ALBERT

Description: Elliptic capture orbits around Mars and Venus have often been considered as means for reducing arrival and departure energy requirements for two-way missions. It had also generally been feared that the energy savings obtained by capturing a spacecraft into a highly elliptical orbit (rather than a near circular orbit of the same periapsis) would largely be offset by the penalties incurred in aligning the semi-major axis of the ellipse in such a way as to obtain the proper orientation of the departure hyperbola. This paper, presents the results of an analysis which takes into consideration the penalties arising from the requirement to match the orientation of the elliptical orbit with the asymptote of the departure hyperbola. The scientific aspects of elliptical orbits around the target planet are discussed, and it is shown that such orbits exhibit characteristics which may be considered advantageous or disadvantageous depending on the purpose of the mission. Alignment of ' the semi-major axis of the capture, ellipse relative to the, asymptote of the escape hyperbola was found not to be a critical requirement since the kinetic energy remains high over a substantial portion of the elliptical capture orbit. This 'means that the escape stage can operate efficiently even when ignited at some angle from the true periapsis point. Considerable freedom in choosing this angle is available at little propulsive cost. The resulting latitude in the choice of angles between arrival and escape asymptotes makes it possible to consider a wide variety of interplanetary transfers and planetary staytimes without the need for separate propulsive maneuvers to realign the capture ellipse before departure., Special consideration has also been g1ven to plane change maneuvers around the planet. These may be required for reasons of orbit dynamics or scientific experimentation and are not uniquely tied to elliptical captures. The sensitivity of the mass of the excursion module to the eccentricity of the capture orbit is discussed and mass-penalty diagrams are presented. It is shown that these penalties do not materially offset the large gains obtained through the use of the elliptical capture mode.

Description: Mass dependence of behavior of stellar core undergoing gravitational collapse examined, using improved equation of state and mean free path for energy transfer

Description: Vapor pressure of natural tektite melts at high temperatures determined by boiling point technique, applied to aerodynamic analysis

Description: Vapor pressure of natural tektite melts at high temperatures determined by boiling point technique, applied to aerodynamic analysis

Description: The Integrated Life Support System was conceived to study the problems of integrating regenerative equipment designed to operate in a negligible gravitational field. It is the first to fully integrate the three major contributors to atmospheric contamination: man, machine, and materials.

Description: This publication is a collection of articles, papers, talks, and reports generated by the scientific and engineering staff of Goddard Space Flight Center in the year 1964. Many of these articles were originally published in scientific or engineering Journals or as official NASA technical publications, while other are documents of a more informal nature. All are reprinted here as nearly verbatim as typography and format will permit. These articles are grouped into broad subject categories, but no detailed subdivision has been made. Within each category, the articles are arranged alphabetically by author. An overall author index is given in the back of the volume. The years 1963, 1964, and 1965 are being published as whole-year issues, and the resulting size dictates the use of two volumes; the first volume is titled Space Sciences, and the second Space Technology. It is anticipated, however, that future issues will be quarterly single volumes.

Description: One of the most important and probably the most interesting phase of a manned lunar mission will be the time the astronauts spend outside their vehicle on the moon's surface taking scientific measurements, exploring the surface features, surveying possible sites for a lunar base, inspecting their vehicle and preparing it for their return trip. Because the lunar gravity is only one-sixth that of the earth gravity, the explorers undoubtedly will have to adjust their accustomed methods of walking, climbing, jumping and performing other self-locomotive activities in order to carry out these various tasks. In as much as the over-all success of the lunar mission will depend to a large extent upon the self-reliance of the explorers, it will be necessary to have extensive knowledge of the effects of the moon's reduced gravity on the physical capabilities of man and of man's ability to adopt to the new environment prior to the planning and execution of the mission. At the present time there is a dearth of information on this subject due primarily to the lack of a practical technique for simulating the reduced gravity. Several techniques such as immersion in water and riding in an airplane flying a Keplerian trajectory have been used for zero-g or weightlessness studies to determine the physical capabilities of man but these techniques are limited in their usefulness either by restrictions imposed by the viscous effect of the water or by the short duration and small test area available in an airplane. Consequently, an effort was made at the NASA Langley Research Center to devise a new technique that would provide a realistic simlation of a reduced gravity for unlimited periods of time and allow freedom of movement over considerable distances. This paper concerns itself with a discussion of the newly developed simulation technique and a presentation of some preliminary results which were obtained utilizing a working model based on this scheme.

Description: The space probe Pioneer V was launched March 11, 1960, into an orbit around the sun and inside the orbit of earth. The scientific apparatus included instruments identical with the University of Chicago apparatus used on Explorer VI [Fan, Meyer, and Simpson, 1960b], namely, energetic particle detectors which measure fluxes of protons with energies greater than 75 Mev, electrons with energies greater than 15 Mev, and the bremsstrahlung from electrons and y rays of lower energy. Simultaneously with the measurements in Pioneer V a series of four neutron monitor piles were recording the changes in cosmic radiation intensity at the earth. We report here on some preliminary results obtained from the Chicago experiments during the time within which Pioneer V traveled to a distance of approximately 8 x 10 km from earth. Beginning on March 20, solar activity rapidly increased with many solar flares, radio noise bursts, etc., over a period of 10 days. Most of our results relate to this period. The preliminary data are given in Figures 1 and 2.