Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1967 - NASA's History Office

September 18 ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1967
I should think they would do it unmanned because of the difficulties
of the return at lunar flight velocity.” (Lewis, C SIT, 9/18/67, 16)
September 19: Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara’s decision to go
ahead with “thin” Nike-X antiballistic missile (ABM) system [see
Sept. 181 was praised by Sen. Clinton P. Anderson (D-N.Mex.) , Chair-
man of Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, on floor
of Senate: “I indicate my support of this decision [and] under present
world circumstances, we have no choice but to go ahead with [ABM]
system.” (CRY 9/19/67, S13207-9)
Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (060) satellites, Ogo I, ZZ, Ill, and
ZV, transmitted data simultaneously for the first time. Launching dates
for four satellites had been : Ogo I, Sept. 4,1964; Ogo ZZ, Oct. 14,1965;
Ogo ZZZ, June 6, 1966; and Ogo ZV, July 28, 1967. (NASA Release
67-252)
a USAF launched unidentified satellite from WTR using Titan 111-B booster;
satellite reentered Sept. 30. (Pres Rep 1967)
* Fabrication of five S-11s (Saturn V’s 2nd stage) would be accomplished
under a contract modification awarded by NASA to North American
Aviation, Inc. Purchase of the five stages would complete the S-I1
requirement for the 15 Saturn V launch vehicles currently approved for
development as a part of the Apollo program. The first of the stages
would be delivered to NASA in Feb. 1969. The Marshall Space Flight
Center, Huntsville, Ala., managed the Saturn program. (NASA Release
67-244)
* The three Pegasus spacecraft launched by NASA in 1965 had far exceeded
the most optimistic expectations and were still operating as the end
of a one-year lifetime extension drew near. The spacecraft were launched
aboard the last three Saturn I launch vehicles on Feb. 16, May 25, and
July 30, 1965. They had completed their assigned tasks-to measure
the meteoroid environment of near-earth space-and had telemetered
back to earth much information on other subjects of interest to space
scientists. Scientific results of Project Pegasus had been covered in an
interim report prepared by MSFC’S Space Sciences Laboratory. ( MSFC
Release 67-192)
0 Examples of air, sea, and space technology “working together as partners
for the better understanding of our total environment” were cited by
Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., NASA Deputy Administrator, in a speech to
the 2nd International Buoy Technology Symposium, Marine Technology
Society, Washington, D.C. The Interrogation, Recording and Location
System (IRLS) , developed by Goddard Space Flight Center, would dem-
onstrate the use of a satellite to locate and determine the position
of sensors, receive data from the sensor, record that data on the
Spacecraft, and later relay the data to ground stations. Possible ter-
restrial sensors are meteorological stations or buoys, oceanographic
buoys, gauges for measuring the strains in the earth’s crust, drifting
balloons, ice islands, or any of a wide variety of data platforms
located on the surface of the earth or in its atmosphere. Seamans
said, “It is quite easy to conceive how such a system could begin to
solve many of the problems hindering world-wide fixed or free buoy
systems for the study of currents and ocean-depth profile data.” He
also noted that “photographs and images returned by such satellites
as Nimbus, Tiros, and Gemini are being analyzed to assess their ocean-
ographic value.” (Text)
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