The film “NASA 1971 Aeronautics and Space Highlights” will take a brief look at the year of 1971 and its space and aeronautics achievements. It begins with footage of the moon’s surface (:10) and the Mariner mission to orbit Mars (:32). Mars’ surface is shown (:36) with Earth and the moon in the background. Three Mariner space crafts had flown about 2,000 miles from Mars’ surface (:38). On November 13th, the Mariner 9 was to come within 850 miles (:48). A cartoon depicts the planned orbit (1:05) and it will circle the planet twice daily while photographing and gathering data for three months (1:05). This mission would map 70% of the planet’s surface (1:11). One of Mars’ moons is seen (1:15). Mars seemed to have been going through or had already gone through some sort of evolution (1:23). The idea was to determine whether it was a decaying or evolving planet (1:27). At the Jet Propulsion Lab on the ground (1:39), information was collected and studied from this mission. The next section looks at Earth-Sun Satellites (1:56) which were created to get a better understanding of the sun. NASA sent out three unmanned scientific explorers (2:15). The first, the Inter-planetary Monitoring Platform (IMP), is seen taking off (2:21) to explore interplanetary space and the magnetosphere. SOLRAD was a satellite sent out to study the sun’s radiation and record disturbances (2:50). A computer type picture returned by OSO 7 shows the sun’s disk and inner corona (2:55). A diagram appears depicting the magnetosphere (3:17) in which small scientific satellites can operate (3:26). Nearly 300 sounding rockets had been launched from Wallops Island, Virginia in 1971 (3:48) and one is seen taking to the sky (3:56). These probes explored Earth’s atmosphere below where satellites orbited. Scientists from all over the globe travelled to Wallops Island to launch their own satellites (4:13). A giant balloon launches an astronomical telescope (4:26) from Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Arizona. This was the 8th stratoscope flight and the goal was to acquire photos of the galaxy Nebula and planet Saturn (4:35). The four-ton telescope is seen at (4:44). In the Earth Resources section (5:01) NASA used planes to check out the cameras and sensing equipment to be used for future resource satellites and the Skylab space station (5:13). These planes were also used in 1971 to detect southern corn blight (5:30). The high-altitude infrared photographs retrieved can be seen at (5:36). These photos were analyzed at Perdue University (5:38). Surveyed mission’s over Jamaica were enacted to understand why 200 inches of rainfall never made it to Jamaica’s cities (5:57). It was determined that submarine springs carried the water out to the ocean. One of the two high altitude aircraft that was converted to be used in the Earth Resources program is shown (6:13). A super critical wing is studied (6:44) in NASA’s Dryden research center in California (6:51). The Lockheed YF-12 flew at speeds up to 2,000 mph and was tested in 25 flights (7:07). A joint NASA and Air Force program studied the issues associated with propulsion (7:11). Over the desert in California a wingless M2 is dropped (7:44). The X-14 B (8:13) works as a flight simulator in the air. Research was conducted on the OV-10A Bronco for potential use in metropolitan corridors (8:26) at the Ames Research Center, as well as efforts to reduce noise of aircrafts as they landed (8:53). Tests of a quieter engine are conducted (9:24). For airport runway safety, at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia (9:54), Air Force and FAA officials studied crafts landing on wet runways (10:07). The data would help improve runway safety and knowledge on runway friction (10:19). Cape Canaveral on May 5th, 1961, Alan B. Shepard leads the US’s third landing on the Moon as the commander of Apollo 14 (11:10). Stuart Roosa and Edgar Mitchell (11:12) accompanied him and footage of the men on the moon’s surface follows (11:16). Some of the 94 lbs. of moon rock collected is inspected (11:34). A view from inside of Apollo 15 looking out at the foothills of the Moon’s Apenninus mountains (11:53) precedes their landing (12:15). Practice for this mission took place at the Rio Grande gorge (12:28) in New Mexico. They returned with 180 lbs. of lunar rock and core samples (12:59). They launched a sub satellite which studied the area around the moon (13:06). Dale Myer, NASA’s director of Manned Space Flight discusses Skylab’s progress (13:40). The End (14:36).

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com