 Aeronautics, space exploration, research. A look back at this year in aeronautics and space and a preview of things to come. These are the highlights. Three Mariner spacecraft have flown by Mars in recent years. They were fleeting glimpses and the craft did not fly close to the mysterious red planet. 2,000 miles was the closest. On November 13th, Mariner 9 changed all that. As its breaking rocket fired, the picture taking Mariner swung into orbit around Mars, an orbit allowing the spacecraft to come within 850 miles of the surface. As it circles the planet twice a day, it will photograph and gather data for at least three months, mapping 70% of the planet's surface. The two small moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, will also be closely scrutinized. Mars appears to have gone or is going through some type of planetary evolution. The main question is whether it is an evolving planet or a decaying one. Mars is more Earth-like than any other planet. Its clouds, seasonal changes and polar ice caps are intriguing. As the Mariner 9 returns its vast accumulation of data and pictures, scientists will have their first close-up view and hopefully clues to the history and evolution of Mars, the Earth and the solar system. The Sun is roughly 10,000 times larger than Earth. Its very presence affects our daily lives. To learn more about this and about how it affects our environment, NASA orbited three unmanned scientific explorers. IMP, Interplanetary Monitoring Platform, was the first. The versatile IMP, 8th in a series, is exploring interplanetary space and the outer fringes of the Earth's magnetosphere. It also provides warnings of possible solar flare radiation hazards to moonbound astronauts. With the Naval Research Laboratory, NASA launched the Solrad satellite. It too studies the Sun's radiation and records the disturbances which can disrupt long-range communications and navigation systems. This computer-type picture shows the Sun's disk and inner corona. It was returned by OSO-7, the latest in the Orbiting Solar Observatory series. OSO is trying to determine the direct effects solar flares have on the environment, weather and communications. Earth is surrounded by the magnetosphere, an enormous teardrop-shaped region formed by the solar wind, a supersonic stream of particles blowing on the Earth's magnetic field. It is in this region that a craft like the small scientific satellite does its job. Its mission is to investigate the causes of worldwide magnetic disturbances and map in detail the ways in which the motion of these particles changes with time. Nearly 300 sounding rockets were launched from Wallops Island, Virginia in 1971. Their payloads are used to explore the region through and just above the Earth's atmosphere, but below the area where satellites orbit. Sounding rocket probes return an enormous amount of information about Earth and the atmosphere surrounding it. Interested scientists from all over the world bring their experiments to Wallops Island for launching. Stratoscope II, a large astronomical telescope, was hoisted into the sky by a giant balloon from the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. This was the eighth Stratoscope flight. Its goal obtained sharper pictures of certain galaxies, nebulae, and the planet Saturn above the distortion of the Earth's atmosphere. The four-ton telescope is so accurate it can distinguish two objects 30 miles apart from 1,000 miles away. Scientists will be working on the data returned by Stratoscope II for the next several months. NASA used planes like this in checking out cameras and sensing equipment to be carried on future Earth resources satellites and the manned orbiting Skylab Space Station. An interesting side benefit took place this summer as the specially equipped planes were used to detect southern corn blight during the 1971 growing season. High altitude infrared photos were taken and then analyzed by Purdue University and the Department of Agriculture. These photographs were used to determine the extent and degree of corn blight. At the request of the local government, survey missions were flown over the island of Jamaica. Much of the water from Jamaica's 200 inches of rainfall never reaches its cities. It is believed that submarine springs carry a portion of the water offshore into the ocean. This was indicated by the preliminary analysis. Here is one of a pair of high altitude aircraft converted for use in Earth resource surveys. They are operating from NASA's Ames Research Center near San Francisco. The data collected by these flights is being used to simulate future remote sensing Earth resources satellites, satellites that will be used to study agriculture, forestry, geology, oceanography and urban development. Test pilots at NASA's Flight Research Center in California flew a plane with a new type wing this year. Called the supercritical wing, it is shaped quite differently from conventional wings. The new design alters the flow of air over the top of the wing, allowing an aircraft to fly faster, farther and at a lower operating cost. This sleek black plane, the YF-12, capable of flying 2,000 miles per hour, made 25 test flights. The joint NASA Air Force program is studying problems associated with propulsion, in-flight stopping and restarting of engines, heating and structural dynamics. The research is aimed at furthering the development and operations of future civil and military aircraft. Eight times the M2 lifting body was carried aloft and dropped over the dry lake desert in central California. The wingless M2 and other lifting body types are the research forerunners of craft like the proposed shuttle that could fly a space mission and then return through the Earth's atmosphere and land like an airplane. A new flight program began at NASA's Ames Research Center with the X-14B vertical takeoff and landing plane. Equipped with an onboard digital computer, the X-14 serves as a flying flight simulator by duplicating in advance the piloting qualities of proposed new planes. The Ames Center is also responsible for doing research on short takeoff and landing aircraft. This is one of the planes used to test new concepts, the OV-10A Bronco. The United States is very interested in developing a short takeoff and landing plane for use as an intercity transport in the nation's busy metropolitan air corridors. In effort to reduce the noise of jet aircraft as they land, NASA with American Airlines spent 50 hours investigating the problems connected with steeper landing approaches. It appears that by keeping aircraft higher above the ground and reducing engine power during the landing approach, noise near airports can be lessened. Operational procedures for this type of noise abatement are being analyzed. Attacking the jet noise problem at its source, engineers at the Lewis Research Center in Cleveland are supervising tests of a quieter jet engine. The goal is to develop an engine that will be 15 to 20 decibels quieter than present aircraft engines. How long does it take jet aircraft to come to a stop on a wet runway? To find out, aeronautics experts from NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia, cooperating with Air Force and FAA officials, conducted a series of landing studies at several airports around the country. Time after time, runways were flooded with water. Then, ground vehicles and the test aircraft tried stopping on the wet pavements. The increased knowledge of runway friction gained from these tests should result in improved safety for both aircraft and airport ground operations in adverse weather conditions. The scene is Cape Canaveral, Friday, May 5, 1961. It was on this date that astronaut Alan B. Shepard became the first American to be rocketed into space. Later, January 31, 1971, Alan B. Shepard made his second space flight, this time as commander of Apollo 14, the country's third moon landing. With astronauts Mitchell and Rusa accompanying Shepard, Apollo 14 marked the beginning of large-scale use of the moon for science. These are some of the 94 pounds of lunar rocks returned from the moon's ancient hills of Framaro by Apollo 14. They are beginning to tell scientists a story, a story three and one-half billion years old. From them, we are learning about the early history of not only the moon, but other planets as well. The Earth, Mars, even Venus and Mercury. This is the view seen by Apollo 15 astronauts Scott and Irwin as their spacecraft Falcon arched over the Hadley Real, located in the foothills of the moon's Apennine Mountains. 8 feet minus one. Contact. The Falcon is on the plane at Hadley. This was to be the most extensive exploration of the moon ever made. To prepare for the July mission, Scott and Irwin practiced on similar Earth terrain at the Rio Grande Gorge in New Mexico. They also spent many hours getting used to the lunar rover. Here's what it actually looked like to the moonriders as they drove their four-wheel car over 16 miles of lunar surface. As a result of their increased mobility, the pair returned 180 pounds of lunar rocks and deep core samples. After liftoff and while in lunar orbit, the trio launched a small scientific satellite called the sub-satellite to study the area around the moon. As they headed Earthward, astronaut Al Worden climbed outside the spacecraft and retrieved film from a pair of mapping cameras. The scientific instruments left by Apollo 15 and the photographs and samples they returned are giving us a real understanding of the moon in relationship to the Earth and the Sun. They asked Mr. Dale Myers, NASA's director of manned spaceflight to give us a status report on Skylab, the United States first space station. This year has been a big year for Skylab. All of the hardware for the program is coming into focus. Our qualification programs are underway. The major elements of the Skylab system are in the final positions of manufacturing and checkout. Now, one of the more important things to me about Skylab is it gives us an opportunity to learn more about man's capability to work and live in space. 1971, a year of significant achievement in aeronautics and space. These have been the highlights. This special report brought to you by NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.