Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1967 - NASA's History Office

August 30 ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1967
reported in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. Taylor claimed U.S.S.R.
was devoting a “substantial percentage’’ of its total military budget to
the orbiting of nuclear weapons. (Taylor, P EB, 8/30/67)
Augmt 31 : Two NASA Nike-Tomahawk sounding rockets, launched from Andoeya,
Norway, carried GSFC payloads containing chemicals to produce
barium clouds. Peak altitude attained by rockets would be determined
by triangulation and by magnetometer measurements; no radar track
was made. Missions of the cooperative Norway-US. project were (1)
to compare electric field measurements made by two techniques, double
probe and barium release; and (2) to analyze electric fields from observed
motions of neutral and ionized barium clouds during an aurora
condition. In this first of three pairs of launchings, good data were obtained
and excellent results were expected. ( NASA Rpt SRL; NASA Release
67-234)
* U.S.S.R. launched Cosmos CLXXIV into orbit with 39,750-km (%,699-
mi) apogee, 500-km (311-mi) perigee, 715-min period, and 64.5” in-
clination. (GSFC SSR, 8/31/67)
During August: “Despite the rancor and doubt of the moment [about U.S.
space program], the evidence is persuasive that the nation has been
well served indeed,” Fortune magazine said in an article reviewing
NASA problems, shortcomings, and accomplishments. The article, “Jim
Webb’s Earthy Management of Space,” said: “Webb . . . has developed
a managerial doctrine as extraordinary as the space mission itself.
Essentially it is a bold extension of the systems-management principle
first applied in the Pentagon for weapon development. This approach
means that the Pentagon tries to relate design and procurement plans
to the weapon system’s maximum potential, to other weapon systems,
to cost effectiveness, to foreseeable strategic situations, and to other
spacial considerations. In NASA’s case, the ‘system’ is usually an exotic
research objective, like landing a package of instruments on Mars.
Such an undertaking, of course, requires management consideration
of costs and engineering feasibility, but NASA also tries to relate it to
the social, economic, and even political impact the new knowledge may
have on some of the most basic mysteries of human life. In one sense,
the system becomes an exercise in applied philosophy. To master such
massively complex and extensive problems, the agency has mobilized
some 20,000 individual firms, more than 4@0,000 workers, and 200 colleges
and universities in a combine of the most advanced resources of
American civilization.” (Mecklin, Fortune, 8/67)
The Nation’s press commented on photos transmitted by Lunar Orbiter V.
New York Times: “Orbiter 5 is currently adding some enduring contributions
to mankind‘s cultural heritage as photographic by-products
of the space effort.
6L
Some of the close-up pictures of the moon have been among the
wildest, most disordered and most surrealistic scenes ever viewed by
human eyes. Yet its distant views of the far side of the moon convey a
sense of desolate tranquillity, of peace achieved after many storms.
“This new art form has been produced by machines hundreds of
thousands and millions of miles away, in realms where men have never
been. Yet many of these pictures have far more power to move than
much of the output of contemporary artists. . . .” (NYT, 8/13/67,10E)
Washington Evening Star: “The pictures of the moon we have been
getting back from our assorted orbiting cameras have been fine and
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