Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1967 - NASA's History Office

ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1967 September 29
$215.3 million for continued research and development effort on Nike-
X. The Communist Chinese-oriented ABM system would consist of two
types of radar and two interceptor missiles. (DOD Release 992-67)
September 30: NASA Aerobee 150 sounding rocket, launched from NASA Wal-
lops Station to 134-mi (216-km) altitude, in AFCRL experiment to meat-
ure incident solar radiation in upper atmosphere from 1,206 to 284 A
with monochromator while similar instrument was in operation in Os0
ZZZ satellite. Monochromator operated successfully; data were somewhat
degraded by partial instrument failure. (NASA Rpt SRL)
ComSatCorp Report to Shareholders for third quarter of 1967 indicated
operating revenues were at record high of $5,2%,219. For second quarter
in a row, operations showed over $0.5-million loss, but income from
interest more than offset loss, to proFide net income of over $0.8 million.
(Text )
During September: Suggestions for restoring public confidence in and ac-
ceptance of the US. space program were advanced by William Leavitt in
Air Force and Space Digest: “We can husband our resources by looking
carefully at the question of whether we need two expensive and com-
petitive manned orbital laboratories, one run by the National Aero-
nautics and Space Administration and one run for the Defense Depart-
ment by the Air Force. . . .
“We can increase the funding and sharpen the planning of the un-
manned working satellites. . . . We can begin to look seriously at
the potential of aerospace systems analysis and engineering in the
solution of nonspace and nonmilitary public problems, with an emphasis
on building into these techniques . . . social, economic and political
factors. . . . And we can begin to put to work in our schools, suburban
and urban, many of the space-age training techniques that have been a
beneficial by-product of the technological age we live in.” (AF/SD,
9/67,158-159,162,165)
* M/G Alvin R. Luedecke ( USAF, Ret.) , Deputy Director of JPL, resigned
He had come to JPL on Aug. 1, 1964, after five years as general man-
ager of the Atomic Energy Commission and 25 years as an Air Force
officer. ( JPL Lab-Oratory, Sept. 67)
* NAA announced that Igor I. Sikorsky, popularly known as the father of the
helicopter, had been selected to receive the 1%7 Wright Brothers Me-
morial Trophy. Presentation would be made at the Dec. 14, 1967, annual
memorial dinner in Washington, D.C. (NAA Release)
NSF’S Office of Economic and Manpower Studies published report show-
ing independent nonprofit institutions employed more than three times
as many scientists and engineers in January 1965 as they did in January
1954. Scientific Activities of Nonprofit Institutions, 1964 said expendi-
tures for R&D performance in these institutions were a little more than
51/, times as much as in 1953, increasing the nonprofit sector’s share
of the Nation’s total R&D outlay from two percent in 1953 to three
percent in 1964. (Text)
0 More than two thirds of 1%’~ public intercity travel had been by air,
SpacelAeronautics reported. While long-haul air traffic demand would
be shifted to aircraft like the SST, the airlines would need to come up
with short-haul systems of equal caliber. Past studies, sponsored by
FAA, had revealed that V/STOLS, complex and costly to operate as they
are, would capture a substantial share of the short-haul market with
285