this special aeronautics and space
report brought to you by NASA Mariner
maps entire Martian surface pioneer
halfway to Jupiter surveying our earth's
resources new advances in aeronautics
and the last two Apollo flights to the
moon 1972 a year of significant
achievement these are the highlights
the mysterious red planet Mars is not
nearly as puzzling as it used to be
thanks to this spacecraft Mariner 9
Mariner 9 orbited Mars continuously for
more than half a Martian year probing
sensing and photographing as the seasons
changed below these are some of the
things we've learned Mars has been
geologically active with volcanic
mountains there are indications that
free flowing water may have existed
sometime in past Martian history
observed from above were huge impact
craters and windblown dunes the more
than seven thousand pictures returned by
Mariner have enabled scientists to map
the entire Martian surface and pinpoint
landing sites for the unmanned Vikings
scheduled to soft land there in 1976
Jupiter a thousand times larger than
Earth distinguished by glowing yellow
orange and blue gray stripes it appears
to have its own internal energy source
and is so massive that it is almost a
small star we launched a spacecraft
toward Jupiter called pioneer 10 it's
still a quarter of a billion miles away
from this largest planet in our solar
system as it flies by jupiter in late
1973 its cameras and sensors will return
the first pictures and data ever
recorded at such a close range
this is what the orbiting astronomical
observatory named Copernicus looked like
before it was launched last August
equipped with sensitive precision
instruments including a 32 inch diameter
telescope this heaviest of our unmanned
spacecraft is studying stars and
galaxies to gain a better understanding
of how they evolve and eventually die
now in orbit above the Earth's
distorting atmosphere Copernicus has a
clear view of the stars and is returning
important new information to astronomers
every day in cooperation with the
Italian government NASA orbited another
in the Explorer series of spacecraft the
small astronomy satellite was launched
from a platform in the Indian Ocean to
study Earth's Sun interactions and
especially search for gamma-ray sources
84 sounding rockets were launched from
NASA's Wallops Island stationed in
virginia and other sites with payloads
to study phenomena affecting the Earth's
atmosphere these small relatively
inexpensive rockets are telling us a lot
about near-earth space below the region
where satellites orbit
a comprehensive program to study and
make better use of our earth's resources
is in full swing high altitude planes
and the new earth resources technology
satellite are returning thousands of
high quality pictures of the earth as a
result scientists hope to better
understand our planet its forests crops
geology and pollution a new Nimbus
research and development weather
satellite is taking the first vertical
temperature readings from space through
clouds it is also monitoring a
mysterious disappearing current off the
west coast of South America and
thermally mapping the Earth's surface so
geologists can better understand what's
happening below the crust to commercial
communication satellites were launched
for the communication satellite
corporation adding new telephone and
television channels both crafts become
part of the global communications
satellite network the a in NASA's stands
for Aeronautics with a wide range of
projects underway for example this
airplane is equipped with a digital
computer that was developed for the
flight control system of the Apollo
lunar lander its use in planes of the
future should make air travel smoother
and safer
many aeronautical problems are studied
in massive wind tunnels without having
to test full-sized planes engineers can
for instance test a tale or wing section
to destruction knowing in advance where
structural weaknesses are makes it
possible to design out many problems
before the first plane is manufactured
to help relieve airport congestion
NASA's test flying short takeoff and
landing planes like this one stole
planes as they are called need very
little runway to either take off or land
and may play an important role in
providing convenient short haul
intercity transportation research is
continuing to make presently operating
commercial jet aircraft engines quieter
and also to develop the technology for a
new quieter engine less noisy takeoff
and landing procedures are another area
of study much of this work is being done
by NASA's Lewis Research Center in
Cleveland and the Ames Research Center
near San Francisco 14 times the wingless
m2 lifting body was dropped over a dry
lake desert near the Flight Research
Center in California craft like the m2
are forerunners of the reusable space
shuttle that will fly a space mission
then returned to Earth landing like an
airplane
during his visit to Russia President
Nixon signed an agreement with chairman
Kosygin of the USSR to conduct an earth
orbital rendezvous and docking in 1975
between a u.s. and a Russian spacecraft
engineers from both countries have
already begun working out the details of
the mission to help pave the way for the
longest Skylab mission next year
astronauts Crippen Thornton and Bob co
spent 56 days locked in a 20 foot long
altitude chamber at the manned
spacecraft Center Houston the purpose
was to collect medical data which can be
compared with that collected from the
real Skylab flights Skylab crew training
and spacecraft assembly and testing is
also well underway Skylab will be this
country's first space station it will be
used as a platform to study the Sun the
earth and man himself
Apollo 16 with astronauts young
Mattingly in Duke and Apollo 17 with
astronauts Cernan Evans and Schmidt
marked the fifth and sixth times
americans landed on the moon these two
flights also concluded the Apollo
program but as astronaut Eugene Cernan
said before Apollo 17 it's not the end
but the beginning
you
this special report brought to you by
nasa the national aeronautics and space
administration