways, aircraft, 

motor vehicles, and highways, as well as community impact of transportation noise, standards and measurements, and federal programs for 

noise control. (NASA Release 77-221) 

October 17: NASA announced it had selected 5 materials-processing experiments to be flown on an early orbital-test flight of the Space Shuttle 

beginning in 1979. The Materials Experiment Assembly (MEA) would 

offer scientists an interim opportunity to conduct studies before 

Spacelab missions began; it would be automated and unattended, containing its own power source and a minicomputer to collect data. Principal investigators and their experiments were Dr. J. Bruce Wagner, Jr., 

Ariz. State Univ. -solid electrolytes containing dispersed particles; 

Ralph A. Happe, Rockwell Intl. - containerless preparation of advanced 

optical glass; Dr. Herbert Wiedemeier, Rensselaer Polytechnic 

Inst. -vapor growth of alloy-type semiconductor crystals; Dr. John W. 

Vanderhoff, Sinclair Laboratories, Lehigh Univ. - large-particle-size 

monodisperse latexes; Dr. S.H. Gelles, Gelles Associates, Columbus, 

0. -liquid miscibility gap materials. (NASA Release 77-222) 

0 Wallops Flight Center announced its annual Woman’s Day observance 

Nov. 2 would stress the need for equal opportunity for women to contribute to all phases of national life. Speakers would be Lillian Levy of 

NASA Hq and Jill Barbon of the Salisbury, Md., chamber of commerce. 

(WFC Release 77-13) 

0 The Dept. of Transportation announced it had awarded contracts to 

Perkin Elmer Gorp, and United Technologies Inc. for devices to measure 

the effect of jet-engine emissions on the stratosphere. The first contract, 

valued at $385 OOO, would be for a system to measure nitrogen oxides in 

the stratosphere between 50 OOO and 115 OOOft altitude and predict jetemission effects. The second contract, funded jointly at $458 OOO by 

FAA, NASA, EPA, USAF, and the U.S. Navy, would document and ex- 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 OCTOBER 

plain the differences in reported measurements of nitrogen oxides in jetengine exhausts, comparing optical measurements with the sampling 

technique. (DOT Release 98-77) 

October 18: NASA announced it had reached an agreement with the 

Navajo Tribal Council in Ark. for a 2-yr project to use Landsat data for 

an automated resource inventory of the 16-million-acre reservation in the 

southwest U.S. 

The tribe had asked NASA whether satellite and aerial remote sensing 

could help solve inventory and multiple-use management problems including range rehabilitation, timber, agriculture, harvest prediction, and 

wildlife counts. Phase one of the project would demonstrate how Landsat data could apply to specific tribal needs and changes in resources; 

phase two would include training of tribal personnel and setting up an 

operational system at Navajo headquarters. The Navajo would assist 

other tribes to realize the benefits of satellite information systems. 

(NASA Release 77-223) 

0 DFRC announced that the final free flight of the Shuttle orbiter, 

scheduled for Oct. 26, would have Fred Haise and Gordon Fullerton as 

pilots, and that Prince Charles, Britain’s Prince of Wales, would attend. 

(DFRC Release 35-77) 

* The Dept. of Transportation reported it had asked for suggestions on 

solving the problem of ozone irritation encountered on high-altitude 

flights. Ozone, a colorless atmospheric gas found in increasingly higher 

concentration at higher altitudes, had been identified earlier in 1977 as 

the cause of eye, nose, and throat irritation in airline passengers and crew 

on high-altitude long-range flights. Higher concentrations were found 

closer to earth in late winter and early spring months, increasing the 

number of aircraft exposed. 

The FAA had issued an advisory on avoiding encounters with ozone, 

but was now seeking a permanent solution and soliciting views of 

manufacturers, crew organizations, health groups, high-altitude researchers, and airline customers, to be submitted by Dec. 6. (FAA 

Release 100-77) 

October 19: ESA announced that the tandem launch of a single Delta of 

the U.S. ISEE-A and the European ISEE-B, originally scheduled for 

Oct. 19 and postponed to Oct. 21, had been postponed again. NASA was 

making additional checks of the Delta launch vehicle. (ESA Release Oct 

19/77) 

* The Dept. of Commerce announced that 2 oceanographic research 

193 
OCTOBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

ships and 4 aircraft had scanned the Gulf of Mexico during Oct. to 

demonstrate measurement of ocean properties using satellite-borne instrumentation. 

Dr. Warren Hovis, director of NOM’S satellite experiment 

laboratory, said the program was a preliminary to launch in 1978 of the 

Nimbus-G with a coastal-zone color scanner. The joint NASA-NOM 

tests had used aircraft equipped with models of the scanner to record 

data that could be confirmed by surface measurements taken on the 

ships. (NOM Release 77-265) 

The Natl. Science Foundation reported that federal funding for 

research and development had risen significantly between fiscal yrs 1974 

and 1978, having shown only slight growth in the 1%9-1974 period. 

Total federal WD funding for FY 1978 was about $26.3 billion, $8.9 

billion more than for FY 1974. For the 1974-1978 period, 6 functional 

areas accounted for nearly all the increase in federal support: defense, 

44%; energy, 25%; space and health, 7% each; environment, 5%; 

science and technology base, 4%. (NSF Release PR77-93) 

October 20: JSC reported the 8th group of Shuttle astronaut applicants 

would report to the center Oct. 25 for physical examinations and interviews. The 20 mission specialist applicants in this group were all military 

except for one civilian; they represented the USAF (13), the Army (3), 

the Navy (2), and the Marines (1). The group included one woman, 

USAF Capt. Jane L. Holley. Of the 160 applicants screened at JSC, 77 

wanted to be pilots and 83 mission specialists. (JSC Release 77-66; 

NASA Release 77-225) 

October 21: LaRC announced it would hold the 33rd annual completion 

exercises Oct. 28 for 34 engineering technicians trained at the center. 

James P. Mitchell, deputy administrator of the Dept. of Labor’s Bureau 

of Apprenticeship and Training, would be keynote speaker. LaRC Director Donald P. Hearth would preside at the ceremony and give special 

recognition to honor graduates. Woodrow W. Midgette, Jr., top honor 

graduate, would be speaker for the class of 1977, consisting of 7 electrical engineering technicians; 7 electronics technicians; 2 engineering 

draftsmen; and 18 engineering technicians in the areas of aerospace 

models, facility operations, materials processing, mechanical development, and systems environments. (LaRC Release 77-5 1) 

NASA announced it had named Dr. James J. Kramer associate administrator for aeronautics and space technology, effective Oct. 23. He 

had been acting in that capacity since Dec. 1976. Starting at Lewis 

Research Center in 1951, Dr. Kramer had come to NASA Hq in 1971 as 

194 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 OCTOBER 

chief of OASTs noise and pollution reduction branch. (NASA anno Oct 

21/77; NASA Release 77-227) 

0 The Washington Post reported Senate confirmation of 11 high-level 

nominees to the new Dept. of Energy. Among those confirmed was Dale 

D. Myers, former NASA associate administrator for space flight, as 

undersecretary of DOE. Myers, an aeronautical engineer with North 

American Rockwell since 1943, had joined NASA in Jan. 1970; he had 

been a vice president and manager of the Apollo program at Rockwell. 

(WPOSt, OCt 21/77, B-5) 

October 22: NASA launched two international satellites, the U.S. ISEEA and ESA’s ISEE-B, on a single Delta rocket at 953am EDT (1353hr 

GMT) from ETR at Cape Canaveral into a highly elliptical orbit ranging 

from about 138,OOOkm apogee to 280km perigee, 28.7” inclination, and 

2.4-day period. The ISEEs had separated an hr after launch, the A craft 

(Isee 1) spin axis perpendicular to the ecliptic and the B spacecraft (Isee 

2) spin axis parallel to the ecliptic to permit magnetometer calibration 

and boom extension. The satellites would measure earth’s environment, 

assisted by a third spacecraft ISEE-C scheduled for launch in 1978. 

(NASA Release 77-123; ESA Release Oct. 24/77; MOR S-862-77-01/02 

[prelaunch] Oct 11/77, [postlaunch] Oct 25/77; WPost, Oct 23/77, A13; 

W Star, Oct 23/77, A-2) 

October 23: The NY Times reported that Capt. Edgar D. Mitchell, 

astronaut on the Apollo 14 mission, had taken 55 special stamp covers on 

his flight and had just sold the first for $4200. The San Francisco firm 

that auctioned the stamp earlier in Oct. said the buyer was a major stamp 

dealer in Italy. 

In 1972 NASA had reprimanded the Apollo 15 astronauts for smuggling 400 first-day covers to the moon and selling 100; the 300 covers not 

sold were turned over to the U.S. for “safe storage in the archives.” The 

Apollo 14 crew had carried 200 silver medals on the 1971 moon flight, 

keeping 150 for “private use,” but had not been reprimanded because 

none of the medals had been sold. The Calif. dealer said Mitchell, now a 

civilian living in Fla., had brought in the covers for appraisal and was advised to find the market value by selling one. NASA said it knew Mitchell 

had taken the covers in his “personal preference kit”; when it asked about 

them, he replied “It’s.none of your business,” and a few days later had 

announced his retirement. Official NASA comment on the sale: “Unfortunate.” (NYT, Oct 23/77, 45) 

October 24: FBIS said the USSR in 1978 would install a second generation of laser long-distance satellite rangefinders usable in daylight, in195 
OCTOBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

creasing the range to 40,Wkm with an accuracy of k1Ocm. USSR 

engineers were working in Czechoslovakia on the new rangefinder. The 

report said Intercosmos engineers from Hungary, East Germany, 

Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the USSR had built a rangefinder measuring distances up to 3000km accurate up to f5m; however, it could 

operate only at night. Ground stations in Poland, Egypt, Bolivia, India, 

and Cuba had used the device. (FBIS, Intl Serv in Russian, Oct 24/77) 

October 25: NASA announced it had agreed with the St. Regis Paper Co. 

in N.Y. to use the Landsat for monitoring from 9OOkm (56Omi) commercial timberlands owned by the company over a 5-state area in Fla., Ga., 

Ala., Miss., and La. St. Regis would use the satellite data to manage its 

timberland. JSC would manage development of an automatic system for 

classifying forested areas, to identify kinds of trees, estimate timber 

volume, and detect changes in health or growth of the forests, combining 

the new system with existing data from aerial photography and ground 

surveys. Software and techniques from this first major undertaking between NASA and a private company would be in the public domain, to 

benefit other forest-resource managers. Past cooperative uses of Landsat 

had been between NASA and other U.S. or foreign government agencies. 

(NASA Release 77-226; JSC Release 77-73) 

October 26: NASA reported that the fifth and final free flight of the 

Shuttle orbiter Enterprise, testing its braking on a concrete runway, had 

successfully made a landing on concrete at Edwards AFB-although it 

had a bumpy finale when the orbiter touched down and bounced twice 

before stopping. 

At a postflight press conference, pilots Fred W. Haise and C. Gordon 

Fullerton said the craft had reached speeds higher than expected after 

separating from its Boeing 747 carrier. Shortly after 8am local time the 

747 had taken off with the orbiter attached to the top of its fuselage, 

climbing during the next 50 minutes to about 20 000ft altitude, where it 

nosed over and began to dive. At about 17 000ft the orbiter separated 

and came straight down without the turns made in previous flights; the 

dive angle was 25-22” compared with a commercial jetliner’s descent 

slope of about 3”. Touchdown, which came lmin 55sec after separation, 

overshot the 5000ft mark on the concrete runway by about 1000ft. The 

rear landing gear had touched, but the craft hopped back into the air, 

bounced, and tipped slightly before the pilots steadied it and stopped it 

with 2000ft of runway remaining. Approach speed had reached 330mph 

on the indicators, and the pilots described “oddities in the way the speed 

dropped” during the descent. 

Donald K. Slayton, in charge of the landing tests, said engineers this 

week would check out the airspeed indicators and the vehicle’s calculated 

1% 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 OCTOBER 

energy profile, but further tests were not probable. Plans for future orbiter landings would change on the basis of data from the fifth test, 

modifying the aim point to allow for higher lift/drag coefficients with 

the tailcone off and the slower bleed-off of airspeed. (NASA Release 

77-224; postflt rept free flight 5, SpSh orbiter ALT NYT, Oct 27/77, 

A-18; LA Times, Oct 27/77, 2; W Post, Oct 27/77, A10, B-3; JSC 

Roundup, Oct 28/77, 1; AvWk, Oct 31/77, 16) 

0 NASA Administrator Dr. Robert A. Frosch announced reorganization 

of the agency effective Nov. 8 "to strengthen NASA organization and 

improve our effectiveness . . . we will reduce the number of staff offices 

reporting directly to the Administrator." Headquarters operations would 

consist of 3 functions: the office of the Administrator, for general 

management; the chief scientist, chief engineer, and 5 program offices 

for program planning, management, and review; and 8 staff offices to 

give program, staff, and functional support. Each of the 5 program offices would have an associate administrator to manage aeronautics and 

space technology; space sciences; space and terrestrial applications 

(formerly applications); space transportation systems (formerly space 

flight); and space tracking and data systems (formerly tracking and data 

acquisition). (NASA Release 77-228) 

October 27: NASA launched the Navy's Transat spacecraft at 9:52pm 

PDT from the Western Test Range on a Scout vehicle into an orbit with 

600.7nmi apogee, 572.6nmi perigee, 89.9" inclination, and 106.9min 

period. The spacecraft, a modified Transit navigation satellite, would 

join 5 others in a system being used by U.S. Navy and other ships for 

global navigation, as the first to carry 2 modified transponders with a 

capability called Satrack to support Trident (fleet ballistic missile) 

development. 

Built by Johns Hopkins Univ. Applied Physics Laboratory, Transat 

would receive, translate, and relay NavStar global-positioning signals 

simulating a Trident missile in flight, to evaluate Satrack procedures 

before using them in Trident test flights and to check out Satrack processing at JHU/APL. NASA had agreed with DOD in Jan. 1970 to launch 

Scouts, carrying 15 Transit satellites and 3 Transit Improvement Program (TIP) satellites so far, the Navy to reimburse NASA for the launch 

vehicles, launch services, and mission support. The Transit system normally operated 5 satellites, with 2 on standby. (Langley Researcher, Nov 

28/77, 2; MOR M-490-601-77-03 [prelaunch] Sept 30/77) 

NASA's launch participation was judged successful as of Nov. 8-10. 

(MOR M-490-601-7743 [postlaunch] Nov 15/77) 

0 F'BIS reported that the USSR had completed a series of rocket launches 

197 
OCTOBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

in cooperation with France to compare procedures and instruments used 

by the two countries in high-altitude atmosphere sounding. The rockets 

were launched simultaneously from the French space center at Kourou, 

French Guiana, and offshore from the Soviet research vessel Akademik 

Korolev recently at work with the U.S. off the Atantic coast. (FBIS, Tass 

in English, Oct 27/77) 

* INTELSAT announced that the People’s Republic of the Congo had 

become the 100th member of the organization Oct. 26, and the 26th 

African nation to join. Created in 1964 with an initial membership of 11 

nations, INTELSAT was providing communications service through 152 

stations in 86 countries. (INTELSAT Release 77-27-1) 

October 28: MSFC announced plans for a teleoperator retrieval system 

(a retrievable reusable low-thrust stage for maneuvering payloads in low 

earth orbit) to fly on the Space Shuttle in the early 1980s, its first use 

probably a Skylab-orbit adjustment to permit revisiting or control its 

reentry over an open ocean area. Riding into orbit on the Shuttle, the 

TRS would be deployed and remotely operated by an astronaut aided by 

a television image from a camera mounted on the TRS. It could also 

maneuver to higher orbit and return, using its own guidance and computer systems, to be remotely controlled again for retrieval into the Shuttle when it came within range of the TV signal. MSFC would manage 

development of the TRS, and Martin Marietta would be responsible for 

vehicle integration. (MSFC Release 77-201) 

A 

0 INTELSAT announced that Upper Volta had become the lOlst 

member of the organization Oct. 27, and the 27th African nation to join. 

The Office des Postes et Telecommunications de Haute Volta had signed 

the operating agreement for Upper Volta. (INTELSAT Release 77-28-1) 

October 30: The Washington Post reported that NASA would try to save 

the Skylab space station ‘’which is moving closer to earth and may fall in 

bits and pieces over the next few years.” The Space Shuttle would launch 

a ”remotecontrolled rocket” to Skylab to push the station to a new orbit, 

where it would be available for future astronaut visits. 

The 118ft Skylab launched in 1973 had been circling the globe every 

1.5hr at a uxhni altitude. It had been home for three 3-man crews for as 

long as 12wk at a time; its last 84-day manned mission in 1974 was still 

the world‘s endurance record for time in space. (W Post, Oct 30/77, 

A-10) 

October 32: The Washington Star reported that U.S. and European 

scientists were planning a two-spacecraft mission to an unexplored area 

198 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 OCTOBER 

of space to get a fiist look at the sun and its solar system from a new 

perspective. No spacecraft had as yet ventured off the so-called plane of 

the ecliptic (the solar equatorial plane) by more than 15” latitude relative 

to the sun. Using two spacecraft, one below the plane of the ecliptic and 

the other in the usual latitude relative to the sun, scientists could learn 

more about solar physics and conditions responsible for variations in 

earth’s climate. 

The mission would use two unmanned spacecraft weighing 650 to 

8001b each, launched by a Space Shuttle. The report said NASA would 

request funds for the “solar polar” (or out-of-ecliptic, OOE) project in its 

next budget, giving engineers time to meet a favorable 10-day launch 

period in Feb. 1983. ESA, whose members included most western European nations, was said to be ready to share in the mission; it would build 

one of the vehicles, the U.S. the other. JPL would manage NASA’s part 

of the mission, estimated to cost about $141 million. ( WStur, Oct 31/77, 

A-6) 

During October: The USAF reported that the fiist two-seater F-16 

airplane, a fighter-trainer version known as F-16B, had made a successful first flight at General Dynamics Corp.’s Ft. Worth, Tex. facility. 

The test flights were to evaluate the handling of this version, weighing 

6OOlb less than the standard single-seat F-16 when fueled, and to use rearcockpit controls to put it through takeoff and landing, formation flying, 

and roll and pitch. 

The one- and two-seat versions of the F-16 were almost identical in size 

and appearance, each 48ft long with a 300ftz wing area, but the F-16B 

had a larger canopy to cover the second pilot and would carry 1100 fewer 

gallons of fuel. Development of the new plane, fiist fighter designed to 

withstand forces up to 9g, was managed by the Aeronautical Systems 

Division at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. (AFSC Newsreview, Oct 

77, 1) 

* ERDA announced it had signed a contract with the Ford Motor Co., 

to be managed by JdeRC, for developing the Stirling passenger-car engine 

to the point of deciding in 8yr whether or not to produce it commercially. 

A Stirling engine would be at least 30070 more fuel efficient than those of 

comparable size and performance in current cars. It differed from the 

conventional internal combustion engine in being powered by heat from 

an external source: a burner using any of a variety of fuels wwld heat 

hydrogen gas inside the engine whose expansion and contraction would 

move pistons to generate power. 

Invented in the 1800s, the Stirling predated the internal-combustion 

engine and had been used to pump water for mines and quarries. By the 

1930s the availability of gasoline-powered cars had overshadowed other 

199 
OCTOBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

development. N. V. Philips of the Netherlands and United Stirling of 

Sweden had pioneered and continued work on the Stirling engine and 

had licensed Ford to work on it in 1971. ERDA and Ford had become interested because of the engine’s high fuel efficiency, flexibility in choice 

of fuels, low noise and pollution, and good driving characteristics. Cost 

of the 8-yr effort would be about $160 million, $110 million contributed 

by ERDA and $50 million by Ford; if the Stirling should go into production, Ford’s investment might eventually amount to more than $500 

million. (ERDA Release 77-179) 
November 

November2: Marshall Space Flight Center director William R. Lucas announced that the teleoperator retrieval system project assigned by NASA 

to the center would be headed by John H. Harlow, who had been deputy 

manager of the Space Shuttle main engine project since 1976 and served 

previously as assistant manager in the Shuttle Projects Office. (MSFC 

Release 77-206) 

November 3: NASA announced that biologists working for it and the 

Natl. Science Foundation had identified a “new” form of life that might 

date back to earth’s first billion yr: a methane-producing organism 

representing what might be the oldest form of life as well as a line of 

evolution totally separate from the two traditionally recognized lines of 

bacteria, and animals and plants. A research team headed by Dr. Carl 

Woese of the Univ. of 111.-Urbana, described as a world expert on the 

genetic code, said the organisms were a distinct class no more related to 

typical bacteria than to higher forms. Biologists working with a group of 

methane-producing organisms had assumed they were ordinary bacteria; 

however, analysis of ribosomal RNA had shown the genealogy of the 

new form to be distinct from those of both bacteria and the animals or 

plants. Dr. Woese said the study might shed light on a missing stage of 

evolution, the chemical stage that immediately preceded identifiable life 

on earth. (NASA Release 77-229) 

November 4: Johnson Space Center announced that the ninth group of 

Shuttle astronaut applicants would report Nov. 7 for physicals and interviews. The group, 21 mission specialist applicants and 2 pilot applicants, 

included 12 civilians; 2 were women, bringing the number of female applicants interviewed to 20. Of the military applicants, 5 were Navy; 4, 

USAF; and 1 each from the Army and Marines. NASA had screened 183 

applicants so far, 79 seeking to be pilots and 104 mission specialists. (JSC 

Release 77-70; NASA Release 77-232) 

0 JSC announced it had selected ILC Industries, Inc., of Fredrica, Md., 

to negotiate a $1.2-million contract for Shuttle crew equipment and 

stowage provisions. The cost-plus-fixed-fee contract running from Jan. 

1978 to the end of Sept. 1980 would cover items such as crew clothing, an 

201 
NOVEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

orbiter survival kit, and personal hygiene kits, as well as replacement, 

servicing, and maintenance, with special studies of the crew equipment. 

(JSC Release 77-71) 

November 5: Today newspaper reported that two launch failures in Sept. 

at Cape Canaveral (explosions of an Altas Centaur and a Delta rocket) 

had altered the schedule to include launch of a Meteosat Nov. 17 on a 

Delta; an Intelsat Dec. 8 on an Altas Centaur; and the Japanese comsat 

(originally scheduled for launch Dec. 8) Dec. 14 on another Delta. ESA’s 

Meteosat, originally scheduled to go on Nov. 15, had been put off 2 days 

for further checkout of the Delta; the Intelsat was put off from Nov. 10 

to Dec. 8 for further checkout of the Atlas Centaur. The 15 missions 

scheduled for launch from the Cape next yr had risen to 17: a FltSatCom 

launch for the Navy originally scheduled for Dec. 15 had been pushed 

forward to 1978, and a launch of ESA’s OTS backup had been added to 

replace the one that failed. (Today, Nov 5/77, 1A) 

November 7: Dryden Flight Research Center announced it had scheduled 

four ferry-test flights of the Shuttle orbiter Enterprise mated to its Boeing 747 carrier for Nov. 14, 15, 17, and 18 to prepare for the orbiter’s 

cross-country ferry flight in March 1978 from DFRC to MSFC for 

ground-vibration testing. Later flights would ferry orbiters from 

Rockwell Intl.3 facility in Calif. to Kennedy Space Center in Fla. for 

launch. 

Besides determining the best speeds and altitudes for the ferry flights, 

the test would measure holding-pattern and engine-out performance in 

cruise and landinghikeoff. The 747 crew would be Fitzhugh Fulton, 

commander, and Tom McMurtry, pilot, with Victor Horton and Skip 

Guidry as flight engineers; the 4 had flown the 747 in recent approach 

and landing tests. (DFRC Release 37-77; NASA Release 77-233; JSC 

Release 77-74) 

MSFC reported its engineers had prepared electronic simulations as 

dress rehearsals of Shuttle orbital missions set for 1978, with computers 

in the roles of major hardware. The simulations, carried out at JSC, 

would check out Shuttle avionics (electrical and electronic systems controlling the Shuttle during flight and sending signals to pilots and ground 

controllers monitoring the mission). MSFC’s engineers would deliver to 

JSC in Jan. 1978 the Marshall mated-elements system (MMES) 

simulating items for which MSFC was responsible: main engines, solidfuel rocket boosters, and external tank. JSC would provide an orbiter 

~ simulator and a computer to simulate Shuttle dynamics, a system called 

SAIL (Shuttle avionics integration laboratory) able to simulate a Shuttle 

flight beginning 20min before launch under normal or abnormal condi202 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 NOVEMBER 

tions. The MMES could simulate failure of almost any MSFC element to 

see how the systems would react with one main engine out or if high 

temperatures or pressures should occur in vital areas. (MSFC Release 

77-208) 

0 NASA announced changes in organizations or titles for operational 

purposes during the transition period of its reorganization (Nov. 8 to 

Dec. 4) in the Office of Management Operations and the Office of External Relations, as well as establishment of the position of special assistant 

to the Administrator to direct implementation of the reorganization. 

(NASA anno Nov 7/77) 

0 The Natl. Geographic Society announced that Gen. William J. Evans 

would be recipient for 1976 of the Gen. Thomas D. White Space Trophy 

given annually since 1961 to the USAF member, military or civilian, contributing most significantly to U.S. aerospace progress. Gen. Evans, 

commander of the Air Force Systems Command at Andrews AFB from 

Sept. 1975 to Dec. 1976, had played a key role in developing defense 

space systems. (NGS Release Nov 7/77) 

November 8: Langley Research Center announced that Dr. Edgar M. 

Cortright, who had been director of the center 1968-1975 and was now a 

vice president of Owens-Illinois, Inc., would speak at the center coloquium Nov. 14 on recent developments in solar energy. 

Dr. Cortright, in charge of overall technical direction at the large 

multinational corporation now interested in uses of solar energy, would 

discuss technical, economic, and legislative aspects of the newly developing industry that would depend for wide application upon being pricecompetitive with other energy sources in spite of being inexhaustible and 

nonpolluting. The next few years would see its first domestic applications 

in areas such as space heating and air conditioning. (LaRC Release 

77-54) 

0 NASA Hq notified its employees of changes in operational control 

during the reorganization, including requests for communications services, travel services, parking permits and other transportation support, 

assignment and scheduling of senior duty officers, library services, and 

other administrative functions. Changes would be effective immediately. 

(NASA anno Nov 8/77) 

November 9: The Washington Post reported that Charles Kowal of the 

Calif. Inst. of Technology had discovered “something out there in space 

that orbits the sun roughly 2 million miles out once every 115 yr or so,” 

but had not “the slightest idea” what it was. “You might say it’s a mini203 
NOVEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

planet,” far too small to be a conventional planet but as big as some 

asteroids, about 100 to 4oOmi in diameter; “It really doesn’t resemble 

anything else. It is definitely not a satellite of any planet or a 

comet. . . .” 

Kowal, a veteran at discovering new objects in the solar system, had 

detected the 13th moon of Jupiter and another object that might be the 

14th; he had located the latest unusual body while working with the 48in 

telescope at Mt. Palomar Oct. 18-19 and had been trying to establish its 

orbit so that other astronomers could check it out. Researchers would 

need 2 or 3wk to determine the orbit, lying beyond Saturn and possibly 

both inside and outside the orbit of Uranus, “maybe going out as far as 

Neptune,” between 1.3 million and 2.7 million miles from the sun. If the 

object should be defined as a planet, Kowal by tradition would have the 

privilege of naming it. Final decision on whether or not it was a planet 

would be made by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Laboratory in Cambridge, Mass. (WPost, Nov 9/77, A-17) 

November IO: The Chicago Tribune reported that astronaut Walt Cunningham had written “the first kiss-and-tell treatise about the space program,” a book called The All-American Boys, intended as a “candid, 

close-up, even critical look” at NASA, the space program, and his fellow 

“partynauts,” none of whom had dared to be as critical as Cunningham 

in his first “but probably not last” book. The review said the book was 

“about people - imperfect mortal men - and what happens when they 

suddenly find themselves cast as superheroes in a world that literally 

knows no bounds.” (C Trib, Nov 10/77, 1-17) 

November 11: Lewis Research Center’s 2-yr program of sampling air 

around the world to detect substances detrimental to the environment 

had been unable to cover the polar regions, the Lewis News said, until 

last month when its air monitors rode the polar route on Pan American’s 

50th anniversary flight. 

Known as GASP (global air sampling program), the LeRC effort had 

used instruments designed at the center to detect and measure small particles and pollution-related gases, as well as carbon monoxide, water 

vapor, ozone, and various other oxides, operating automatically and 

recording data on magnetic tape for analysis at NASA labs and distribution to scientists and engineers anywhere for air-quality evaluation. 

Sampling the upper-air over the poles would show “what clean air is actually like,” said GASP director Porter J. Perkins. “What kind and 

amount of manmade pollutants are up there, if any? Especially are wejnterested in fluorocarbons from aerosol cans . . . What we may find . . . may conceivably alter presumptions we’ve made about global distribution of certain airborne contaminants.” (Lewis News, Nov 11/77, 3) 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1917 NOVEMBER 

0 KSC’s Spaceport News reported on Center efforts to recover launchvehicle and payload wreckage from the “unprecedented” back-to-back 

explosions of a Delta and an Atlas Centaur carrying an OTS and an Intelsat spacecraft. 

In “the most comprehensive and painstaking recovery in the Space 

Center’s history,” land, sea, and air crews searched every foot of the 

50miz impact area. Two Patrick AFB helicopters and a private chopper 

worked to spot scattered wreckage from the air; the USAF crew made 19 

flights in 2wk, with a total of 88hr in the air, covering a 12miz area and 

locating about 95% of the wreckage recovered. Ground crews in armored personnel carriers and sea crews in Navy and private craft then 

took over to retrieve and identify each piece, check it for live ordnance, 

and catalog its recovery location. USAF ordnance disposal personnel 

often had to penetrate thick, snake-infested vegetation to reach Delta 

and Atlas Centaur fragments. Personnel from Port Everglades and the 

Navy’s harbor-clearance unit using an Air Force landing craft-utility 

(LCU) boat retrieved the Delta’s solid-fuel motor #1 from the water as 

prime suspect in the OTS launch failure. 

The teams worked from early morning to dusk, even over weekends, 

and recovery work for the Delta was still under way. Hundreds of persons helped on the recovery, from directors to office clerks. Personnel 

from KSC had the aid of representatives from McDonnell Douglas, 

General Dynamics, Patrick AFB, and Pan American Airways operations 

in the extensive ground search. To reward the combined efforts, KSC 

would present a group achievement award to the Delta 134/Atlas Centaur 43 recovery team at an awards ceremony Nov. 22. (Spaceport News, 

Nov 11/77, 4) 

0 MSFC reported successful completion of structural tests on the Space 

Shuttle external tank’s intertank section, carrying the attach points for 

the Shuttle’s two solid-fuel rocket boosters and subject to heavy loading 

both on the launch pad and during flight while the boosters were 

thrusting. 

MSFC engineers would now proceed with vibration tests on the forward portion of the external tank, the liquid-oxygen container, attached 

to the intertank. Structural tests would follow later in 1978. (MSFC 

Release 77-212) 

0 JSC announced that the loth group of Shuttle astronaut applications 

would report to the center Nov. 14 for physical examinations and interviews. This group consisted of 24 mission specialist applicants and one 

pilot applicant; 17 were civilians, 1 a woman, and 8 were from the 

military- 3 each from the USAF and Navy, 1 each from the Marines and 

205 
NOVEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Coast Guard. This group would bring the total to 80 pilot applicants and 

128 mission specialist (21 women) applicants screened at JSC. In Dec., 

NASA hoped to name as many as 20 in each category for 2 yrs’ further 

training before final selection as astronauts. (JSC Release 77-75; NASA 

Release 77-236) 

JSC announced that NASA and the Soviet Academy of Science would 

send representatives to a meeting Nov. 14-17 in Moscow to discuss a 

joint program for the 1980s using the flexible delivery and large capacity 

of the Space Shuttle and the Salyut’s longer stay time in orbit. Dr. Noel 

W. Hinners, NASA’s associate administrator for space science, would 

head the U.S. delegation, and Dr. Boris Petrov, chairman of the 

academy’s Intercosmos council, would head the Soviet delegation. (JSC 

Release 77-78; NASA Release 77-234; FBIS, Moscow Dom Sv in Rusn, 

Nov 18/77) 

NASA announced that Wallops Flight Center would host the 8th annual meeting of the NASA-Soviet Space Biology and Medicine working 

group Nov. 19-25, preceded by a workshop Nov. 16-18 on simulated 

weightlessness, as part of a continuing program under a 1971 agreement 

between NASA and the USSR Academy of Sciences. Meeting participants would discuss biomedical results of the Cosmos 936 mission 

carrying U.S. experiments, the Sulyut 5/SOyUZ 19 mission, and a JSC test 

demonstrating Spacelab missions, as well as research on space motion 

sickness and health in weightlessness. Dr. David Winter, NASA’s director for life sciences, would head the U.S. delegation, and Dr. Rufus 

Hessberg, director of space medicine, would head U.S. workshop participants. Soviet leader at both meetings would be Dr. Nikolai Gurovsky 

of the Soviet Ministry of Health. (JSC Release 77-78; NASA Release 

77-234; WFC Release 77-15) 

Communications Satellite Corporation (ComSatCorp) announced it 

would buy back 1.5 million shares of its common stock for $37 cash per 

share until Dec. 6. The organization had decided on the repurchase as a 

preliminary step in possible future acquisitions, and a restructuring of its 

accounts to show a substantial debt, as the FCC had indicated its rate 

making would be based on such a debt in the organization’s capital structure. ComSatCorp emphasized that it was currently debt free. (ComSatCorp Release 77-28) 

November 14: Despite NASA’s failure to win FY 1979 funding for a new 

Mars mission, such a mission remained the major planning element in 

the agency’s planetary programs office, Aviation Week reported. A Mars 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 NOVEMBER 

rovedorbiter mission had strong support from the Natl. Academy of 

Sciences, to lay the groundwork for a sample-return mission using either 

Martian- bit rendezvous or direct ascent from earth to Mars. At a KSC 

said the highest priority missions NASA might implement “in the near 

term” would include the Venus-orbiting imaging radar (VOIR), a lunarpolar orbiter, a Saturn orbiter probe, and a rendezvous with comet 

Halley or Encke, or both, or possibly with an asteroid. 

“As we go through the budgetary process, on one side I wish Mars 

would go away,” Young said. “But when you stop and think about rivers, 

volcanoes, enormous Mars icecaps, the chemistry potential for life, and 

the atmosphere, you realize that understanding Mars is so important 

toward understanding where earth has been and is going that you’ve got 

to treat it in a responsible manner.” He said NASA planning should 

benefit from the 2.4m-diameter space telescope, aimed primarily at 

bodies outside the solar system but sure to provide significant data on 

objects nearer earth. (AvWk, Nov 14/77, 55) 

briefing, T . Thomas Young, NASA’s director of planetary programs, 

0 Av Wk reported the Intl. Telecommunications Union’s frequency 

board had distributed to its 100-plus member nations the technical details 

of a USSR plan to launch 7 geostationary Volna satellites for global 

maritime and air communications service. Members questioning possible 

interference with existing or projected systems had until Jan. 9 to respond. The 7 spacecraft would work in separate systems: numbers 2, 4, 

and 6 would each operate in 4 frequency bands, 2 allocated exclusively 

for mobile maritime service and 2 for mobile aeronautical service. 

Numbers 1, 3, 5, and 7 would also use these bands, plus a 240-4OOmc 

band now used by the US Navy for its maritime service which the Volnas 

would use for land-mobile service. The Volna proposal did not include 

fixed shore terminals, although USSR officials had said the system 

would be a national rather than international system. (AvWk, Nov 

14/77, 20) 

November 15: JSC announced it had signed a supplemental agreement 

with Rockwell Intl. Corp. for engineering-change orders on the Space 

Shuttle orbiter. The supplement, valued at about $226 million, would 

bring the value of the Rockwell contract to about $3.2 billion. The supplement would cover changes such as addition of lightning protection, 

payload and systems integration, avionics changes, provision of spares, 

and support of the carrier aircraft during ALT. (JSC Release 77-76) 

JSC announced it had signed a contract modification with Ford 

Aerospace covering hardware and software systems engineering, plus 

maintenance and operation of JSC’s mission control center and other 
NOVEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS. 1977 

ground-based data systems. The modification, valued at more than $1.4 

million, would bring the value of the Ford contract to about $51.3 

billion. (JSC Release 77-77) 

November 16: NASA announced it would join with Canada in a 3-day 

meeting Nov. 29-Dec. 1 to assess performance of Cts, world’s most 

powerful comsat, now in orbit for nearly 2yr. The meeting would hear 

experimenters discuss their results and the social, technical, and 

economic aspects of CTS-type comsats. Canada and the U.S. had shared 

time on Cts, which ped a LeRC-developed transmitter tube to operate in 

a new frequency band at power levels 10 to 20 times higher than those of 

other comsats, making it possible to use smaller and less expensive 

ground receivers. Cts had permitted 2-way TV and voice contact experiments for health, education, business, and similar purposes. Besides 

managing all U.S. experiments on Cts. LeRC had also used a portable 

earth terminal in an over-the-road van resembling a TV studio to connect 

the satellite with local events to be broadcast. (NASA Release 77-237) 

MSFC reported that DOD had lent NASA a crew of Navy divers for 2 

yrs to support tests in the neutral buoyancy simulator studying 

weightlessness. All 5 had been fleet-salvage divers for the Navy with 5 to 

17 yrs experience in scuba, hard hat, mixed-gas, and other types of diving 

apparatus. Selected for their ability to use special tools to assemble or 

dismantle structures or equipment underwater, the crew would help test 

hardware, instruments, and tools to be used in space and would work 

underwater in full-scale Shuttle or Spacelab mockups to aid engineers in 

planning contingency procedures, equipment operation, space construction, and other manned-mission activities. 

Each trainee working underwater in a space suit would have 2 Navy 

divers responsible for his safety, with others assigned to prepare hardware and ensure the necessary tools were in place before the test started. 

During the test, divers would stand by to retrieve dropped tools or reset 

apparatus for repeat testing; between tests, the divers would dismantle, 

remove, or rearrange hardware under water or install new hardware, 

Chief Petty Officer Richard Wiebe, a veteran diver with 17 yrs in the 

Navy, said the crew had found work on the Shuttle program challenging. 

(Marshall Star, Nov 16/77, 4) 

November 17: NASA reported that a team of researchers using ultrasensitive radio equipment aboard an Ames Research Center U-2 jet aircraft 

to measure the background microwave radiation in the cosmos had concluded that the event initiating the universe had begun not with a violent 

and uncontrolled “big bang” but with “an extremely smooth process,” in 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 NOVEMBER 

which matter and energy were uniformly distributed and kept expanding 

at an equal rate in all directions. 

Drs. kchard Muller and George Smoot, with graduate student Marc 

Gorenstein, of the Lawrence Laboratory and the Univ. of Calif. at 

Berkeley, had designed and operated the radio equipment for the project 

funded by NASA and the Dept. of Energy. The plane had flown at 

65,000ft altitude above 90% of earth’s atmosphere to make the sensitive 

experiments indicating that the Milky Way galaxy (including earth and 

its solar system) was flying through space toward the constellation Hydra 

at a uniform speed of more than 1 million mph-so uniform that “it provides a universal reference for measuring this motion,” said Gorenstein. 

The large-scale regularity found in the expansion of the universe made 

the speed of the local motion discovered for the earth “all the more surprising,” said Dr. Muller. Furthermore, the measurements “seem to show 

that there is no rotation of the universe,” Dr. Smoot said, which was surprising because “we can see that everything within the universe is 

rotating-planets, stars, and galaxies. If there is rotation it has to be less 

than one hundred millionth of a rotation in the last billion 

years. . . Either conditions before the beginning were very regular, or 

processes we don’t yet know about worked to make the universe extremely uniform.” The uniformity was greater than 1 part in 1000 for matter, 1 

in 3000 for energy, and 1 in 10 000 for expansion. (NASA Release 

77-235; ARC Release 77-45) 

NASA announced it had appointed Raymond A. Kline as associate administrator for management operations, effective Nov. 20. Coming to 

NASA Hq in 1968, he had been acting associate administrator for center 

operations from July of this year. Previously he had served for 6yr on 

Dr. Wernher von Braun’s executive staff at MSFC. (NASA anno Nov 

17/77) 

November 21: NASA announced that the next launch of an Atlas Centaur rocket from KSC would be no earlier than Jan. 6,1978, carrying an 

Intelsat IVA commercial comsat. Originally scheduled for launch in 

Nov., the mission was fist delayed for investigation of a previous Atlas 

Centaur launch that failed Sept. 29. That investigation was almost complete; the associate administrator for transportation systems, John 

Yardley, was to receive a report in early Dec. The postponement to Jan. 

was not caused by the investigation, NASA said, but by discovery of 

faulty feedback transducers in the Atlas engine-control actuators during 

routine testing. The new date would allow removal and replacement of 

components from that manufacturing batch and revalidation of the 

engine systems. (NASA Release 77-241) 

209 
NOVEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

* NASA announced tentative selection of 18 scientists to participate in 

the Space Telescope project. The 10-ton spacecraft scheduled for Shuttle 

launch in 1983 to orbit at 500km (310mi) altitude would make observations deeper into space, and with more detail, than heretofore possible, 

covering about 350 times the volume of space now visible from earthbased telescopes. It had been designed for remote operation from the 

ground, including maintenance or retrieval by a space-suited astronaut 

for return to earth to be overhauled and relaunched. The telescope could 

accommodate 5 different instruments at its focal plane: both the faintobject camera (ESA) and the wide-field camera could cover ultraviolet 

and blue spectra, the latter the red and near-infrared regions as well; the 

two spectrographs would offer a range of resolution impossible with a 

single instrument; and the photometer could calibrate the other instrument and image the galactic background. (NASA Release 77-239) 

* NASA announced that on Nov. 29 it would present first results of the 

scientific experiments on high-energy astronomy observatory Heao I 

launched Aug. 12. Dr. Noel Hinners, associate administrator for space 

science; Dr. Frank B. McDonald of Goddard Space Flight Center, project scientist; and principal investigators for the experiments would report 

findings on pulsars, quasars, exploding galaxies, and black holes. Scientific instruments on the observatory offered highly sensitive detection 

and resolution of x-rays emitted by stellar sources throughout the 

universe; the spacecraft, rotating end over end, could survey the entire 

sky within 6mo. (NASA Release 77-242) 

November 22: NASA launched the ESA Meteosat at 8:35pm EST from 

the Eastern Test Range on a Delta vehicle into a synchronous transfer orbit with 37 OOlkm apogee, 147km perigee, and 27.5" inclination. The 

apogee boost motor fired at 1:19 pm EST Nov. 23 to begin maneuvering 

it to a position on the Greenwich meridian at 0" longitude above the 

equator, where it would provide long-range forecasting coverage to 

Europe, the Near East, and Africa for at least 3yr. 

The cylindrical craft 3.2m long and 2.lm in diameter weighed 697kg at 

launch and 300kg in orbit; its payload was a telescope radiometer to 

observe earth and cloud formations, providing relay and transmission of 

meteorological data. The World Meteorological Organization had set up 

a chain of 5 such satellites, 1 European, 1 Soviet, 1 Japanese, and 2 U.S. 

Besides transmitting to user stations the data from a center at Darmstadt, 

West Germany, Meteosat would relay Atlantic Ocean images from the 

U.S. Goes. (NASA Release 77-230; MOR M-492-102-77-01 [prelaunch] 

Nov 16/77, [postlaunch] Feb 28/78; KSC Spaceport News Nov 11177,l; 

ESA releases Nov 3/77, Nov 16/77, Nov 23/77) 

210 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 NOVEMBER 

November 22: MSFC announced it had awarded to Martin Marietta 

Corp. a $1.735 million contract for analysis and design activities needed 

for a preliminary design review in March 1978 of the teleoperator 

retrieval system(TRS). 

MSFC had been managing development of the TRS to adjust the orbit 

of Skylab [see Nov. 21, based on in-house NASA studies and earlier work 

by Martin Marietta on the astronaut-maneuvering unit and a free-flying 

teleoperator system. The contractor would make wide use of already 

qualified hardware in preparing for TRS assembly, test, and integration. 

(MSFC Release 77-220) 

November 23: The Marshall Star reported that, before the real Shuttle 

orbiter arrived in Ala. next year, a homemade orbiter constructed of 

scrap rocket parts and steel beams would stand in for it during practice 

lifts into the tower where the real thing would be tested. The stand-in 

would first make use of the device that would remove the Enterprise 

from its 747 carrier, then follow the route to be taken by the real orbiter, 

in order to check clearances on the sides. Its major tryout would come 

when MSFC engineers put it into the 430ft (131m) test stand to see what 

effect the wind would have on installation. 

The simulator, basically a motor casing from a Titan solid-fuel rocket 

loft (3.04m) in diameter and 80ft (24.39m) long with added framing, collars, nose and tail structures, and wings plus aluminum sheeting for the 

outer skin, would closely match the Enterprise in size, shape, weight, and 

center of gravity. After its performance at MSFC, it would go by barge 

to KSC to take part in launch-procedure checkouts, and from there to 

Vandenberg AFB for DOD use in preparing Shuttle launch facilities. 

(Marshall Star, Nov 23/77, 4) 

MSFC announced it would conduct on Dec. 1 at the Natl. Parachute 

Test Range in Calif. the third airdrop test of a parachute system designed 

to recover the Shuttle’s reusable solid-fuel rocket boosters. Royce 

Mitchell of MSFC said the test article, a 48 OOOlb (21 773kg) dummy 

boostercarried-under the wing of a B-52 aircraft, would encounter 30% 

more dynamic pressure than the system should experience during a real 

deployment. 

To test the durability of the drogue chute that would open first to pull 

out the main chutes, fins added to the test article would increase its speed 

and reduce drag. The drogue would deploy at a speed of about 42Omph 

(676kph) 20sec after the plane released the dummy booster at an 

estimated speed of 230mph (370kph) and an altitude of about 19 4OOft 

(5913m). The 2 boosters to be used on each Shuttle launch would 

separate after burnout at an altitude of about 27mi (43.5km), descending 

21 1 
NOVEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

slowly by parachute into the ocean for recovery and reuse. (MSFC 

Release 77-221) 

0 LaRC announced that NASA Administrator Robert A. Frosch would 

speak at the center’s annual awards ceremony Nov. 29, presenting 

awards for outstanding leadership, exceptional service, group achievement, and 45-yr service. LaRC Director Donald Hearth would present 4 

awards for 40-yr service and 83 for 359 service. An award for outstanding volunteer service would go to 4 employees, and 3 would receive the 

center’s highest honor, the H.J.E. Reid Award, named for the man who 

had headed the center for 35yr, starting as engineer-in-charge in 1926 and 

retiring as director in 1961. The center would also make an award for 

technology utilization for the first time. (LaRC Release 77-55) 

November 28: The Dept. of Transportation reported that the Federal 

Aviation Administration would demonstrate an advanced all-weather 

microwave landing system Dec. 5-9 at JFK International Airport using a 

NASA Boeing 737 to fly a series of curved approaches and automatic 

landings like those recently flown at other locations, most recently 

Buenos Aires. The Intl. Civil Aviation Organization had recently tested 

the equipment as a replacement for 40-yr-old instrument-landing 

systems. Beginning Feb. 22, the British government would demonstrate a 

different MLS on the same runway to obtain comparative data on the 

two systems; similar comparisons would proceed at other locations 

abroad. In March 1977 the ICAO all-weather operations panel had endorsed the MLS design proposed by the U.S. and Australia, to be considered by the full membership of ICAO meeting in 1978. (DOT Release 

FAA-1 18-77) 

November 29: NASA held a press briefing on results from Heao 1, 

launched 3.5mo ago, described by the project manager Dr. Frank 

McDonald of GSFC as “probably the largest scientific satellite” flown by 

the U.S. On hand for the briefing were Dr. Noel Hinners, associate administrator for space sciences; Dr. McDonald and Dr. Elihu Boldt from 

GSFC; Dr. Herbert Friedman of NRL, principal investigator on the large 

x-ray survey;. Dr. Gordon Garmire of CalTech, who with Dr. Boldt had 

worked on the cosmic ray experiment; Dr. Hale Bradt of MIT, principal 

investigator for the scanning-modulation collimator; and Dr. Hale Peterson of the Univ. of Calif. San Diego, principal investigator for the lowenergy gamma-ray experiment. The scientists gave the press brief 

statements of their results and responded to questions. (Text, Nov 29/77) 

November 30: LaRC reported it had selected Klate Holt Co. of Hamp 

ton, Va., to negotiate a $13 million contract for on-center support serv212 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 NOVEMBER 

ices for 3yr starting in March 1978, with two 1-yr extension options. The 

contract would cover refrigeration and air conditioning, electric systems 

(compressors, large valves, and pumps), building-trades services such as 

carpentry, painting, masonry work, roofing, and street repairs, plus 

engineering services including drawings and specifications. (LaRC 

Release 77-56) 

9 The Marshall Star reported that the Nov. 22 launch of Meteosat for 

ESA had encountered a delay because of a “weak but spurious” radio 

signal that had reached the command destruct system. Although officials 

considered the signal too weak to affect the launch, they delayed it 

anyway to trace its origin. They ran tests to try and pick up the signal 

again, tracing it finally to the advanced range-instrumentation ship 

Redstone, which had not sent the signal but had leaked it from onboard 

computer testing. Upon identifying the source, officials allowed the 

launch to proceed. (Marshall Star, Nov 30/77, 3) 

ComSatCorp announced that the FCC had decided to make it pay extra sums into an escrow account ordered by the agency pending court 

review of an FCC rate order in 1975. Since then ComSatCorp had continued to charge the rates in effect at the time of the order, putting in 

escrow the difference between the amount.collected and the lower rates 

ordered by the commission. ComSatCorp said the FCC’s new order 

would require it to put about $25 million more in escrow, and it would 

petition for reconsideration of the order. (ComSatCorp Release 77-30) 

* The Natl. Aeronautic Assn. reported on a nationwide poll of its 

members asking what three problems aviation faced today: the government rated first, then fuel costs and air traffic control, including the 

quality of weather information at airports. Inconsistent policies and the 

need for regulatory reform were the main complaints. U.S. efforts to 

control business arrangements for foreign military sales displeased 71 Yo, 

who said the effort harmed U.S. aircraft manufacturers. Members 

wanted the U.S. to build an SST and open its airports to the Concorde 

(by an 84% vote); on subcontracting construction of some aircraft to 

European nations, to standardize and render interchangeable NATO’s 

military equipment, the members split 52 to 48% in favor of keeping the 

business at home. (NAA newsletter Nov 30/77) 

During November: The USAF reported completion of 4Omo of tests in a 

joint U.S.-Canadian project using an XC-8A Buffalo military cargo 

plane from Canada with a huge air-filled rubber doughnut for landing 

gear, to prove the feasibility of an air cushion landing system for large 

transport aircraft. 

213 
NOVEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Tests mostly at Wright Patterson AFB consisted of 84 flights, 34 of 

them air cushion takeoffs and 39 landings on grass, snow, and hard surfaces, with 25mi of taxiing over the same surfaces and over obstacles. 

Wallace Buzzard, program manager for the USAF flight-dynamics 

laboratory, said that besides being able to operate on difficult surfaces 

the air-cushioned plane “also taxied smoothly over a 3Oft-long ramp with 

a 9in dropoff, crafters 6ft in diameter, and ditches 2ft wide. An aircraft 

with a conventional landing gear simply can’t do those things; it would be 

seriously damaged if not wrecked.” 

The tests included numerous inflight inflations and deflations of the 

air cushion, and tests of flying quality: the pilot found he could control 

the aircraft in crosswinds as high as 2Omph, letting the pressure assist 

him in moving it to a particular point although taxiing sideways. 

Whereas most planes would descend for a soft landing at about 3ft per 

sec, the air cushion plane could soft-land at a rate of 8ft per sec with a 6” 

nose angle. 

The XC-8A weighed 33,0001b during the tests without cargo; Buzzard 

said it could have tested the same fully loaded, probably becoming more 

efficient with increased weight, “Outfitting an aircraft weighing more 

than a million lb with conventional landing gear will be extremely difficult,” he said. “An ACLS could handle aircraft as heavy as 3 million Ib 

and be competitive in weight with conventional landing systems.” (AFSC 

Newsreview, Nov 77, 1) 

* NASA reported that JSC had produced a compact medical kit containing most of the instrumentation of a well-equipped physician’s office, using techniques and tools developed to monitor astronauts’ vital signs during spaceflight. The NASA “black bag,” weighing less than 14kg and fitting into a case 18cm by 56cm by 36cm, would contain electronic equipment, drugs, bandages, and instruments needed to diagnose and treat 

many kinds of illnesses or accidents; electronic tools included an electrocardiograph and electroencephalograph, plus either a strip-chart 

recorder or a cassette tape recorder, with a coupler built in to transmit 

data over a standard telephone line. The package would improve the 

treatment possible on emergency or house calls and provide more complete data before hospital admission. (NASA Actv, Nov 77, 24) 

0 MSFC reported that the new manpower level required at the center 

would mean dropping some 70 employees in 1978 by “involuntary 

separation.” In Sept., NASA Hq had announced that MSFC would 

probably lose about 150 positions, but had not said whether the loss 

would come through attrition or reduction in force. Although resignation, retirement, and other causes had produced some vacancies, MSFC 

director Dr. William R. Lucas had notified all employees that a reduction in force would take place by April 1978, and that NASA would ask 

214 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 NOVEMBER 

the Civil Service Commission for “early-out” authority to let employees 

with certain combinations of age plus yrs of service retire early on reduced annuity, granted in some reductions in force. (Marshall Star, Nov 

77, 4) 

GSFC reported that it and the Univ. of Maryland had designed an experiment called GUMPS (Goddard/Univ. of Md. particle study) for 

detecting cosmic ray proton energies up to IOTev, 20 times greater than 

available from manmade accelerators, to clarify the interaction between 

particles accelerated from active supernova-explosion remnants and the 

magnetic field in Milky Way interstellar space. Comparing intensities at 

the top of and deep inside the atmosphere would reveal much about the 

fundamental properties of matter. 

Borne in a giant spherical aluminum gondola, the instrumentation 

would include a calorimeter of large iron plates to interact with incoming 

cosmic rays, producing a cascade of particles in numbers proportional to 

the energy of the incoming particle; 8 sensitive detectors would measure 

the energies. A multiwire proportional-counter hodoscope produced by 

the Univ. of Md. would determine the trajectory of the mass of 

originating atoms. The experiment would fly on a balloon at 80 OOOft 

altitude before its Shuttle launch. (Goddard News, Nov 77, 2) 

* KSC reported that the 10th anniversary of the maiden flight of Saturn 

V, world‘s most powerful rocket, had passed without fanfare. Apollo 4 

had lifted off Nov. 9, 1967, from KSC’s Complex 39A in a successful 

demonstration of Saturn V’s flightworthiness and the Apollo spacecraft’s 

ability to withstand the intense heat of reentry. (KSC Spaceport News, 

Nov 11/77, 2) 

0 MSFC announced selection of William A. Brooksbank, Jr., as 

manager of the solar heating and cooling project in the center’s special 

projects office. MSFC director Dr. William R. Lucas said that 

Brooksbank, most recently deputy manager of the Spacelab program office, was well qualified for the position by his background in engineering 

and management. Brooksbank had come to the Redstone Arsenal at 

Huntsville in 1958 as atomic energy project engineer for the Army’s 

ballistic missile agency; he had worked at MSFC since its establishment 

in 1960. (MSFC Release 77-218) 

0 JSC announced selection of John C. Stonesifer as head of the center’s 

new life sciences experiments program office, which would manage planning, development, and operation activities at JSC, ARC, and KSC for 

all such experiments to be carried on the Space Shuttle and other missions in the future. Stonesifer would continue to act as chief of JSC’s 

215 
NOVEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

bioengineering systems division until designation of a replacement. He 

had joined NASA at LaRC in 1957 and transferred in 1962 during the 

Mercury project to the space task group; he had been chief of JSC’s 

recovery branch before becoming head of bioengineering systems. (JSC 

Release 77-72) 

0 NASA reported that Dr. Lo I. Yin, x-ray researcher at GSFC, had invented a hand-held device producing an instant x-ray image from a small 

source of radioactive material. The lixiscope (low-intensity x-ray imaging 

scope) had resulted from research on space energy sources that converted 

their x-rays to visible images; Dr. Yin said the idea had not been feasible 

until the Army declassified an image intensifier produced at its Ft. 

Belvoir night vision laboratory. Cost of the unit, not yet on the market, 

might be less than $5000. Using no new technology, it contained off-theshelf items such as the radioactive source and an x-ray phosphor screen 

besides the intensifier. 

Pulling a trigger unshielded the source, sending through the object 

being examined a low x-ray dose which the phosphor screen converted to 

visible light. The unit’s high intensification would allow use of a small 

radiation source of 10 to 20 millicuries resembling a pen-size battery; an 

attached camera could produce instant x-ray pictures with exposure 1000 

times weaker than that of a conventional x-ray machine. Dr. Yin said a 

device invented for x-ray astronomy “where there is a scarcity of x-rays 

should [be] of obvious value in medical fluoroscopy where there are 

many x-rays.’’ 

Cooperating in evaluating the device would be the National Institute 

of Dental Research, Howard Univ.3 College of Dentistry, Howard’s 

cancer research center, and the Duke Univ. Medical Center at Durham, 

N.C. NIDR researchers had already worked up a configuration of the 

lixiscope for use in dentistry, and the cancer research center would compare it with existing techniques for detecting soft-tissue tumors or foreign 

bodies and for looking at bone fractures. Prime advantage of the unit 

would be for emergency and other field use requiring quick fluoroscopy 

(NASA Release 77-238) 

0 Calspan Corp. of Buffalo, N.Y., reported it was continuing technical 

work on the XV-15 tilt-rotor research aircraft from Bell Helicopter Textron that made its maiden flight earlier in 1977 at the Bell facility in 

Arlington, Tex. Bell had awarded the company a $678 OOO contract to 

design and fabricate the automatic flight-control system for the XV-15, 

and a $62 OOO contract to support ground and flight checkout of the 

system. NASA’s ARC had awarded Calspan a $1 17 OOO contract to study 

modifications of future XV-15s to adapt the craft for research into its 

handling qualities. (Calspan News, Nov 77, 3) 

216 
December 

December I: The Communications Satellite Corporation (ComSatCorp) 

reported it would proceed with its plan to buy back its common stock 

[see Nov. 111, noting that the FCC had authorized it to borrow $25 

million to finance part of the cost of the repurchase. A letter to 

stockholders said the corporation would contest FCC’s attempt to make 

it put more money in an escrow fund for possible repayments to 

customers, because it said the FCC’s action was “neither lawful nor appropriate.” (ComSatCorp Releases 77-3 1, 77-32) 

December 2: The Washington Post reported that NASA had asked Congress to let it use $100 million of Space Shuttle production funds to pay 

for higher costs and delays in developing the first two Shuttles. Dr. 

Robert A. Frosch, NASA Administrator, told the appropriations subcommittee headed by Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wis.) that $65 million 

would bring production up to schedule and the other $35 million would 

go into contingency reserves that had run between $100 and $150 million; 

they were “down near zero right now,” Frosch said. Associate Administrator John@. Yardley said the rocket to put the Shuttle into orbit 

was 5mO behind schedule; also running behind were computer controls 

and fuselage parts. Asked why NASA requested a fund shift that might 

cause problems in the future, instead of a supplemental appropriation, 

Frosch noted that twice when NASA had asked Congress for supplemental budget increases, it had had to wait until the next fiscal year for approval. (W Post, Dec 2/77, A-2) 

Dryden Flight Research Center reported that Ralph “BUZZ” Sawyer of 

its flight systems laboratory had made a “paper airplane” to test a theory 

of reducing elevator flutter and had come up with a new type of aircraft 

its builder named Skyjacker. Sawyer, working on radio-controlled 

217 
DECEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

models, decided to change their airfoils into booms but wanted to test the 

idea without risking the $60 radio systems. He made a foot-long cardboard model and “heaved [it] off the roof” of DFRC’s heat facility; the 

“paper plane” had demonstrated amazing stability. Sawyer obtained a 

patent on the design and built a demonstrator 18ft long with an 18ft 

wingspan that he flew for the first time in Jan. 1975. With a 2OOhp fuelinjected engine and a 3-blade constant-speed propeller, the Skyjacker 

had “very good low-speed” handling, was easy to fly and land, and (according to the designer) would not stall or spin. The craft had “lift 

panels” 6ft wide instead of actual wings, but derived lift from its configuration just as DFRC lifting bodies did; the design had no compound 

curves, and its flat surfaces would make it inexpensive to produce. Possible applications would include crop dusting and firefighting. (NASA 

X-Press, Dec 2/77,4) 

0 DFRC reported it had made further study of the effect of insects sticking to the leading edges of aircraft wings [see A&A 76, Nov. 231 by flying 

a small jet transport from four airports (Los Angeles, San Francisco, 

Sacramento, and San Diego) to study actual environments from which 

long-range commercial flights would be made. The program, conducted 

jointly with Langley Research Center, was part of NASA’s aircraft 

energy-efficiency program to achieve 20 to 40% fuel savings in a 1985 

long-range transport aircraft. Such a craft would probably use laminar 

flow-control technology, depending on smooth airflow over the leading 

edge of the wings; insects adhering to the wings had made the airflow turbulent, canceling the fuel savings achieved with the laminar flow. 

NASA had equipped the wings of the test aircraft with a modified 

leading edge consisting of 5 panels of different materials, to demonstrate 

changes in the airflow caused by insects adhering to the different surfaces; it had also added a water cleaning system to study its ability to 

either wash off or keep off the insects encountered during takeoff and 

climb. It had then flown the plane over alfalfa fields and sewage ponds, 

and at Kennedy Space Center and Johnson Space Center, to encounter as 

many different quantities, kinds, and sizes of bugs as possible. Bob 

Baron, DFRC project manager, said results indicated a need for some 

sort of washing system to reduce effects of insect impacts on the laminarflow surface. (DFRC Release 40-77) 

December 4: The Dallas Morning News applauded “NASA official Dave 

Williamson” [assistant administrator in the Office of Special Projects] 

for rejecting a White House proposal to resume UFO investigations: he 

had termed it “not wise to do research on something that is not a 

measurable phenomenon.” The paper said there was no reason to reopen 

the matter, except that President Carter had mentioned it in his cam218 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1971 DECEMBER 

paign and that interest in flying saucers was up again. Such “detached 

reserve” should apply to any multimillion-dollar government proposal, 

the paper said. (Mn News, Dec 4/77, 15) 

December 5: NASA announced that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory had 

negotiated contracts with 5 firms for enough silicon (photovoltaic) solar 

cells to supply a combined total of 190kw of power for use by the federal 

government. JPL would manage the contract for the Dept. of Energy 

(DOE), sponsor of the program to reduce the price of the cells below 50C 

per peak watt by the end of 1986, while raising production capability to 

500,000kw annually. The DOE program, besides reducing costs, would 

study the use of solar-cell materials potentially less expensive than silicon 

crystals and of alternatives such as optical concentrators. 

Firms receiving contracts were ARCO, 20kw, $321 950; Motorola, 

50kw, $676 614; Sensor Technology, Nkw, $643 907; Solarex, 30kw, 

$559 454; and Solar Power, 50kw, $757 665. Panels of solar cells 

previously purchased under the program were powering an irrigation 

system in Nebr., a test system for residential use at MIT’s Lincoln 

Laboratory in Mass., a dust-storm warning system in Ariz. [see May 231, 

automatic weather-reporting systems in 6 states, and other remote uses. 

(NASA Release 77-246) 

* NASA reported it had certified as fully operational the general aviation airfoil design and analysis center at Ohio State Univ. airport near 

Columbus. The center, established under a 3-yr LaRC contract with the 

university’s aeronautical and astronautical research laboratory, would 

provide directly to aircraft designers and manufacturers, on a fee basis, 

services such as analysis and design of two-dimensional airfoil shapes, 

high-lift devices and aerodynamic controls, and technical assistance and 

consultation on airfoil wind tunnel and flight testing. (NASA Release 

77-247) 

0 NASA announced retirement effective Dec. 3 1 of Gerald M. Truszynski, associate administrator for space tracking and data systems, after 

33yr of service to NASA and its predecessor, NACA. In 1944, he had 

begun working at NACA’s Langley aeronautical laboratory as an 

engineer in instrument research and development, and had transferred 

3yr later to the NACA station at Edwards, Calif., an instrument project 

engineer on the rocket-powered X-1 , first airplane to surpass the speed of 

sound. In 1954 he had become chief of the instrumentation division at 

Edwards, heading development and operation of systems for NACA’s 

jet- and rocket-powered craft (X-1, X-2, D-558, and X-15) that 

pioneered supersonic and hypersonic flight. 

At NASA Hq after 1960, Truszynski occupied his present position in 

219 
DECEMBER ASTRONAUTICS ANb AERONAUTICS, 1971 

1968, succeeding from the post of deputy that he had held since its creation in 1961. He had been responsible for planning, development, and 

operation of global tracking systems, networks, and facilities for communications and for data acquisition and processing in all NASA’s 

spaceflight programs. In 1969 he had received NASA’s highest award 

(the distinguished service medal) twice, for support of Apollo manned 

flights to lunar orbit and of the first moon landing. Upon his departure, 

Norman Pozinski would be acting associate administrator. (NASA anno 

Nov 5/77; NASA Release 77-248) 

0 The Natl. Space Club announced that Dr. John E. Naugle, appointed 

NASA chief scientist Nov. 8, would speak at its Dec. meeting and present 

awards to Washington-area high school students in American Univ.’s 

19th summer research program. Dr. Naugle had been NASA associate 

administrator since 1975 in charge of much of the agency’s R&D work. 

(NSC newsletter Dec 77) 

December 6: NASA announced appointment of Andrew J. Stofan as 

deputy associate administrator for the Office of Space Sciences, effective 

Jan. 8, 1978, succeeding Dr. Anthony J. Cali0 who had become associate 

administrator for the Office of Space and Terrestrial Applications. 

Stofan had been director of launch vehicles at Lewis Research Center 

since July 1974; he had begun there in 1958 as a research engineer, 

assigned in 1962 to the Centaur project and becoming project manager of 

the Titan-Centaur vehicle in 1970. (NASA Release 77-245) 

December 7: NASA announced it had negotiated 12-mo contracts worth 

about $4 million with 9 firms, 3 of them small businesses, for developing 

low-cost automated solar-cell fabrication processes that could be 

adapted to automated assembly and mass production of the cells. The 

firms were Lockheed Missiles and Space Co., $213 163; M.B. 

Associates, $230 OOO; Motorola, Inc., $433 870; RCA, $846 900; Sensor 

Technology, $395 000; Solarex Corp., $392 OOO; Spectrolab, $706 OOO; 

Texas Instruments, $537 460; and Westinghouse, $426 000. The small 

businesses were M.B. Associates, Sensor Technology, and Solarex. The 

contracts were part of DOE’S low-cost silicon solar-array project managed by JPL. (NASA Release 77-249) 

December 8: FAA predicted the number of passengers on U.S. scheduled 

airlines over the next 12yr would increase from the current 232.1 million 

to 418.4 million in 1989. Commuter airlines (carrying fewer than 30 

passengers in at least 5 scheduled flights per wk) would double operations, triple fare miles, and fly 14.5 million passengers compared to the 

220 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 DECEMBER 

current 6.5 million. Size of the general (non-airline) fleet would increase 

65%. (FAA Release 121-77) 

December 9: KSC announced it had selected 2 companies to negotiate 

a contract for a 10-yr administrative teIephone system at the center, 

including switching equipment, telephones, cabinets, switchboards 

and consoles, interior wire and cable, and other equipment needed for 

proper operation. The contract would contain an option to purchase. 

Companies remaining in competition were GTE Automatic Electric and 

Northern Telecom, Inc. ; other firms submitting proposals were Southern 

Bell Telephone and Telegraph, and Independent Business Telephone Co. 

(KSC Release 207-77) 

LeRC announced it had awarded a $2 895 750 contract to Teledyne Industries, Inc., of Northridge, Calif., for management, engineering, and 

repair services to Centaur digital computers and remote multiplexers. 

The cost-plus-fixed-fee contract would run for lyr beginning Nov. 1. The 

digital computer would work with the Centaur inertial guidance system 

to compute and adjust flight without ground command, permitting the 

Centaur to deliver its payload to a preselected orbit; the remote 

multiplexer would work with the digital computer to supply inflight data 

during launch. Centaur, first U.S. liquid hydrogedliquid oxygen highenergy rocket, had been a second stage on both Atlas and Titan 111. 

Recently it had assisted the launch of the Voyagers, and was scheduled 

during the coming yr to launch several commercial comsats and the 

Pioneer mission to Venus. LeRC would manage the Atlas-Centaur and 

Titan-Centaur through all phases of manufacturing, testing, and launch. 

Teledyne wouId perform its job as contractor both at Northridge and at 

KSC in Fla. (Lewis News, Dec 9/77, 2) 

0 JPL reported it had assisted DFRC with an engine problem on a possible Mars reconnaissance plane, a small remotely powered vehicle (RPV) 

called the Mini Sniffer developed by DFRC’s Dale Reed for environmental research at 100 OOOft above earth’s surface. The 13ft aircraft with a 

22ft wingspan, powered by an airless 30hp engine running on hydrazine, 

was the first propeller-driven plane designed to operate above 50 000ft. 

JPL had taken a hand when asked by DFRC to help with an enginecatalyst problem; Dr. Jose Chirivella, who solved the problem, saw the 

possibilities of using the miniplane on Mars. 

Deployment of 16 mini RPVs, 8 from each of 2 carrier spacecraft, over 

Mars so that each could make 5 or more separate takeoffs and landings 

in different locations, could achieve a total of 80 possible missions. The 

22 1 
DECEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

carriers, orbiting about Mars, would serve as comsats to collect data 

from the mini RPVs for relay to earth. 

The Martian RPVs would be instrumented to collect seismographic, 

meteorological, and geochemical data; they would conduct aerial 

magnetic and gravity surveys, take high-resolution photos, look for subsurface water, and study the speed and direction of winds and the 

pressure and density of the atmosphere. They might also collect surface 

samples from widely separated areas, storing them at a central location 

for return to earth by later missions. The small craft could be folded into 

3m-long canisters protected by coverings that would fall away when 

parachutes unfolded to support the vehicles as they opened out to flight 

configuration for descent and cruise through the lower Martian atmosphere, landing like helicopters under power from variable-thrust 

retrorockets. (JPL Universe, Dec 9/77, 1) 

0 LaRC reported on a recent visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina, by its 

Boeing 737 research aircraft outfitted with a new microwave landing 

system being demonstrated for FAA by a NASA team. The trip was 

scheduled during an Inter-American Telecommunications Conference 

sponsored by the Organization of American States that had invited the 

FAA to demonstrate the landing system. 

Part of the LaRC team flew to Buenos Aires on a C-5i4 packed with 

support equipment for the 737, including their own power supply; the 

rest of the team flew on the 737 with stops in Puerto Rico, Belem, and 

Rio de Janeiro. The 44-member team operated from 2 airports during its 

visit: the demonstration flights went from Ezeiza airport 21mi outside 

the city to the Aeroparque George Newbery in mid-town near the Rio de 

la Plata. The LaRC plane made 68 landings with the system, 56 of them 

automatic, and demonstrated it to more than 100 persons including officials from Argentina and other countries, and the press. Jack Reeder, 

chief of the terminal configured vehicle (TCV) program, said the team 

made the first automatic landing at the Buenos Aires airport and the first 

automatic landing by a commercial plane. (Langley Researcher, Dec 

9/77, 3) 

0 JSC reported on the medical evaluations of astronaut applicants for 

which the center’s Flight Medicine Clinic had been responsible. The 

evaluation had four parts: the medical history (illness, injuries, surgery, 

etc.); a thorough physical exam; specialty evaluations (neurology, 

otorhinolaryngology, ophthalmology, etc.); and special tests such as the 

treadmill, pulmonary function test, and audiometry and body chemistry 

examinations. (JSC Roundup, Dec 9/77, 1) 

December I&31: The USSR launched Soyuz 26 from Baykonur at 

222 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 DECEMBER 

4: 19am Moscow time Dec. 10 in what Tass described as a mission “jointly with the Sabut 6 space station.” The 300ton “ferry vehicle” carried 2 

cosmonauts, flight commander Lt.Col. Yuri Romanenko and flight 

engineer Georgy Grechko, into an orbit with 329km apogee, 267km 

perigee, 90.2min period and 51.6” inclination. Tass reported that the 

crew would rest for 12 to 21hr while the spacecraft was beyond radio 

contact with Soviet territory, during which time two research vessels 

would receive and relay telemetry from the satellite. 

The Soyuz 25 mission launched in Oct. carrying Vladimir Kovalenok 

and Valery Ryumin had failed to link with Sabut 6, although it had come 

within 393ft of the orbiting station [see Oct. 9-12]. The crew returned 

safely 48hr after liftoff. The “deviation” causing the cancellation was 

never explained. 

Tass reported Dec. 11 that Soyuz 26 had docked successfully with 

&&ut 6 at 6:02am Moscow the. The news agency noted that Salyut 6 

had been equipped with 2 docking ports, 1 on the transfer compartment 

of the station and the other opposite it in the equipment bay, to allow 2 

spacecraft to service the manned station. The Soyuz 25 had made its unsuccessful approach from the transfercompartment side, but Soyuz 26 

had docked with the unit on the other side. “The presence of two docking 

units on orbital stations considerably expands the opportunities and 

possibilities of future space flights,” Tass said. “In particular, this allows 

two ships to dock with a station, which is important for replacing crews, 

for carrying out rescue operations, and delivering foodstuffs and equipment to an orbital scientific laboratory.” Tass said the 2 crewmen had 

crossed into the space station. 

Lt. Gen. Vladimir Shatalov, training chief for the program, said on 

TV that during the docking he had watched it “with greater excitement 

than my own, which I performed in 1969.” Press reports called it “an important recovery” for the Soviet space program, after the failure of the 

previous docking attempt which was to have marked the 60th anniversary of the Russian revolution. Grechko’s outside assignment would be 

to inspect the docking device on the “main entrance,” and some press 

reports speculated that the cosmonauts might be preparing for the docking of a second Spacecraft. 

On the following days the cosmonauts “changed into light working 

clothes” and began to “mothball the onboard systems of the transport” 

Soya 26, according to Tass. They had also begun reactivating the space 

station, where they would live on a time pattern “as close as possible to 

that of MOSCOW.” Tass emphasized the added comfort of being able to 

communicate through the research vessels instead of staying up to make 

contact while over ,their home territory, besides being more convenient 

for “the hundreds of specialists who support the flight here on earth.” 

The cosmonauts were the fiist to call “ready” for the first communica223 
DECEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 

tions session with the control center Dee. 12. The next day was a rest 

period to prepare for a “complex experiment” scheduled in the next few 

days. 

Dr. Konstantin Feoktistov in an interview described “great changes” in 

both the external structure and the flight control and life support systems 

of the space station, aimed at increased reliability, length of service, and 

better conditions for the cosmonauts. Scientific equipment for 

astrophysics and earth monitoring had been improved on the basis of 

previous experience. Feoktistov emphasized the addition of another 

docking port as a safety device, citing the possibility of accident to the 

ferry craft (failure of the engine or some automatic device, or encounter 

with a meteorite) and the risk necessary in undocking it for inspection. 

Having two ports would permit sending up another craft for rescue and 

return to earth, as well as access for additional equipment or supplies. He 

also noted that the water-regeneration unit labeled experimental on 

Sat’yut 4 was now standard equipment, and that the new design includes 

an “experimental place for washing,” no easy matter under conditions of 

weightlessness: “If water is let into the chamber it will immediately 

spread all around and get into the respiratory organs.” 

Another improvement was incorporation of a “Delta” autonomous 

system for navigation that would permit the station to determine its orbit 

without participation of earth-based radio equipment. Other automatic 

instruments to monitor the area around the station had detected 

“micrometeor particles” in quantities confirmed by earth radar observation. 

On Dee. 20 the cosmonauts donned semirigid full-pressure spacesuits 

and left the space station to check the transfer compartment and its 

docking unit and to carry out any necessary repairs. In addition to the 

special tools for the docking unit, Grechko carried a mobile TV camera 

that he used to send views of the docking elements to earth. No damage 

was visible, and Grechko reported the equipment in full working order. 

Tass said the men spent most of the 88min in space depressurizing and 

repressurizing the airlock leading to outer space, again suggesting the 

possibility of further visits. 

Grechko’s spacewalk was the first by a Soviet spaceman in 9yr. The 

new spacesuits were said to be more flexible than previous models, with a 

small instrument panel in front and a door-like entrance hatch in back. 

In a Dec. 20 recorded interview, Gen. Shatalov described the lengthy 

training in a special simulator apparently resembling the neutralbuoyancy tank at JSC, where the cosmonauts had practiced their extravehicular activity, and the orbital-station mockup on “flying 

laboratories” where they had learned to put on the new spacesuits in conditions of weightlessness. 

224 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 DECEMBER 

Ensuing days saw performance of experiments in medical research, 

earth resources monitoring (during which they reported forest fires on 

the African continent), and distortions caused by the optical properties 

of porthole surfaces. On Dec. 24 Tass reported that tadpoles had hatched 

out of frog eggs brought from earth in the same vessel with tadpoles born 

on earth; the earth-born tadpoles had reacted to weightlessness by 

“swimming disorderly,” not distinguishing top from bottom, but the 

newborns were swimming in spirals. 

For the remainder of Dec., the crew proceeded with a schedule that 

each research center had helped to establish, with each center “looking 

forward to its hour.” The cosmonauts reported a burning meteorite 

flashing past the station Dec. 27; one that struck a window had left a tiny 

scratch. On Dec. 28 Tass reported that so far the crew had not used any 

of the onboard recreation facilities (chess, a small library, a videotape 

recorder). The time allocated for leisure was occupied by Romanenko in 

checking the control systems, and by Grechko with camera and sketchbook near the transfer-compartment portholes. Tass reported a New 

Year tree was in place, “packed for the journey by friends from the Star 

Town together with toys.” 

At year’s end the cosmonauts reported that onboard systems were 

working normally, they were feeling well, and the planned program of 

research and experiments was being “completely fulfilled.” A motor on 

Soyuz 26 had been used Dec. 29 to correct the Sdyut 6 flight trajectory. 

(W Post, Dec 11/77, A-36; Dec 20/77, A-7; Dec 21/77, A-28; W Star, 

Dec 10177, A-4; Dec 12/77, A-4; FBIS, Tass in English, Dec 10, 12, 13, 

20,21,23,24,28/77; Tass Intl Sv in RUSS, Dec 11/77; Moscow in Engl to 

Afr, Dec 28/77; Mosc Dom Sv in Rus, Dec 13, 15, 19, 20, 30) 

December 13: ESA announced that the Societe Europeenne de Propulsion (SEP) had successfully conducted the first test of the complete first 

stage of its Mane launcher at the Vernon test center north of Paris. The 

stage was in its flight configuration for this test, and consisted of the propulsion bay (containing 4 Viking I1 engines), the flight-standard tanks, 

the forward skirt, and the intertank skirt. The stage functioned during 

the test for lllsec. The purpose of the test was to verify first-stage 

behavior, especially with regard to the hot-gas pressurization system; 

thermal environment of the engine bay, tanks, and skirts; and the 

dynamic aspect. 

This test was a follow-up to previous tests of the propulsion bay that 

had accumulated 404.5sec of successful operation, making it possible to 

include flight-configuration tanks in this series of first-stage tests. ESA 

had planned 2 more development tests before May 1978, followed by 3 

qualification tests of the first stage before final qualification. (ESA anno 

Dec 13/77) 

225 
DECEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 

December Z4: In its final launch of 1977, NASA sent Japan’s domestic 

comsat Cs (Sakura) into a synchronous transfer orbit from the Eastern 

Test Range on a Delta at 7:47pm EST. Transfer-orbit elements were: 

35 936km apogee, 166km perigee, 28.82’ inclination. The apogee boost 

motor fired at 10:27pm EST Dec. 15 to begin maneuvering the Cs over 

the South Pacific to a station at about 135’E above New Guinea on the 

equator south of Japan. 

The 677kg hatbox-shaped spacecraft (including apogee motor) was 

3.48m long and 2.18m in diameter, covered with solar cells, and would 

weigh 340kg in orbit. It would be the first comsat to carry both C-band (6 

to 4GHz) and K-band (30 to 20GHz) frequency ranges: K-band coverage 

would be for the main islands, C-band for the remote islands. An antenna horn reflector extending 128.8cm above the solar array would provide 

33db K-band coverage to the main islands and 25db to the remote 

islands. Ford Aerospace had built the spacecraft under contract from 

Mitsubishi Electric Co. of Nagoya, which had prime contract responsibility under Japan’s Natl. Space Development Agency (NASDA). Cs, 

designed for both telephone and television communications technology 

experiments, relaying signals between fixed and mobile stations, would 

provide coverage to the Japanese islands for at least 3yr. 

NASDA would reimburse NASA for providing launch support for this 

mission, at an estimated cost of $16 million. The NASA portion of the 

mission was adjudged successful on Feb. 23-24, 1978. (NASA Release 

77-244; mission summary M-492-211-77-01 [prelaunch] Dec 14/77, MOR 

M-492-211-77-01 [postlaunch] Feb 28/78) 

NASA announced that Pioneer ZZ would fly just outside the rings of 

Saturn during its first encounter with the giant planet in 1979. The 

spacecraft would pass 30 OOOkm (18 OOOmi) from the edge of the outermost ring and would swing in under the plane of the rings to a distance of 

25 OOOkm (15 OOOmi) from the planet’s surface. Dr. Noel W. Hinners, 

NASA associate administrator for space science, and A. Thomas Young, 

director of planetary programs, had made the decision to fly the Pioneer 

outside rather than inside the rings mainly because NASA wanted to use 

it as a pathfinder for the two Voyager spacecraft headed for Saturn encounter in 1980-81. The Pioneer would cross the ring plane at about the 

same distance as the trajectory that would use Saturn’s gravity to propel 

Voyager 2 toward Uranus. 

The uncertainties regarding a ring crossing even at 30OOOkm 

(18 OOOmi) from the outer edge of the rings called for NASA “to do 

everything we reasonably can to ensure Voyager’s success,” said Young. 

Should the Pioneer not survive the rings, NASA would have to revise its 

plan of sending Voyager 2 on to Uranus; however, a successful pass by 

Pioneer IZ would increase confidence in committing Voyager 2 to the 

226 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 197 DECEMBER 

Uranus option even if Voyager Z had not achieved all its objectives at 

Saturn. An outside pass offered much better odds for success than an inner one, which would bring the spacecraft as close as 6000km (3700mi) to 

Saturn’s surface. The 1979 flyby by Pioneer ZZ would be the first close 

encounter with Saturn; until the rings of Uranus were discovered, Saturn 

was considered the only ringed planet in earth’s solar system. The origin 

of the rings remained unknown, but their composition was defined by 

astronomers in 1970 as ordinary water ice, and radar readings in 1973 

detected snowball-size chunks of solid material. (NASA Release 77-250) 

0 LaRC announced that Dr. J.H. WiIkinson of the U.K.’s National 

Physical Laboratory, author of textbooks on algebraic processes, would 

speak at the Dec. 19 colloquium. Wilkinson, who broke ground in 

floating-point and backward error analysis and in eigenvalue solutions, 

would describe the early days of electronic computer development, his 

experiences using one of the first working computers, and the beginnings 

of numerical analysis on an automatic digital computer. (LaRC Release 

LaRC announced that Ed Yost, who made the world’s longest manned 

balloon flight, would speak at the center Dee. 20 on his attempt to cross 

the Atlantic that failed just short of the coast of Portugal but broke 8 

world records, “most successful failure in ballooning history.” (LaRC 

Release 77-59) 

77-58) 

Marshall Space Flight Center reported it had coped with the threat of a 

serious power shortage when maintenance and emergency shutdowns 

dropped the Tennessee Valley Authority’s generating capacity by a third 

at the same time that severe cold weather moved into the area. On Friday, Dec. 9, TVA had asked NASA and the U.S. Army to reduce power 

use by half, as it expected the shortage to continue for some time. C. 

Horton Webb, director of MSFC’s facilities office, said the plant 

maintenance division had worked around the clock turning heat on and 

off to keep buildings from freezing, and had asked employees to help in 

minimizing use of electrical equipment. Security guards helped by closing 

blinds and turning off lights and equipment wherever possible. Webb 

said the combined effort had reduced power use by 50% on Saturday and 

65% by Sunday morning. (Marshall Star, Dec 14/77, 1) 

December 15: NASA announced that Voyager I, launched Sept. 5, had 

overtaken its sister ship VoyagerZ, launched Aug. 20, about 77.5 million 

miles from earth on its way to encounters with Jupiter and Saturn. 

Voyager Z would arrive at Jupiter in 1979 in the lead by 4m0, and at 

Saturn in 1980 ahead by 9mo. If all went well by the time Voyager 2 

reached Saturn in Aug. 1981, NASA might send it on toward Uranus 

227 
DECEMBER ASTRONAUTfCS AND AERONAUTICS. 1977 

where it should arrive by Jan. 1986. Both spacecraft would eventually 

escape earth’s solar system. (NASA Release 77-252) 

0 JSC reported it had modified its mission control center to use solar 

power for dehumidifying the building. Solar panels installed on the roof 

would provide heat 60% of the time, according to weather calculations 

for the Houston area, and would save about 1.5 million ft3 of natural gas 

per yr at a construction cost of about $240 OOO. The modification was 

part of a joint NASA/DOE solar-energy demonstration project. (JSC 

Release 77-86) 

December 19: MSFC reported on the first meeting of a science working 

group for a proposed earth-orbiting system called Advanced X-Ray 

Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), to study stellar structure and evolution, 

large-scale galactic phenomena, active galaxies and galactic clusters, and 

cosmology. Chaired by Prof. R. Giacconi of Harvard Univ. and representing universities and government laboratories working on x-ray 

astronomy in the U.S. and Europe, the group would define the scientific 

requirements. The 12.8m (42ft) craft weighing about 9oookg (20 OOOlb) 

would be designed for Space Shuttle launch and repair or retrieval in orbit. (MSFC Release 77-227) 

0 NASA reported that its announcement on selection of Shuttle 

astronauts, set for December, would not be forthcoming until January. 

Dr. Robert A. Frosch, agency administrator, had met Dec. 12 with officials of the selection program but, because of current NASA budget activity, had not reviewed the data presented. On Dec. 16 Dr. Frosch had 

notified JSC director Dr. Christopher C. Kraft, who had supervised the 

selection program, that the review would proceed after the end of the 

year. (NASA Release 77-254) 

* ComSatCorp reported its shareholders had tendered 5 827 678 shares 

in response to its recent offer of repurchase at $37 per share [see Nov. 

1 I]. Those holding 10 or fewer shares would be reimbursed first; the remaining owners would be included in the repurchase on a prorated basis 

at about 34% for a total buy-back of 2 million shares. (ComSatCorp 

Release 77-36) 

December 20: NASA reported KSC was preparing its facilities for next 

yr’s Space Shuttle arrival and prelaunch work, more than 3yr after it last 

launched a Saturn rocket from Complex 39. In Oct. 1978, Shuttle orbiter 

102 would fly in from Calif. on its Boeing 747 carrier, with the main 

engines, external tank, and solid-fuel rocket boosters due in Nov. and 

Dec. for assembly and test before launch March 1979. KSC’s orbiter 

228 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 DECEMBER 

landing strip had been completed in Aug.; support facilities to be completed by April 1978 would include a device to unload the orbiter, plus a 

microwave landing system to guide it to an automatic landing. An 

orbiter-processing facility to store fuels and handle payloads was the 

only new construction except the landing strip, the rest being modifications of Apollo facilities. (NASA Release 77-253) 

December 21: NASA reported it had scheduled 25 launches in 1978, 11 

on Deltas and 8 on Atlas Centaurs. It would provide support for 3 AtlasF launches from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. KSC would launch 10 of the 

Deltas and all the Atlas Centaurs; one Delta would go from the Western 

Test Range at VAB. Paying customers would subsidize 15 launches: 

ESA, ComSatCorp, the U.S. Navy, Japan, NOAA, the U.K., and 

Canada. 

Whereas most of its 1977 launches were in the area of applications 

(communications, environmental, navigation, meteorological, earth 

resources, or geodetic), its 1978 mission would divide between applications and scientific missions almost equally. Scheduled in Jan. would be 

Intelsat IV-A F-3 for ComSatCorp, FltSatCom-A for the Navy, and its 

own IUE; the Intelsat IV-A F-6 would follow in Feb. March would see 

launch of NASA’s Landsat-C and Japan’s experimental broadcast 

satellite BSE. In April NASA would launch its own heat-capacity mapping mission (HCMM) and Comstar-C, as well as the backup OTS for 

ESA. May would see 4 launches: GOES-C, and NASA’s TIROS-N, 

Pioneer Venus-A, and SeaSat-A. Scheduled in June would be GEOS-B 

for ESA and a backup satellite for Japan. In July NASA would launch 

from Wallops on a Scout the UK-6 to measure radiation particles, and 

from KSC its own ISEE-C. August would see launch of NASA’s 

Nimbus4 and Pioneer Venus-B. In Sept. NASA would launch NOAAA; a navsat for the Navy; and comsat NATO-IIIC. NASA would launch 

its own HEAO-B in Oct. Two launches set for Nov. would be Canada’s 

Telesat-D and FltSatCom-B for the Navy. George F. Page, KSC’s director for expendable vehicles, noted that the center’s workload would be 

heavy with a schedule calling for 3 launches in Jan. and 2 each in some 

other months. (NASA Release 77-256; KSC Release 21 1-77) 

0 MSFC reported that Mack Vinson of its personnel office had been one 

of only 25 people, and the only one from Alabama, selected for a 2-wk 

study tour in March 1978 of the Peoples Republic of China. The group, a 

delegation from the American Society for Public Administration, would 

view firsthand the ways in which PRC officials solved public policy and 

administrative issues. Other objectives would be to set up a 2-way interchange of administrative ideas and techniques, obtain information for 

use in university courses, and broaden understanding of China and its 

229 
DECEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

people. Vinson said the tour was a matter of personal interest and would 

be made at his own expense. He had been a member of ASPA since 1965 

and was president of its northern Alabama section in 1975-76. (Marshall 

Star, Dec 21/77,2) 

December 22: NASA and ESA announced that 6 U.S. and 4 European 

candidates were finalists in the competition for 2 payload specialist positions, 1 U.S. and 1 European, on the first flight of ESA’s Spacelab 

scheduled to go on the Space Shuttle in 1980. For the U.S., Byron 

Lichtenberg of Natick, Mass., Ph.D. candidate at MIT, and MSFC’s 

Ann Whitaker, M.S. at the Univ. of Ala., were the only non-Calif. 

finalists. The others were Craig L. Fischer, M.D., of Indian Wells; 

Michael L. Lampton, Ph.D., of Berkeley; and Robert T. Menzies and 

Richard J. Terrile, both Ph.D.s from CalTech (Terrile employed there 

and Menzies at JPL) and both from Pasadena. ESA’s 4 were electronics 

engineer Franc0 Malerba of Italy; physicist Ulf Merbold of West Germany; and 2 from the Netherlands, astronomer Claude Nicollier and 

physicist Wubbo Ockels. (NASA Release 77-255; MSFC Release 77-229; 

ESA Release Dec 22/77) 

0 FBIS reported a Tass claim that Soviet physicists at the USSR’s joint 

institute for nuclear research at Dubna near Moscow had synthesized the 

106th element with a mass number of 259, by bombarding a lead target 

with ions of chromium (accelerated heavy particles). Academician 

Georgy Flerov said his group had been working for yrs to synthesize 

trans-uranium elements (those with atomic nuclei heavier than uranium) 

and had already obtained the 102nd through 105th elements on the 

periodic table. The U.S. and the USSR (both countries having “sufficiently powerful heavy-ion accelerators”) had begun work on the 106th 

element about the same time. After the group at Dubna reported success, 

the U.S. scientists said they had found another isotope of the 106th element, with mass number 263. (FBIS, Tass in English, Dec 22/77) 

December 23: MSFC reported that its homemade Shuttle orbiter [see 

Nov. 231 had made its practice run through the center and had played 

stand-in during practice hoists into the 430ft (131m) test stand where the 

Enterprise would be mated to the other Shuttle components for the first 

time. Werner H. Rubel, supervisor in MSFC’s product planning branch, 

said the idea and design for the stand-in orbiter had originated in his 

group, where Jerry B. Bennich and John L. Ransburgh had done the 

engineering work; the mockup and prototype assembly branch had performed final assembly. (MSFC Release 77-232) 

MSFC announced successful completion of the first loading test of the 

230 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 DECEMBER 

Space Shuttle external tank to ensure that tne test article, test facility, 

and hardware could handle the super cooled propellants (liquid hydrogen 

and liquid oxygen) to be used by the Shuttle main engine. (MSFC Release 

77-234) 

0 KSC reported successful conclusion of the first open-sea tests on Shuttle retrieval equipment staged Dec. 5-16 from Port Everglades, in strong 

winds and seas from 3 to 6ft that had hampered operations both wks. 

Test manager Bob Everette said the hugh waves created conditions vital 

to the test although “it was hard even to stand up on the boat” and the aft 

section of the 158-ft offshore-support vessel was often under a ft of 

water. 

The first group of tests simulated parachute recovery; retrieval of the 6 

main parachutes and 2 drogues would use 2 support vessels, each responsible for recovering 3 main chutes and a drogue. The second series of 

tests was to verify performance of the nozzle plug in open waters. The 

plug was designed to “swim out” from the ship to a booster casing 

floating vertically, dive to the bottom of the casing, secure itself to the 

aft portion and pump out the water. The booster, rotating to a horizontal position, would be ready for tow to the Spaceport for refurbishing. 

The tests were also to confirm the deck layout of the support vessels and 

how they kept position while the plug was docking with the booster. 

Everette said retrieval gear would be modified according to the test 

results. 

More ocean tests would follow about lmo before the first launch of 

the Shuttle, pre-mission exercises to train personnel who would work on 

the recovery. Everette praised the teamwork of the support agencies taking part in the test: staff from KSC and MSFC; Tracor Marine, operator 

of the support vessel; Everglades Towing Co.; the Naval Ocean Systems 

Center; U.S. Booster, Inc.; Battelle Memorial Institute; Pioneer 

Parachute Co.; the U.S. Navy supervisor of salvage; and Martin Marietta. (Spaceport News, Dec 23/77, 4) 

0 In its year-end issue, the Lewis News described the relationship between U.S. Army and NASA activities at the center. Civilian employees 

of the Army Propulsion Laboratory had been working among LeRC 

employees since 1970, as 1 of 3 Army air-mobility research and 

technology labs working jointly with NASA centers: Ames Research 

Center housed the aeromechanics laboratory and the research and 

technology lab headquarters, and LaRC included the Army’s structures 

laboratory. The only AMRT lab complex not on a NASA installation 

was the applied technology lab at Ft. Eustis, Va. 

LeRC and the Army pursued R&D activities under a unique agree23 1 
DECEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

ment, with the Army providing funds for programs of mutual interest 

and adding about 40 persons (mostly engineers, scientists, and technicians) to the LeRC staff, all of them supervised by Lewis personnel. Army interests included the joint aeronautical research group, working on 

compressors, turbines, bearings, seals, and gears, with special attention 

to Army needs in small-engine technology; the technical support group 

of scientists and skilled technicians, set up to help with the inhouse 

workload created by Army activities at the center; and a small staff of 

engineers called the Army aeronautical research group, using LeRC 

facilities to pursue investigations of interest to the Army specifically. An 

instance was the engine test cell in Bldg. 14 recently activated and 

primarily operated by the Army, with help from LeRC experts and 

resources, said Propulsion Laboratory director John Acurio. 

Aiding Acurio in lab operations and efforts to improve aircraft propulsion were Curtis L. Walker, chief of the Army aeronautical research 

group, and administrative officer Gus Gold. (Lewis News, Dec 23/77,4) 

* JPL reported that Dr. M. Kudret Selcuk of its energy-conversion 

systems section had developed a fixed solar collector using a vee-trough 

concentrator and vacuum-tube receivers to produce temperatures above 

350°F for generating steam or organic vapor, or electricity to drive turbines. The system, on which NASA had obtained a patent, had proved 

“far superior to flat-plate systems,” Dr. Selcuk said. 

The new system had no moving parts, which made it unique. Located 

on the roof of JPL’s Bldg. 248, its torpedo-like glass tubes and piping 

would remain on a tilted rack, and the sheet-metal troughs in an asymmetrical V shape could be reversed at the spring and autumn equinoxes 

to take best advantage of the sun’s rays. Heat collected could be used 

directly for shaft power to drive conventional air conditioning systems, 

for space heating, or for other uses such as supplying process heat. (JPL 

Universe, Dec 23/77, 2) 

JSC reported that NASA administrator Dr. Robert A. Frosch had approved development of a teleoperator retrieval system to be flown no 

later than Feb. 1980 as a Skylab-revisit mission. JSC would be responsible for integrating the TRS into the Shuttle and for planning and operations. Harold E. Gartrell, assistant manager of the Shuttle payload integration and development office at JSC, would manage JSC activities 

for the Skylab revisit and would work with the Shuttle program office on 

integrating that mission with the Shuttle orbital-flight test planners. His 

office would be responsible for interfaces outside JSC in preparing and 

conducting the mission. (JSC Roundup, Dee 23/77, 1) 

0 MSFC reported that Corning Glass Works, Canton, N.Y., had begun 

232 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 DECEMBER 

work on a huge primary mirror blank for NASA’s Space Telescope, 

designed to give astronomers a view to the edge of the universe. Corning 

would work under a $1.74 million subcontract from Perkin-Elmer 

Corp., which would be responsible for assembling the optical telescope. 

Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. would build the spacecraft and support 

system and integrate the telescope into it. 

Scientists expected the space telescope to detect light from objects 14 

billion light-years from earth; it might, therefore, be able to provide 

views of the first galaxies at the time they were formed. The Hale 

telescope at the Mt. Palomar observatory in Calif. could penetrate only 

about 2 billion light-years because of the optical degradation from 

earth’s atmosphere. The space telescope would be carried by the Shuttle 

to an orbit more than 3OOmi above earth to avoid that interference. 

Corning would deliver the first of two 8ft discs to Perkin-Elmer within 

a yr and the spare by April 1979, for the process of grinding the blanks to 

an optical curvature, The blank would be lft thick with a 2ft-diameter 

center hole, and would consist of solid inch-thick top and bottom plates 

separated by a weight-saving structure of open cells loin long and 4in 

square. It would carry a thin metal film constituting the mirror or reflective surface; glass had long served as best mirror material because its 

shape would change only slightly with changes in temperature, so that it 

maintained image quality. More than 4Oyr ago Corning had made the 

200in blank for the Hale telescope out of borosilicate glass, having an expansion of 32.5 on a scale used by physicists; the material it would use 

for the space telescope blank would have an expansion of zero. Corning 

had chosen the new material, a titanium silicate called ULE (ultra-low 

expansion) first formulated in 1967, for ease of handling and ultrasonic 

testing. (MSFC Release 77-233) 

0 LaRC reported that its plans for a trash-burning steam plant called 

Project RECOUP [see Oct. 61 had hit a snag when the center opened construction bids Dec. 7. All four bids were higher than expected, the lowest 

being about $1.4 million more than the government’s estimate, which 

was about $8 million. Funds available to the center for the plant, including contingencies, totaled no more than $8.4 million. Leo Daspit, 

LaRC project manager, said he would have to meet with his counterparts 

in the city of Hampton and at Langley AFB to “explore our options.” 

(Langley Researcher, Dec 23/77, 3) 

* LaRC announced it had selected a firm called Mercury, of Tustin, 

Calif., to negotiate a 3yr $2.4-million contract for support services to the 

center’s steam and air-compression facilities. The contract, beginning 

Jan. 1,1978, would have two lyr unpriced options for extension. (LaRC 

Release 77-60) 

233 
DECEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

A year-end summary of NASA activities included 16 launch efforts 

and completion of two series of manned Shuttle orbiter tests. Three of 

the 16 launches had failed, 2 destroying launcher and spacecraft immediately after liftoff; the third resulted from upper-stage failure and 

did not put the spacecraft into proper orbit. (NASA Release 77-257; KSC 

Release 212-77) 

December 27: NASA announced it had awarded RCA Astro-Electronics 

Division of Princeton, N.J., a $10.5 million fixed-price contract for a 

closed-circuit television system to support the Space Shuttle program. 

The contract, running from Jan. 1978 through June 1982, would cover 

design, development, production, qualification, and delivery of CCTV 

systems for training, certification, and flight. It would include hardware 

for the first orbital test vehicle design, with options for TV equipment on 

additional orbiters and for Canada-built remote manipulator systems. 

Cameras and monitors would fly in the crew compartment and the 

payload bay, and on the arm of the remote manipulator. JSC would provide technical direction. (NASA Release 77-259) 

* FBIS reported that “the world’s northernmost New Year’s tree” had 

been lighted 500km from the geographical North Pole, carried there by 

members of the USSR’s high-latitude North 29 air expedition with “New 

Year gifts and mail” for the drifting station North Pole 23. Tass said the 

arctic “Fathers Frost” then visited an icebound island, base of the North 

Pole 22 scientific station, near the Canadian Arctic archipelago in the 

part of the Arctic Ocean most remote from the Soviet Union. (FBIS, 

Tass in English, Dec 27/77) 

December 29: KSC announced that the Thunderstorm Research International Program (TRIP) combining efforts of atmospheric physicists and 

lightning researchers from the US., Europe, and Africa would continue 

in 1978 as they had for the past 2 summers. At the recent meeting of the 

American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, KSC had invited the 

researchers to continue their studies of electrical properties, origins, and 

effects of thunderstorms. 

The KSC Spaceport would benefit from the studies by applying the 

findings in Shuttle launch and landing operations; to have many investigators in the same area studying the same storms and exchanging 

data would offer .more chances of gaining new knowledge than might 

come from isolated studies. The researchers had funded their own programs, KSC providing meteorological instrumentation, use of the local 

National Weather Service office, and normal support services such as 

power, communications, and file processing. 

KSC, hosting the program for a third consecutive yr, had unique 

234 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 DECEMBER 

meteorological facilities accumulated during the Apollo and Skylab programs, plus a large number of summer thunderstorms occurring normally in the area. Although KSC would not host the group after next yr, the 

1979 study site for continuations of TRIP would be the Langmuir 

Laboratories at Socorro, N.M., for studies of mountain storms of the 

southwest. (KSC Release 217-77) 

0 ARC reported that the Galileo memorial scholarship program 

established in 1973 by the San Francisco section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and ARC would award a $750 

scholarship and other prizes. The program was open to high school 

seniors planning a career in physical or natural sciences, engineering, or 

mathematics, residents of the area or children of employees or retirees at 

ARC or of Galileo crewmembers. The program was a memorial to the 

men who died April 12, 1973, in an accident involving the Galileo I (a 

modified Convair operated by ARC as a flying laboratory for research in 

aeronautics, astronautics, astronomy, and earth observation). (ARC 

Astrogram, Dec 29/77, 4) 

During December: NASA reported that Fitzhugh L. Fulton, Jr., civilian 

test pilot for DFRC since 1966 and a 23-yr veteran of the USAF, had 

received from the Society of Experimental Test Pilots the Iven C. Kincheloe award as test pilot of the year for his work in the Space Shuttle 

approach-and-landing test program in which he piloted the orbiter on 13 

test flights beginning in Feb. and ending in mid-Nov. 1977. Fulton was 

also flying the “triplesonic” YF-12 aircraft for NASA; in the past, he had 

flown the XB-70 and was launch pilot for the X-15 and other research 

vehicles. 

This award was the second top-level honor for Fulton, who won the 

Harmon Trophy in 1962 as an Air Force pilot in the B-58 Hustler test 

program at Edwards AFB that set an international altitude record. In his 

work for the Air Force Fulton had received 3 Distinguished Flying 

Crosses, plus another DFC and 5 air medals for 55 missions in Korea and 

scores of humanitarian missions during the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49. 

(NASA Actv Dec 77, 8) 

0 The USAF announced it had issued contracts to Martin Marietta 

Aerospace at Denver and General Dynamics Corp.3 Convair Divison at 

San Diego for design of a large space structure to be carried into orbit on 

the Space Shuttle and erected and deployed in space. The contracts, each 

for $750,000, called for conceptual design of a flight-demonstration 

model of an antenna-like structure to be assembled and deployed in a 

form exceeding the size of the orbiter cargo bay (6Oft long by 15ft in 

diameter). Plans called for automated assembly in space with manned 

23 5 
DECEMBER ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS. 1977 

supervision. The flight article would also serve to verify the Shuttle’s 

ability to deploy other DOD craft that might require assembly in orbit. 

(AFSC Newsreview, Dec 77, 4) 

236 
Appendix A 

SATELLITES, SPACE PROBES, AND MANNED SPACE 

FLIGHTS, 1977 

World space activity in 1977 approached the level of previous years: 

124 recorded launches, compared with 128 in 1976 and 125 in 1975. Of 

the total, the U.S. had 26 launches, 24 of them successful, as described in 

Appendix B. The USSR had 98 launches with 11 1 possible payloads, including a single eightfold comsat launch like those of earlier years, plus 

two probes: a Vertikal rocket launched to a height of about 500km on 

Aug. 30, 1977, and another launched to a height of about 150km on 

Oct. 25. The 79 launches (accounting €or 86 payloads) in the Cosmos 

series, besides the usual photo-reconnaissance, radar-calibration, communications, electronic-intelligence, navigation, and test vehicles, included 4 antisatellite spacecraft and 3 targets; the ASATs (Cosmos 910, 

918, 961, and 970) either plunged into the Pacific Ocean or exploded in 

orbit. The ocean-surveillance satellite Cosmos 954 exhibited difficulties 

with its control system 2mo after launch and finally crashed in Canada’s 

Northwest Territory in January 1978 with its nuclear reactor aboard. The 

USSR also launched 6 spacecraft in the Molniya series; 4 in the Meteor 

series; 3 manned Soyuz vehicles; and one each in the Raduga, Ekran, 

Prognoz, Intercosmos, and Salyut series. The remaining launch was the 

cooperative French-Soviet spacecraft Signe 3 equipped for gamma-ray 

studies. 

Two other launches during 1977 were Japan’s test vehicles, Tansei 3 

launched Feb. 19 from the Uchinoura Space Center, and Kiku 2 

launched Feb. 23 from the Tanegashima Space Center. 

Sources of the data in the accompanying table include the United Nations Registry of Space Flights; the Satellite Situation Report compiled 

by Goddard Space Flight Center; and press releases of NASA, the 

Department of Defense, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other government agencies, as well as the Communications 

Satellite Corporation. Soviet data derive from statements in the Soviet 

press, international news service reports, and announcements and briefings by Soviet officials. Data on satellites of other nations come from announcements of their governments and international news services. 

237 
APPENDIX A ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

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259 

Appendix B 

MAJOR NASA LAUNCHES, 1977 

The following table of major NASA launches includes payloads carried by all rocket vehicles larger than sounding rockets launched in 1977 

by NASA or under NASA direction. 

During 1977, the U.S. had 26 launches, of which 24 were successful. 

Of these, 10 were launches by DOD. Of the remaining 14, 3% were 

launches by NASA for its own programs: Heao I, the two Voyager 

spacecraft launched in August and September, and Isee I (part of a twin 

payload). Launches for others included 2% for ESA (Geos, Meteosat, 

and Isee 2); 2 for Japan (Himawari and Sabra); Nato IIIB for NATO, 

Palapa 2 for Indonesia, Intelsat IVA F-4 for ComSatCorp, Goes 2 for 

NOM, Sirio for Italy, and a Transat payload for the U.S. Navy. The 

unsuccessful attempts, both in September, were OTS, a comsat for ESA 

destroyed shortly after launch, and an Intelsat IVA launched for ComSatCorp that exploded 1 minute into its flight. 

The table includes vehicle and payload performance under categories S 

for successful, P for partially successful, and U for unsuccessful. A 

fourth category, Unk, indicates payloads that did not operate because of 

vehicle failure. These unofficial categories do not take into account that 

U missions may produce valuable information, or that payloads with a 

long-life design may fail to meet design requirements and become officially unsuccessful at a later date. Further information on these 

launches appears in Appendix A and in the indexed entries in the text. 

I 
APPENDIX B ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 

262 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 APPENDIX B 

263 

Appendix C 

MANNED SPACE FLIGHTS, 1977 

Manned spaceflight in 1977 was limited to 3 Soviet launches, Soyuz 24 

(to dock with Salyut 5) and Soyuz 25 and 26 to dock with Salyut 6, 

launched Sept. 29, 1977. 

The space station Sulyut 5, which had been launched June 22, 1976, 

decayed from orbit Aug. 8, 1977 after being used for docking by Soyuz 

flights 21,22, and 23. The first attempt at docking with Salyut 6 was unsuccessful, but the crew of Soyuz 26 occupied the station without difficulty and let their visitors in Soyuz 27 take their vehicle home the 

following January; the men from Soyuz 26 remained in orbit, returning 

in Soyuz 27 the following March. 

At .the end of 1977, the U.S. had made 3i manned spaceflights: 2 

suborbital, 20 in earth orbit, 3 in lunar orbit, and 6 lunar landings, using 

43 different crewmen. The USSR had made 30 manned flights, all in 

earth orbit, with 38 cosmonauts. Total hours of manned flight were, for 

the US., 7681hr 10min; for the USSR, 6997hr 18min. Total cumulative 

man-hours in space were, for the US, 22 503hr 39min; for the USSR, 

13 519hr 18min. 
APPENDIX C ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 
Appendix D 

NASA SOUNDING ROCKET LAUNCHES, 1977 

The following table lists the 53 sounding rockets of the Arcas class and 

above launched by NASA in 1977. The launches took place in Australia, 

Canada, Norway, and Sweden, as well as in the United States. Payloads 

were carried for the Naval Research Laboratory, the Smithsonian 

Astrophysical Observatory, the Uppsala Ionospheric Observatory, 

NOAA, and 3 NASA centers; 14 universities; 1 domestic institute, 

M.I.T.; and 3 foreign, the Univ. of Adelaide, the Univ. of Bern, and the 

Max-Planck Institut. Onboard experiments included 18 physics; 12 

astronomy; 10 aeronomy; 9 astrophysics; 3 vehicle-system tests; and 1 

space-processing test. 

Information in the table came from Goddard Space Flight Center’s 

Quick-Look Sounding Rocket Data sheets, issued after launches, with 

additional information from some of the experimenters concerned. 

Launch dates in the table are local time, with the date by Greenwich 

Mean Time (2) if different. 

267 
APPENDIX D ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1911 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 APPENDIX D 

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APPENDIX D ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 APPENDIX D 

27 1 
APPENDIX D ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

272 
Appendix E 

ABBREVIATIONS OF REFERENCES 

Listed here are the abbreviations used for citing sources in the 

text. Not all the sources are listed, only those that are abbreviated. 

AAAS Bull 

A&A 

A&A I977 

ABC 

AEC Release 

Aero Daily 

Aero Med 

AF Mag 

AFHF Newsletter 

AFJ 

AFSC Newsreview 

AFSC Release 

AIA Release 

AIAA Facts 

AIAA Release 

AIP Newsletter 

AP 

ARC Astrogram 

Astro Journ 

Atlanta JC 

Av Wk 

B News 

American Association for the Advancement of 

Science’s AAAS Bulletin 

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ magazine, Astronautics & Aeronautics 

NASA’s Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1977: 

A Chronology (this publication) 

American Broadcasting Company 

Atomic Energy Commission news release 

Aerospace Daily newsletter 

Aerospace Medicine magazine 

Air Force Association’s Air Force Magazine 

Air Force Historical Foundation Newsletter 

Armed Forces Journal magazine 

Air Force Systems Command’s Newsreview 

Air Force Systems Command news release 

Aerospace Industries Association of America 

American Institute of Aeronautics and AstroAmerican Institute of Aeronautics and AstroAmerican Institute of Physics Newsletter 

Associated Press news service 

NASA Ames Research Center’s Astrogram 

American Astronomical Society’s AstrophysiAtlanta Journal Constitution newspaper 

Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine 

Birmingham News newspaper 

news release 

nautics’ Facts 

nautics news release 

cal Journal 

213 
APPENDIX E ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

B Sun 

Bull Atom Sci 

Bus Wk 

C Daily News 

C Trib 

Can Press 

CBS 

C&E News 

C1 PD 

GI Press 

Columbia J Rev 

ComSatCorp Release 

CQ 

CR 

CSM 

CTNS 

D News 

D Post 

DASA Release 

DFRC 

DJ 

DOC PI0 

DOD Release 

DOT Release 

EOP Release 

ESA Release 

FAA Release 

FBIS - SOV 

FonF 

FRC Release 

FRC X-Pre~s 

GE Forum 

Goddard News 

3SFC Release 

Baltimore Sun newspaper 

Education Foundation for Nuclear Science’s 

Business Week magazine 

Chicago Daily News newspaper 

Chicago Tribune newspaper 

Canadian Press news service 

Columbia Broadcasting System 

Chemical & Engineering News magazine 

Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper 

Cleveland Press newspaper 

Columbia Journalism Review magazine 

Communications Satellite Corporation news reCongressional Quarterly 

Congressional Record 

Christian Science Monitor newspaper 

Chicago Tribune News Service 

Detroit News newspaper 

Denver Post newspaper 

Defense Atomic Support Agency news release 

See FRC. 

Dow Jones news service 

Department of Commerce Public Information 

Department of Defense news release 

Department of Transportation news release 

Executive Office of the President news release 

European Space Agency news release, use dated 

Federal Aviation Administration news release 

Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Soviet 

number 

Facts on File 

Flight Research Center news release, after 

8 Jan. 1976, became Dryden Flight Research 

Center (DFRC) news release 

NASA Flight Research Center’s X-Press 

General Electric Forum magazine 

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Goddard 

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center news reBulletin of the Atomic Scientists 

lease 

Office 

(not numbered) 

News 

lease - 

274 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 APPENDIX E 

GSFC SSR 

GT&E Release 

H Chron 

H Post 

INTELSAT Release 

JA 

JPL Lab-Oratory 

JPL Release 

JPRS 

JSC Release 

JSC Roundup 

JSR 

KC Star 

KC Times 

KSC Release 

LA Her-Exam 

LA Times 

Langley Researcher 

LaRC Release 

LATNS 

LeRC Release 

Lewis News 

M HER 

M News 

M Trib 

Marshall Star 

MJ 

MSFC Release 

N Hav Reg 

N News 

N Va Sun 

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Satellite 

General Telephone & Electronics news release 

Houston Chronicle newspaper 

Houston Post newspaper 

Intl. Telecommunications Satellite Org. news 

Journal of Aircraft magazine 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Lab-Oratory 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory news release 

Department of Commerce Joint Publications 

Research Service 

NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center 

(Manned Spacecraft Center until 17 Feb. 

1973) news release 

NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center’s 

Space News Roundup 

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets 

magazine 

Situation Report 

release 

Kansas City Star newspaper 

Kansas City Times newspaper 

NASA John F. Kennedy Space Center news reLos Angeles Herald-Examiner newspaper 

Los Angeles Times newspaper 

NASA Langley Research Center’s Langley 

NASA Langley Research Center news release 

Los Angeles Times News Service 

NASA Lewis Research Center news release 

NASA Lewis Research Center’s Lewis News 

Miami Herald newspaper 

Miami News newspaper 

Minneapolis Tribune newspaper 

NASA George 6. Marshall Space Flight CenMilwaukee Journal newspaper 

NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center 

New Haven Register newspaper 

Newark News newspaper 

Northern Virginia Sun newspaper 

lease 

Researcher 

ter’s Marshall Star 

news release 

275 
APPENDIX E ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, ~wi 

NAA News 

NAA Record Book 

NAC Release 

NAE Release 

NANA 

NAS Release 

NAS - NRC Release 

NAS-NRC-NAE 

News Rpt 

NASA Actv 

NASA anno 

NASA GMR 

NASA HHR-39 

NASA Hist Off 

NASA Hq WB 

NASA Int Aff 

NASA LAR, XIIIA 

NASA Leg Off 

NASA MOR 

NASA prog off 

NASA proj off 

NASA Release 

NASA Rpt SRL 

Natl Obs 

Nature 

NBC 

NGS Release 

NMI 

NN 

NOAA Release 

NASA SP-4019 

National Aeronautic Association News 

National Aeronautic Association’s World 

and U.S.A. National World Aviation - 

Space Records 

National Aviation Club news release 

National Academy of Engineering news release 

North American Newspaper Alliance 

National Academy of Sciences news release 

National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council news release 

National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council - National Academy of 

Engineering News Report 

NASA Activities 

NASA announcement 

NASA Headquarters “General Management 

Review Report” 

NASA Historical Report No. 39 

NASA History Office 

NASA Headquarters Week& Bulletin 

NASA Office of International Affairs 

NASA Legislative Activities Report, Vol. XIII, 

NASA Office of Legislative Affairs 

NASA Headquarters Mission Operations Report, preliminary prelaunch and postlaunch 

report series (information may be revised and 

refined before publication) 

NASA program office (for the program reported) 

NASA project office (for the project reported) 

NASA Headquarters news release 

NASA report of sounding rocket launching 

NASA Special Publication No. 4019 

National Observer magazine 

Nature Physical Science magazine 

National Broadcasting Company 

National Geographic Society news release 

NASA Management Instruction 

NASA Notice 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric AdminisNo. 8 

tration news release 

276 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 APPENDIX E 

NRL Release 

NSC Release 

NSC News 

NSC Letter 

NSF Highlights 

NSF Release 

NSTL Release 

NY News 

NYT 

NYTNS 

0 Sen Star 

Oakland Trib 

Omaha W-H 

ONR Rev 

P Bull 

P Znq 

PA0 

PD 

PI0 

PMR Missile 

PMR Release 

Pres Rpt 74 

SA0 Release 

SBD 

Sci Amer 

Sci & Govt Rpt 

SciServ 

SD 

SD Union 

SET Manpower 

Comments 

SF 

SF Chron 

SF Exam 

Naval Research Laboratory news release 

National Space Club news release 

National Space Club News 

National Space Club Letter 

National Science Foundation’s Science ReNational Science Foundation news release 

NASA National Space Technology LaboraNew York Daily News newspaper 

New York Times newspaper 

New York Times News Service 

Orlando Sentinel Star newspaper 

Oakland Tribune newspaper 

Omaha World-Herald newspaper 

Navy’s Office of Naval Research Reviews 

Philadelphia Evening and Sunday Bulletin 

Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper 

Public Affairs Office 

National Archives and Records Service’s Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 

Public Information Office 

USN Pacific Missile Range’s Missile 

USN Pacific Missile Range news release 

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President: 

Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory news 

Defense/Space Business Daily newspaper 

Scientific American magazine 

Science & Government Report, independent 

bulletin of science policy 

Science Service News service 

Space Digest magazine 

San Diego Union newspaper 

Scientific Manpower Commission’s Scientvic, 

Engineering, Technical Manpower Comments 

British Interplanetary Society’s Spaceflight 

magazine 

San Francisco Chronicle newspaper 

San Francis0 Examiner newspaper 

sources Studies Highlights 

tories news release 

newspaper 

1974 Activities 

release 

271 
APPENDIX E ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Sov Aero 

Sov Rpt 

SP 

Spaceport News 

Space warn 

SR list 

SSN 

St Louis G-D 

St Louis P-D 

T-Picay une 

Tech Rev 

Today 

testimony 

text 

transcript 

UN Reg 

UP1 

USGS Release 

USPS Release 

w Post 

W Star-News 

WFC Release 

WH Release 

WJT 

WSJ 

Soviet Aerospace newsletter 

Center for Foreign Technology’s Soviet Report 

Space Propulsion newsletter 

NASA John F Kennedy Space Center’s Spaceport News 

IUWDS World Data Center A for Rockets and 

Satellites’ Spacewarn Bulletin 

NASA compendium of sounding rocket 

launches 

Soviet Sciences in the News, publication of 

Electro-Optical Systems, Inc. 

St. Louis Globe-Democrat newspaper 

St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper 

New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Technology Review 

Today newspaper 

Congressional testimony, prepared statement 

Prepared report or speech text 

Official transcript of news conference or conUnited Nations Public Registry of Space Flight 

United Press International news service 

U.S. Geological Survey news release 

U.S. Postal Service news release 

Washington Post newspaper 

Washington Star-News newspaper 

NASA Wallops Flight Center news release 

White House news release 

World Journal Tribune newspaper 

Wall Street Journal newspaper 

(translations) 

gressional hearing 

278 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS. 1977 INDEX 

Index 

A-2, 187 

'4-10, 105 

AAAS. See Am. Assn. for the Advanceabort, 123, 155-156, 189, 190 

Abruzzo, Ben, 172, 173 

absorption, 145 

Academy of Sciences, PRC. See China, 

Academy of Sciences, USSR. See Soviet 

acceleration, accelerator; accelerometer 

accessibility, 224 

accidents, 19, 94, 105, 154-155, 224, 

accuracy, 4, 9, 30, 55, 58, 79, 96, 121, 

acoustics, 32, 61, 71, 105-106, 118 

ACPL. See atmospheric cloud physics 

Acurio, John. 232 

Adams, Brock, 62 

additives, 1 

Adelaide, Univ. of, 37 

Administracion National de TelecomunAdministration of Long Distance Teleadvanced civilizations, 143 

advanced research and technology, 147, 

159 

Advanced Research Projects Agency 

(ARPA), 5, 8,71 

Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility 

(AXAF), 228 

AEC. Atomic Energy Commission. See 

Energy Research and Development 

Administration. 

AE-D, AE-E. See Atmosphere Explorers. 

AERE Hartwell Co., 2 

aerial survey. See monitoring; surAero Club of Washington, 172 

Aerobee (sounding rocket), 37 

aerodynamics, 16, 28, 108, 118, 122-123, 

Aeroflot (USSR passenger plane servaeronautical, 28, 61, 182, 195, 207, 

ment of Science. 

Peoples Republic of. 

Academy of Sciences. 

117, 151,215,230 

235 

158, 1% 

laboratory. 

icaciones. Paraguay, 135 

communications, PRC, 154 

veillance. 

150-152, 154, 217-218,219 

ice), 29, 176-177 

231-232, 235 

Aeronautics and Space Research Faculty 

Program, 152 

aeronautical and space technology 

(AST). See NASA. 

Aeronutronic Ford Corp. See Ford 

Aerospace & Communications Corp. 

Aeroparque George Newbery. Buenos 

Aires, 222 

Aerosat (ESA project), 16, 122. 174-175 

aerosols. See atmosphere pollution. 

Aerospace Corp., 48 

aerospace environment. See environaerospace industry, 62, 107, 112. 134, 

aerospace technology. See technology 

Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 72 

affirmative action. See equal employment opportunity. 

Africa, 10, 110, 139, 157, 179, 198, 

210,225, 234 

Afro-American Historical & Cultural 

Museum, 35 

age, 39, 214-215 

agricultural production; agriculture. 

agro-environmental programs, 5, 106- 

AIL (division of Cutler Hammer), 112 

ailerons. 177 

aiming. 121, 149-150, 150-152 

air cargo. See air freight. 

air carriers. See airlines. 

Air Force, U.S., 8, 13, 15, 36, 72, 

ment. 

148, 172, 182, 193, 213, 219 

applications. 

See crops. 

107, 119, 147 

73, 105, 109. 111, 124-125, 132, 140 

145, 147. 148, 154-155, 159, 167, 

169. 172, 173, 177, 179, 181, 188, 

194, 201, 203, 205, 235 

-contractors, 7, 8, 18, 22, 73, 112, 

-Flight Dynamics Laboratory, 

-Geophysics Laboratory (AFGL), 

-Global Weather Center, 58 

-Satellite Communications System 

-Scientific Advisory Board, 147 

-Systems Command (AFSC) 2, 18, 

192, 235 

U.S., 214 

18. 93 

(AFSATCOM), 22 

203, 214 

air freight, 112 

air pollution. See atmosphere pollution. 

air sampling. See GASP. 

279 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

air show. See Paris, France. 

air traffic, 43, 128, 173,213 

airborne monitoring, 55, 72, 204 

airborne warning and control system 

airconditioning, 29, 128, 179, 203, 213. 

232 

aircraft 

-civilian, 25,,60, 107, 130, 134, 192, 

222 

-communications, 13 

-design. See design. 

-energy efficiency (ACEE) 

program, 79, 110, 128, 177, 180, 218 

-guidance, 7 

-industry. See aerospace industry. 

-manufacturers. See aerospace in- 

-military, 73, 74, 107, 147. 

-power systems, 7 

-safety. See safety. 

-targets, 71 

-testing, 61, 217-218 

-transport, 25,35,64,71,79, 128.218 

-use in research, 58, 60, 61, 84, 

(AWACS), 53-54 

dustry. 

154-155, 199 

96, 134. 138-139. 161, 171, 180, 

192, 193-194, 199, 204, 208-209, 

216, 218. 221-222, 235 

aircushion (landing system). See landing. 

airdrop. See drop. 

AiResearch Mfg. Co., 7 

airflow. See aerodynamics. 

airfoils. See design, aircraft. 

airlift, 11 1 

airlines, 62. 122, 176, 177. 180, 190-191, 

airlock 

airplanes. See aircraft. 

airports, 62, 66, 112, 152, 191, 213, 

218, 222 

airspace, 155 

airworthiness. See handling. 

Akademik Korolev (USSR ship), 

Alabama, 127, 1%. 211 

Ahbama A&M Univ., 152 

Alabama Society of Professional 

Alabama Space & Rocket Center, 6, 71 

Alabama, Univ. of, 74. 230 

alarm. See safety devices. 

193, 218, 220-221 

Dec 10-31 (Soyuz 26 launch), 224 

127, 164, 198 

Engineers, 71 

Alaska, 47, 134 

Alberta, Canada, 38 

Aldebaran (star), 3 

Aleksandrov, Anatoly P., 89, 183 

Aleksandrov, L.A., 167 

alert. See safety devices. 

Alexander, Dr. Carter, 85 

algae, 123 

algebra. See mathematics. 

Algernon Blair Industrial Contracalien. See extraterrestrial. 

“All-American Boys” (book), 204 

Allen, Bryan, 182 

Allen, H. Julian, 16 

alloys, 106, 170, 192 

Alpha Centauri (star), 37 

alterations. See modifications. 

altitude (altimeter), 12, 58, 61, 63, 67, 

76,93,98, 135, 141,149. 150, 181,191, 

192, 193, 1%, 198, 202, 209, 211, 215, 

221,235 

aluminum, 45, 108, 119, 143, 170, 211, 

215 

American Airlines, 45 

American Assn. for the Advancement of 

American Bar Assn., 13 

American Council on Education, 148 

American Geophysical Union, 22, 102, 

American Inst. of Aeronautics and 

American Machine & Foundry Co., 175 

American Meteorological Society, 22 

American Physical Society, 75 

American Society for Public AdminisAmerican Society of Engineering EdAmerican Society of Mechanical EnAmerican Univ., 220 

Ames laboratory (NACA), 16 

Ames Research Center (ARC) 

tors Inc., 139 

Science (AAAS), 39, 49 

106,234 

Astronautics (AIAA), 19, 235 

tration, 229, 230 

ucation. 107, 152 

gineers (ASME). 24 

-contracts, 173, 216 

-missions, 103, 159 

-people, 16, 85. 107, 147, 152, 166, 

167, 169, 190 

-programs, 15-16, 44, 47, 57.61, 68, 

72, 84, 85, 92, 107, 136, 137, 159, 

166, 167, 186, 188. 190, 208, 215, 

231,235 

280 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

amino acids. See organic. 

ammonia. See organic. 

ammunition. See weapons systems; examplitude modulation (AM), 133 

Ams 2 (USAF metesat), 244 

analog. See computers. 

analysis, 70, 167, 201, 211, 227 

Anderson, Donald, 6 

Anderson, Jack, 73 

Anderson, Maxie, 172, 173 

Anderson, Robert, 73 

Andover, Maine, 10 

Andrews AFB, Md., 203 

Angola, Peoples Republic of, 179 

Anik (Canadian comsat series). See Teleanimals, 68, 143, 146, 167, 201 

animation (equipment, exhibits, etc.), 

anniversaries. See observances. 

anomaly. See failure; malfunction; 

Antarctic, 31, 39, 66 

antennas, 33, 235 

plosions. 

sat Canada. 

172 

problem. 

-airborne, spaceborne, 55, 235 

-ground-based, 4, 154-155 

tellite. 

antisatellite measures. See interceptor saAntonov, O.K., 29 

Apollo, 28, 31, 44, 52, 63, 72, 75, 101, 

113, 115, 156, 191, 195,220,229, 235 

Apollo 4, 2 1 5 

Apollo 7, 24 

Apollo 9, 162, 191 

Apollo IO, 128 

Apollo 11, 3, 132, 165, 181 

Apollo 12, 101, 161, 165 

Apollo 13, 101 

Apollo 14, 165, 195 

Apollo IS, 5, 101, 165, 191, 195 

Apollo 16, 165 

Apollo 17, 51, 101, 165 

Apollo lunar-surface experiment packApollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP), 11, 

applications, 56, 59, 176, 162, 168, 169, 

Applications, NASA Office of (OA). See 

applications sounding-rocket program 

ages (ALSEP), 156, 161, 165 

23, 52, 89-90, 121, 128, 132, 187 

175,203 

NASA. 

(ARSP), 138 

applications technology satellite. See Ats 

Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopapplied research, 118 

approach and landing tests (ALT). See 

also Space Shuttle, testing, 143, 145, 

212,235 

appropriations. See Congress; NASA 

budget. 

Arab nations. (See also Middle East), 14, 

103 

Araks (French experiment), 117 

Arava (Israeli transport aircraft), 71 

archives, 195 

arcing. See insulation. 

ARC0 Inc., 219 

Arctic, 140, 234 

Argentina, 222 

Ariane @SA launch vehicle), 16, 168,225 

Ariel (U.K. satellite), 174 

Arizona, 47, 48, 80, 94, 193, 219 

Arizona State Univ., 192 

Arizona, Univ. of, 21, 107, 137 

Arkalyk, USSR, 27 

Arktika (USSR ship), 158 

Armed Forces Radio and TV Service, 10 

Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 

31 

Army, U.S. See also Defense, U.S. Dept. 

of, 115, 134, 172, 194, 201, 216, 227, 

-Air Corps, US., 131 

-Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), 

-Chemical Corps, 175 

-(Corps of) Engineers, 33 

-Propulsion Laboratory, LeRC, 23 1 

1. 

kins Univ. (JHU/APL), 197 

23 1-232 

215 

Arnold, Dr. James, 146 

artifacts, 124 

artificial environment. See environment, 

Aryubhatu (India domestic comsat), 174 

Ascension Island, 8 

Asia, 10, 154 

Asimov, Isaac, 57 

Asinyarov, Gennady, 124 

Assateague (Wildlife Refuge; Coast 

Guard sta.), Va., 69, 164 

assembling; assembiy, 45, 50, 64, 106. 

113, 133, 158, 160, 192, 208, 211, 220, 

228, 230, 233,235 

ASSESS (airborne science/Spacelab experiment-system simulation), 72, 84 

28 1 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

ass,essment. See evaluation. 

asteroids, 157, 106, 124, 145, 207 

Astrain, Santiago, 65 

astrometrics, 165 

astronauts (See also individual names.), 

5, 6, 10, 11, 18, 84, 85. 121, 132, 140, 

144, 157, 162, 172, 179, 181, 185, 191, 

222,228 

astronomers, 9, 10, 18,25,31,32.47,48, 

56, 63, 66, 69, 72, 84, 108, 121, 137, 

216,227, 233, 235 

astrophysics, 137, 224, 228 

Atchafalaya River, 33 

Atkinson, Richard C., 117-118 

Atlantic Ocean, 8, 10, 27, 30, 127, 139, 

Atlas (NASA launch vehicle), 229 

Atlas Centaur, 11.37, 149, 180,202,205, 

atmosphere 

198, 201, 204, 205-206, 210, 211, 214, 

152. 165, 167, 189, 204, 206-207, 210, 

167, 171, 172, 180, 198, 210, 227 

209, 221, 229 

-interference, 10, 186, 233 

-ionosphere, 58, 85 

-magnetosphere, 34, 102, 168-169, 

-planetary, 39, 49, 55, 59-60, 66, 68, 

176 

69, 92-93, 102, 119, 121, 136, 156, 

161, 166, 184, 187, 207, 221-222 

-pollution, 72, 84, 138, 141, 165, 204 

-research, 21-22, 54, 56, 59, 66, 68, 

127, 131, 137-138, 148, 166, 175, 

197-198, 234 

-stratosphere, 138, 192 

-upper atmosphere, 19, 54, 193, 208- 

Atmosphere Explorer (AE) missions, 136 

atmospheric cloud physics laboratory 

(ACPL), NOAA, 25, 130, 175 

atmospheric physics laboratory. See atmospheric cloud physics laboratory. 

atmospheric variability experiments 

(AVE), 127 

atomic energy. See power sources, 

nuclear. 

Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). See 

Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA). 

209 

Ats I, 64 

attitude control (See control systems.), 

182 

auroras, 38, 40, 85 

Australia, 10, 37,48,69,81-82, 103, 133, 

162, 174, 212 

282 

Austria, 32, 103 

automated systems, 45, 47, 74, 76, 106, 

170, 178, 192, 193, 196, 198, 216,219, 

109-110, 113, 119, 131, 151-152, 153, 

220, 221-222, 224, 225, 229, 235 

automobiles. See vehicles. 

autopilot, 96 

Avco Corp., 177 

Avery, Robert M., 25 

aviation industry. See aerospace industry; 

aviation research, 60, 213 

aviation safety reporting system (ASRS), 

avionics, 61, 112, 202, 207 

Avions Marcel Dassault-Breguet, 107 

awards, 11, 19,20,44,49,71,87,93,101, 

124, 133, 145, 152, 175, 181, 182, 188, 

203, 205, 212, 220, 235 

airlines. 

43, 128 

Azores Islands, 181 

B-1 (bomber), 7, 112, 155 

B-52 (U.S. aircraft), 119, 21 1 

B-70 (planned U.S. bomber), 13 

B-707. See Boeing 707. 

B-727. See Boeing 727. 

B-737 (LaRC flying laboratory). See 

B-747. See Boeing 747. 

background, 208-209, 210 

backup. See schedule; support systems. 

bacteria, 63, 201 

Bahamas, 162 

Bahcall, Dr. John, 10 

Baker, James L., 64 

Ball, George W., 40 

Ball Brothers Research Corp., 136, 181, 

ballistic missile. See weapons systems. 

balloons, 76, 93, 98, 119, 127, 138, 172, 

Baltimore, Md., 12, 164 

Banana River, 28-29, 57 

Bane, Don, 101 

Barbon, Jill, 192 

Barents Sea, 57 

barge, 160, 211 

barium, 36 

Baron, Bob, 218 

Barrere, Marcel, 184, 185 

basic research, 117-1 18 

Battelle Institute, Columbus div., 43 

Battelle Memorial Institute, 17, 231 

B-58, 235 

Boeing 737. 

186 

173, 181, 188, 215, 227 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

batteries, 15, 84, 94, 120, 149, 216 

battery power. See power sources. 

Baykonur, USSR, 222 

beacons, 6, 132-133, 172, 173 

beam fabrication. See space construction. 

Bedford. Mass., 172 

Belem, Brazil, 222 

Belenko. Lt. Viktor, 26 

Belgium, 32, 103, 154 

Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 130 

Bell Helicopter Textron Co., 216 

Bell Laboratories, 62, 166, 177 

Belton, Dr. Michael J.S., 38-39 

Bendix Corp., 11, 63, 74, 150, 156 

"bends." See hyperbaric research. 

Bennich, Jerry D., 230 

Benton, Dr. Eugene, 167 

Bering Strait, 178 

Berlin, Germany, 235 

Berlin, Univ. of, 115 

Bermuda Triangle, 64, 173 

beryllium, 30 

Betelgeuse (star), 104 

bicentennial, U.S., 182 

big-bang theory. See theory. 

Big Bird (USAF reconsat), 22 

Bilfiu, David S., 72, 84 

binary stars. See stars. 

biochemistry, 123, 190 

bioengineering. See biology. 

biology, 4, 32, 62, 65, 68, 71, 85, 101, 

125, 159-160, 161, 167, 174, 184, 190, 

201, 206, 215-216 

biomedical applications office, MSFC. 

biophysics, 146 

Bios 3 (Soviet experiment). 123 

BiosateIIite 3 (US. mission), 160 

biosats. 159-160, 167 

black history, 18, 35 

black holes, 37, 149, 210 

blackout (communications), 4 

blades, propeller. See propellers. 

Blamont, Jacques, 119 

Bledsoe, Maj. Adolphus H., 181 

Bleyle, Wilhelm, KG, 70 

blood, 133 

boats. See ships. 

Boeing Commercial Airplane Co., 1 10, 

128, 163. 192 

Boeing Company, 8, 22, 42, 53, 112, 173 

Boeing Engineering and Construction 

See medical research. 

Co., 129 

Boeing Services Intl., 102 

Boeing 707,66, 182 

Boeing 727, 128, 162 

Boeing 737, 132, 163, 212, 222 

Boeing 747, 27, 45, 55, 64, 67, 107-108, 

110, 113, 118, 122, 132, 135, 141, 

202,201,211,228 

Boese, Dr. R.W., 166 

Boland. Rep. Edward P., 108, 135 

Boldt, Dr. Elihu, 212 

bolides. See meteorites. 

Bolivia, 196 

bombs. See explosives. 

Bond, Langhorne M.. 62 

bones. See medical research. 

Bonn Institute for Radio Astronomy, 10 

Bonneville Power Administration, U.S., 

book. See publications. 

boom (aircraft; spacecraft), 75, 155-156, 

167, 186, 195, 218 

boosters. See rockets. 

borosilicates, 233 

Boston Univ., 147 

botany, 32, 201 

Bovay Engineers, Inc., 121 

Bradt, Dr. Hale, 212 

brain, 146 

brakes; braking, 122-123, 150-152, 171, 

Brantley, Whitt Jr., 128 

Braufman, Adam I., 4 

Brayton engine, 159 

Brazil, 134, 222 

breeder reactor. See power sources, 

Brezhnev, Leonid, 76, 143 

briefing. See media. 

Brigham City, Utah, 133 

Bristol Scout (WWI U.K. plane), 141 

Britain. See United Kingdom. 

British Isles (See also United Kingdom.), 

British Royal Society. See Royal. 

broadcasting. See frequencies, broadcast; 

Brooksbank, William A. Jr., 215 

Broome, C. Calvin, 125 

Brown, Gov. Edmund G., Jr., 148 

Brown, Harold, 74, 147 

Brussels, Belgium, 63 

Bryson Construction Co., 64 

150-151, 171, 175. 179, 182, 191. 196, 

80 

1% 

nuclear. 

40 

media. 

. 283 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

BSE, 229 

budget 

-federal, 35-36 

-military, 22, 52, 54 

-NASA. See NASA, budget. 

Buenos Ares, Argentina, 212,222 

Buffalo, 213 

Bugreyev, Nikolai, 124 

buildings; building trades (see also conBulgaria, 20, 159, 174 

buoy, 63,79 

buoyancy, 118 

Bureau of Land Management, DOI, 47 

burn; burner; burnout, 188, 199,211,233 

business. See aerospace industry; commercial applications; industrialization. 

struction of facilities.), 213 

Buzzard, WalIace, 214 

C-5 galaxy, 111, 122, 222 

c-47, 12 

C-band communications, 139 

cabling, 98, 113 

calculations; calculators. See computations. 

calibration, 37, 42, 85, 113, 155, 195, 

210 

California, 36, 40, 47, 80, 81, 105, 148, 

162, 202. 228 

California Institute of Technology 

(CalTech), 44, 137, 150, 190, 203, 

230 

-Berkeley, 147, 167, 209, 230 

-San Diego, 145-146, 150, 212 

Calio, Dr. Anthony J., 175, 220 

Callisto, 166 

calorimeter. See instrumentation. 

Calspan Gorp., 216 

CalTech. See California Institute of 

CAMAC (electronic assembly system), 50 

Cambridge, Mass., 40 

cameras (See also photography; imaging), 

California, University of 

Technology. 

216 

-earth-based, 167 

-satellite, 37, 176, 189, 210 

-television, 12, 33, 104, 121, 160, 198, 

224, 234 

camouflage, 177 

Canada, 11, 19, 32, 38, 56, 103, 110. 

122, 134, 138, 153, 163, 175, 208, 

213, 229 

284 

Canadian Department of Communications, 19, 47 

Canberra, Australia, 4, 82 

cancer, 146, 216 

capacity, 206 

Cape Canaveral, Fla., 8,52,62. 102, 103, 

Cape Town, South Africa, 182 

capital punishment. See law enforcement; 

captive flight, 17, 103, 107-108, 118, 

Carassa, Prof. Francesco, 157 

carbon 14 dating, 39-40 

carbon compounds, 206 

careers, 41 

cargo-integration test equipment (CITE), 

cargo logistics airlift-systems study 

cargo transfer (see also payloads), 98 

cargoes (See also air freight; payloads; 

Caribbean Sea, IO, 171, 176 

Carr, Gerald A., 121 

carrier aircraft. See Boeing 747. 

Carruthers, Dr. John R., 62 

cars. See vehicles. 

Carter, President Jimmy, 1, 10, 23, 30, 

38, 48, 52, 56, 62, 64, 65, 67, 71, 

218 

132, 167, 168, 195, 202 

public policy. 

122-123, 135 

185-186 

(CLASS), 112 

shipping.), 162, 214 

72, 93, 102, 111, 114, 131-132, 185, 

Caruso, Andrea, 65 

Casani, John, 137, 167 

castings, 106 

Cataldo, Charles E., 11 

catalog, 44, 117, 129, 205 

catalyst, 221 

catastrophe, 149 

celebrations. See observances. 

celestial, 69, 188 

celestial sphere. See galaxy. 

cells, 146, 152 

censorship, 130 

Centaur, 180, 220, 221 

centers, NASA. See individual center 

listings. 

Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales 

(France), 66, 119 

centrifugal force, 57, 119 

Cerenkov radiation, 31 

certification, 182 

Chad, Republic of, 110 

changes. See modifications. 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

channels (communications). See Frequencies, broadcast. 

Chapman, blaj. Gen. Kenneth R., 53 

Chappell, br. C.R., 67 

charge-coupled devices, 22, 71 

charged particles. See energetic particles. 

Charyk, Dr. Joseph V., 72 

Chaudiere River, 110 

chemicals, 18, 73, 85, 101, 136, 146, 

chemistry, 17,207,222 

Chesapeake Bay, 63 

Chicago, Ill., 11 1 

Chicago, University of, 102 

Chien. Hsueh-shen, 131 

Chile, 103 

China, People’s Republic of, 131, 154. 

182,229 

Chincoteague, Va., 69, 164 

Chirivella, Dr. Jose, 221 

Chiron, 204 

chlorella, 123 

chlorine compounds, 146 

Christmas Islands, 41 

chrome; chromium, 175, 230 

Chryse Planitia (region of Mars), 70. 125 

Chrysler Corporation, 11 

cinema. See films. 

circuits, 133, 154 

city-federal cooperation, 8, 188 

civil aviation, 60, 110, 122, 178, 192 

Civil Service Commission, US. (See also 

employment; NASA management.), 

104, 161, 215 

civilians, 21, 25, 121, 140, 148, 163. 173. 

179, 195, 201, 205, 231, 235 

Clark, Ray, 24 

Clarksburg, Md., 138 

clay, 190 

cleaning, 218 

Cleveland, Ohio, 12 

clocks, 51 

closed universe. See theory. 

clothing, 59, 201 

clouds (cloudcover), 18.25,36-37,39,85, 

coal (see also fuel.), 65, 73, 178 

Coast Guard, U.S., 79, 206 

coastal zone color scanner, 194 

Cohen, Aaron, 143 

cold, 227 

Chase PIWS (See also T-38.), 155 

checkout, 11,211,223-225 

161-162, 188, 201, 230 

119, 127, 130, 210 

Colin, Dr, Lawrence, 166 

College of William and Mary, 18 

Colli. Jean-Claude, 14 

collimator. See instrumentation. 

Collins, Michael, 116, 181 

collision (See also crash; accident.), 155, 

colloquium. See meetings. 

Colman, Everett R.. 133 

Cologne. W. Germany, 84 

Colombia, 134 

color, 142, 165, 194 

Colorado, 80, 161, 176 

Colorado, University of, 137 

Columbia University, 37, 93, 114 

Columbus, Ohio, 17 

Columbus medal, 188 

Coma cluster (stars), 37 

comets. 204, 207 

commands, 133, 186 

commemoration. See observances. 

Commerce, U.S. Dept. of (See also 

NOM.), 67, 114, 141, 193 

commercial airlines. See airlines. 

commercial applications (See also industrialization.), 59, 139, 163-164, 169, 

commercialization. See industrialization. 

committees, congressional. See Congress. 

communications 

156, 177 

195, 199-200 

-global Systems, 38, 124-125. 198,220 

-lightwave, 62 

-problems, 118, 131, 134, 157 

-radio, 19, 74, 139 

-relay. See relay. 

-satellites. See comsats. 

-spacecraft, 55, 136-137, 226 

-systems, 74, 118, 122, 180 

Communications Satellite Corporation 

(ComSatCorp), 10, 65, 72, 120, 138, 

229 

Communications Technology Satellite 

(Crs), Canada, 13, 47, 138,208 

communist bloc. See Soviet bloc. 

community relations (See also public 

Compagnia lndustriale Aerospaziale, 157 

comparisons, 13,26, 121,212 

compass. See instrumentation. 

compatibility, 185 

competition (See also contest.), 71 

169-170, 175, 206, 213, 217, 228, 

relations.) 3, 74. 192 

-economic, 8. 62, 153-154, 187, 203 

285 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

-national Science, 133 

Complex 39B, KSC. 128 

components. See instrumentation. 

composite. 

-fuels, 133 

-materials, 45, 76, 79, 128, 163-164, 

177, 180 

computations (See also measurements.), 

27, 142, 227 

computers, 70, 143, 227 

-airborne, 26 

-assembly, 50 

-enhancement. See data processing. 

-maintenance, 74, 221 

-programs, 21, 128, 202-203 

-software, 38 

-spacecraft, 33-34, 55, 66, 150-152, 

-systems, 118, 155-156, 198, 213 

155-156, 192, 217 

computerization. See automated systems. 

ComSatCorp. See Communications Satellite Corporation. 

Comsat General (subsidiary of ComSatCorp). 72, 124, 139 

comsats (See also names of individual 

communications satellites.), 4, 6, 

7-14, 22, 32, 36, 38, 51-52, 54, 

72, 122, 135, 153-154, 156-157, 161, 

168, 173, 175, 181, 182, 202, 207, 

208, 209, 221, 226, 229 

Comstar system (domestic comsats). 72 

Comstar-C, 229 

Comstock, Bruce, 181 

Conant. William W., 79 

concept, 98 

Concorde, 53, 66, 151.213 

concrete, 1% 

condensation. 9 

conduction, 141 

Cone, Dr. Clarence D.. Jr., 146 

conferences. See meetings. 

configuration, 17, 133, 134, 138,216,218 

confirmation, 188, 1% 

Congo, Peoples Republic of the, 198 

Congress, U.S., 108, 121, 132 

-conference committee, 108, 135 

-House of Representatives, 38,60,64, 

-Senate, 56, 62, 111, 114, 195, 217 

conjunction period (astronomical), 15 

conservation. 11-12, 185 

222,225 

108, 124-125, 180 

Consiglio Nazionale della Richerche 

(CNR), Italy. See Natl. Research 

Council. 

console, medicai communications, 74 

constellations, 104 

Constitution, US., 62 

construction of facilities, 53, 62, 63, 64, 

65, 70, 72, 80, 113, 131, 132, 139, 188, 

208.228-229.233 

consumables. See supplies. 

containerless processing (See also new 

contamination (See also pollution.) 30, 

contest, 162, 182 

Continental (aircraft engine), 130 

contingency. See emergencies. 

contour mapping. See topography. 

Contractors Cargo Co., 113-1 14 

control; control centers, 14. 15, 101, 

techniques.), 30. 105, 192 

110-111, 168, 204 

155-156, 171,207, 228 

-Systems, 23, 30, 55, 63, 74, %, 110, 

118, 121, 125, 133, 134, 135, 136-137, 

146, 149-150, 150-152, 157. 160, 

161, 178-179, 186, 192, 199, 202-203, 

207, 216, 221, 223-225 

control, weather. See meteorology. 

Controlled Biosynthesis Laboratory, 

controllers. See controls. 

controversy, 40-41 

Convair Division. See General Dynamics. 

Convair 990. See Galileo. 

conventional. 8, %, 129, 134. 199-200, 

conversion, energy/power. See power 

sources, conversion; solar conversion 

devices. 

cooking, 124 

cooling (See also cryogenics.). 132, 153, 

213, 231 

Cooper, Henry S.F., 49 

Cooper, Robert S., 161 

cooperation (See also city-federal; 

industry-government; international; interservice; NASA research; statefederal.), 59 

Coordinating Committee of Nations, 141 

coordination, 33.61, 84, 159, 162 

copper, 143 

Cornell University, 48, 59, 69, 124, 143, 

Corning Glass Works, 232-233 

USSR, 123 

213-214, 216 

177 

286 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

corrosion, 11 

Cortright, Dr. Edgar M., 203 

Cosmic Background Explorer, 50 

cosmic radiation, rays, 31-32, 39-40, 

Cosmic Research Institute, USSR, 66 

cosmology, 56, 228 

cosmonauts (See also the names of individuals.), 10, 20, 23, 26-27, 189-190, 

149-150, 153, 188, 190, 208, 212, 215 

223-225 

Cosmos 782, 159-160 

Cosmos 888,238 

Cosmos 889,238 

Cosmos 890,238 

Cosmos 891,239 

Cosmos 892, 239 

Cosmos 893, 239 

Cosmos 894,240 

Cosmos 895, 240 

Cosmos 896,240 

Cosmos 897, 240 

Cosmos 898,241 

Cosmos 899, 241 

Cosmos 900, 241 

Cosmos 901, 241 

Cosmos 902, 241 

Cosmos 903, 242 

Cosmos 904.242 

Cosmos 905, 242 

Cosmos 906,242 

Cosmos 907, 243 

Cosmos 908. 243 

Cosmos 909, 243 

Cosmos 910, 243 

Cosmos 91 I, 244 

Cosmos 912, 244 

Cosmos 913, 244 

Cosmos 914, 244 

Cosmos 915, 245 

Cosmos 916, 245 

Cosmos 91 7, 245 

Cosmos 918, 245 

Cosmos 919, 246 

Cosmos 920, 246 

Cosmos 921, 246 

Cosmos 922,247 

Cosmos 923, 247 

Cosmos 924, 247 

Cosmos 925, 247 

Cosmos 926, 247 

Cosmos 927, 247 

Cosmos 928, 248 

Cosmos 929, 158,248 

Cosmos 930, 248 

Cosmos 931,248 

Cosmos 932, 248 

Cosmos 933, 249 

cosmos 934,249 

Cosmos 935, 249 

Cosmos 936, 159, 167, 206, 249 

Cosmos 937, 250 

Cosmos 938.250 

Cosmos 939,250 

Cosmos 940,250 

Cosmos 941, 250 

Cosmos 942, 251 

Cosmos 943,251 

Cosmos 944, 251 

Cosmos 945, 251 

Cosmos 946, 25 1 

Cosmos 947, 252 

Cosmos 948,252 

Cosmos 949, 252 

Cosmos 950, 252 

Cosmos 951, 253 

Cosmos 952. 253 

Cosmos 953, 253 

Cosmos 954, 253 

Cosmos 955,253 

Cosmos 956, 254 

Cosmos 957, 254 

Cosmos 958, 255 

Cosmos 959,255 

Cosmos 960, 255 

Cosmos 961, 256 

Cosmos 962, 256 

Cosmos 963, 257 

Cosmos 964, 257 

Cosmos 965, 257 

Cosmos %6, 258 

Cosmos %7, 258 

Cosmos 968. 258 

Cosmos 969, 259 

Cosmos 970, 259 

Cosmos 971, 259 

Cosmos 972, 259 

Cosmos 973, 259 

cost reduction, 12, 15, 35, 47, 50, 55, 57, 

58,61,65,66,73,80,94, 104, 108-109, 

111, 118. 131, 145, 156, 161, 162-163, 

175, 178, 179, 188, 208, 218, 219, 

220, 228 

cotton, 59 

counseling, 148 

countdown. See launch control. 

counting. 189, 193 

287 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

court trials. See judicial proceedings. 

Cousteau, Jacques-Yves, 149 

crash, 105 

craters, 76, 124 

Craven Point, N.J., 63 

creation of universe. See theory. 

Creole, 103 

crew (See also astronauts; cosmonauts; 

Space Shuttle, crew; pilots; payload or 

mission specialists; manned flight; individual names.), 193, 198, 223-225 

criminal justice. See law enforcement; 

judicial proceedings. 

Criswell, Dr. David, 157 

criticism, 58-59, 105, 187, 204 

crops, 5, 25, 59, 119, 141, 147, 165, 193, 

cross-country Shuttle flights. See Space 

crowding. See frequencies, broadcast. 

cruise missiles. See weapons systems. 

cryogenics (See also cooling.), 50,58. 132, 

crystal growth, 62, 192 

Cs (Sakura, Japan cornsat), 112,226,258, 

Cuba, 20, 174, 183, 196 

cultural affairs, 130, 131, 143, 164 

Cunningham, Walt, 204 

Cygnus (constellation), 107 

Czechoslovakia, 20, 159, 174, 1% 

218 

Shuttle testing. 

136. 160, 186 

261, 263 

damage, 66, 80, 119, 146, 154-155, 168, 

danger (See also safety.), 98, 127, 160. 

Darmstadt, W. Germany, 74, 210 

Daspit, Leo, 233 

data 

180, 213-214 

184 

-acquisition, 4, 5, 14, 15. 62, 63, 72- 

73, 112-113, 145, 147, 171, 186, 189, 

192, 194. 207,219-220 

-analysis. 15, 171 

-collection. See data acquisition. 

-distribution, 111, 134, 186-187, 189 

-management, 169, 174, 185 

-processing, 7, 56, 71, 136-137, 142, 

143, 147, 234 

-relay. See relay. 

-transmission, 63, 125, 132-133. 139, 

154, 155. 157, lS8, 163, 171, 214 

-users, 58, 111, 143, 186-187, 210 

Davidsen, Dr. Arthur, 121 

288 

daylight; daytime, 158, 195 

death, 16. 19, 29, 74, 105, 115, 235 

debris, 98 

decompression sickness (“the bends”). See 

deep space network, 154, 165-166 

defectors. 13, 26 

defects. See malfunctions; problems. 

Defense Communications Agency, 65 

Defense, U.S. Dept. of (DOD) (See also 

Advanced Research Projects Agency; 

Air Force, U.S.; Army, U.S.; Marine 

Corps, U.S.; Navy, U.S.), 6, 7, 38. 

52, 53, 54, 59, 65, 74, 105, 109, 112, 

162, 163, 177, 197, 203, 211, 236 

-contractors, 7, 8, 22, 109 

-unidentified spacecraft, 83, 177, 197, 

defense satellite-communications system 

defense spending, 134, 194 

defense systems. See weapons systems. 

dehumidifying, 16 

Deimos (moon of Mars), 124, 152 

delay (See also problems.), 103, 131, 137, 

DC-10, 67, 79, 132 

hyperbaric research. 

114, 122, 132, 140, 141-142, 154-155, 

239, 241,243. 246,254, 258 

(DSCS), 83-84, 124, 243 

149-150, 157, 168, 171. 193. 209, 

217 

delivery, 206. 221 

Delta (NASA launch vehicle), 14, 37, 52, 

73, 106, 111, 112, 145, 156, 168, 171, 

180, 193, 195, 202, 205, 210, 229 

demonstration (See also exhibits.), 45, 

113-114, 130-131, 148, 173. 179, 

186, 1%. 206, 212, 217-218, 222, 

228,235 

Denmark, 1, 154 

density. 93,98, 124, 132, 168, 222 

Denver, Colorado, 13 

deployment, 75, 93, 155, 198, 211, 221, 

depreciation, 163 

Desert Research Institute. 25 

deserts, 150 

design 

235-236 

-aircraft,28,29,61,71,110.112,130, 

138, 151, 152, 180, 192, 199, 217- 

218, 219 

154, 160, 169, 173, 207 

-engineering, 24. 34. 107, 147, 153, 

-instrumentation, 42, 47. 64, 68, 69, 

-ships, 2 

71. 135, 165, 208-209, 211 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

-spacecraft, 43, 48-49, 117, 121, 137, 

destruction; destruct system (See also 

interceptor satellites.), 177, 213, 234 

detection; detectors, 22,31-32,58,63,71, 

188, 189, 196, 204, 210, 215, 216, 233 

156-157, 160, 162-163, 235-236 

80, 101, 127, 140, 149, 160-161, 176, 

detente, 144 

Detroit Diesel Allison, 134 

deuterium, 109 

developing nations, 130 

deviations (See also malfunctions.), 96, 

devices. See equipment; instrumentation. 

diagnosis. See medical research. 

diesel, 179 

diet. See food. 

difficulty. See problems. 

digital. See computers. 

dimensions. See size. 

diplomacy. See international relations. 

direct broadcast, 129-130, 154 

direct readout. See real-time monitoring. 

direction. See aiming; orientation; mandisaster. See emergencies. 

discoveries (See also new products; new 

techniques.), 48, 59-60, 69, 124, 129, 

190,223 

agement. 

130, 152, 158, 201, 203-204, 208-209 

Discovery, 33 

disease. See medical research. 

dispersion, 192, 209 

display. See exhibits. 

disposable, 160, 170 

distance, 10, 33-34, 57, 76, 176-177, 

distortion, 25-26 

divers; diving, 160, 208 

DNA. See genetics. 

docking, 26-27,89-90,189-190,223-224, 

documentation, 89, 169, 182, 192-193 

domestic comsats. See comsats; names of 

182-183, 195-196, 226-227, 233 

23 1 

individual satellites. 

drop, 93, 101, 119-120, 211 

drought, 39-40, 80-81 

drugs. See pharmaceuticals. 

Dryden Flight Research Center 

-contracts, 45 

-people, 74, 101, 144-145, 169, 175, 

-programs, 15.23-24,42, 55,61,69, 

135, 143, 168, 170, 171, 193, 202, 

Dscs 11-7, 11-8. See defense satellite-communications system. 

Dubna, USSR, 230 

Duke, Dr. Michael G., 28 

Duke University, 216 

Duki, USSR, 178 

dummy. See simulations. 

durability, 34, 71, 143, 159, 175, 211 

duration, 71, 98, 121, 145, 189, 198, 206 

Durham, N.C., 216 

dust, 94, 107, 178, 219 

Dutch. See Netherlands. 

Duxbury, Thomas C., 176 

dwarf stars. See stars. 

dynamic, 55, 203,211 

Eaker, Gen. Ira C., 172 

early-warning 

191, 217-218, 221, 235 

96, 101, 103, 107-108, 113-114, 118, 

218, 221-222 

-satellites, 22 

-aircraft, 43 

-resources monitoring, 47, 48, 54, 63, 

84, 108, 111, 130, 134, 141, 147,148, 

168, 225, 229 

earth station; earth terminal. See ground 

earthquakes. See seismology; seismomEast Germany. See German Democratic 

Easterling, Mahlon F., 175 

Eastern Europe. See Soviet bloc. 

Eastern Shore, 164 

Eastern Test Range (ETR) (See also Cape 

Canaveral; KSC Spaceport.), 2, 52, 

73, 102, 112, 155, 210, 226 

earth, 103, 143, 183, 209, 235 

station. 

eter. 

Republic (GDR). 

Eberhart, Jonathan, 49 

economic policy, 2, 3, 75, 76, 208 

education, 115, 117, 157, 165, 177, 208 

289 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Edwards Air Force Base (AFB), Calif., 

17, 150. 171, 178, 179, 191, 1%. 219, 

235 

Effelsberg radiotelescope (Max Planck 

Inst.), 9 

efficiency, 13.79, 112, 145, 159,200,214 

Efik, 103 

Egypt, 103, 196 

EIC Corp.. 2 

Eichman, Wilbert F., 156 

Einstein theory of relativity, 4, 51 

Eisele, Donn F., 24 

Eisenhower, President Dwight D., 161 

Ekran 2, 253 

elasticity. See design, aircraft. 

ELDO, (former) European launch-vehicle 

development organization; see ESA. 

electric power. See power sources. 

electrical systems; electricity, 21, 71, 75, 

94, 111, 127, 168, 170, 190, 194, 202, 

213, 227, 234 

electrocardiograms; electrocardiograph 

(EKG), 74, 214 

electrochemicals, 63 

electroencephalograph, 214 

electrolytes, 192 

electromagnetism, 23, 63, 72, 102, 106 

electronics, 26, 50, 71, 74, 112, 153, 155, 

Electronics Research Center, Mass., 175 

Electronics Society, PRC, 182 

electrons (See also energetic particles.), 

electrostatics. See insulation. 

elevators; elevons, 128, 164 

Elliot, Dr. James L., 48, 59-60, 69-70 

elliptical orbit. See orbit, planetary; orbit, 

El Toro, Calif., 155 

embargo, 141-142 

embolism. See medical research. 

emergencies, 36, 50, 74, 138, 155, 160, 

208, 214, 216, 217, 227 

emissions. See radiation. 

employment (See alsb Civil Service Commission, U.S.; NASA management.), 

158, 177, 194, 202, 214 

75, 85, 102, 109, 117 

spacecraft. 

35, 41-42, 61, 75, 104, 107, 109, 113, 

118, 125, 161, 169, 175, 214-215 

Empresa Publica de Telecomunicacoes 

(EPTEL), 179 

Encke, comet, 207 

encounter. See impact; trajectories. 

endangered species, 57 

endurance. See duration; lifetimes. 

290 

energetic particles (See also ions; electrons; neutrons; protons; radiation.), 

215 

energy 

-conservation, 12, 14, 28-29, 35-36. 

60, 61, 73, 79, 94, 117, 128, 130, 

19, 25, 31-32, 75, 85, 109, 166, 176, 

147, 148, 159, 162. 177-178, 180, 

185, 186-187, 188, 199-200, 218 

-conversion. See power sources, conversion; solar conversion devices. 

-crisis. See energy conservation. 

-efficiency. See energy conservation. 

-heating and cooling, 28-29, 128-129, 

-levels, 208 

-research, 53, 117-118, 134, 185, 194 

-shortage. See energy conservation. 

-sources. See power sources. 

-storage, 80, 120, 179 

-technology, 22, 71, 80, 145 

-transfer (transmission) (See also 

power sources, conversion.), 61, 98, 

136, 141, 146, 165 

Energy Agreement of 1974, US.-USSR, 

111 

Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), U.S., 5, 29, 

36, 53, 70, 94, 109, 110, 111, 121, 129, 

140, 162, 172, 176, 177, 179, 186, 

199-200 

Energy, U.S. Dept of (DOE), 162, 185, 

195, 209, 219, 220, 228 

engineering, 70. 71, 80, 124, 136, 143, 

151, 182, 196, 199, 213, 219, 230, 

231, 235 

179, 186, 188, 203. 215 

engines. See power sources. 

England. See United Kingdom. 

Engle, Joe, 122, 135, 170, 171, 191 

English, 103 

Enterprise, 17, 23-24, 27, 107, 113, 118, 

122, 135, 141, 150, 151, 168, 170, 

171, 178, 190-191, 196, 202, 211, 230 

entry (atmosphere). See reentry. 

environment, 8,21-22,32,63,64,68,71, 

73, 93, 123, 132, 137, 147, 159, 167, 

168, 174, 181, 187, 194, 218, 222, 225 

environmental monitoring, 5, 55, 62, 63, 

110, 148, 194, 229 

Environmental Protection Agency 

(EPA), U.S., 63, 192 

epitaxial growth, 30 

quai opportunity, 2, 21, 192 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

equator, 18, 67, 113, 136, 138, 153, 156, 

210 

equipment (See also instrumentation.), 

54, 58, 59, 63, 80, 84, 106, 112, 113, 

149, 163, 208. 212, 214,223,224, 231 

equivalency principle, 51 

Erickson, Dr. Edwin, 107 

ERN0 (Raumfahrttechnik GmbH. VFWFokker subsidiary), 48 

error, 127, 155, 190 

Esperanto, 103 

ESRO, (former) European Space Reestimates, 1% 

Etam, W.Va., 10 

Ets N (Japan engineering test satellite. 

Kiku 2). 41 

Europa. 166 

Europe, 19, 107, 157, 188, 210, 228, 234 

European Broadcasting Union (EBU), 10 

European Space Agency (ESA), 16, 25, 

85, 112, 122, 153, 154, 163, 166, 168, 

170, 171, 174-175. 180, 182, 183, 

189, 193, 199, 202, 210, 213. 225, 

229, 230 

European Space Operations Center 

(ESOC). 75 

European Space Technology Center 

(ESTEC), 189 

Eurovision, 168 

EVA. See extravehicular activity (spaceevaluation, 138, 197 

Evans, Ronald E., 51 

Evans, Dr. Stanley, L., 152 

Evans, Gen. William J.. 203 

Everette, Bob, 231 

Everglades Towing Co., 231 

evolution, 201 

exercises. See practice. 

exhaust, 186, 192-193 

exhibits, 24-25. 61, 69, 71, 132, 148, 172 

exobiology. See biology. 

expansion (See also theory.), 199, 209, 

expendable, 65, 104, 105, 229, 

expense, 105, 145, 162-163, 168, 170. 173 

experiment specialists. See mission speExperimental Aircraft Association, 130 

Experimental Test Pilots, Society of. See 

search Organization. See ESA. 

32, 53, 56, 65, 67-68, 72, 73, 74-75, 

walk). 

233 

cialists. 

Society. 

experiments, 

-biology, 4, 65, 101 

-communications, 5, 138, 208 

-materials research, 59, 130 

-scientific, 65,67, 75, 156, 157, 159, 

-systems, 72, 75, 84, 133. 149, 150, 

210 

159, 165, 175, 224, 225 

exploitation, 130, 145-146 

exploration (planetary; terrestrial), 6, 49, 

52, 70, 106, 149, 156, 158, 161, 162, 

169, 198-199,207,221-222 

Explorer 1, 1 15 

Explorer 42. See Uhuru. 

Explorer 54, 55. See Atmosphere Explorer (AE) missions. 

Explorers Club, 70 

explosives, 36 

external tank. See Space Shuttle. 

extraterrestrial, 9-10 

extravehicular activity (EVA), 18. 51 

extravehicular mobility unit (EMU), 45 

Exxon Corp., 73 

eyesight. See vision. 

F-8, 55 

fabrication (See also construction.), 25, 

42, 45, 47, 49, 56, 59, 128, 136, 158, 

163, 177, 211, 216, 220 

facilities, 61, 65. 113, 132, 161-162, 163, 

facilities support. See support services. 

failures (See also malfunctions.). 58, 70, 

169. 173, 177, 194, 211, 228-229. 231 

80, 102, 118, 136, 151, 160, 165-166, 

168, 171, 180. 189-190, 202, 203, 205. 

209, 223, 224, 227, 234 

Fairbank, Dr. William, 75 

Fairchild Industries, 105, 116 

fares. see fees. 

farming. See crops. 

Fastie, Prof. William G., 121 

fatality. See death. 

fear, 40 

feasibility, 64, 81, 213, 216 

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), 

43,62,72, 112, 122, 128,130, 163, 173, 

174-175, 192, 193, 212, 220, 222 

Federal Aviation Agency. See Federal 

Aviation Administration. 

Federal Communications Commission 

federal employees. See employment. 

(FCC), 139, 169-170,206. 213. 217 

29 1 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

federal funding. See funding, government. 

Federal Republic of Germany (West 

Germany), 1, 4, 33, 48, 70, 74-75, 84, 

Federation Aeronautique Internationale 

(FAI). See Intl. Aeronautical Federation. 

154, 162, 166, 187-188 

fees, 65, 105, 143, 162-163 

Fein, Juergen, 84 

Felixstowe (WWI U.K. flying boat), 141 

females. See women. 

Feoktistov, Dr. Konstantin, 224 

ferry test flights. See Space Shuttle, 

Feuerbacher, Dr. Bernt, 67 

fiberglass, 130 

Field Museum, Chicago, 39 

fighter planes. See aircraft, military. 

films, 61, 64, 87, 149, 172 

financing. See funding. 

Finch, Dr. William A., 14 

Fink, Daniel, 174 

Finland, 1 

FIRES (firefighters’ integrated response 

Fischer, Craig L., M.D., 230 

fish, 165 

Fish and Wildlife Service, 57 

fission. See power sources, nuclear. 

Five Towns, 66 

fixed-wing aircraft, 134 

flare. See maneuvering. 

fleet satellite-communications system. 

Fleet Weather Facility, USN, 66 

Flemish, 103 

Flemming, Arthur S., award, 93 

Flerov. Georgy, 230 

Fletcher, Dr. James C., 44, 49, 52, 93, 

105, 116 

flight, 182 

-control. See control. 

-dynamics laboratory. See Air Force, 

-operations, 8 

-path, 96 

-quality. See handling. 

-test 

testing. 

equipment system), 59 

See FltSatCom. 

us. 

aircraft. See aircraft testing. 

instruments, 96 

missiles, 8 

Flight Medicine Center, JSC, 222 

flightworthiness. See handling. 

flooding, 1, 33, 110, 119, 138 

Florida, 75, 105, 128, 196, 202 

Florida State University, 13 1, 148 

Florida, University of, 146 

flotation, 231 

FltSatCom, 1, 124, 202, 229 

fluorocarbons. See atmosphere pollution. 

fluoroscopy. See x-rays. 

flutter. See aerodynamics. 

flux, 166 

fly-by-wire controls. See control systems. 

flying laboratory. See Galileo 11. 

flying quality. See handling. 

“flying wind tunnel”, 134 

FM. See frequency modulation. 

fog, 158 

Fokker F-7, 182 

Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 

force (See also pressure.), 153, 189 

Ford, President Gerald M., 1, 23, 35, 59, 

Ford, Sen. Wendell H. (D-Ky), 11 1 

Ford Aerospace Co., 7, 15, 207-208, 226 

Ford Motor Co., 199-200 

forecasting. See future plans; meteorolforeign, 62, 213 

forests, 193, 196 

Fort Belvoir, Va., 216 

Fort Eustis, Va., 231 

Fort Hood, Tex., 70 

Fort Monroe, Va., 8, 188 

Fort Worth, Tex., 199 

Foxbat. See MiG-25. 

France, 1, 13, 32, 53, 66, 103, 107, 117, 

119, 154, 159, 172, 174, 184, 185, 198 

Freden, Dr. Stanley C., 14 

free flight. See aircraft, use in research; 

Space Shuttle testing. 

freedom of inquiry, 40 

freight. See air freight; cargo; shipping. 

French Guiana, 127 

frequencies, broadcast, 129-130, 139, 

153, 157, 159, 168, 207, 208 

frequency modulation (FM), 133 

Fri, Robert, 70 

friction, 151 

Friedman, Dr. Herbert, 149, 174, 212 

Friendship 7, 27 

flyby, 119,226-227 

food, 1, 123-124, 224 

169 

72 

ogy; predictions. 

292 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

Frosch. Dr. Robert A., 93, 106, 114, 

131-132, 146, 175, 177, 178, 186, 187, 

189, 212, 217, 228, 232 

fruit flies, 167 

Fucino, Italy, 157 

fuel (See also power sources.), 14,25, 36, 

58, 60, 61, 65, 110, 113, 128, 133, 146, 

-conservation. See energy conserva- 

-shortage. See energy conservation. 

-storage, 106 

Fullerton, Lt.Col. Charles Gordon, 63, 

118, 135, 150, 151, 178, 193, 1% 

Fulton, Fitzhugh L., Jr., 36, 150, 171, 

191, 202, 235 

funding, government, 58-59, 64, 65, 67, 

159, 160, 176, 199-200, 213, 231 

tion. 

68, 72, 108-109, 111, 117, 124-125, 

134, 141, 156, 174, 180-181, 188, 194, 

199, 206-207, 217 

fuselage, 118, 120, 217 

fusion. See power sources, nuclear. 

future plans, 40-41,50,58,60,64-65,72, 

89-90, 

206-207, 229, 233, 235-236 

115, 167, 188, 189, 197, 198, 

g forces. See gravity. 

Gagarin, Yuri A., 29, 67, 123 

Gagarin award (USSR), 11 

galactic energy. See power sources. 

galaxies, 9, 10, 37, 54, 76, 117, 121, 129, 

136, 149, 153, 176, 210, 228, 233 

Galaxy. See C-5. 

Galileo I, 235 

Galileo 11, 25, 72, 84 

Galileo scholarships, 235 

gallium compounds, 145 

gamma radiation, 48, 117, 149-150, 178, 

Garmire, Dr. Gordon, 212 

Gartrell. Harold E., 232 

Garrett AiResearch, 134 

gas; gasoline. See fuel. 

gas-chromatograph mass spectrometer, 

gas-exchange experiment, 70-7 1 

gaseous bodies, 34, 39 

gases, 15, 54,65, 107, 129, 140, 146, 204, 

gasoline. See fuels. 

GASP (global air-sampling program), 204 

Gates Learjet. See Learjet. 

geese, 11-12 

188, 212 

55 

228 

Gehrz, Robert, 109 

Gelles, Dr. S.H.; Gelles Associates, 192 

Gemini program, 101, 191 

General Accounting Office (GAO), 104- 

General Assembly, UN. See United NaGeneral Aviation Design & Analysis, 28 

general-aviation turbine engine (GATE), 

General Dynamics Corp., 8, 75, 199, 205, 

General Electric Co., 68, 106, 124, 130, 

generators. See power sources. 

genetics, 40, 68, 118, 201 

Genoa, Italy, 188 

geochemistry. See chemistry. 

geodesy, 82, 229 

geography, 14, 176 

Geological Survey, 80 

geological resources. See earth-resources 

geology, 14, 39, 82 

geophysics, 31, 82, 145 

George AFB, Calif., 155 

Georgia, 7, 196 

Georgia Institute of Technology. See 

Georgia Tech. 

Georgia Power Co., 70 

Georgia Tech (Georgia Institute of TechGeos I, 73, 74-75, 242, 245, 261, 262 

geostationary meteorological satellite. 

See GMS. 

geostationary operational environmental 

satellite(GOES),33, 111, 112-113.134, 

148, 157, 171, 176, 210, 229 

105, 109 

tions. 

134 

235 

154, 174, 175 

monitoring. 

nology), 7, 57, 130, 146 

GEOS-B, 229 

geostationary satellites, 4, 10, 33, 168 

geosynchronous satellites, 73, 74-75 

geothermal sources. See power sources. 

German, 103 

German Democratic Republic (East GerGermany, World War I, 115 

Germany, Federal Republic of; West Germany. See Federal Republic of Germany. 

getaway specials (GAS), Shuttle payloads, 

4, 162 

Giacconi, Prof. R., 228 

Gibson, Dr. Edward G., 48, 121 

many), 20, 159-160, 174, 196 

293 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Gibson. Roy, 170, 189 

Gillam, Isacc T. IV, 144-145, 191 

Ginter, R.D., 11 

glass, 62, 175, 192, 232-233 

Glazkov. Lt.Col. Yuri, 26, 27, 189 

Glenn, Sen. John H. (D-Ohio), 27-28 

glider, 151 

global air-sampling program. See GASP. 

global atmospheric research project. See 

global communications (See also radio; 

global positioning. See navigation. 

global TV transmission. See television. 

Gms I, 111, 131, 140, 248. 261, 262 

Goddard award, 20 

Goddard Space Flight Center 

CARP. 

television.), 10, 135, 207 

-contracts, 42, 148 

-missions, 56 

-people, 14, 55, 79, 166, 169, 210, 

-programs, 7, 42, 54, 64, 66, 67, 

216 

129, 132-133, 137, 138, 148, 155, 

161, 168, 172, 189, 215 

Goes I, 67 

Gold, Gus, 232 

Goldstone, Calif., 4, 154, 155 

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 65 

Gorbatko, Col. Viktor V., 26, 189 

Gorenstein, Marc, 209 

Gossamer Condor, 182 

government employees. See Civil Service 

government funding. See funding. 

government-industry cooperation. See 

Graphic Films Corp., 64, 87 

Graves, Curtis M., 3 

Gravitational Probe A. See gravity probe. 

gravity, 4.68,98, 106, 129, 145, 156, 165, 

Gravity Probe-A, 30, 51 

Great Britain. See United Kingdom. 

Grechko, Georgy, 23,223-225 

Greenberg, Daniel S., 141-142 

Greenland, 40 

Gregorek, Dr. G.M., 28 

Griffin. Gerald D., 101, 145 

Groo, E.S. (Todd), 123 

ground control. See control systems. 

G0m2, 112-113, 245, 261, 262 

Commission, US.; employment. 

industry. 

167, 199,211,222,226 

-crews, 205 

-data; ground truth, 1% 

-stations (See also individual locations 

and systems.), 1, 10, 55, 56. 154, 

157, 174, 207, 210 

-testing, 80, 103, 178. 202 

-transporter. See vehicles. 

growth, 192 

Grumman Aerospace Corp., 47. 59, 71, 

GTE Automatic Electric Co., 221 

Gubarev, Aleksey, 23 

guest observer, 150 

guidance (See also control systems.), 22, 

Guidry, Louis E. Jr. (Skip), 36, 202 

Gulf of Mexico, 33, 36, 176, 194 

GUMPS (Goddard-University of Marygunpowder, 165 

Gurevich, M.I., 29 

Gurovsky, Dr. Nikolai, 206 

Guzhenko, Timofey B., 158 

gyroscope, 63, 137, 150, 155 

gyrostabilization, 14 

habitat, 107, 137 

Hachenberg, Otto, 9 

Hackwell, John. 109 

Haise, Fred, 118. 135, 150-151, 178, 193, 

Hale telescope, Mt. Palomar. 233 

Haley, Alex, 18 

Hall, Asaph, 152 

Halley, Edmund, 40 

Halley’s comet, 50, 106, 119, 170, 207 

Halliday, Ian, 38 

Halo, highaltitude large optics, 58 

Hamilton Standard Div., United TechHampton, Va., 8, 18, 188, 233 

hamsters, 146 

handbooks. See publications. 

handicapped, 172 

handling, 133, 150, 1%. 199, 214, 215, 

216, 218, 233 

hangar, 113 

Happe, Ralph A.. 192 

hardware, 44,45,50,61,72,79,141, 168, 

106 

30, 107-108, 118, 122-123, 178 

land particle study), 215 

196 

nologies, 45, 50 

173, 177. 187, 202-203, 207, 208, 211, 

230-23 1 

Harlow, John H., 121, 201 

Harmon trophy, 235 

harmonics, 19 

Harris, Patricia Roberts, 47 

294 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

Harris Electronic Systems Div., 1 

Hartig, Prof. George, 121 

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for AstroHarvard University, 129, 150, 228 

harvest. See crops. 

hatch, crew, 118 

Havana, Cuba, 183 

Hawaii, 31, 32, 131 

Hawaii, University of, 39 

Hawaii Institute of Geophysics, 31 

Hawker Siddeley Ltd., 53 

Hayes, Bethanne, 38 

hazard. See danger. 

health (See also medical research.), 85, 

193,206,208 

Heao I, 63, 72, 137, 149-150, 156. 210, 

212,249,261,262 

hearings. See Congress. 

heart, 5 

Hearth, Donald F.. 132, 152, 194, 212 

heat, 12, 62, 70, 71. 93, 109. 150, 156, 

159, 161. 162. 177, 179, 188, 199,215, 

228, 232, 233 

heat-capacity mapping mission (HCMM), 

229 

heating and cooling. See energy. 

heatshield, 93 

heavy hydrogen. See deuterium. 

helicopters, 61, 134, 169, 172. 173. 205, 

heliogyro. See solar sailer. 

helium, 129, 166. 188 

Heller, Jack A., 159 

Hello, Bastian (Buz), 112 

Helt, Capt. Robert C., 181 

hemophilia, 133 

Henize, Karl, 72, 84 

Hercules, 188 

heroes, 204 

Hessberg, Dr. Rufus, 206 

high-altitude atmosphere sounding. See 

atmosphere, upper. 

high-energy astronomy observatory 

physics. See Smithsonian. 

HEAO-B, 229 

222 

(HEAO), 47, 63, 137, 149-150, 156, 

174, 188. 210, 212 

sonics.), % 

high-speed aircraft (See also superhighways, 94, 192 

Himawari. See Gms 1. 

Hinners, Dr. Noel W., 30, 137, 181, 206, 

210,212,226 

history, 6,24,35,39-40,61,67, 128, 141, 

Hitch, Charles J., 40 

hodoscope, 215 

Holland. See Netherlands. 

Hollinshead. Charles, 104 

Holman, Jonathan, 133 

holography. 17 

homing devices, 177 

Honest John (rocket), 36 

Honeywell, Inc., 112 

Hong Kong, 131 

honors. See awards. 

“Hopkins.” See Johns Hopkins UniverHorton, Victor W., 36, 202 

hospitals (See also medical research.), 5, 

hotels, 179 

House of Representatives, U.S. See Conggress. 

housing, 148 

Housing and Urban Development 

Houston, Texas, 3. 5 

Hovis. Dr. Warren, 194 

Howard University, 145, 177, 216 

Hudson Laboratories, Columbia UniverHughes Aircraft Co., 22,42,68,125,148, 

Hughes Tool Co., 172 

human rights, 130, 144 

humane groups, 146 

humans, 103, 143, 146, 165, 178, 185 

Hungary, 20, 159, 174, 1% 

hunter/killer satellite. See interceptor sathunting, 11-12 

hurricane. See meteorology; storms. 

Hydac. 18. 36 

Hydra, 209 

hydraulic, 153 

hydrazine, 113,221 

hydrodynamics, 25, 80 

hydrogen (See also liquid hydrogen.), 

109, 129, 159, 199 

Hydromet Service, USSR, 127 

hydrophones, 31-32 

hydroponics, 123-124 

hydrostatic tests, 64 

hygiene, 202 

hypersonics. 219 

164 

sity. 

8. 74, 214 

(HUD), U.S. Dept. of, 12, 47 

sity, 93, 114 

153-154, 181 

ellite. 

295 
INDEX ASTRONAUTlCS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

hypotheses. See theoy. 

ice, 18, 39, 66, 79, 110, 158, 227 

Iceland, 141, 172 

Idaho, 47 

identification, 43, 188, 196, 205, 213 

ILC Industries, Inc., 201 

Illinois, 127 

Illinois Institute of Technology, 56 

Illinois, University of, 201 

illness. See medical research. 

Ilyushin, Sergei V., 29 

Ilyushin, Vladimir, 29 

image processing. See data processing. 

imaging, 7, 10, 11, 58, 80, 110, 131, 137, 

148, 175, 176, 186, 189, 210, 216, 224, 

225 

IMEWS-7. See integrated missile/earlywarning satellite. 

impact, 22, 76, 178, 205, 218, 226 

improvements. See new products; new 

techniques. 

inauguration, 10 

Independent Business Telephone Co., 221 

India, 4, 32, 174, 196 

Indian Ocean, 4,41,48,59,69, 131, 139, 

Indian River, Fla., 57 

indicators. See instrumentation. 

Indonesia, 4, 41, 51, 103 

industrialization (See also space industrialization.), 57, 65, 71, 111, 180, 208 

industry-government cooperation, 25,37, 

IL-62, 176 

180 

45, 57, 59, 65, 71, 119, 132, 145-146, 

163, 174, 177, 178, 196, 199-200, 205, 

213, 219, 220 

testing. 

inert flights, Shuttle orbiter. See Shuttle 

inertia. See moment of inertia. 

inertia1 guidance. See control systems. 

inertial navigation. See navigation. 

inflation. See pressure. 

information (See also data; media.), 74, 

infrared, 9, 22, 51, 54, 58, 72, 84, 109- 

-economic, 22, 121, 163 

130, 193 

110, 131, 161, 169, 189 

-scanning, 12, 148, 161 

-sources, 44 

-spectra, 10, 107, 210 

-systems, 22, 71, 155 

inhibition. See prevention. 

injection, 187 

injuries. See accidents; safety. 

INMARSAT: International Marine Satinnovation. See discoveries; new prodlnsat, 4 

insecticides, 5 

insects, 5, 61, 68, 218 

inspection. See checkout. 

installations, 179, 21 1 

Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton 

Institute for Defense Analysis, US., 147 

Institute for High Temperatures, USSR, 

111 

Institute of Noise Control and Engineering, 192 

Institute of Space and Aeronautical 

Science, Japan, 23, 38 

instrumentation (See also equipment; 

sensor systems.), 3, 10, 18, 21, 25, 

85,93,96, 101, 109, 112, 117, 119, 127, 

158, 159, 161, 164, 165, 167, 168, 169, 

171, 175, 177, 181, 188, 189, 194, 196, 

219, 220, 222, 234 

ellite Organization, 46 

ucts; new techniques. 

University, 10 

33-34,53,56,57-58,63,66,71,73,74, 

132-133, 134, 137, 148, 154-155, 156, 

198, 208-209, 21 1, 212, 2 14, 21 5, 216, 

insulation, 1JL76, 131, 168, 175 

integrated missile/early-warning satellite 

integration, 74, 133, 136, 162, 168, 189, 

intelligence, military. See spy systems. 

Intelsat program, 10, 97-98, 173, 180, 

202, 205, 209, 229 

Zntelsat IVA F4, 97-98, 244, 261, 262 

intensity, 149, 215, 216 

interagency affairs, 53 

Inter-American Telecommunications 

Conference, 222 

interceptor satellites (See also weapons 

systems.), 6-7,22, 52, 54, 59, 102, 177 

intercontinental weapon. See weapons 

systems. 

Intercosmos, 174, 196, 206 

Intercosmos 16, 66 

Intercosmos 17, 254 

interference, 4, 19,36, 113, 131, 132, 134, 

interferometer, 155, 166 

Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative 

Organization, UN, 46 

(IMEWS-7), 239 

198, 202, 207, 211, 232, 233 

155, 157, 159, 168, 207, 218, 233 

296 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

Intergovernmental Personnel Act, 162 

Interior, U.S. Dept of (DOI), 47, 11 1,178 

International Association against Painful 

Experiments on Animals, 146 

international aviation. See international 

relations; International Civil Aviation 

Organization. 

International Business Machines (IBM), 

72, 145, 185, 186 

International Civil Aviation Organization, 212 

international cooperation, 24-25, 44-45, 

46, 57, 65, 67, 81-82, 87, 

129-130, 139, 141-142, 159, 183, 208 

115-117, 

-inter-European, 1-2, 56, 65, 85 

-USSR and others, 4, 20, 28, 31-32, 

56, 59, 111, 117, 121-122, 127, 137- 

138, 143-144, 159-160, 164, 167, 

173-174, 184, 206 

-U.S./Europe, 9, 32, 53-54, 79, 85, 

136, 170, 174-175, 186, 187-188, 

189, 193, 196, 198-199 

International Council of Scientific 

International Magnetospheric Project, 73 

international relations, 62, 177 

international sun-earth explorer (ISEE), 

112, 193, 195 

International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT), 2, 

International Telecommunications Union 

international ultraviolet explorer (IUE), 

interplanetary, 68, 102-103, 119, 123, 

interpreters, 164 

interservice cooperation, 7-8 

Intersputnik, 173-174 

interstate. See highways. 

interstellar space, 143 

intertank. See Space Shuttle external 

tank. 

inventions. (See also new products; new 

techniques; patents.), 35, 63, 152 

inventory. See resource management. 

investigations, 38, 142, 170, 209 

Investigators Working Group, 67, 183 

investment, in space program. See fundIo, 102, 166 

ion-propulsion devices, 43, 119, 170 

Unions, 131 

65-66, 106, 110, 135, 154, 179, 181, 198 

(ITU), 207 

229 

170, 176 

ing, government. 

ionization, 85 

ionosphere. See atmosphere. 

ions, 146, 230 

Iowa, State University of, 11 1 

Iran, 103 

iron, 215 

irrigation, 48, 219 

Irwin, James B., 5 

Isee 1, 2, 195, 255, 261, 263 

isolation, 60, 72, 123 

isotopes. See chemicals. 

Israel Aircraft Industries, Inc., 71 

Italy, 65, 11 1, 119, 139, 142, 154, 

ITT World Communications, Inc., 140 

Itten, Dr. K.I., 55 

ISEE-C, 229 

156-157, 195 

Jackson, Dr. William D., 111, 121 

Jaffe, Leonard B., 174 

Jamesburg, Calif., 10 

jamming, 13, 155, 160 

Japan, 13, 23, 26, 29, 32, 38, 39, 40, 41, 

45, 46, 58, 105, 106, 111, 131, 140, 

141, 154, 202, 210, 226, 229 

Jeffs, George W., 180 

Jelm Mt., Wyoming, 109 

jet 

-aircraft, 2, 8, 67, 73, 150, 151, 196, 

-engines, 13, 73, 192 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

-contractors, 43, 136, 219, 220 

-missions, 62, 108, 125, 154, 155, 159, 

-people, 72, 84, 106, 137, 142, 175, 

-programs, 44, 48-49, 55, 68, 101, 

208, 218 

199 

176, 190, 221, 230, 232 

154, 155-156, 159, 166, 167, 170, 

181, 186, 188, 221-222 

jettison, 119, 156, 160, 167 

JFK. See Kennedy International Airport. 

Joersz, Capt. Eldon W., 181 

Johannesburg, South Africa, 69 

Johns Hopkins University, 37, 121, 197 

Johnson, Katherine G., 35 

Johnson Space Center 

201, 207, 234 

-contractors, 24, 44,45, 70, 118, 147, 

-people, 48, 56, 84, 101, 104, 109, 

-programs, 7, 16, 21, 28, 41-42, 50, 

53, 54, 61, 71, 74, 85, 109, 118, 132, 

121, 143, 153, 169, 175, 215-216 

297 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

140, 143, 144, 145-146, 148, 156. 

157, 165, 168, 172-173, 179, 185, 

188, 191, 194, 196, 201, 202, 205- 

206,214,215-216,218,222,228,232 

Johnston, Bradford, 146 

Johnstown, Pa., 138 

Joiner, Dr. Bennett, 106 

joint American-Soviet particle-intercalibration (JASPIC) program, 85 

Jones, Robert T., 152 

journals, scientific. See publications. 

Joyce, Dr. Richard, 39 

judicial proceedings, 12 

Juno 1, 115 

Jupiter, 3, 33, 39, 49, 68, 76, 102. 103, 

106, 108, 115, 135-136. 137, 140, 145, 

159, 165, 166, 167, 169, 186, 187-188, 

204, 227 

Kaman Aerospace Corp., 34 

Kapustin Yar, USSR, 66 

Kazakhstan, USSR, 27, 190 

Kelly, AI, 56 

Kelly, Roy, 156 

Kennedy, President John F., 115 

Kennedy (, John F.) International Airport, NYC, 66, 212 

Kennedy Space Center 

-contractors, 21-22, 35, 57, 68-69, 

-missions, 33-34, 47 

-people, 101, 104, 130, 145, 169, 229 

-programs, 2, 15, 16, 21-22, 24, 28- 

29, 54, 61, 62, 68, 75, 113, 127, 168, 

-Spaceport,21,75,113,132, 133,179, 

102, 118, 128, 139, 185-186, 221 

202, 215, 218, 234-235 

205,207,209,211,228-229,231,234 

Kentucky State University, 68 

Kerguelen Island, 69 

Kerwin, Joseph P., M.D., 48 

Kettering Group, 158 

Key West, Fla., 183 

Kezios, Dr. Stothe P., 24 

Khabarov Krai, USSR, 178 

Kiku 2, 41, 237, 240 

Killeen, Tex., 70 

killer satellites. See interceptor satellites. 

Kincheloe, Iven P., 235 

Kingsbury, James E., 50 

Kitt Peak National Observatory, 38-39, 

Klate Holt Co., 212 

Kleinknecht, Kenneth S., 153 

51.66 

Klett, Reiner, 4 

Klimuk, Pyotr, 23 

Kline, Raymond A., 123, 209 

Koran, 103 

Korean War, 235 

Korolev medal (USSR), 11 

Kourou, Fr. Guiana, 127, 198 

Kovalenok, Vladimir, 189, 223 

Kowal. Charles, 203-204 

Kraft, Dr. Christopher C., 56, 109, 144, 

Kramer, Dr. James J., 194 

Kramp, Klaus, 84 

Krasnoyarsk Institute of Physics, USSR, 

Kremer prize. 182 

Krider, Dr. Phillip, 21 

Kuhn, Dr. Peter M., 161 

Kuiper airborne observatory (NASA), 48, 

Kunkel, Bruce A., 18 

Kurchatov Institute, USSR, 109 

228 

123 

59, 69. 107 

L-5 Society, 12 

L-band communications, 139 

Labor, U.S. Dept. of, 194 

labor relations, 164 

laboratory, 72, 235 

Lakeland, Fla., 76 

laminar flow. See aerodynamics. 

Lampton, Dr. Michael, 230 

Lancaster, Calif., 17 

Lance, Bert, 64 

land lines, 138 

land use, 7, 48, 63 

lander, Viking. See Viking. 

landing, 69, 113, 122-123, 150-152, 165, 

L-1011, 177 

196-197, 212, 213-214, 221, 222, 229, 

234 

landing rights. 53 

Landsat program, 7, 14, 25, 42, 47, 48, 

52. 54, 55, 63, 80, 108, 110, 111, 135, 

175, 193, 196, 229 

Landsat 1. 141 

Langley AFB. Va., 8, 188, 233 

Langley aeronautical laboratory, NACA, 

Langley Research Center 

16,219 

-contractors, 8, 28, 30, 35, 79, 110, 

128, 145, 158, 163, 177-178, 192, 

212-213, 219, 233 

298 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

-people, 35, 63, 71, 132, 152, 169, 

-programs, 8, 18, 61, 112, 130-131, 

147, 148, 172, 181, 188, 192, 194, 

203, 212, 218, 222, 227, 233 

212, 215-216, 227, 233 

132, 138-139, 140-141, 143, 146, 

Langmuir Laboratories, N.M., 235 

languages, 143 

lanthanum, 2 

Lamerotti, Dr. L.J., 166 

Large Magellanic Cloud, 37 

large orbiting telescope. See space teleScope. 

lasers, 2,9, 17,66, 82, 140-141, 146, 195 

latex, 192 

Latin America (See also individual countries in Central and South America.), 

10, 176 

latitudes, 85 

launch control. See control. 

-program, 64-65, 145. 189, 211, 229, 

-reimbursable. See reimbursable. 

-rockets. See rockets. 

-support. See support services. 

-vehicles. See name of individual 

rocket: Ariane, Atlas, Centaur, 

Delta, Saturn, Scout, Titan. 

234 

law enforcement. 189 

Lawless, Dr. James, 190 

Lawrence Laboratory, Calif., 209 

Lazarev, Vasily, 23 

lead (element), 230 

leak, 180, 213 

Learjet, 54, 132 

Leary, Timothy. 12 

leasing, 124-125, 139, 175 

lecture, 189 

Ledford, Harold, 11 

Lee, Chester M. (Chet), 143, 163 

Lee, Thomas J., 170 

Lehigh University, 192 

Lei Hung, 182 

levitation, electromagnetic, 30. 106 

Levy, Lillian, 192 

Lewis Research Center 

-contractors, 34, 129, 134, 199, 221 

-peopie, 133, 134, 147, 159, 169, 194, 

-programs, 12,47, 53,61,67,73,94, 

220 

134435,159, 180,204,208,231-232 

Libra, 69 

Lichtenberg, Byron, 230 

life. See lifetimes. 

life; life detection; life forms; life sciences. 

See biology. 

life support, 45,68,85,123,137,223-224 

lifetimes, 80, 119, 120, 139, 143, 150, 159, 

lift. See aerodynamics. 

lifting bodies, 217-218 

light; lightwaves, 66, 107, 131, 178, 233 

lightning, 21, 127,207, 234 

Lima, Ohio, 12, 13 

limb darkening, 69 

Lincoln Laboratory, MIT, 219 

Lindbergh, Charles A., 24, 25 

Lineas Aereos Nicaragua (LANICA), 176 

liquid-fuel rocket (See also liquid hydrogen; liquid oxygen.), 106, 151, 153 

liquid hydrogen (See also hydrogen.), 44, 

153, 160, 231 

liquid oxygen (See also oxygen.), 25, 44, 

50, 64, 153, 160, 205, 231 

liquid propellant. See liquid-fuel rocket; 

fuel. 

Lisovsky, Dr. G., 123 

lixiscope, 216 

loads. 64, 110, 111, 119-120, 153, 205, 

location, 67, 79, 176, 205 

Locke, Capt. Walter (USN). 8 

Lockheed Corp., 22, 35, 71, 177, 178 

Lockheed Electronics Co., 44, 147 

Lockheed-Georgia Co., 112 

Lockheed Missiles and Space Co., 136, 

165, 186 

214 

220,233 

log book, 152 

London, England, 46, 124, 146, 182 

Long Island, N.Y,, 66 

Lord, Dr. Arthur, I06 

Lord Electric Co., 173 

Lorre. Jean, 142 

Los Angeles, Calif., 148, 218 

Louisiana, 1% 

Louisville, Kentucky, 38 

Lovelace, Dr. Alan M., 89, 123, 169, 183 

Lowman, Dr. Paul D., 14 

Lubarsky. Dr. Bernard, 147 

Lucas, Dr. William R., 11, 170,201,214, 

lumber. See forests. 

Luna 24,28 

lunar curatorial facility, JSC, 24, 53 

Lockheed SR-71, 181 

215 

-exploitation. 145-146 

299 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

-module. See moon landing. 

Lunar Odyssey, 71 

lunar-polar orbiter mission, 207 

-research, 145-146, 156 

-rover, 178 

-samples, 53 

Lunar Science Institute, 28, 57 

Lundin, Dr. Bruce T., 147 

Lunokhod, 117 

Lynn, Donald, 142 

M-l00B, 137 

MacCready, Dr. Paul, 182 

McCulloch, James C., 52 

McDonald, Dr. Frank B., 210, 212 

McDonald observatory, N.M., 104 

McDonnell Douglas Corp., 11, 68, 79, 

McDonnell Douglas Technical Services, 

McGinnis, David F., 110 

McLucas, Dr. John L., 72 

McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, 39 

McMurtry, Thomas C., 36, 150, 171, 

McTigue, John G., 175 

Mach numbers, 132 

Madras, India, 69 

magazines. See media. 

magnet; magnetic instruments; magnetometer, 111, 121, 158, 195 

magnetic fields, 40, 73, 98, 134, 153, 

165, 169, 215, 222 

magnetodynamics, 54 

magnetohydrodynamics, 11 1, 121 

magnetosphere. See atmosphere. 

magnification, 105, 106 

Mahon, Rep. George (D-Tex), 125 

Maine, 181 

maintenance, 2, 13, 18, 26, 45, 66, 74, 

Makarov, Oleg, 23 

Malerba, Franco, 230 

malfunction (See also failure.), 54, 55, 

106, 173, 205 

Inc., 37, 52 

191,202 

134-135, 202, 207, 210, 227 

58.62, 63, 70-71, 72, 73, 75, 103, 118, 

122, 150, 155-156, 160, 168, 171, 213 

management, 65, 66, 123, 178 

manatees, 57 

maneuvering; maneuvers, 71, 15 1, 177, 

manned flight 

198, 199, 210, 211 

-international, 206 

-Shuttle (See also Shuttle crews.), 17, 

-Soviet, 10, 67, 158, 187 

manpower. See employment. 

manuals. See publications. 

manufacturers; manufacturing. See aerospace industry; fabrication; space industrialization. 

68, 107, 118, 160, 208, 222, 234 

-U.S., 27-28, 45, 54, 121, 128 

mapper, thematic, 42 

mapping, 10, 14,44, 80,82,98, 109, 138, 

Marine Corps, US., 121, 140, 148, 155, 

Mariner missions, 33-34, 76, 161 

Marion Power Shovel Co., 24 

Marisat system, 72, 124, 139 

maritime (See also individual satellites 

and systems.), 1-2,46, 72, 81,207,229 

Mark, Dr. Hans, 147 

Mark, Sir Robert, 189 

Markey, Stanley, 175 

Marots, 16 

Mars, 3, 6, 15, 25, 28, 31, 39,48, 50, 52, 

62, 76, 101, 106, 124, 132, 140, 152, 

-rover, 50, 52, 106,-207 

Marshall Space Flight Center 

-contractors, 5, 7, 11, 18, 25, 35, 45, 

51, 54, 56, 59, 64, 74, 75, 76, 79, 80, 

113, 130, 137, 175, 181, 186, 188,211 

-missions, 18, 56, 132-133 

-people, 11, 19, 50, 67, 84, 115-117, 

128, 149, 152, 157, 169, 174, 179, 

-programs, 6, 15-16, 18, 24, 30, 44, 

50, 51, 59, 64,67, 69, 71, 80, 95, 98, 

101, 105, 119, 127, 152, 153, 154, 

157, 160, 168, 170, 174, 178, 179, 

211, 228, 230, 231 

165 

173, 179, 194, 201, 205 

155, 161, 165, 181, 206-207, 221-222 

201, 209, 211, 215, 227, 229-230 

183, 198, 201, 202-203, 205, 208, 

marsquake, 6 

Martin, James S. Jr., 20 

Martin, Dr. John J., 132 

Martin Marietta (Aerospace) Corp., 25, 

53, 64, 80, 101, 160, 170, 181, 198, 

211, 231, 235 

Maryland Center for Public Broadcasting, 13 

Maryland, University of, 12, 63, 215 

masers, 51 

mass spectrometers, 152, 166 

300 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

(MIT), 4, 31, 71, 106, 133, 147, 182, 

212, 219, 230 

materials, 57, 59, 65, 76, 79, 95, 108, 124, 

129, 130, 131, 145, 218, 219, 227, 233 

-applications, 11, 45, 59, 69 

-processing, 4,30,32,59,62,71, 105- 

mathematics (See also data processing.), 

143, 227, 235 

mating, 80, 113 

matter (See also theory.), 54,75,209,215, 

Matthoefer, Hans, 187 

Maui, Hawaii, 31-32 

Max Planck Institute of Astronomy, 9 

M.B. Associates, 220 

measurements, 4, 69, 80, 82, 85, 98, 127, 

mechanics, science of; mechanisms, 131, 

Medal of Freedom. See awards. 

medals. See awards. 

media (See also publications;'television.), 

10, 12,49,53,64,74,87,143, 157, 158, 

164, 212 

medical research, 23, 25, 32, 57, 74, 84, 

85, 146, 157, 169, 174, 187, 193, 194, 

206, 214, 216, 222 

medicine. See medical research; pharmaceuticals. 

Mediterranean Sea, 14 

meetings, 2, 8, 28, 39-40, 41, 52, 57, 60, 

147, 152, 154, 157, 174, 189, 192, 203, 

206, 212, 220, 227, 228, 234 

Megill, Dr. L.R., 4 

Meharry Medical College, 152 

Mellors, Col. W.J., 154 

memorials. See observances. 

Menzies, Dr. Robert T., 72, 84, 230 

Merbold, Ulf, 230 

mercury, 170 

Mercury, 28, 161 

Mercury program, 27, 187, 216 

Mercury (support services firm), 233 

metals, 108, 128, 190 

Meteor 1-28 (USSR metesat), 247 

Meteor 2-02, 238 

Meteor 2-03, 258 

Meteor 2-07, 241 

meteorite; meteoroid, 38, 39, 76, 128, 

Materials Experiment Assembly, 192 

106, 137, 141, 192, 194 

227 

137, 154, 187, 192, 194, 195, 208-209 

194 

63, 67, 71, 75, 89, 137, 142, 145-146, 

132, 165, 224, 225 

meteorology, 18, 19, 25, 39-40, 56, 58, 

62, 64, 66,67, 101, 119, 127, 134, 164, 

165, 167, 171, 174, 176, 198, 199, 210, 

212, 222, 234 

Meteosat @SA project), 16, 112, 202, 

210, 213, 256, 261, 263 

metesats (See also individual satellites.), 

40, 112, 161, 229 

methane, 51, 190, 201 

Mexico, 40 

MF-12 (USSR rocket), 85 

Miami, Fla., 171, 176 

Michigan, 18 

Michoud Assembly Facility (NASA), 11, 

micrometeorites. See meteorites. 

microphones, 31-32 

microwaves. See power sources. 

microwave landing system. See microwave scanning-beam landing system. 

microwave radiation, 208 

microwave scanning-beam landing 

system, 113, 122, 178, 191, 222, 229 

Middle East (See also Arab nations; individual nations in that area.), 10, 154, 

210 

25-26, 44, 51, 64, 121, 170 

Middleton, Bob, 179 

Midgette, Woodrow W., Jr., 194 

MiG-25 (Foxbat; USSR aircraft), 13, 26 

Mikoyan, A.A., 29 

Milan (Italy) Polytechnic Institute, 157 

Milford, Rep. Dale (D-Tex), 60 

military, 154-155, 213 

Military Command and Control System, 

US., 38 

-flight operations, 18, 154-155 

-personnel, 22 

-use of space, 54, 122, 155 

Milky Way, 54, 209, 215 

Millis, Dr. Robert, 48 

minerals, 134, 165 

Mini Sniffer, 221 

miniaturization, 70, 169 

mining, 57, 178, 199 

ministars. See stars. 

minority business, 11 

minority employment; recruitment (See 

Miosi, Antoine, 117 

Mirage (French jet fighter aircraft), 107 

mirrors, 66, 109, 233 

miscibility, 192 

missiles. See weapons systems. 

mission control. See control. 

also women.), 2, 21, 41-42, 133 

301 
INDEX ASTRONAUTlCS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

mission specialists; payload specialists 

(See also individual astronaut.), 21, 67, 

72, 84, 132, 140, 157, 167, 179, 183, 

191, 194, 201, 205-206 

mission support. See support services. 

Mississippi, 1% 

Mississippi River, 33, 44 

Missouri, 127 

Mitchell, Capt. Edgar D., 195 

Mitchell, James P., 194 

Mitchell, Royce, 211 

Miteq Inc., 106 

Mitre Corp., 72 

Mitsubishi Electric Co., 226 

mobile equipment, 72, 84, 139, 167, 185- 

mockup. See simulation. 

models, 55, 59, 132, 136, 138, 163, 188, 

modifications, 55, 64, 71, 72, 95, 113, 

118, 

186, 207, 224. 231 

194, 217-218 

121, 150, 168, 173, 197, 199, 207-208, 

216, 229, 231 

Mojave Desert, 148-149, 150, 155, 159 

molecules, 9, 146, 190 

Molniya 1-36, 241 

Molniya 1-3 7. 246 

Molniya 1-38, 252 

Molniya 2-1 7, 239 

Molniya 3-7, 242 

Molniya 3-8, 256 

moment of inertia, 75 

money. See budget; funding. 

Mongolia, 20, 174 

monitoring, 57,63, 80, 85, 156, 160. 161, 

186, 202, 214 

-space-based, 1-2, 11-12, 18, 25, 33, 

47, 55, 58, 84, 102, 112-113, 129- 

130, 134, 165-166 

Montreal, Quebec, 110 

Moody, Jewel W., 11 

moon (earth's) (See also lunar research.), 

28, 31, 57, 76, 109, 115, 145-146, 174, 

175 

-landings, 28, 115, 117, 132, 165, 181, 

191, 220 

moonquakes. See seismology. 

moons. See planetary satellites. 

Moore, R. Gilbert, 4 

Morgens, Howard J.. 65 

Moscow, USSR, 111, 121, 167, 173, 206 

Moscow, University of, 76 

Moss, Frank, 56 

mothballing. See deactivation. 

motion pictures. See films. 

motion sickness. See medical research. 

motor cars; motorcycles. See vehicles. 

Motorola, Inc., 219, 220 

motors. See power sources, engines. 

Mt. Palomar Observatory, 10, 66, 204, 

mountains, 80-81 

movies. See films. 

MSTJ (Tansei, Japan experimental satelMU3C (Japan rocket launcher), 38 

Muller, Dr. Richard, 209 

multiplexers (MUX), 221 

muon, 3 1-32 

Murphy, John, 130 

music, 143 

Mustang (U.S. fighter plane), 16 

Myers, Dale P., 195 

Myrtle Beach AFB, S.C., 105 

'\ 

N rocket (Japan launch vehiole), 29, 40, 

Nantucket Sound, 79 

NASA 905 (aircraft). See Boeing 747. 

Nashville, Tenn., 177 

National Academy of Engineering, US., 

124 

National Academy of Sciences, U.S., 144, 

207 

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), 16. 147 

National Aeronautic Association (NAA), 

19, 76, 162, 172. 181, 182, 213 

National Aeronautics and Space Adniinistration (NASA) 

-advisory committees/council, 56, 128 

-budget, 18,23,48,50,64-65,61,68, 

233 

lite), 38 

MU3H, 23, 38 

41, 106 

72, 104, 108, 114, 135-136, 156, 161, 

199, 206-207,214-215, 217, 228 

-centers, 123, 209 

-contractors (Headquarters), 1, 18, 

-future plans, 50,64435.67, 106,114- 

-Headquarters. See management. 

-management. 3, 51, 56. 61. 65, 104, 

42, 55, 68 

115, 116. 117 

115-117, 121, 123, 161, 169. 197, 

203, 209, 214-215 

Technology (OAST), 195 

-Office of Aeronautics and Space 

302 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 lNDEX 

-Office of (Space and Terrestrial) 

Applications (OA), 62, 146, 162, 

168,220 

-Office of Space Flight, 181 

-Office of Space Science, 32,146,150, 

-people. 3, 11, 51, 52,56,62,93, 114, 

-research. 55,60 

153, 220 

115-117, 123, 169, 218, 220 

-Defense, Dept. of, 134, 197 

-Energy, apt. of/ERDA, 5, 15- 

-ESA. See international coopera- 

-Federal Aviation Administration, 

-Housing and Urban Development, 

-Interior, Dept. of, 57 

sonian), 3, 44, 50, 67, 181 

search, US., 39 

16,94,199-u)0,209,219,220,228 

tion. 

222 

Dept. of, 12 

National Air and Space Museum (SmithNational Center for Atmospheric ReNational Civil Service League, 3 

National Consortium for Black Professional Development, 133 

National Environmental Satellite Service 

(NESS), Doc, 110 

National Fire Prevention and Control 

National Geographic Society, 203 

National Humcane Center, 171 

National Institute of Dental Research, 

National Institutes of Health, U.S., 152 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), US., 11,25,55, 

171, 176, 194 

199,211 

Administration, 59 

U.S., 216 

67,69,80, 110,112. 134, 148,160-161, 

National Parachute Test Range, U.S., 

National Physical Laboratory, U.K., 227 

national policy, 1, 3, 48, 56, 58-59, 60, 

106-107, 108, 147, 187, 213, 229 

National Register of Historic Places, 6 

National Research Council (CNR). Italy, 

National Science Board, U.S., 31 

National Science Foundation, US., 62. 

National Space Club, 154, 220 

National Space Development Agency, 

157 

110, 117, 134, 194,201 

Japan, 29, 41,58, 106. 131,226 

National Space Institute, 116 

National Space Technology Laboratories 

(NSTL). NASA, 44,55. 120, 160, 169, 

170 

National Transonic Facility, LaRC, 132 

National Weather Service, US., 234 

Nato 11 A, 11 B, 7 

Nato 111 A, 7 

Nato 111 E, 7, 14, 238, 261, 262 

natural disasters. See emergencies. 

natural gas. See gases. 

natural resources, 130 

Naugle, Dr. John E., 220 

Navajo Tribal Council, 193 

Naval Observatory, U.S., 152 

Naval Ocean Systems Center, US., 231 

Naval Research Laboratory, US., 120, 

149, 174 

navigation, 35.53,67,122, 124-125, 155, 

158, 159, 165, 190, 197.224 

Navigation Technology Satellite (NTS), 

U.S. Navy, 120 

navsats (See also names of individual 

satellites.), 6, 70, 120, 158, 159, 197, 

221 

NATO-IIIC. 229 

Navstar. 22, 54, 122 

Navy, U.S., 6, 65, 66,93, 114, 120, 124, 

139, 140, 148, 157, 173, 178, 179, 184, 

194, 197, 201, 202, 205, 207, 208, 229, 

23 1 

-contractors, 8. 192 

Near East. See Middle East. 

Nebraska, 48,219 

nebula IC 133, 9 

Nelepov, Evgeny, 164 

Nelson, Howard W., 105 

nephelometer, 166 

Neptune, 38-39,49, 204 

Netherlands, 9,43,44, 136, 154, 186,200 

network, 82, 133. 165, 207, 210 

Neugebauer, Prof. Gerry, 44 

neutral buoyance facility, MSFC, 64,118, 

neutrons, 75, 109, 149 

Nevada, University of, 25 

New Delhi, India, 182 

New England, 63 

New Guinea, 226 

New Jersey, 63 

New Mexico, 66 

New Orleans, La., 44, 160, 170 

160,208, 224 

303 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

new products (See also discoveries; inventions; patents.), 2-3, 42-43, 58, 59, 62, 

71, 96, 107, 120, 130-131, 140-141, 

145, 169, 175, 195-196, 208, 213-214, 

224,230 

New Scptland Yard (London), 189 

new techniques (See also discoveries; 

inventions; patents.), 25-26,45, 56,67, 

69,85,96, 109, 127, 128, 132, 141, 142, 

146, 159, 160, 177, 178, 196, 214, 216, 

220, 224 

New York, N.Y., 182 

New York Bight, 63 

New York Port Authority, 66 

newspapers. See media. 

Nicaragua, 176 

Nichols, Nichelle, 41 

nickel, 190 

nickel-cadmium batteries. See batteries. 

nickel-hydrogen power cells, 2, 120 

Nicks, Oran W., 132 

Nicollier, Claude, 72, 84, 230 

Niemann, Dr. H.B., 166 

Nigeria, 103 

night, 196 

Nimbus program, 194 

Nimbus3, 161 

Nimbus 5. 66 

Nimbus 6. 64, 79, 172 

Nimbus-G, 229 

Nimrod (British airborne radar craft), 

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., 106 

nitrogen; nitrogen compounds, 132, 192- 

Nixon, President Richard M., 52, 143 

Noaa 2, 55 

Noaa 5, 11 

noise, 2, 66, 118, 135, 143, 195, 200 

Noise-Con 77, 192 

nominations, 93 

non-nuclear weapons. See weapons sysNorske Meteorological Institute, Oslo, 79 

North American Rockwell. See Rockwell 

North American Weather Consultants, 18 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

North Dakota, 127 

North Pole, 158, 182, 234 

North Sea, 1, 79 

53-54 

193 

NOAA-A, 229 

tems. 

International Corp. 

(NATO), 7, 14-15, 53-54, 72, 141, 213 

northern lights. See auroras. 

Northern Telecom, lnc., 221 

Northrop Services, Inc., 24 

Norway, 1, 32, 46, 79 

NOSS 2, 257 

nova, 174 

Nts 2, 120, 246 

nuclear energy; nuclear power; nuclear 

reactors; nuclear research. See power 

sources, nuclear. 

-testing, 71 

-weapons (See also weapons systems.), 

8, 40-41 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 53 

numbers; numerical analysis. See matheNunelly, Hubert, 13 

Nunn, Sen. Sam (D-Ga.), 74 

nutrition. See food. 

N.V. Phillips (Netherlands firm), 200 

Oak Ridge Associated Universities, 172 

Oberth, Hermann, 115 

observances, 67, 69, 124, 132, 148-149, 

152, 162, 165, 182, 184, 187, 189, 192, 

215, 223, 234 

observations, 48, 59,69-70, 98, 127, 158, 

182, 210 

observatories (ground-based), 109-1 10, 

156 

obsolete, 180 

obstacles. See problems. 

occultation, 69 

ocean, 149, 152, 184, 198, 212, 231 

oceanography, 58, 93, 109, 193-194 

Ockels, Wubbo, 230 

Odenwald, W. Germany, 75 

Odessa (Tex.) Medical Center, 74 

odor, 27 

Office des Postes et Telecommunications, 

Office of Management and Budget 

Office of Science and Technology Policy, 

Ohio River, 44 

Ohio State University, 28, 219 

oil (See also fuel.), 1, 16,65,73,79, 110- 

Okhotsk, Sea of, USSR, 178 

Olsen, Dr. Edward J., 39 

O’Neill, Gerard K., 12, 137, 149, 185 

Ontario, Canada, 110 

matics. 

Upper Volta, 198 

(OMB), White House, 64, 169 

White House, 71, 111 

111, 130, 188 

304 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

OOE. See out-of-ecliptic mission. See 

open universe. See theory. 

Operation Paperclip. See Paperclip. 

Ophiuchus (constellation), 174 

optics, 58, 62, 175, 192, 193 

orbit, pjanetary, 13, 124, 204 

solar polar. 

-spacecraft, 75, 151, 158, 163, 168, 

198, 211, 223 

orbital-test satellite @SA). See OTS. 

orbiter. See Space Shuttle orbiter; Viking 

project; individual spacecraft. 

orbiter-processing facility. See Space 

Shuttle orbiter. 

Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO) program, 54 

ordnance. See explosives; weapons systems. 

Oregon, 80 

organic matter, 39, 184, 190, 201 

Organization of American States (OAS), 

orientation, 98, 156, 158 

origins. See theory. 

Orillion, Alfred G., 19-20 

Oriol (USSR spacecraft), 117 

Orion (constellation), 104 

Orroral Valley, Australia, 82, 133 

Osborn, Howard J., 152 

OTS (ESA’s orbital test satellite), 16, 

112, 168, 171, 180, 202,205, 229 

Ottawa, Ontario, 110 

Ottawa River, 110 

out-of-ecliptic (OOE) mission. See solar 

outer planets, 28, 34, 49, 140, 145 

Owens-Illinois, Inc., 203 

oxygen (See also liquid oxygen.), 50, 68, 

ozone, 138, 193, 204 

222 

polar. 

123, 159 

Pacific Conference on Chemistry, 190 

Pacific Ocean, 23, 31, 57, 58, 131, 134, 

139, 140, 178, 226 

package. See payload. 

Page, George F., 229 

paint, 154 

Pakistan, 103, 131 

Palapa 2, 51-52,240, 261, 262 

Palmdale, Calif., 17 

Pan American World Airways, 67, 182, 

Pan American Union. See Organization 

204,205 

of American States. 

Panama Canal, 121 

Papazian, Dr. John, 106 

Paperclip, Operation, 115 

parachutes, 53,93,95, 101, 119-120, 152, 

Paraguay, 135 

Pans, France, 24, 52, 84, 105, 153 

Parker, Loyd C., 5 

Parker, Robert, 84 

Parnell, Dr. Thomas A., 88 

particle generator, 25 

particles, energetic. See electrons; ions; 

muons; neutrons. 

parts. See instrumentation. 

passengers (See also airlines.), 19,29, 130, 

patents (See also inventions.), 152, 218, 

pathfinder spacecraft, 33, 226 

Patrick AFB, Fla., 205 

patterns, 154 

payload 

159, 211-212, 222, 231 

193, 199, 220 

232 

-missile; launch vehicle, 8, 221 

-Shuttle. See Space Shuttle payloads. 

-specialists. See mission specialists. 

Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, UN Committee on, 44, 129-130 

peaceful uses of space, 57, 143-144 

Pearl River (NASA barge), 121 

Peenemunde (German launch site WWII), 

Pegasus 1, 132 

Peking, China (PRC), 154 

Pennsylvania, 138 

Pennsylvania State University, 72 

Pensacola, Fla., 36 

Pentagon. See Defense, U.S. Dept. of. 

People’s Republic of China. See China, 

Pepin, Dr. Robert, 28 

Percy, Sen. Charles (R-lll.), 74 

performance, 37, 42, 92-93, 96, 98, 108, 

111, 156, 159, 168, 171, 186, 231 

Perkin-Elmer Corp., 136, 192, 232 

Perkins, Porter C., 204 

Perry, William J., 177 

Persian, 103 

Persian Gulf, 14 

personnel. See employment. 

Perth, Australia, 69 

perturbation, 15 

pesticides, 1 

Peterson, Dr. Haie, 212 

petroleum. See oil. 

115 

People’s Republic of. 

305 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Petrone, Roceo la., 56 

Petrov, Dr. Boris. 174, 206 

Phobos (moon of Mars), 31,76,124,152, 

pharmaceuticals. 25. 74, 214 

Phoenix, Mi.. 94 

phonograph record. See recording sysphotodetectors. See detection. 

photography (See also cameras; film.), 7, 

14, 23, 27, 48, 59, 104, 105, 125, 131, 

142, 165, 174, 176, 1%. 222 

176 

tems. 

photometry, 210 

photons, 49, 119. 140, 189 

physics, 23, 65, 75, 115, 230, 233 

physiology. See biology. 

piggyback flights, 118, 135, 141 

Pilliod, Charles J.. Jr., 65 

pilotless vehicle, 17 

pilots, 13, 26, 128, 132, 140, 148, 150, 

172. 179, 181, 191, 196, 201, 202. 205; 

235 

Pioneer mission, 92, 143, 188, 221, 226- 

227 

Pioneer IO, 11. 3, 33, 102, 103, 143, 161, 

Pioneer Parachute Co.. 231 

pitch rate, 154 

Pittsburgh, University of, 138 

planetary environment. See environment; 

planetary exploration. See exploration. 

planetary satellites, 48, 59, 69, 76, 102. 

169, 226-227 

atmosphere, planetary. 

124, 136, 152, 187-188, 203-204, 207. 

226-227 

planetary science, 28, 48, 62, 66, 92-93, 

planning. See future plans. 

plants. See botany. 

plasma physics, 32, 155 

plastic, 17, 93, 119 

platforms, data collection, 113, 171 

Plum Brook station, LeRC, 34 

Pluto (planet), 3, 39, 51, 104 

plutonium, 65. 161-162 

Pocomoke City, Md., 164 

Pogue, William R., 121 

pointing. See aiming. 

poisoning. See medical research. 

Poland, 20, 115. 159, 174, 1% 

polar-orbiting satellite (See also names of 

individual spacecraft.), 11, 131, 136 

polar research, 66. 117,234 

102-103, 107, 108. 161, 174,206-207 

polar route, 173, 182,204 

Polaris (weapon), 8 

police, 189 

politics, 107, 129-130,131,143-144.157, 

poll. See public opinion. 

pollution. See also contamination. 

-atmosphere. See atmosphere. 

-chemical, 5, 110-111 

-environmental, 25, 63, 79, 141, 165, 

172, 187, 195 

-ash, 8 

195, 200 

population, 60 

Port Everglades, Fla., 205, 231 

portable earth terminal, 47, 138, 208 

portable systems, 50, 138 

Portugal, 227 

Porz-Wahn, W. Germany, 33 

Poseidon (weapon), 8 

postage. See stamps. 

postponement. See delay. 

potassium, 146 

Powder Puff Derby, 162 

power levels. See energy levels. 

power sources, 58,98, 159, 165-166, 172, 

199, 208, 216 

-atomic. See power sources, nuclear. 

-batteries, 2, 3, 94, 190 

-conversion (See also solar conversion 

devices.). 140-141, 216, 232 

-electric, 5, 34,227 

-engines, 61, 73, 159, 199-200 

-galactic, 43 

-generators, 159 

-geothermal, 134 

-lasers, 146 

-magnetohydrodynamics, 111, 121 

-microwaves, 5, 56, 57, 66, 141. 153, 

-nuclear, 35-36, 65, 104, 109, 118, 

175 

140, 146, 158, 159, 161-162. 215, 

216, 230 

-satellites. See solar power satellites. 

-solar (See also solar conversion devices; solar power satellites.), 5, 

14, 15-16, 23, 43, 45, 53, 65, 75, 

76, 94, 145, 159, 161, 168, 179, 189, 

203 

-steam, 7-8, 14, 188, 233 

-wind, 34, 129, 176 

power supply. See power sources. 

power systems, spacecraft. See spacecraft. 

powersats. See solar power satellites. 

306 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

Pozinski. Norman, 220 

practice. 150, 211, 230-231 

Prague, Czechoslovakia, 184, 185 

precipitation, 119 

precision. See accuracy. 

predictions (See also meteorology; future 

plans.), 25, 58, 59, 62, 80. 127. 165, 

192 

prefabrication, 69 

preservation, 152 

press; press conferences. See media. 

Press, Dr. Frank, 30-31, 71, 111, 144 

pressure, 2, 64, 93, 159, 171, 203, 213- 

pressurization, 45, 118, 224 

prevention, 146 

prices. See fees; competition. economic. 

prime mover. See vehicles. 

Primer, Howard, 13 

Prince of Wales, 193 

Princeton University, 10, 12 

printing (See also media; publications.), 

prizes. See awards. 

probe, 68, 92-93, 136. 159, 161-162 

problems, 27, 62, 63, 111, 113, 118, 129- 

214, 222 

165 

130, 137, 154-155, 156, 158, 159, 160, 

162, 165, 167, 171, 176, 186, 189-190, 

193, I%, 209, 213, 214, 221, 233 

Procter & Gamble, 65 

procurement, 18, 79, 219 

productivity, 71, 219 

Professor Vize (USSR research ship), 85 

Prognoz (USSR spacecraft series). 117, 

Prognoz 6, 253 

programming, 55, 176 

propaganda, 130 

propagation, 139 

propane, 94 

propellant. See fuel. 

propellers, 180, 221 

propulsion, 61, 125, 133, 147, 167, 170, 

prosthesis, 169 

protection (See also insulation.), 207 

protonosphere. See atmosphere. 

protons, 75, 85 

prototypes, 36. 42, 67, 74, 130, 165, 188, 

Proxmire, Sen. William (D-Wis.), 64, 

-policy, 2, 37, 105, 124-125 

176 

225 

230 

108, 217 

psychology, 123 

public opinion, 116, 156, 213 

public policy. See national policy. 

public relations (See also community relations.), 6, 63, 67, 74 

publications (See also media.), 106-107, 

128, 136. 204 

publicity. See media. 

Puerto Rico, 222 

pulsars. 102,210 

pump. 199 

pyranometer , 53 

quality, 169 

quarks, 75 

quasars, 10, 121, 149, 210 

Quebec, 110 

racing. See contest. 

radar, 8, 13, 26, 58, 74, 78, 224, 227 

radiation; radioactive material (See also 

electromagnetism; energetic particles.), 

208, 216 

radio (See also frequencies; broadcast.), 

4, 19, 94, 118, 153, 155, 158, 159, 179, 

209, 217,224 

radio-technical commission for aeronautics, US, 122 

radioastronomy, 76, 137 

radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs). 

radiometer, 66, 131, 148, 161, 166, 210 

radiotelescope, 9, 66, 76 

Ruduga 3 (Statsionar comsat, USSR), 

Ragent, Dr. Boris, 166 

railroads, 133, 192 

rain, 69 

random-access measurement system, 79 

range, 57, 82, 195-196, 198 

Rango, Dr. Albert, 55 

Ransburgh. John L., 230 

RATAN-600 (USSR radiotelescope), 76 

rates, 213, 217 

rats, 146, 167 

RCA (formerly Radio Corporation of 

RCA Astroelectronics Div., 153-154, 234 

RCA Global Communications, Inc., 139 

RCA Service Co., 158 

reactivation, 132-1 33 

reactors. See power sources, nuclear. 

39-40, 50. 102, 129, 137, 146, 167, 

See power sources, nuclear. 

249 

America), 104. 153-154, 220 

307 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

real-time monitoring, 57 

receivers; reception, 208 

Reclamation, U.S. Bureau of, 80 

reconditioning. See rehabilitation. 

reconnaissance (See also monitoring; surveillance.), 22, 54, 221 

record setting, 23, 67, 76, 121, 128, 133, 

149, 158, 172, 176, 181, 182, 198, 

219, 227, 235 

recording, 133, 143, 174 

recording systems, 67, 143, 160, 214 

RECOUP (refuse-consuming utility 

recovery, equipment; materials, 38, 53, 

recycling, 65, 110, 131, 188,211,229,233 

Red Cross, American, 138 

Red Flug (PRC journal), 131 

red giant. See stars. 

Redstone (ballistic rocket), 6, 115 

Redstone (range instrumentation vessel), 

Redstone Arsenal, 64, 115, 215 

reduction in force (RIF). See employredundancy, 14, 151 

Reeder, Jack, 222 

reentry, from orbit, 154, 175, 198, 215 

refinery; refining. See fuel. 

reflectivity, 39, 119 

reform, 62 

refrigeration. See cooling; cryogenics. 

refuse. See waste disposal. 

regularity, 209 

regulation, 62, 129, 185, 213 

rehabilitation, 80, 137, 139, 224, 228 

rehearsal. See practice. 

Reid, Henry John Edward, 212 

reimbursable, 54, 65, 148, 197, 226, 229 

Reinhard, CharIes E., 173 

relativity, 4, 51 

relay, 1, 67, 113, 134, 166, 197,210, 222, 

reliability, 2, 50, 80, 120, 135, 137, 159, 

remote, 98, 121, 198, 201, 210, 211, 219, 

221, 232, 234 

-sensing, 42, 56, 63, 110, 147, 174, 

plant), 88, 233 

91, 101, 119, 138, 205, 211-212, 231 

213 

ment. 

223-224, 226 

161, 223-224 

193 

remotely powered vehicles, 221 

rendezvous 

-orbital, 10, 207 

-planetary, 49, 207 

-spacecraft, 10, 89, 170 

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 192 

reorganization, government, 114, 185, 

repair. See rehabilitation. 

reporting systems, 43, 128, 130 

reprimand, 195 

reprocessing, 65 

rescue, 172, 233-234 

research, atmospheric. See atmosphere. 

research and development (R&D), fundreservoirs, 81 

resolution, optical, 42, 66, 76, 107, 137, 

resource management, 42, 47, 63, 161, 

Resources for the Future, Inc., 40 

respiration, 71 

retirement, 195, 214-215, 219 

retrieval (See also rehabilitation.), 98, 

137, 163, 198, 205, 210, 211, 228, 231 

retropropulsion, 187, 222 

reusable (See also recycling.), 36, 53, 79, 

197,203 

ing for, 65, 117, 134, 194 

169, 189, 210, 222 

185, 193, 196 

95, 101, 118, 120, 133, 168, 198, 211- 

212 

revival. See reactivation. 

Reynolds, Smith & Hills, 128 

Rhode Island, 66 

Rice Institute, 188 

Richardson, John, 169 

rings, planetary. See planetary satellites. 

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 222 

Rio de la Plata, Argentina, 222 

Rio Grande, 40 

rivers, 110 

RNA. See genetics. 

Robinson Printing Go., 11 

robots, 106 

Rocket Propulsion Laboratory, USAF, 

58 

Rocketdyne Div., Rockwell Corp., 11, 

51, 55, 79, 121 

rockets (See also names of individual 

rockets.), 37, 98, 105, 121, 137, 138, 

151, 164, 167, 197-198, 211, 215, 217, 

267-272 

rocks, 106 

RockweIl, W.F., Jr., 70 

Rockwell International Corp., 7, 17, 22, 

109, 112, 114, 118, 125, 175, 176, 177, 

180, 192, 195, 202, 207 

24, 51, 55, 68-69, 70, 71, 73, 76, 79, 

308 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

Romanenko, Lt. Col. Yuri, 223, 225 

Romania, 20, 159, 174 

Rome, Italy, 181 

Rood, Robert W., 128 

Ross, Miles, 63, 101 

Rostovsev, Capt. Oleg, 164 

rotation. See spin rate. 

rotor-systems research aircraft (RSRA), 

Royal Aeronautical Society, London, 16, 

Royal Astronomical Society, U.K., 124 

Royal Electrical and Mechanical EngiRoyal Observatory Greenwich, V.K., 69 

Royal Society, U.K., 60 

RTG, radioisotope thermal generators. 

Rubel, Werner H., 230 

runoff, water, 55 

runway, 113, 154 

Ryumin, Valery, 189, 223 

61, 134, 216 

182 

neers, U.K., 154 

See power sources, nuclear. 

Sacramento, Calif., 218 

safety 

-automobile, 19 

-aviation, 19, 43, 128, 135, 138 

-devices, 94, 161, 224 

-fire, 47, 131, 159, 218 

-nuclear, 1 

-range, 180 

-systems, 47, 54, 64, 163, 178, 208, 

224 

Sagan, Carl, 143, 149 

sailboats. See ships. 

St. Lawrence River, 110 

St. Louis, Mo., 33 

St. Regis Paper Co., 196 

St. Thomas, V.I., 179 

Sakura. See Cs. 

Salisbury, Md., 192 

salvage. See recovery. 

Salyut program (USSR space vehicle), 20, 

90, 158, 161,206 

Salyut 4, 23 

Salyut 5, 10, 26, 27, 189, 206 

Salyut 6, 180, 189,223, 254 

sampling, 63, 106, 167, 193,204,207,222 

San Diego, Calif., 218 

San Diego State University, 14 

San Francisco, Calif., 182, 195, 218, 234 

San Francisco, University of, 167 

Sandford, Maxwell, 104 

Sandia Laboratories, N.M., 109 

sanitation, 63 

Santa Barbara Research Center, 148 

Santa Rose Island, Fla., 36 

Satcom series (U.S. comsats), 154 

Satellite Business Systems, Inc., 72, 154 

Satellite Experiment Laboratory, NOAA, 

satellite network. See network. 

Satellite Power Systems (proposed missatellites, planetary. See planetary. 

Satrack (USN Trident support system), 

197 

Saturn (family of launch vehicles), 11,24, 

44, 55, 61, 71, 95, 113, 115, 127, 132, 

139, 215, 228 

Saturn (planet), 3, 33-34, 39,49,60, 102, 

103, 106, 137, 145, 155, 161, 186, 204, 

193- 194 

sion), 5 

207, 226-227 

Saudi Arabia, 14, 53 

savings. See cost reduction. 

Sawyer, Ralph (Buzz), 217 

scanning, 17, 54, 149, 150, 155, 194, 212 

SCATHA, satellite charging at high altischedule 

tude, 168 

-launches, 37, 64-65, 162-163, 202, 

-operations, 42, 217 

229, 234 

scheduled airlines, 19 

Scherer, Lee, 104 

Schlesinger, James R., 185 

Schmitt, Sen. Harrison M. (R-NM), 11, 

Schneider, Stanley R., 110 

scholarships. See awards. 

Schuerer, Paul H., 11 

Schwartz, Dr. Daniel A., 174 

Schweikart, Russell L. (Rusty), 162 

science adviser, White House, 31, 144 

Science Applications, Inc., 22 

science court, 1 

science writing, 49 

scientific community, 1, 18, 40, 132 

scientists, 32, 35, 75, 84, 107, 131, 133, 

Scorpius (constellation), 174 

Scott, Dr. David R., 191 

Scout (NASA launch vehicle), 11, 197 

scrap, 21 1 

sea. See oceanography; name of geo111 

143, 183, 220 

graphical area. 

309 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

seals, 184 

search and rescue, 64, 172, 173,205 

Seattle, Wash., 102 

Securities and Exchange Commission, 

security measures, 17, 38, 54, 122, 130 

seismology, 31, 62, 71. 82, 156, 165, 222 

seismometer, 3, 6, 140. 165 

Selcuk, Dr. M. Kudret, 232 

selenide (thermoelectric units), 162 

semiconductors, 192 

Senate, U.S. See Congress. 

sensitivity, 188, 208 

sensor systems 

-aircraft, 13, % 

-ground-based, 109, 178 

-spacecraft, 22, 55, 58, 66, 7 1, 74, 

137, 155, 174, 177, 215 

SeaSat-A, 1-2, 58, 82, 229 

U.S., 22 

Sensor Technology, Inc., 219,220 

separation, 73, 93, 107, 122-123, 135, 

150, 151. 158, 160, 166, 168, 179, 180, 

191. 195, 1%. 211 

SERT, space electric rocket tests (LeRC 

program), 170 

Sevastyanov, Vitaly. 23 

707; 737; 747. See Boeing. 

sferics, 166 

shadow, 176 

Shanghai, China, 154 

shapes, 124 

Shatalov, Lt.Gen. Vladimir, 26-27, 223, 

Shepard, Alan B., Jr., 115 

shipping (See also air freight; cargo.), 44, 

112 

ships, 56, 64, 66, 85, 127, 137, 158, 164, 

173, 178, 180, 194, 198, 205,213, 223, 

23 1 

Shklovsky, 1.S. (USSR astrophysicist), 

124 

shore (facilities; terminals), 207 

Short, Dr. Nicholas M., 14 

short-stack SRB, 95 

short takeoff and landing (STOL). 72. 

shortage. See fuel conservation. 

Shroud of Turin, 142 

Shulenko, Mariya, 123-124 

Shuttle. See Space Shuttle. 

Siberia, 123, 140, 159. 167, 178 

Sieff, Dr. Alvin, 166 

Sierra Leone, 103 

224 

173 

Sierra Nevada, 80 

signals, 132-133, 140. 155, 159, 168, 

Signe 3 (French/USSR scisat), 66, 117, 

Sikorsky Aircraft Co., 134 

silicon, 42, 145, 175. 219, 220 

silver compounds, 18-19 

Simpson, Dr. John A., 102 

simulations, 42,44,53,55,61.64,71.72, 

84, 85, 119, 120, 123, 132, 138, 153, 

211,224,230.231 

175, 198, 202,213 

237,245 

160, 185, 190, 191, 202-203, 206. 208, 

Sinclair Laboratories, 192 

Sirio (Satellite Italian0 Richerche Industriale Orientata), Italy comsat, 111, 

139, 156-157. 251,261, 262 

size, 149, 158, 160 

Skyjacker (DFRC experimental aircraft), 

Skylab program, 6, 27, 50, 52, 64, 72. 

121, 128, 160, 161. 165, 198, 211, 

232, 235 

217-218 

Skylab 1. 80, 162 

Skylab 4, 48, 121 

Slayton, Donald K. (Deke), 42, 143, 1% 

Slidell Computer Complex (NASA), 147 

slingshot effect. See gravity. 

small astronomical satellites (SAS), 129 

Small Business Act, 11 

small craft. See ships. 

Smith, Dr. Bradford A., 137 

Smith, Richard B., 174 

Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, 

204 

Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 

Harvard, 129. 174 

Smithsonian Institution, 50 

Smoot, Dr. George. 209 

SNAP, system for auxiliary nuclear 

power. See power sources, nuclear. 

SNAP 19, SNAP 27, 161 

Snavely, Lt.Cen. William W., 53 

snow, 55.80-81, 172,214 

social goals, 60,208 

social policy. See national policy. 

social problems (See also community resocialist bloc. See Soviet bloc. 

Societe de Telecommunications Internationales du Chad, 110 

Societe Europeenne de Propulsion (SEP), 

225 

lations.), 76, 147, 189 

310 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

Society for Space Travel (Verein fur 

Raumschiffart/VfR), German rocket 

society, 115 

Society of Experimental Test Pilots, 235 

Socorro, N.M., 235 

sodium, 146 

Soffen, Dr. Gerald A,, 52 

soft landing. See landing. 

software, 130, 186, 196, 207 

soil, 101, 106 

Soil Conservation Service, U.S., 80 

soil samples, 31, 70-71 

sol (Mars day), 6 

solar activity, 39, 117, 119, 148, 153, 176 

solar cells. See solar conversion devices. 

solar conversion devices 

-arrays, 43, 94, 128, 160, 170, 189, 

-cells, 43, 75, 145, 161, 220, 226 

-collectors, 14, 29, 71, 128, 130, 175, 

-panels. See array. 

228 

179, 232 

solar corona, 15, 37 

solar energy. See power sources, solar. 

solar environment, 113 

solar heating and cooling. See energy. 

solar particles. See solar activity. 

solar physics, 32, 199 

solar polar mission (WE, out-of-eclipsolar-power satellites (powersats), 5, 23, 

Solar Power, Inc., 219 

solar radiation. See solar activity. 

solar research. See sun. 

solar sailer (JPL future project), 48-49, 

119, 170 

solar system, 3, 9, 48, 64, 103, 104, 107, 

119, 199, 204, 207, 209, 226-227, 228 

solar wind, 39-40, 48-49, 73, 155, 156 

SoIarex Corp., 43, 219, 220 

solid-fuel rocket, 35, 53, 58, 74, 80, 95, 

101, 119, 133, 151, 153, 154, 160. 205, 

211, 228 

solid rocket (booster). See solid-fuel 

rocket. 

solvents. 110 

sonic booms, 105 

sounders; soundings. 148 

sounding rockets. See rockets. 

sounds, 31-32, 143, 184 

sources of radiation. See power sources, 

nuclear; radiation. 

tic), 68, 199 

57, 70, 76, 180 

South Africa, Union of, I82 

South America, 138, 176 

South Pole (See also Antarctica.), 182 

Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph 

Southern California, University of, 167 

Souza, Kenneth, 167 

Soviet Academy of Sciences, 76, 89, 180, 

Soviet Air Force, 13 

Soviet bloc, 129-130, 141-142 

Soviet Ministry 

eo., 221 

183,206 

-of Health, 206 

-of Power and Electrification; of 

Soviet space activity (See also Union of 

Soviet Socialist Republics.), 10, 22, 23, 

117, 127, 146, 158, 164, 167, 176, 180, 

Power Plant Construction, 76 

26-27,28,52,54,56,59,66,76,89-90, 

184, 187, 189-190, 195-196, 197-198, 

206, 207, 210, 222-225 

Soyuz program (USSR manned flight), 

Soyuz 7. 26 

Soyuz 15. 190 

Soyuz 17, 23 

Soyuz 20, 23 

Soyuz 21, 27 

Soyuz 23, 190 

Soyuz 24. 26, 239, 265, 266 

Soyuz 25, 189, 223, 254, 265, 266 

Space Age, 148. 165 

Space Biology and Medicine working 

space 

10, 20,89, 187, 189-190, 222-225 

Soyuz 19, 206 

SOYUZ 26, 222-225,251,265, 266 

group, U.S./USSR, 206 

-colonization, 12,24-25,68, 137,141, 

-communities. See space colonization. 

-construction; structure (See also 

space station.), 45, 47, 58, 64, 69, 

149, 185 

76, 106, 235-236 

Space Day, 148 

space defense systems (See also interceptor satellites; weapons systems.), 22, 58 

Space Defense Technology Program 

(DOD), 177 

space 

-environment. 57, 85, 148 

-exploration. See exploration. 

-flight, NASA office of. See NASA. 

-industrialization, 25,47,57, 137, 180 

311 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

-investment in. See funding, government. 

-manufacturing. See materials processing; space industrialization. 

-medicine. See medical research. 

-observance, US, 132 

-platform. See space station. 

- powersat. See solar-power satellites. 

-processing. See materials processing. 

Space Research Institute (USSR Acad. of 

Science), 17 

-science, 49-51, 53, 65, 71, 73, 134, 

-settlement. See space colonization. 

-astronauts. See Space Shuttle crews. 

-boosters. See Space Shuttle propul135-136 

Space Shuttle 

sion. 

-Costs, 65, 108-109, 121 

-crews, 21, 42, 45, 63, 107-108, 132, 

140, 143, 144, 148, 163, 172-173, 

185,201,202,205-206,208,222,228 

-experiments. See Space Shuttle payloads. 

-external tank, 25, 44, 50, 51, 55, 64, 

72, 80, 113, 120, 151, 153, 160, 170, 

202, 228, 231 

-facilities, 64, 113, 201-202, 228-229 

-fees, 65, 143, 163 

-funding, 104-105, 108-109, 121, 217 

-impact, 75 

-launch, 50, 113, 128, 139, 211, 228, 

234 

-main engine (See also Space Shuttle 

propulsion.), 6, 51, 55, 79, 120, 121, 

160, 201, 202 

-management, 143, 153, 201 

-military use, 54, 163 

-operations, 1, 21, 23-24, 50, 62, 68- 

69, 106, 113-114, 143, 145, 150-152, 

162-163, 165, 168, 175, 208, 234 

-orbiter, 17, 23-24, 27-28, 36,42,45, 

55, 63, 74, 80, 103, 107, 108, 113, 

118, 135, 143, 153, 165, 168, 170, 

202, 207, 211, 230 

178-179, 190-191, 193, 196-197, 

-passengers, 57 

-payloads, 4,6, 10, 18,25,48, 50,52- 

76, 98, 104-105, 119, 143, 160, 

192, 198, 199, 207, 215, 228, 234 

53, 54, 58, 64-65, 68, 69, 70, 71, 

162-163, 170, 185-186, 187-188, 

-performance, 107-108 

312 

-policy, 48, 90, 104-105, 143, 162- 

-prices. See Space Shuttle fees; Space 

-propulsion, 35, 44, 55, 74, 79, 95, 

163, 206 

Shuttle users. 

101, 113-114, 119-120, 151, 154, 

202,211 

-solid-fuel rocket booster. See Space 

Shuttle propulsion. 

-systems, 55, 68-69, 143, 178-179, 

234 

-testing, 6, 17, 23-24, 36, 42, 44, 45, 

51, 55, 63, 64, 71, 74, 80, 95, 101, 

135, 143, 148, 160, 165, 168, 170, 

202,205,207,211,228,230,234,235 

103, 107-108, 113-114, 118, 120, 

178, 185, 190-191, 193, 196-197, 

-training. See Space Shuttle crews. 

-upper stages, 37, 163 

-users, 143, 163 

space spider, 69 

space station, 23, 50, 72, 89-90, 98, 

space structure. See space construction; 

space suits, 45, 160, 208, 210, 224 

Space Task Group, 216 

Space Telescope 

106-107, 128, 158, 165, 187, 223 

space station. 

-contractors, 18, 232-233 

-planning/management, 10, 18, 52, 

56, 66, 108, 135, 136-137, 189, 207, 

210 

Space Transportation System (STS) (See 

also Space Shuttle.), 59, 105, 143, 163, 

173 

space travel, 71, 115-116 

spacewalk. See extravehicular activity 

(EVA). 

spacecraft 

-communications, 4-5 

-power systems, 74-75, 136 

-retrieval, 18 

-crew, 84, 85, 166-167, 183, 230 

-experiments, 32, 65, 67, 72, 85, 119, 

-management, 16, 48, 64-65,67, 153, 

-mission, 72, 73, 206 

-operations, 1, 28, 65 

-payloads, 25, 85, 130, 133, 175 

-preparation, 25, 52-53, 70, 72-73, 

Spacelab 

152-153, 157 

215 

84, 85, 133, 152-153, 166-167, 170, 

215 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 lNDEX 

Spaceport. See Kennedy Space Center, 

Spaceport. 

Spain, 1, 154 

Spanish (language), 103 

SPAR, space-processing applications 

rockets, 30, 105 

spare, 207 

Spaw Glass, Inc., 53 

specifications, 165 

spectrograph; spectrometer, 155, 166, 

Spectrolab, Inc., 220 

spectroscopics, 5 1 

spectrum, 149 

speed (See also high-speed aircraft.), 61, 

177, 179, 181, 186, 191, 196, 197, 202, 

209, 211, 218 

168, 210 

67, 96, 150, 151, 152, 160, 168, 176- 

Speer, Dr. Fred, 149, 156 

Sperry Rand Corp., 7, 54 

Sperry Support Services, Inc., 54 

Sperry Univac, 74 

spin, aircraft, 134, 138 

-motor; spacecraft, 119, 131, 195 

-rate (planetary, galactic), 38-39, 124, 

-stabilization, 73 

-stages (spacecraft), 173 

Spirit of St. Louis, 3 

Spitzbergen (Norway), 79 

Springfield, Ill., 12 

Sprott, Kingswood, Jr., 76 

Sputnik I (USSR satellite), 115, 117, 

spy systems. See surveillance. 

SR-71 (US. reconnaissance aircraft). See 

SSN-8 (USSR missiles), 57 

stability, 36, 75, 151, 186, 218 

stabilization; stabilizers, 79, 163 

stalling, aircraft. See safety, aviation. 

stamps, 195 

stand-in. See Space Shuttle orbiter; simulation. 

standards, 59, 213 

Stanford University, 16, 75, 107, 147 

Star Trek, 41 

stars; stellar, 37, 104, 107, 117, 121, 137, 

143, 149, 158, 188, 209, 210, 228 

State, U.S. Department of, 141 

state-federal cooperation, 80, 94, 162 

state funding of projects, 110 

static electricity. See insulation. 

209 

165, 184, 187, 189 

Loc kheed . 

static testing, 44, 55, 95, 159, 160 

stationkeeping (satellite), 113 

statistics, 138 

steam. See power sources. 

steering. See guidance. 

stellar object. See star. 

Stephenson, Charles A., 173 

Stevenson, Sen. Adlai E. (D-Ill), 114 

Steward Observatory (Univ. of Ariz.), 

Stickney crater (on Phobos), 124 

Stirling engine, 199-200 

Stofan, Andrew J., 220 

Stone, Dr. Edward P., 137 

storage (See also energy storage.), 51, 

Stormovik (11-2. USSR attack plane), 29 

storms, 94, 119, 127, 131, 165, 168, 171, 

Strack, Bill, 135 

strap-on motors, 106 

strategic weapons. See weapons systems. 

stratosphere. See atmosphere. 

Strecker, Dr. D.W., 107 

strength (signal), 133 

stress, 153 

Strittmatter, Dr. Peter, 107 

structures, 44, 61, 69, 79, 95, 120, 128, 

149, 153, 156, 160, 163, 205, 211, 231 

students, 4, 41-42, 133, 143, 152, 235 

Stuhlinger, Dr. Ernst, 116 

Styrofoam, 130 

submarines, 6, 8, 57 

subsonic aircraft, 35, 66, 152 

sun, 66, 68, 104, 133, 145, 149, 158, 161, 

sunspots. See solar activity. 

Super Loki (U.S. rocket), 37 

superclusters, galactic, 129 

superhigh frequencies (SHF), 139 

supernovas, 32, 37, 215 

supersonic (aircraft; transport), 29, 64, 

supersonics, 9, 64, 219 

supplies, 21, 224 

support (funding, services, systems, 

teams), 42, 44, 45, 55,68-69, 102, 113, 

139, 147, 156, 168, 169, 197, 207, 208, 

234 

107 

222, 229 

176, 234-235 

199 

66,213 

212, 221, 222, 226, 228-229, 231-232, 

surface, 145, 168, 175, 214, 226 

surgery, 5 

313 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

surveillance (See also monitoring.), 58, 

63, 101-102, 122, 136, 149-150, 221- 

222 

survival, 22, 68, 202, 226 

Swain, Charles W., 148 

Swainson, Wyn Kelly. 17 

Sweden, 66, 103, 154, 174, 200 

Switzerland, 84, 154 

symposium. See meetings. 

synchronous (orbits; satellites), 2, 124, 

138, 139, 148, 210 

synthesis, 65, 73, 230 

system for auxiliary nuclear power 

(SNAP). See power sources, nuclear. 

systems engineering. See design, engineering. 

Syvertson, C.A., 147, 188 

T-38 (U.S. trainer/chase aircraft), 132, 

tactical weapons. See weapons systems. 

tadpoles, 225 

tail, airplane. See design, aircraft. 

tailcone, 151, 197 

takeoff, 66 

Tallahassee, Fla., 148 

tandem launch, 193, 195 

Tanegashima (Japan launch site), 30, 41 

Tansei 3 (Japan experimental satellite), 

tape recording. See recording systems. 

target satellites. See interceptor satellites. 

Taylor, Michael, 72, 84 

Taylor, Quentin, 62 

Taylor, T.H., Construction Co., 63 

teaching, 14 

Teal Ruby (DOD project). 71 

teamwork, 231 

Tech House (LaRC), 130-131, 148 

technicians, 182, 194 

techniques, improved. See new techniques. 

technology 

-applications, 11, 56, 71, 141-142, 

-comparisons, 13 

-funding, 194 

-problems. 76 

-transfer, 71 

-utilization. 51, 130, 131, 208, 212 

150 

38, 239 

145-146 

telecommunications, 60. 182 

teleconference, 47 

Teledyne. Inc., 30, 134 

Teledyne Industries, Inc., 221 

telegraph, 168 

telemetry, 158 

teleoperator retrieval system. See remote. 

telephone, 74, 168, 214, 221, 226 

telephotography, 101 

teleportation, 16 

Telesat Canada, 32, 153, 229 

telescope, 18, 37, 38-39, 48, 50, 66, 70, 

Telespazio (Italy comsat control), 157 

television, 10, 12-13, 33, 52, 104, 121, 

72, 107, 109, 136-137, 149, 152, 188 

129-130, 154, 165, 178, 198, 208, 

223-224, 226, 234 

temperature, 39-40, 62,67, 93, 127, 128, 

148, 150, 159, 161, 165, 168, 171, 175, 

177,203,232 

Tennessee, 127 

Tennessee River, 44 

Tennessee State University, 145 

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), 227 

terminal configured vehicle (TCV). See 

terrain. See topography. 

Terrile, Dr. Richard J., 230 

terrorism, 189 

Tesla, Nikola. 19 

test pilots. See pilots 

testing 

microwave landing system. 

-aircraft, 132, 235 

-ballistic missiles, 8, 57 

-equipment, 58, 59, 80, 112, 128, 163 

-instrumentation, 93 

-Space Shuttle. See Space Shuttle 

testing. 

tethered satellite, 98, 181 

Texas, 3, 41, 127, 138 

Texas Instruments, Inc., 220 

Texas Southern University, 3 

textbooks, 14 

thematic mapper, 42 

theory, 51,55,75, 117, 129, 190,208-209, 

thermal-infrared scanning. See scanning. 

thermal insulation. See insulation. 

thermodynamics, 32 

thermoelectric materials, 140 

thermosphere. See atmosphere. 

Thiel, Dr. Charles, 62 

Thiokol Corp., 35, 133 

third world. 14 

Thompson, James R., 121 

Thompson, Dr. Rodger, 107 

217 

314 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 lNDEX 

Thornton, Dr. William E., 85 

thrust, 153, 160, 205 

thunderstorm research international 

program (TRIP), 21-22, 127,234-235 

thunderstorms, 21, 127 

Tiedemann, Trudy, 74 

tidal forces, 124 

tilt-rotor aircraft, 61, 216 

timber. See forests. 

time, 51, 82, 149, 208 

timing, 175 

Titan (moon of Saturn), 49 

Titan (U.S. solid-fuel rocket), 211 

Titan Centaur (rocket), 33, 155, 167, 

titanium, 108, 233 

Tokyo, Japan, 131, 140, 182 

Tokyo, University of, 23, 38 

Tomahawk (USN cruise missile), 8 

tomato can. See interceptor satellites. 

tools. See instrumentation. 

topography, 109, 176 

Toulouse Space Research Center 

tourism. 6.61, 67, 69 

towing, 231 

tracking, 57, 93, 155, 175, 189, 221, 222 

TIROS-N, 229 

220, 221 

(France), 117 

-ground stations, 1, 82, 180 

-radio beacons, 6, 172, 184 

-ships, 10, 64, 66, 180 

-space-based, 58, 71, 79 

-and data acquisition, NASA office 

-and data-relay satellite system 

of. See NASA. 

(TDRSS), 1 

Tracor Marine, Inc., 231 

tractor. See vehicles. 

traffic. See air traffic; communications 

training, 193, 194, 231 

problems; orbit, spacecraft. 

-astronauts (See also Space Shuttle, 

crews.), 21, 84, 107, 118, 132, 208 

-cosmonauts, 20, 223-224 

223, 226 

trajectories, 35, 68, 145, 167, 186, 215, 

Transat (USN navsat), 197,256,261,263 

Transcaucasia, USSR. 59 

Transit (USN global navigation system), 

Trunsit 3A (USN navsat), 161 

Transit improvement program (TIP), 197 

transmission. See energy transfer. 

1 97 

transmission, 47. 179, 208, 210 

transonic, 132 

transponder, 15, 197 

transport aircraft. See aircraft. 

transportation, 60, 111, 113-114, 121, 

122, 137, 141, 175, 192 

Transportation, U.S. Department of, 

112, 192, 212 

trash. See wastes. 

traveling-wave tube (TWT), 181 

treaty. See international relations. 

trees, 39-40 

trials, law court. See judicial proceedings. 

Trident (USN ballistic missile), 8, 157, 

Tropex (USSR-sponsored international 

trophy. See awards. 

TRS, teleoperator retrieval system. See 

truck. See vehicles. 

Truly, Richard, 122, 135, 170, 171, 191 

Truszynski, Gerald M., 219-220 

TRW Systems, Inc., 1, 22, 47, 103 

Tucson, Ariz., 94 

Tulsa, Okla., 45 

tumors. See medical research. 

Tupolev (USSR SST jetliner), 105 

Tupolev, A.N., 29 

turbines, 134-135 

turbulence, 61, 161, 191, 218 

turnaround time, 186 

Turner Construction Co., 173 

typhoons, 131 

197 

tropical weather experiment), 56 

remote. 

U-2 (U.S. jet reconnaissance aircraft), 

U-25 facility, USSR, 11 1 

Uchinoura (Japan launch site), 38 

UH-1H (U.S. helicopter), 132 

Uhlman, Dr. Donald, 106 

Uhuru (Explorer 44, 129 

UK-6 (British radiation-measurement 

Ukraine, region of USSR, 167 

ultrahigh frequency (UHF), 139 

ultrasonic, 233 

ultraviolet, 10. 37, 117, 119, 121, 169, 

189,210 

underground testing, 71, 140 

undersea; underwater, 8, 208 

unemployment, 75, 107, 108 

unidentified flying objects, 218 

208 

spacecraft), 229 

315 
INDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

uniformity, 185, 209 

Union Baptist Bible College, 3 

Union of South Africa. See South Africa. 

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 

(USSR), 146, 158, 176, 234 

-international cooperation, 4, 46, 52, 

85, 89-90, 111, 119, 121, 127, 143- 

144 

-manned spaceflight, 10, 89, 123-124, 

-technology, 13, 111, 121, 195-196 

-weapons systems, 13, 57, 101 

180, 189-190, 206, 222-225 

United Bank of California, 148 

United Kingdom, 1,40,44,46,53,65,66, 

84, 115, 119, 141, 152, 154, 186, 193, 

212, 227, 229 

United Kingdom National Physical Laboratory, 227 

United Kingdom Science Research Council, 9 

United Nations, 44,93, 103, 114, 129-130 

United Space Boosters, Inc., 35 

United States, 24, 46, 53 

United States Information Agency 

United States Strategic Institute, 172 

United Stirling (Sweden), 200 

United Technologies Corp., 35, 50, 192 

Univac 1108 (computer), 74 

“Universe” (NASA film), 64, 87 

universe, origins of. See theory. 

University (of). See rest of name. 

university community, 71, 146, 148, 172, 

unmanned flight, missions, 36, 42, 72, 

unpowered flight, 17, 36, 42, 150-151 

upper atmosphere. See atmosphere. 

upper stages. See Space Shuttle. 

Upper Volta, 198 

uranium, 109, 130, 230 

Uranus (planet), 3, 34, 38, 48, 49, 59-60, 

Urban, Dr. Eugene W., 157 

Urdu (language), 103 

U.S. Booster, Inc (See also United Space 

Boosters.), 231 

users; user community (See also data 

utilization.), 143 

Users Requirements Committee, 59 

Utah State University, 4 

utilities, private, 15-16, 129 

Utopia Planitia (region of Mars), 6, 125 

(USIA), 10 

174, 188, 228 

149 

69, 103, 137, 161, 204, 226-227 

V-2 (WW I1 German rocket weapon), 115 

vacuum, space, 54, 59 

Van Allen belt, 102 

Vandenberg AFB, Calif., 109, 120, 211, 

Vanderhoff, Dr. John W., 192 

Vanguard (USN rocket), 115 

vapor, 192 

variable systems, 134, 138 

vegetation (See also botany.), 47, 123 

vehicle assembly building (VAB), KSC, 

vehicles (See also transportation.), 19,63, 

-tubes, 13 

229 

61, 113 

74, 111, 113-114, 122, 175, 192, 199- 

200 

velocity. See speed. 

Venus (planet), 28, 92-93, 106, 119, 161, 

Venus orbiting imaging radar. See VOIR. 

verification, 32, 43 

Vernon, France, 225 

Versailles, Treaty of, 115 

Verschoore, Chuck, 153 

vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) 

vertical test stand, 80 

very large array (VLA), 66 

Vessot, Dr. Robert, 30, 51 

Veterans Administration (VA), U.S., 8, 

veterinary medicine, 157 

Veverka, Joseph, 124 

VHF (very high frequency), 113 

vibration, 55,63, 110, 113, 118, 135, 170, 

202, 205 

videotape, 10 

Vienna, Austria, 129 

Viking: lander, orbiter. See Viking projViking mission, 3, 15, 33, 49, 52, 125, 

Viking project, 3, 15, 20, 25, 48, 52, 70, 

Viking 1, 31, 55, 70, 132, 176 

Viking 2, 31, 62, 76 

vinegar flies, 68 

Vinson, Mack, 229-230 

Virgin Islands, U.S., 179 

Virginia, 5, 137, 164 

Virginia Polytechnic Institute (VPI), 5 

visibility, 69, 75, 94 

visible, 174, 178, 189, 210, 216 

22 1 

craft, 173 

146, 188 

ect. 

155, 161 

101, 125, 181 

316 
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 INDEX 

vision, 216 

vitamins, 123 

Vogt, Dr. Rochus E., 190 

voice communications, 158, 

volcanoes, 207 

von Braun, Dr. Wernher, 115-117, 141, 

von Zahn, Dr. Ulf, 166 

Vought Corp., 30, 177 

Voyager mission, 33, 49, 102, 103, 108, 

209 

137, 140, 143, 145, 155-156, 161, 167, 

169, 184, 186, 221, 226-227 

Voyager I, 167, 186, 227, 252, 263 

Voyager 2, 155-156, 186, 227, 250, 262 

Wagner, Dr. J. Bruce, 192 

Waldheim, Dr. Kurt, 44, 103 

Walker, Curtis L., 232 

Wallops Flight Center 

-launches, 30, 127, 164 

-programs, 5, 69, 85, 127, 134, 138, 

164, 169, 178, 192, 206 

Wang, Dr. Taylor, 106 

war, 74 

warning. See safety devices; safety systems. 

Warwick, Dr. James W., 137 

Washington, University of, 167 

wastes, 51, 111, 188, 233 

Watanabe, Kazuo, 131 

water, 106, 123, 160, 218, 224 

-pollution. See pollution, environmental. 

-survey, 33, 48, 80, 141 

-tank, 64 

-vapor, 10, 110, 161, 204 

“waterhole.” See frequencies, broadcast. 

waves, 231 

weapons systems, 162, 203 

-aircraft, 29 

-interceptors. See interceptor satel- 

-intercontinental, 8 

-missiles, rockets, 8-9, 16, 57, 58, 

-nuclear, 65, 131, 177 

-satellites, 6-7, 22, 101-102, 177 

ology. 

lites. 

115, 197 

weather; weather control. See meteorWeaver, Leon, 84 

Webb, C. Horton, 227 

Weber, Mrs. Elizabeth, 67 

Webster, J.J., 81 

weight, 45, 79, 114, 123, 128, 134, 145, 

150, 162, 177, 182, 211, 214 

weightlessness (See also zero gravity.), 30, 

57, 59, 64, 146, 160, 167, 206,208, 224 

Weis, Judge Joseph F., Jr., 13 

Weitz, Paul, 160 

welding, 25 

West Germany. See Federal Republic of 

Germany. 

Western American Energy Corp., 51 

Western Test Range (WTR), 9, 197, 229 

Western Union Corp., 22 

Western Union International, 140 

Western Union Space Communications 

Westinghouse Electric Corp., 13, 22, 49, 

175, 220 

Westlake, Reginald, 65 

whales, 184 

wheel, 165 

Whitaker, Ann, 230 

Whitcomb, Richard T., 71, 152 

White (Gen. Thomas D.) space trophy, 

white dwarfs. See stars. 

White Sands, N.M., 1 

Go., Inc., 1 

203 

-Missile Range, 30, 93, 121 

-Test Facility, 44, 71 

NOSS 2. 

Whitecloud (USN navigation system). See 

Wiebe, CPO Richard, 208 

Wiedemeier, Dr. Herbert, 192 

wildlife, 47, 157, 193 

Wilkins, Dr. Judd, 63 

Wilkinson, Dr. J.H., 227 

Williams, Dr. Bill A,, 85 

Williams Research Corp., 134 

Williamson, Dave, 218 

wind, 67, 211, 214,222, 231 

wind power; windmills. See power 

wind tunnels, 28, 42, 61, 110, 132, 138, 

Windsor, Richard M., 37 

Windworks, he., 176 

winglets, 71-72, 110, 130 

wings, aircraft. See design. 

Winter, Dr. David, 206 

wireless, 19 

wiring, 177 

sources. 

173 

317 
lNDEX ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1977 

Wisconsin, 130, 176 

Witteborn, Dr. Fred, 107 

Woese, Dr. Carl, 201 

Wolff, A.B., 186 

women, in air and space program (See 

also names of individuals.), 41, 57, 74, 

79, 123, 132, 157, 162, 176, 185, 191, 

194, 201, 205-206 

Wood, H. William, 65 

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, 93, 

Woomera, Australia, 37 

work force adjustment. See employment. 

working groups. See meetings. 

work load, 232 

workshops. See meetings. 

World Meteorological Organization, 131, 

World War I, 115, 141, 172 

World War 11, 16, 115, 147 

worldwide communications. See global 

communications. 

Wouch, Jerry, 106 

wreck, 205, 214 

Wright Flyer (airplane), 3 

Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio, 199, 214 

114 

210 

Wright trophy, 172 

Wyoming, University of, 109 

X-1 (NASA experimental aircraft), 219 

X-15 (U.S. research aircraft), 235 

XB-70 (experimental aircraft), 235 

XC-8A. See Buffalo aircraft. 

XV-15. See tilt-rotor research aircraft. 

x-ray, 37, 48, 54, 58, 72, 113, 129, 149- 

150, 153, 156, 174, 210, 212, 216, 228 

Yakovlev, AS., 29 

Yardley, John F., 124, 171, 209, 217 

YF-12 (US aircraft), 235 

Yin, Dr. Lo I., 216 

Yost, Paul E. (Ed), 181, 227 

Young, A. Thomas, 106, 207, 226 

Young, John, 143 

Zelenchuk, USSR, 76 

Zeppelin, 141 

zero gravity, 25, 152 

zinc, 93, 190 

Zuckerman, Lord (Baron) Solly, 40 

Zurich, University of, 55 

318 
The NASA History Series 

HISTORIES 

Anderson, Frank W., Jr., Orders of Magnitude: A History of NACA and NASA, 

1915-1980 (NASA SP-4403. 2d ed., 1981). 

Benson, Charles D., and William Barnaby Faherty, Moonport: A History of 

Apollo Launch Facilities and Operations (NASA SP-4204, 1978). 

Bilstein, Roger E., Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the 

Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles (NASA SP-4206, 1980). 

Boone, W. Fred, NASA Office of Defense Affairs: The First Five Years (NASA 

HHR-32, 1970, multilith). 

Brooks, Courtney G., James M. Grimwood and Loyd S. Swenson. Jr., Chariots 

for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft (NASA SP-4205, 1979). 

Byers, Bruce K., Destination Moon: A History of the Lunar Orbiter Program 

(NASA TM X-3487, 1977, multilith). 

Compton, W. David, and Charles D. Benson, Living and Working in Space: A 

History of Skylab (NASA SP-4208, 1983). 

Corliss, William R. NASA Sounding Rockets, 1958-1968: A Historical Summary 

Ezell, Edward Clinton, and Linda Neuman Ezell, On Mars: Exploration of the 

Ezell, Edward Clinton, and Linda Neuman Ezell, The Partnership: A History of 

Green, Constance McL., and Milton Lomask, Vanguard: A History (NASA 

Hacker, Barton C., and James W. Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans: A 

Hall, R. Cargill, Lunar Impact: A History of Project Ranger (NASA SP-4210, 

Hallion, Richard P., On the Frontier: Flight Research at Dryden, 1946-1981 

Hartman, Edwin P., Adventures in Research: A History of Ames Research 

Levine, Arnold, Managing NASA in the Apollo ERA (NASA SP-4102, 1982). 

Newell, Homer E., Beyond the Atmosphere: Early Years of Space Science 

Pitts, John A., The Human Factor: Biomedicine in the Manned Space Program 

Roland, Alex, Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for 

Rosenthal, Alfred, Venture into Space: Early Years of Goddard Space Flight 

Rosholt, Robert L., An Administrative History of NASA, 1958-1963 (NASA 

Sloop, John L., Liquid Hydrogen as a Propulsion Fuel, 1945-1959 (NASA 

Swenson, Loyd S., Jr., James M. Grimwood, and Charles C. Alexander, This 

(NASA SP-4401, 1971). 

Red Planet, 1958-1978 (NASA SP-4212, 1984). 

the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (NASA SP-4209, 1978). 

SP-4202, 1970; also Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971). 

History of Project Gemini (NASA SP-4203, 1977). 

1977). 

(NASA SP-4303, 1984). 

Center, 1940196.5 (NASA SP-4302, 1970). 

(NASA SP-4211, 1980). 

to I908 (NASA SP-4213, 1985). 

Aeronautics, 1915-1958 (NASA SP-4103, 1985). 

Center (NASA SP-4301, 1968). 

SP-4101, 1966). 

SP-4404, 1978). 

New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury (NASA SP-4201, 1966). 
REFERENCE WORKS 

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President, annual volumes for 1975-1982. 

The Apollo Spacecraft: A Chronology (NASA SP-4009, vol. 1, 1969; vol. 2, 

1973; vol. 3, 1976; vol. 4, 1978). 

Astronautics and Aeronautics: A Chronology of Science, Technology, and 

Policy, annual volumes 1961-1976, with an earlier summary volume, 

Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1951-1960. 

Dickson, Katherine M., ed., History of Aeronautics and Astronautics: A 

Preliminary Bibliography (NASA HHR-29, 1968, multilith). 

Hall, R. Cargill, ed., Essays on the History of Rocketry and Astronautics: Proceedings of the Third through the Sixth History Symposia of the International 

Academy of Astronautics (NASA CP-2014, 2 vols., 1977). 

Hall, R. Cargill, Project Ranger: A Chronology (JPL/HR-2, 1971, multilith). 

Looney, John J., ed., Bibliography of Space Books and Articles from NonRoland, Alex F., A Guide to Research in NASA History (NASA HHR-50, 6th 

Skylab: A Chronology (NASA SP-4011, 1977). 

Van Nimmen, Jane, and Leonard C. Bruno, with Robert L. Rosholt, NASA 

Historical Data Book, 1958-1968, vol. 1, NASA Resources (NASA SP-4012, 

1976). 

Wells, Helen T., Susan H. Whiteley, and Carrie E. Karegeannes, Origins of 

NASA Names (NASA SP-4402, 1976). 

Aerospace Journals, 1957-1977 NASA HHR-51, 1979, multilith). 

ed., 1982, available from NASA History Office). 

Recent volumes are available from Superintendent of Documents, Government 

Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402; early volumes from National Technical 

Information Service, Springfield, VA 22161. 
1. Report No. 2. Government Accession No. 3. Recipient's Catalog No. 

5. Repon Date 

NASA SP-4022 

4. Title and Subtitle 

Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1977: A Chronology 

6. Performin Code h3f Or nization Coda 

7. Authorkt 8. Performing Organization Report No. 

Eleanor H. Ritchie 

10. Work Unit No. 1 

9. Performing Organization Name and Address 

NASA Headquarters History Office 

Washington, D.C. 

11. Contract or Grant No. 

13. Type of Report and Period Covered 

2. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address Special Publication 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

Washington, D.C. 

14. Sponsoring Agency Code 

5. Supplementary Notes 

6. Abstract 

S This publication is a chronolbgy of events du'ring the year 1977 in the 

fields of aeronautical and space research, development, activity, and 

policy. It includes appendixes, an index, and illustrations. 

Chronological entries list sources for further inquiry 

7. Key Words (Suggested by Author(rl), 

~- 

18. Distribution Statement 

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