Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1970

522 Pages·2007·15.17 MB·English

NASA SP-4015
A S T R O N A U T I C S A N D
A E R O N A U T I C S , 1 9 7 0
Chronology on Science, Technology, and Policy
Text by
Science and Technology Division
Library of Congress
Sponsored by
NASA Historical Office
Scientific and Technical Information Office 1972
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Washington,l 3.C.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 65-60308
Price: Paper cover-$3.10 domestic postpaid or $2.75 cents GPO Bookstore
Stock Number 3300-0424
Foreword
This volume provides an immediate reference to aerospace-related
events of 1970, enabling all of us to broaden or to refresh our crowded
memories. As part of NASA%c hronology series it is intended to help his-
torians and other analysts in preserving historical accuracy and preci-
sian.
Perhaps the Apollo 13 problems that resulted in using the lunar lander
Aquarius as a “lifeboat” will be the most readily recalled of the 1970
events. Yet, as this volume clearly indicates, there were many signifi-
cant milestones in space and aeronautics. The lunar samples returned by
Apollo I2 and 12 were intensively studied in the United States and 16
other countries; the last two Apollo missions scheduled were canceled;
the feasibility of reusable space shuttles as a means of reducing the cost
and expanding the versatility of space operations was examined in
greater detail; the Skylab program to evaluate man’s adaptation to the
space environment proceeded toward its launchings in early 1973. Divi-
dends continued to be returned from our scientific satellites already in
orbit: Pioneer VIcompleted six orbits of the sun, providing data on solar
weather on the far side of the sun; Oao IIbegan transmitting ultraviolet
spectral data on some 25 000 stars; Ogo III, IV, V, and VImade sky sur-
veys which could correlate geophysical data from other satellites,
sounding rockets, and ground-based instruments. Among the 38 new
payloads launched by the United States were the first prototype satellite
for an operational weather system, ITOS, and three Intelsat communica-
tions satellites. Japan and China both launched their first satellites dur-
ing 1970. In aeronautics, research and development on the supercritical
wing culminated in the first flight tests. And the X-24 “lifting body”
made its first flight early in the year and moved into supersonic flight in
October.
Other kinds of events are also included in this chronology. Dr. Cyril
A. Ponnamperuma of the Ames Research Center reported the first posi-
tive identification of amino acids of extraterrestrial origins, found in the
meteorite that fell near Murchison, Australia, in 1969. Numerous entries
evidence increasing international cooperation in and mutual benefits
from space activities.
The overall space program was being evaluated during all of 1970-at
perhaps the very peak of our technological and scientific achievements
in exploration, in basic science, and in application to earth-bound needs.
Questions of the basicevalueo f and the need for space activities in rela-
tion to needs for solutions of problems on earth were being explored in
all sectors of our national life. The space frontier has been crossed and
men, their thoughts and their machines, are no longer bound to our
home planet Earth. The accessibility of space will have a place in man’s
life and thinking for all his future. Even against a backdrop of the broad
range of earth-bound problems-poverty, pollution, world peace, and
iii
disruptive changes besetting most social institutions-man’s new
perspective on his place in a dynamic universe is a basic challenge. We
appear to have been in an escalating scientific and technological revolu-
tion during the 20th century, its intellectual stimulus and constructive
values perhaps best symbolized by the intense space venture of the past
decade.
The space program as a human enterprise, gaining new knowledge and
skills and applying them to practical purpose, seems a symbol much
needed in a world beset by doubts and fears and frustrations and with
many difficult problems yet to solve.
Homer E. Newell
Associate Administrator
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
September 17, 1971
iv
Cont ents
PAG.E..
......................................................................
Foreword 111
NASA Associate Administrator Homer E . Newel1
Illustrations .................................................................... vii
Preface ......................................................................... ix
.........................................................................
January 1
February ....................................................................... 35
March ........................................................................... 71
April ............................................................................ 107
May ............................................................................. 161
June ............................................................................. 189
July .............................................................................. 223
August .......................................................................... 255
September ..................................................................... 283
October ........................................................................ 323
November ..................................................................... 357
December ...................................................................... 383
Appendix A: Satellites. Space Probes. and Manned Space
Flights. a Chronicle for 1970 ............................................ 415
Appendix B: Chronology of Major NASA Launches. 1970 ......... 439
Appendix C: Chronology of Manned Space Flight. 1970 .......... 443
Appendix D: Abbreviations of References ............................ 447
Index and List of Abbreviations and Acronyms ..................... 451
V

Illustrations
PAGE
Itos I Improved Tiros Operational Satellite prepared for mating to
its launch vehicle and later waiting atop the first “super-six”
.......................................
Thor-Delta before Jan. 23 launch 24
Japan’s first satellite, Ohsumi, prepared for Feb. 11 launch ........ 48
Three lifting bodies active in NASA-USAF research program: HL-
10, M2-F3, and X-24A ..................................................... 56
Totality of March 7 eclipse of the sun, above Wallops Station,
passing over tracking antenna, and during Nike-Cajun sounding
................................................................
rocket launch 80
Moon’s shadow moving up across the Eastern Seaboard from the
Gulf of Mexico during March 7 eclipse: photographed by Ats
111 .............................................................................. 81
Dr. Wernher von Braun sworn in March 13 as NASA Deputy Asso-
ciate Administrator for Planning by Administrator Thomas 0.
Paine ............................................................................ 89
Feb. 17, 1958, visit by Vice President Nixon to Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, celebrating Explorer I launch with JPL and Cal
Tech officials Dr. Clark B. Millikan, Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, Dr.
William H. Pickering, Dr. Jack E. Froelich, V. C. Larsen, and
Robert J. Parks .............................................................. 104
NASA Deputy Administrator George M. Low conferring April 10
with Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight Dale D.
Myers on launch status of Apollo 13 ................................... 117
Launch of Apollo 13 toward the moon from Kennedy Space Cen-
ter April 11 and the service module that ruptured 56 hours later,
endangering the flight ...................................................... 120
Officials consulting in Manned Spacecraft Center’s Mission Oper-
ations Control Room as Apollo 13 astronauts worked to bring
.......................................................
the spacecraft home 122
Apollo 13 LM Aquarius photographed from the CM just after jetti-
..................................................................
son April 17 123
Crew of Apollo l3-Fred W. Haise, Jr., James A. Lovell, Jr., and
John L. Swigert, Jr.-arriving safely onboard recovery ship
........................................................................
April 17 124
Mission officials congratulating each other in MSC Mission Opera-
tions Control Room after safe Apollo 13 splashdown ............. 124
Apollo 11 Astronauts Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr.,
and NASA Administrator Paine, representing Neil A. Armstrong,
standing with the Gen. Thomas D. White Space Trophy present-
ed by Secretary of the Air Force Robert C. Seamans April 29 .. 155
City of Chicago welcoming Apollo 13 astronauts with ticker tape
and cheers May 1 ........................................................... 163
vii
PAGE
Demonstrations of down-to-earth uses of Fluorel fireproofing
material developed for spacecraft, which were presented at
May 6-7 MSC conference .................................................. 168
Space Orbiter Shuttlecraft model after air-drop test at White
Sands Missile Range May 27 ............................................. 182
The speakers’ table at NASA’s June 3-5 space station briefing for
ESRO officials in Paris ...................................................... 193
Rep. George P. Miller examining an Apollo oxygen tank with
NASA Administrator Paine and Langley Research Center Direc-
tor Edgar M. Cortright June 16 before the Senate Space Com-
mittee hearing on the Apollo 13 accident ............................. 205
Full-scale model of the lunar roving vehicle in June practice exer-
cises at Marshall Space Flight Center, with Astronauts Charles
M. Duke, Jr., and John W. Young ...................................... 206
Experimental thermal reactor in tests (announced by NASA Aug.
9) on V-8 engine at Lewis Research Center to reduce pollution
from automobile exhaust, with technician Warren A. Moore ... 261
Some of the lunar craters named at IAU’s Aug. 18-21 triennial as-
sembly, shown on a photograph of the moon’s far side made by
Lunar Orbiter V ............................................................. 268
Cartoonist Paul Conrad’s reaction to NASA cancellation of lunar
landing missions, announced Sept. 2 .................................. 288
Last Saturn V 1st stage (S-IC-15) captive-fired at Mississippi Test
Facility Sept. 30, with photo of the 14th S-IC stage on the test
stand earlier .................................................................. 3 19
Supersonic Planetary Entry Decelerator (SPED) experiment’s par-
asol deployed in June systems check-out before Oct. 9 launch . 332
Soviet Cosmonauts Andrian G. Nikolayev and Vitaly I. Sevas-
tyanov welcomed at National Airport by Astronauts Edwin E.
.
Aldrin, Jr., and Neil A. Armstrong at start of U.S. tour Oct. 18 339
Full-scale hypersonic research engine (HRE) poised before Oct. 20
test in LaRc’s 8-Foot High-Temperature Structures Tunnel ..... 344
Principal investigator Dr. Torquato Gualitierotti for OFO Orbiting
Frog Otolith satellite standing beside part of spacecraft before
its Nov. 9 launch, with a cutway diagram of the experiment
............................................................
package inserted 363
USN T2-C aircraft on its first flight with NASA’s supercritical test
wing Nov. 24 and the Nov. 3 delivery to Flight Research Center
of the thin version of the new airfoil mounted on an F-8 fighter 378
Dr. Cyril A. Ponnamperuma of Ames Research Center displaying
a meteorite that he announced Dec. 5 had been found to contain
amino acids, constitutents of living cells ............................. 388
Uhuru (Explorer XLII) Shown in preflight testing with Mrs. Mar-
jorie Townsend, project manager, and during Dec. 12 launch
from the San Marco sea platform ....................................... 396
USN F-14 Tomcat fighter just before takeoff on its successful
maiden flight Dec. 21 ...................................................... 404
viii
Preface
As with its seven annual ancestors and several precursors, this vol-
ume is intended to be as complete and accurate a chronicle of known
events and commentary in 1970 as could be documented by immediately
available sources. Essential1Y it provides a running start on aeronauti-
cal and astronautical data o interest to future historians. But it also
serves as a general reference for those interested in science, technology,
and policy aspects of aerospace affairs during 1970.
For the first time, this Astronautics and Aeronautics chronology gives
all measurements in the metric system according to the International
a
System of Units (SI). Heretofore, the En iish system of units was used.
In this volume they are retained in parent eses following SI units. NASA
Policy Directive 2220.4 of September 14, 1970, required conversion to
the International System of Units, previously used in GSFC’S Satellite
Situation Report and most European publications. NASA was the first
Federal agency to adopt this policy.
General editor of this volume was the Deputy NASA Historian, Frank
W. Anderson, Jr., and the technical editor was Mrs. Carrie E. Kare-
geannes. The entire NASA Historical Office participated in source selec-
tion, review, and publication. Archivist Lee D. Saegesser collects cur-
rent documentation. The Science and Technology Division of the Li-
brary of Congress, under an exchange of funds agreement, drafts
monthly segments in comment edition form, which are circulated for
corrections and use. At the Library Mrs. Patricia D. Davis, Mrs. Carmen
B. Brock-Smith, and Mrs. Shirley M. Singleton carry principal respodsi-
bility. At the end of the year, the entire manuscript is reworked to in-
clude comments received and recent additional information. Arthur G.
Renstrom of the Library of Congress prepared the extensive index,
which is indispensable to the usefulness of a chronology. The index
serves also as a glossary of abbreviations and acronyms used in the
chronology.
Appendix A, “Satellites, Space Probes, and Manned Space Flights,
1970,” Appendix B, “Chronology of Major NASA Launches, 1970,” and
Appendix C, “Chronology of Manned Space Flight, 1970,” were pre-
pared by Leonard C. Bruno of the Library staff. Appendix D, “Abbrevi-
ations of References,” was prepared by Mrs. Brock-Smith.
Without the validation throughout NASA and other Federal agencies,
the content of this volume would be less reliable and less nearly com-
plete. Comments, additions, and criticisms are always welcomed by the
NASA Historical Office.
Eugene M. Emme
NASA Historian
ix