ance consortiums now assure liabilities up to $25 million. He outlined the need for partnership with insurance consultants and the international underwriting community, with close liaison with the insurance industry early in the game. His paper was an indication of the increasing interest of the business community in space programs. SPS, he said, is an enormous project. Its deployment will require billions of dollars, so some self-insurance will be necessary, as was the case with INTELSAT until recently. He pointed out that there is a high degree of precedence for a consortium of underwriting companies, but SPS is such a costly project that it exceeds present insurance capabilities. The session on Energy Conversion and Transfer was chaired by Dr. Rolf Buhler (FRG) and A. Jaumotte (Belgium). It heard three excellent papers on microwave studies and a paper on “Power Generation from Laser Produced Plasma,” all by Japanese, and a paper on transmitting power from orbit to Earth via /z-meson beam by Dr. J. Cacheux of CNES (France). There were no American papers on these important subjects. The session on structural technology for large space structures was chaired by J.F. Garibotti (USA) and A.V. Gvamichava (USSR). It heard seven papers, an overview by H.G. Bush and W.L. Heard, Jr., of NASA Langley Research Center; “The Structural Feasibility of a Gravity-Stabilized Antenna” by T. Yasaka (Japan); “The Thermal Deflections of Some Large Space Structures” by C. Arduini of Rome; “Effects of Surface Errors in Large Deployable Antennas on Gain, Sidelobes and RF Sensing” by A.R. Raab and K.K. Chan of SPAR Aerospace Products, Ltd., Montreal; “Method of Packaging and Deployment of Large Membranes in Space” by K. Miura, University of Tokyo; “Elastic Wave Propagation in Large Periodic Structures” by A. Agneni, F. Graziani and S. Sgubini of Rome; and "A Technology Development Program for Large Space Antennas” by R.A. Russell, T.G. Campbell and D.M. Smith of NASA Langley Research Center and R.E. Freeland of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. The session on Fabrication and Assembly of Large Space Structures took place Saturday morning, the last day of the Congress. It, too, was chaired by Drs. Garibotti and Gvamichava. The first paper, “Space Fabrication — The Key to Future Large Space Systems” by M. Savage and T. Hagler of NASA Hq., Washington, DC, was presented by Ellis Katz of Rockwell International, Downey, California. It described Grumman’s beam builder and its application and warned that as there is usually a 4 to 6 year lead time in the building of any large structures, the time to start demonstrating the feasibility of a large structure in space is now. T. Tadakawa and M. Saito of the Tsukuba Space Center, NASDA, Japan, presented an excellent paper on “Construction of a Geostationary Space Platform (GSP) Using a Rendezvous Docking Technique.” “Construction and Assembly of Large Space Structures,” by J. W. Mar, R. H. Miller, and M. L. Bowden of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was presented by J. W. Mar. It explained how space construction could be simulated under water. Mary Bowden then narrated a fascinating film showing assembly of a complex beam structure by personnel in space suits in a neutral buoyancy tank (like a large swimming pool) at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. The film also illustrated problems of moving small masses during the 20-30 sec of weightlessness produced in an aircraft flying controlled parabolas. Results of these experiments are very positive for the success of assembling structures in space. “The Role of Man in the Space Construction of Large Structures” by E. Katz and J. Roebuck of Rockwell International, Downey, California, was significant because
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