Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1967 - NASA's History Office

July u)
ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1967
0 Barry Goldwater, 196p Republican presidential candidate, told National
Retail Hardware Assn. in San Francisco that he believed U.S.S.R. had
orbited military weapons: “We have every reason to believe that the
Russians have a weapon in orbit that can be called down at any time
against any target.” Goldwater said he could not prove his statement,
but that information from Soviet technical journals indicated it was
accurate. ( AP, B Sun, 7/21/67)
July 21 : A new star just bright enough to be visible to the naked eye had
been discovered in the constellation Delphinius by G. E. D. Alcock of
Peterborough, U.K. Discovery was confirmed by M. P. Candy, British
Astronomical Society, who estimated star’s brightness as magnitude
five, which is near the limit of visual observation. (SciServ, NYT,
7/21/67)
* Wind tunnel tests at USAF’S Arnold Engineering Development Center
(AEDC) in Tullahoma, Tenn., indicated “NASA has miscalculated the
control spacemen would have over the Apollo spacecraft at the critical
point it reenters the Earth’s atmosphere,” the Nashville Tennessean
wrote in a copyrighted story. Loss of control “means that the Moon
spacecraft’s maneuvering ability would be cut, perhaps to a dangerous
degree.” Results of tests, which had been forwarded to MSC, “will cause
NASA to alter its computer projections of the Apollo’s reentry path.”
(AP, H Chron, 7/21/67)
July 14 promotion of career administrator Herman Pollack from Acting
Director to Director of State Dept.’s Office of International Scientific
and Technological Affairs was accepted reluctantly by the scientific
community, Science reported. “The role and potential of the office . . .
[is a] fuzzily defined relationship between science, technology, and
foreign policy,” and the scientific community had tended to think of the
office as its own. “. . . many elder statesmen of science . . . are not
altogether pleased to find . . . [the directorship] in the hands of a
nonscientist,” but have admitted grudgingly “that Pollack has done an
outstanding job [as Acting Director] and that the office is likely to im-
prove still further now that he is free of the uncertainties of an acting
appointment.” (Science, 7/21/67,292)
Center for European Research (CERN) , West Germany, and France signed
an agreement in Geneva to share the estimated $19.5-million cost of
constructing a bubble chamber in which particles of smashed atoms
could be tracked photographically to provide further information on
the properties of matter. Scheduled to be built at CERN Hq. near Geneva,
the structure would be cylindrical, about 11.5 ft in dia and 10 ft high-
the largest bubble chamber in existence. (NYT, 7/22/67, 11)
July 22: NASA successfully launched first of five Nike-Apache sounding rock-
ets from NASA Wallops Station but canceled remaining four in the dusk-
to-dawn series of launches because of unfavorable weather. Rocket ejected
a trimethylaluminum (TMA) vapor trail of bluish color between 50- and
125-mi altitudes in experiment to measure wind velocities and directions
at various altitudes in the upper atmosphere. Launching were conducted
for GCA Corp., under contract to GSFC. OSSA had overall program respon-
sibility. (NASA Release 67-179; WS Release 67-25; W Post, 7/23/67,
A3 )
NAA’S incentive fees for the Apollo Command Module (CM) destroyed in
Jan. 27 fire would be reduced by NASA to $41 million, Sen. Clinton P.
Anderson (D-N. Mex.) , Chairman of Senate Aeronautical and Space
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