Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1967 - NASA's History Office

August 4 ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1967
tained with Venus ZIZ throughout the flight but were lost as the probe
approached Venus; no telemetric data were received in final moments
before impact.
In a letter to editor of Science, Porter wrote: “Their conclusion with
respect to Venus is based largely on what was not said by the Soviets
about sterilization of the flyby bus and on the authors’ assumption that
the capsule separation and bus deflection maneuvers were not made
automatically, even after loss of radio contact.’, Porter said authors’
conclusion about Mars was also based on insufficient evidence and noted
that in discussions with “highly placed” Soviet scientists during spring
1965, he had received impression that Zond Il’s miss distance was
likely to be much greater than 980 mi.
In his letter to editor of Science regarding Murray and associates’
statements on probable contamination of Mars and Venus, Sir Bernard
Lovell noted that Zond ZZ’s signals were so strong that there should have
been no difficulty in tracking the probe at Mars encounter; also, miss
distance of 1,500 km (932 mi) was within the accuracy of Jodrell
Bank calculations. Sir Bernard Lovell would “prefer to accept the state-
ment of the President of the [Soviet] Academy [of Sciences (Keldysh) ]
about the miss distance. . . .” (Science, 3/24/67, 1505-11; 8/4/67,
487-8)
* After analysis of Surveyor ZV failure and Surveyor Z and ZZZ successes,
NASA Surveyor ZV Technical Review Board recommended that signifi-
cant changes in spacecraft hardware be avoided. Board was unable to
identify cause for failure of Surveyor IV mission, but indicated that
spacecraft’s performance had been virtually flawless from launch until
communications signal disappeared abruptly less than three minutes
before touchdown. (NASA Proj Off)
* President Johnson appointed Paul R. Ignatius, Assistant Secretary of
Defense (Installations and Logistics) , as Secretary of the Navy, succeed-
ing Paul H. Nitze, who became Deputy Secretary of Defense July 1.
John T. McNaughton, who had been nominated and confirmed as
Nitze’s successor in June, was killed in an aircraft crash July 19. The
President approved reassignment of Thomas D. Morris, Assistant Secre-
tary of Defense (Manpower) , to replace Ignatius. (PD, 8/7/67, 1100)
August 5: NASA Nike-Apache sounding rocket launched from WSMR carried
Dudley Observatory instrumented payload to 93-mi (150-km) altitude to
test modified parachute recovery system and evaluate performance of
Dudley Observatory micrometeoroid collection payload before flight
during meteor shower. Malfunction of recovery system resulted in hard
impact of scientific payload and loss of collection material. Flights using
modified recovery system were discontinued until cause of malfunction
was determined. (NASA Rpt SRL)
0 NASA% selection of two foreign-born astronauts [see Aug. 41 was praised
by Erwin D. Canham in the Christhn Science Monitor: “The Aus-
tralian, Dr. Philip K. Chapman . . . and the Welshman, Dr. John A.
Llewellyn, . . . are both naturalized Americans. They are, one may
assume, part of the brain drain which has brought so many able persons
to the United States in the last quarter of a century. Nothing like this
flow of talent has been seen on such a scale in history before.
“The outreach of science also has become profoundly international.
It is a deeper bond than we have yet recognized it to be. Someday,
perhaps, it will transcend politics. That is the challenge: to bring politi-
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