Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1967 - NASA's History Office

ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1967 June 5
Pilot performing with the French Patrol, the aerobatic team of the French
Air Force, was killed when his jet aircraft crashed and burst into flames
during final aerial display at the Paris International Air and Space Show.
Aircraft failed to pull out of a dive, bounced along the airfield, and then
exploded about 100 yds from the grandstand, injuring several spectators.
(NYT, 6/6/67, 77M)
* France exploded nuclear device from a balloon over Mururoa Atoll in the
Pacific. Test was first of four in 1967 series designed to perfect a trigger
for the hydrogen bomb France planned to explode in 1968. (UPI,
NYT, 6/23/67, 2)
June 6: NASA Aerobee 150 sounding rocket launched from WSMR carried
ARC-instrumented payload to %-mi (137-km) altitude to collect meteoritic
debris during peak of meteor shower. Rocket and instrumentation
performance was satisfactory. Further examination of the 12 collection
modules would be required to determine if micrometeoroid particles were
collected. (NASA Rpt SRL)
* NASA Nike-Tomahawk sounding rocket launched from Churchill Research
Range carried Univ. of New Hampshire experiment to provide data on
the neutron intensity at different altitudes using a neutron detector, solar
x-ray fluxes using an x-ray counter, and 2-10 A Lyman-alpha radiation
using a photoionization chamber. Rocket and instrumentation performed
satisfactorily. (NASA Rpt SRL)
House Committee on Science and Astronautics filed $4.9-billion NASA
authorization bill (H.R. 10340) with the House and recommended that it
be passed without amendment [see May 161. (NASA LAR VI/64)
Japan Air Lines jet aircraft carrying American and Japanese scientists from
San Francisco to Tokyo successfully maintained radio contact with
Mojave, Calif., ground station via NASA’s Ats I satellite (NASA Proj
Off; P EB, 6/8/67)
* 37-yr-old Astronaut Edward G. Givens, Jr. (Maj., USAF), was killed near
Houston when the car he was driving missed a curve and crashed into an
embankment. Two other USAF officers with him were injured, one criti-
cally. Givens was the first US. astronaut to die while off duty. Six others
had died in connection with the space program: three in air crashes and
three in the Jan. 27 Apollo fire. He was selected to join the NASA astro-
naut team April 4,1966. (MSC Roundup, 6/9/67,1; UPI, NYT, 6/7/67,
30; UPI, W Post, 6/7/67, A7)
MSFC Director Dr. Wernher von Braun was presented the Smithsonian
Institution’s Langley Medal by Dr. Fred L. Whipple, Director of Smith-
sonian Astrophysical Observatory, in Washington, D.C., ceremony. Dr.
von Braun was cited in “recognition of his creative vision of the practical
application of rocket power to space flight leading to the first US.
satellite, and of his technical leadership in development of the Saturn
class of large launch vehicles upon which the Apollo moon flight is
based.” He was the 13th recipient of the award, which was established in
1908 to commemorate the aeronautical achievements of Samuel Pierpont
Langley, third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Other recipients
included Orville and Wilbur Wright, Charles A. Lindbergh, Robert H.
Goddard (posthumously), Dr. Hugh L. Dryden, and Astronaut Alan B.
Shepard, Jr.
In making de presentation, Dr. Whipple said US. could have launched
the world’s first satellite if it had endorsed the proposal which he and Dr.
von Braun developed in 1954 to launch small spacecraft from the equator
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