November 1975

1 November: A newly discovered dwarf galaxy called Snickers, 55 000 light years from the sun, and nearest neighbor to the Milky Way yet found, could lead to more accurate estimates of the size of earth's galaxy. Announcing his find in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, Dr. S. Christian Simonson of the U. of Md. said the new galaxy had been hidden from earth view by dense star fields and cosmic dust clouds. Spots of hydrogen gas detected on radioastronomy maps were the clue that led to the discovery, first to be made solely through radiotelescope observations of hydrogen gas. Until now, the Magellanic Clouds-twin galaxies about 205 000 light years away-had been considered the galaxies nearest to the Milky Way. Dr. Simonson's new galaxy had been christened Snickers by his colleagues, who said "it was like the Milky Way, only peanuts." (B Sun, 2 Nov 75, A23) 2 November: Efforts to charge batteries on the Viking 2 lander failed for unknown reasons, but controllers at Jet Propulsion Laboratory were confident that time would allow them to solve the problem. Both Viking 1 and 2 were launched with their lander batteries essentially uncharged to prolong their lives; the batteries aboard the Viking 1 lander were charged without difficulty 2 wk ago, and the same procedure had been scheduled for Viking 2. The spacecraft carried a backup as well as a prime battery charger, but NASA had not attempted to use it in case the problem had originated outside the charger system. Use of the backup before the problem had been identified might have damaged it as well as the prime charger. Viking 2, originally scheduled to be launched first, had been pulled back for repair after its orbiter batteries had been accidentally drained; officials said there was no connection between prelaunch orbiter problems and the lander situation. (NASA Release 75-288; Aero Daily, 4 Dec 75, 10; SBD, 4 Nov 75, 16)

• Marshall Space Flight Center forwarded the experimental payload for the first launch of NASA's Space Processing Applications Rocket (SPAR) project to Goddard Space Flight Center, where the payload. would be integrated with its launcher, a Black Brant sounding rocket. The integrated unit would undergo checkout before being sent to N. Mex. for firing by White Sands Missile Range early in Dec. The payload consisted of nine scientific experiments on processing materials in near-weightlessness. After the first launch, three flights per year carrying similar payloads had been planned through 1980. All payloads were to be recovered by parachute for ground analysis. The lowcost SPAR missions would provide data on space processing until Space Shuttle flights began in the early 1980s. (MSFC Release 75-233) 4 November: Inflation and procurement reforms had hiked NASA's charge for a Delta launch by about 20% for the average customer, Aerospace Daily said. Prospective users 2 yr ago had been quoted less than $10 million per launch; current cost had risen to $11-12 million, and those wanting 1978 launches had been quoted $13-14 million. The Delta

had been the NASA launcher most in demand because of its size and price, most widely applicable among government and commercial users; the Kennedy Space Center, capable of one launch every 5 wk, had been booked solid for the foreseeable future. NASA had been renegotiating payment schedules, but no launch schedules had been changed except for technical reasons not related to cost. (Aero Daily, 4 Nov 75, 11)

Largest of U.S. air carriers, United Airlines, and All Nippon Airways of Japan-one of the 10 largest airlines in the world-supported NASA's 10-yr program to reduce aircraft fuel use. Testifying before the Senate Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee, executives of both companies said the airlines needed the improved technology but did not have the financial ability to conduct the research, estimated to cost $490 to $670 million. A spokesman for the Federal Energy Administration said more analysis was needed before Congress decided to fund the NASA program; the airlines should consider less expensive ways of conserving fuel, such as operating at higher load factors. (Transcript, 256, 271, 299)

Soviet polar station Severny Polyus-22 had been scheduled to get a companion, a Moscow Tass broadcast reported. Drifting on an ice floe in the Arctic for the past 3 yr, the station's scientists had made about 200 scientific landings on the ice since last spring to observe the ice, the ocean, and the atmosphere. Another ice floe in the area of the "inaccessibility pole" was to receive station Severny Polyus-23, and the first deliveries of prefab houses and stocks of fuel and food had already been made by air. Scientists were to arrive at the new station in a few days. The high-latitude expedition, called Sever-27, was described as the biggest in the history of Arctic exploration, aimed at a comprehensive survey of the Arctic Ocean between the coasts of the U.S.S.R., Canada, and Greenland; about 50 scientists had participated. Work had also been done under an international program called Polex, to photograph the bottom of the Arctic Ocean and to study the lower surface of the polar ice cap. (FBIS No 214, 4 Nov 75) 4-5 November: A study called "Outlook for Aeronautics," on probable aeronautical progress during the next 25 yrs, had forecast development of a Concorde II supersonic transport and an entirely new second-generation SST, NASA witnesses told the House Subcommittee on Aviation and Transportation R&D. The hearing was first of a series called to get an early start on H.R. 11573, NASA's FY 1977 budget authorization. Earliest dates of introduction for the Concorde II and advanced SST had been set at 1985 and 1995 respectively. Recent NASA technology work on the advanced SST included an anticipated engine-noise breakthrough based on noise-suppressor research, as well as on changes in engines and aircraft configurations. (Transcript, Vol. II Part 1: 9, 67, 117)

5 November: "Clear and immediate benefits to society" that NASA could produce would justify a 25% increase in its budget, said Rep. Don Fuqua (D-Fla.), chairman of the House subcommittee on Space Science and Applications, urging the space agency to come up with plans for such a program. Noting that the Administration had been considering across-the-board cuts in the Federal budget, Rep. Fuqua said the President and the Office of Management and Budget should reconsider the NASA cuts, as returns from the space program should give it higher priority than nonproducing areas of the budget.

The subcommittee's three-volume report, "Future Space Programs," called for new space systems for educational and medical services, and for new earth-survey satellites to provide maritime, agricultural, geological, and demographic data. The report stressed that the agency should offer both short-term and long-term plans. The latter should include plans for lunar bases, orbital colonies, extraterrestrial communications, planetary and stellar exploration, satellite solar power, and disposal of nuclear waste.

Chairman Olin E. Teague (D-Tex.) of the House Committee on Science and Technology endorsed the subcommittee report, which he said contained "sensible recommendations," noting particularly the concept of space-based generation of electrical power. Growth of the nation, said Teague, "is fundamentally dependent upon our continuing its number one ranking in science and technology." (W Post, 6 Nov 75, A10; NYT, 6 Nov 75, 51; SBD, 6 Nov 75, 28-30) • HASPA-the Navy's high-altitude superpressured powered aerostatfailed to reach its predicted altitude when the balloon-inflation mechanism malfunctioned. When fully extended, HASPA had measured 101.5 m long and 20.4 m in diameter. The launch at Kennedy Space Center had been planned as a 3- to 5-hr flight; during launch, the mylar container was inflated with the helium contained in the upper third and restrained there by a collar that would drop away to give the gas room to expand with altitude. The mechanism failed and the balloon inverted at 11.26 km, releasing the helium through a vent in the nose of the balloon, which impacted at KSC a half hour after launch. HASPA had been designed to function as a low-level satellite for a variety of payloads. (Spaceport News, 14 Nov 75; ETR PIO, interview, 5 Nov 75)

6 November: NASA had awarded a $2 548 265 contract amendment to Aeronutronic Ford Corp. of Houston for operation of the Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center. The amendment to a contract originally awarded in 1963 called for additional labor and materials that would bring the value of the contract to $267 710 123. The work would employ 513 persons at the three AFC facilities in Houston, and in Penn. and Calif. (JSC Release 75-94)

• Workmen on the largest building in the world using solar energy for heating and cooling had doubted that the system would work, until they turned on a water hose, said Dr. Robert San Martin of the Energy Institute at N. Mex. State Univ. When the time came to put the collectors on the roof, the foreman told the crew to run water through them with a garden hose; the workmen forgot that the collectors had been in the sun and were quite hot. "When they ran the water through, violent steam came shooting out the other end," said Dr. Martin. "At that moment they were convinced."

The one-story building, a facility for the N. Mex. Dept. of Agriculture, would use 330 units mounted on its roof as a solar collector. Fluid circulated through the collectors heated by the sun would provide 80% of the heating and cooling of the 2349-sq-m structure. Biggest test would be use of solar energy for cooling, relatively untried as yet. (NYT, 6 Nov 75, 34)

• Harnessing nuclear fusion reactions to generate electricity on earth moved a step nearer reality when scientists at the Mass. Inst. of Technology reported achieving a fivefold improvement in the confinement of hydrogen in a magnetic container where it could be heated and com

pressed to the point of fusion. A test reactor at MIT called Alcator had successfully raised the magnetic field containing the hot plasma to 75 000 gauss, about 150 000 times the strength of earth's magnetic field at the equator; this, said Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., Administrator of the Energy Research and Development Administration, "exceeds by a factor of five anything previously achieved anywhere in the world."

The Soviet Union in the 1960s had developed toroidal (doughnutshaped) machines called Tokamaks that produced better temperature, containment time, and particle density in combination than anything before; a similar machine built in France had achieved a figure of 2 trillion for the density-multiplied-by-containment-time, at a temperature of 20 million C. MIT's Alcator had achieved 10 trillion, at a temperature of 10 million°C. ERDA officials and university scientists noted that the plasma confinement would have to be another 10 times as effective, at temperatures 10 times higher, than those of the Alcator experiments before fusion could be achieved artificially in the laboratory. Although the U.S. had begun a program to build the first fusion-power plant by the end of this century, the economy of this new power source would remain doubtful in spite of the availability of cheap fuel from the ocean: The costs of such plants had been estimated at billions of dollars each. (NYT, 6 Nov 75, 27; CSM, 6 Nov 75, 1; B Sun, 6 Nov 75, Al)

The Aerospace Industries Association called on NASA to abide by government policy that relied on the private sector for goods and services, charging that increasing in-house activity by the government had been detrimental to the economics of the private sector. Karl G. Harr, president of AIA, told the House Subcommittee on Aviation & Transportation R&D during hearings on H.R. 11573 that a proper partnership between NASA and the aerospace industry should be maintained, and warned of the prospect that the government might move to "increase its share of that partnership." Involvement of government in postresearch activities such as prototype development "threatens to weaken our private technological base," Harr said. "We do not feel that NASA and other government agencies should both identify the needs and pursue the solutions on their own." Commending NASA for its 10-yr aircraft fuel-reduction program, Harr said the program was "an ideal opportunity to develop the government-industry team into its most efficient and cost-effective form." (Transcript, Vol II Part I, 149 ff)

9 November: All four batteries on the Viking 2 lander had been fully charged, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory reported. The problem had been solved by using a backup charger system carried on the orbiter after the primary system failed earlier [see 2 Nov.]. Recharging took about 24 hr per battery. The voltage had to be replenished before the spacecraft entered Mars orbit and before the lander separated from the orbiter. The difficulty with the lander's primary charger had been traced to failure of one of four resistors in the circuitry. To prevent unforeseen problems with the backup charger, Viking project officials had decided to keep at least one of the batteries charged throughout the remainder of cruise flight, to ensure activation of the switch shifting the lander from its solar-panel power to that from radioisotope thermoelectric generators. The two RTGS had not been used for primary power during flight to avoid thermal

problems from the heat given off by the units. (LA Times, 6 Nov 75, 1; Av Wk, 10 Nov 75, 6; SBD, 12 Nov 75, 64; Langley Researcher, 14 Nov 75, 1)

⚫ States from New England to California had joined the competition to be selected as the site of a proposed Federal Solar Energy Research Institute that might be spending up to $50 million annually within 3 yr after its establishment. Competition had begun even before issuance of formal criteria describing the center's mission and needs, expected later in November. A report on the center by a special committee of the National Research Council-an agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering-had forecast a staff of about 800 professionals and 800 support people. The committee had recommended a single institute administered by a nonprofit corporation, like those that govern many other large national laboratories; geographical location had not been considered as important as "intellectual atmosphere, technical suppliers and availability of services for a substantial laboratory." Issuance of criteria by the Energy Research and Development Administration would call for proposals early next year, with site to be chosen in April or May 1976 by Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., Administrator of ERDA.

Among those already in competition were the state of N. Mex., which had put a proposal for the solar center in Feb. 1975 when ERDA was a month old; a consortium of universities and industries on Long Island, N.Y.; the governors of six New England states, sitting as the New England Regional Commission, who voted to "work as a regional force" to get the center for New England; and the state of N.Y., which had designated a coordinator to work on getting the center, including "assembling the necessary real estate" from various areas of the state. (NYT, 9 Nov 75, 33)

10 November: Marshall Space Flight Center had awarded contracts worth $500 000 each to Martin Marietta's Denver Division and to TRW Systems Group, to define the Spacelab payload called AMPS (atmospheric, magnetospheric, and plasmas in space). The definition studies would emphasize flexibility, low cost, and an evolutionary approach to environmental research.

One of the first payloads considered for Spacelab, AMPS had been conceived as a manned orbiting scientific laboratory to study the nearspace environment of earth and the effects on it of changes in incident solar energy and of emissions from earth. Instrumentation would include a laser beam to define the composition of the various constituents of earth's atmosphere. Missions would last from 7 to 30 days, with extensive involvement of the scientist crews in conducting the experiments. (MSFC Release 75-239; SBD, 20 Nov 75, 108) • The U.S. space program was an adventure whose potential benefits were undefinable and incalculable, NASA Administrator Dr. James C. Fletcher told the National Academy of Engineering. Speaking on the "Outlook for the Space Program," Dr. Fletcher noted that the public and the Congress were "now" oriented, and that concentration on immediate benefits might jeopardize "the vast potential" of the national space program. Admitting that "NASA's present actions seem to speak louder than its words," in that its money had been spent on current needs rather than on tomorrow's goals, Dr. Fletcher said this did not result from lack of vision but from "accommodation with