(A&A, Feb 75, April 75; AIAA Releases 10-20 Feb 75; AIAA Bulletin, Aug 74; Fletcher speech, text)

26 February: Press briefings on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project were held at Johnson Space Center. ASTP participants would be conducting experiments in space sciences, life sciences, and applications, ASTP Project Scientist Dr. Thomas Giuli said at an experiments briefing. The five space-science experiments included a soft x-ray experiment to study radiation by scanning across the celestial mode, pointing at known discrete sources in the soft part of the spectrum from 2 kev to 0.1 kev, and investigating 10 specific x-ray sources known to emit only in regions below 2 kev. A helium-glow experiment would investigate temperature and density of the interstellar medium in the vicinity of our solar system by observing two special frequencies of extreme ultraviolet light emitted from the sun after they traveled into interstellar space, hit the interstellar medium, and were reflected back again. Other space-science experiments included a study of the sun's outer atmosphere during an artificial eclipse created by maneuvering the Apollo spacecraft. During the "eclipse," the Soyuz crew would photograph the sun's corona.

Among the earth environmental and applications studies was an experiment to measure neutral atomic oxygen and neutral atomic nitrogen of the earth's upper atmosphere. Another experiment would try to devise a simple means of monitoring the aerosol content of the earth's atmosphere. A water-resources management experiment, planned and coordinated with the government of India, would photograph the Himalayan area to map drainage patterns and waterreservoir locations.

Life-science experiments included a study to observe optical sensations from cosmic rays experienced by the crew, an investigation of mutation in cells grown in space, and studies of the effect of space flight on the ability of microbes to infect humans and of changes in the human immunity system to resist infections under space flight conditions.

At a mission profile briefing, Kenneth A. Young of JSC's Mission Planning and Analysis Div. said that plans called for a 9-day Apollo

mission beginning 7.5 hrs after the launch of Soyuz by the U.S.S.R. The planned rendezvous period would be 2 days, with docking scheduled for the 30th inertial orbit, or third day in flight, of the Apollo spacecraft. Following much negotiation, U.S. and Soviet mission planners determined that the two spacecraft would dock over Soviet territory, providing real-time telemetry coverage for the Soviet Union, but at a location where NASA's Ats 6 communications satellite could provide communications coverage to the U.S. The first handshake would take place over Spain.

The spacecraft would undock on the 5th day and perform several joint experiments while separated. Soyuz was scheduled to land the following day. Apollo would continue unilateral experiments in orbit before landing at the end of the 9th day in space.

Astronaut Richard H. Truly said, during a joint crew activities briefing, that while the Apollo and Soyuz were docked, all communications would be conducted in the language of the listener regardless of the nationality of the speaker. (Transcript)

⚫ Both the Soviet and U.S. Apollo-Soyuz Test Project crews had reached a level of language proficiency where "we can speak to each other," commander of the Soviet crew Aleksey A. Leonov said in an Izvestiya interview. Leonov said that the crews' first meeting had been "merely a glance" and "we wondered whether we would come to like each other." In preparing for the mission, the Soviets and the Americans had not only come to treat each other "as crew member to crew member" but had also developed a degree of comradeship. It would be impossible to work without this. In the event of some emergency, if “I have to carry him on my shoulders or he has to carry me, how could I do this unless I respect him and value him as a comrade? For we are virtually candidates of the whole world. Despite the difference of our social formations, despite the contradictions which have existed and continue to exist to this day, we have found points of contact.' (Kondrashov, Izvestiya, FBIS-Sov, 28 Feb 75, U1)

• NASA announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Zaire to build the first African ground station designed to receive earth-resources data from Landsat 1 (launched as Erts 1 23 July 1972) and Landsat 2 (launched 22 Jan.). Zaire's new station would produce both computer tapes and photographic imagery that would include data on the African continent from Chad to South Africa and from Kenya to the Ivory Coast. Currently, data from that area had been stored by onboard tape recorders for transmission to U.S. ground stations. (NASA Release 75-53)

28 February: The preliminary design review of Space Shuttle Orbiter 102 for the first manned orbital flight was completed on schedule. (NASA Gen Mgmt Rev Rpt, 17 March 75, 39)

• Energy Research and Development Administration announced the award of a $2 612 000 contract to Hughes Aircraft Co.'s Hughes Research Laboratories to develop a new mercury valve for use in highvoltage direct-current transmission. The liquid-metal plasma valve was a spinoff from a spacecraft ion engine developed by Hughes for NASA. The valve, a single-anode device that fired a vacuum arc on signal, would be used to convert between alternating current and direct current at the terminals of high-voltage direct-current transmission lines. (ERDA Release 75–25)

Soviet and French scientists had completed the "Araks" study of the earth's magnetically interlinked points, Izvestiya reported, by observing what happened when a bundle of electrons was artificially injected into the magnetosphere. French Eridan sounding rocketsequipped with electron accelerators, plasma generators, and instruments for measuring and recording wave radiation and particle streams were launched on 26 Jan. and 15 Feb. 1975 from Kerguelen Island. During the ascent the accelerator emitted electron impluses at various angles to the line of magnetic force while the plasma generator emitted a stream of cesium plasma to compensate for the positive charge of the rocket.

At the same time Soviet and French specialists in Arkhangelsk Oblast made optical observations using supersensitive TV installations, photometers, and electron optical-image intensifiers. Radar and radio spectrographs in Kostroma and Vologda Oblasts observed the dispersal of radio waves and radio emission in the area where the electrons penetrated the dense strata of the atmosphere.

From the Araks data, scientists hoped to determine the true position of the magnetically interlinked spot and to learn more of the interaction between the electron bundle and its medium. (Izvestiya, FBIS-Sov., 13 March 75, E2)

Aerodynamically designed wind-flow aids could reduce wind resistance to tractor-trailer trucks by up to 24%, NASA announced. In a series of tests conducted in 1974 at Flight Research Center, NASA and the Department of Transportation evaluated performance gains of a 15-m trailer outfitted with five different commercially available dragreduction devices and two different trailer-cab spacings. The tests had been conducted without and then with the devices, at speeds from 45 to 30 km per hour, to evaluate changes in fuel economy resulting from reductions in air drag. (NASA Release 75-39) During February: NASA biochemist B. C. Walverton began planting large quantities of water hyacinths as part of a study to determine the plant's ability to absorb and concentrate toxic metals and to metabolize various other chemical pollutants. Scientists at NASA's National Space Technology Laboratories had been experimenting since 1971 with vascular aquatic plants, which are equipped with a system of vessels to carry nourishment from the roots to the leaves. Results of the experiments were so promising that NASA, in cooperation with Mississippi state officials and the city of Bay St. Louis, had installed a special system using water hyacinths as a final filtration to remove. nitrates, phosphates, and other chemical pollutants from the 245-sqkm Bay St. Louis, Miss. sewage lagoon. The water hyacinths would be harvested and analyzed to determine the amounts and kinds of impurities assimilated; saturated plants would then be recycled, using one of two methods being developed by NASA, into a mixed hydrocarbon fuel similar to natural gas. (NASA Release 74-332)

March 1975

1 March: A Baltimore Sun editorial discussed "Distorted Priorities in the R&D Budget." The President's R&D budget for FY 1976 had little chance of passage in its existing form because of the hostility of much of the 98th Congress to some of its proposals. Defense-related R&D would be reduced, the energy proposals would be juggled to give more to solar and geothermal energy, and the proposed large cuts in biomedical research would be restored.

Congress might be more sympathetic to NASA. Once seen by congressional critics as a quasi-military organization or at least "a space circus that siphoned dollars away from more pressing needs,' NASA was "beginning to prove itself a valuable scientific tool" in such valuable areas as environmental monitoring. That the Office of Management and Budget had not, as once threatened, scrapped funds for the Landsat-C satellite "may reflect an effort to make NASA more attractive by further pushing the agency into the areas that have gained humanist and environmentalist approval." (BSun, 1 March 75, A18) 2-7 March: A meeting at Goddard Space Flight Center of U.S. and U.S.S.R. officials to discuss a cooperative meteorology program recommended that in May-July 1976 each country, within a single 27day solar rotation, launch two series of sounding rockets-one under quiet magnetic conditions, the other under disturbed magnetic conditions. In 1977 the two countries should hold a rocket-data comparison test in the vicinity of Wallops Island, Va. Both countries should launch more meteorological rockets during atmospheric warming periods. In 1976-1978 both countries should research radiation transfer as a factor in temperature sensing from satellites. From 1975-1978 joint remote-sensing experiments using microwave were proposed, along with exchange of information on frequencies and data format to be used with direct-broadcast equipment. (NASA Gen Mgmt Rev Rpt, 17 March 75)

3 March: NASA's Remotely Piloted Research Vehicle (RPRV) was being equipped with landing gear to enable it to land under control of a pilot on the ground, Flight Research Center announced. Previously helicopters and parachutes had been used in midair recovery of the vehicles.

Developed by. FRC, the RPRV-a scale-model airplane up to 9 m long-was an economical and safe way to test advanced aircraft. After air launch of the RPRV, a test pilot in a ground-based cockpit used flight controls and instruments to "fly" the RPRV through maneuvers, while a camera provided visual information. First application of the landing gear would be for a spin test of a 3/8-scale model of the Air Force F-15 fighter. (FRC Release 3-75)

• In NASA's 5-10 yr Global Air Sampling Program (GASP), a second instrumented Boeing 747 jumbo aircraft began sampling flights