Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1967 - NASA's History Office

ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1967 August 3
Me., and Paumalu, Hawaii. All RFPS were filed with FCC. (ComSatCorp
Release 67-44)
August 4: ELDO’S Europa I rocket, launched from Woomera Rocket Range
after 10 postponements, crash-landed when French Coralie 2nd stage
failed to ignite. Malfunction was traced to equipment associated with
the release system designed to separate the Coralie from U.K.’s Blue
Streak 1st stage. Rocket, which should have flown 4,828 km (3,000 mi)
into the Pacific, landed 965 km (60 mi) north of Woomera in the Simp-
son desert. (Reuters, NYT, 8/5/67,7)
NASA announced selection of 11 civilian scientist-astronauts: Dr. Joseph P.
Allen, 30, a physicist research associate at the Univ. of Washington;
Dr. Philip K. Chapman, 32, a naturalized citizen born in Australia and
staff physicist at MIT’S Experimental Astronomy Laboratory; Dr. An-
thony W. England, 25, a graduate fellow in geophysics at MIT and the
youngest man ever to be named an astronaut; Dr. Karl G. Henize, 40, an
astronomy professor at Northwestern Univ. and experimenter in the
Gemini program; Dr. Donald L. Holmquest, 28, who would report for
duty in one year after completing his medical internship at Baylor College
of Medicine; Dr. William B. Lenoir, 28, an assistant professor of elec-
trical engineering at MIT; Dr. John A. Llewellyn, 34, a naturalized citizen
born in Wales and associate professor in chemistry at Florida State Univ. ;
Dr. Franklin S. Musgrave, 31, a post-doctoral fellow at Univ. of Ken-
tucky with a doctorate in medicine from Columbia Univ., a Ph. D. in
physiology from Univ. of Kentucky, and four other college degrees; Dr.
Brian T. O’Leary, 27, who held a Ph. D. in astronomy and was in the
NASA trainee program at Univ. of California Dept. of Astronomy’s Space
Sciences Laboratory; Dr. Robert A. Parker, 30, assistant professor of
astronomy at Univ. of Wisconsin; and Dr. William E. Thornton, 38, who
recently completed two-year tour of duty with Brooks AFB Aerospace
Medical Div.
The new astronauts, except Dr. Holmquest, would report for duty at
MCS Sept. 18. After two weeks orientation, they would begin “ground
school” training, which would include orbital mechanics, astronomy,
computers, spacecraft orientation, general mathematics and physics
refresher courses, and field trips for contractor facility orientation. In
March they would start Air Force flight training to become qualified jet
pilots. The new group, which increased number of NASA astronauts to 56,
was sixth class to be selected and second to be chosen specifically for sci-
entific education. They were selected from a group of 69 nominees sub-
mitted to NASA in March by NAS after evaluating 923 applications. ( NASA
Release 67-211; MSC Roundup, 8/18/67,13)
Conclusion in Mar. 24 Science article by Bruce C. Murray of Cal Tech and
his associates about probable contamination of Mars and Venus by
U.S.S.R.’s Zond ZZ and Venus ZZZ received comment from Dr. Richard
W. Porter, member of International Relations Committee of NRC’S Space
Science Board, and from Britain’s leading radio astronomer, Sir Ber-
nard Lovell. Murray and associates had presented information : tracking
data from Jodrell Bank Experimental Station had indicated that Zond
ZZ, launched Nov. 30, 196p, had been on collision course with Mars,
terminating Aug. 6, 1965; Mstislav Keldysh, President of Soviet Acad-
emy of Sciences, had said Zond ZZ would pass within 1,4& km (900 mi)
of Mars; Venus ZZZ, launched Nov. 12, 1965, may have crashlanded on
Venus’ surface Mar. 1, 1966; radio communications had been main-
233