The 1970s Science and Technology: Topics in the News

SPACE: FINAL MOON MISSIONS, THE FIRST SPACE STATION, AND DISASTERS

Perhaps the best symbol of American faith in science during the 1970s was the excitement surrounding the exploration of space. Millions of Americans (and millions more around the world) had watched the first Moon walks on television in 1969 with amazement. Within just a few years, however, what once had amazed began to seem routine. The space program, especially the Moon landings early in the decade, seemed to symbolize the strength of the United States and its unlimited technical and scientific capabilities. Regular and precise, the program quickly eased its way into American culture. Products first developed for the astronauts soon became available to the general public. Tang, a popular orange-flavored drink, was originally "the breakfast of astronauts." Food Sticks, a sweet, chewy snack, and Actifed, a nasal decongestant, were advertised as having been taken on Apollo flights.

In 1971 and 1972, there were two moon or lunar landings a year, each nearly identical to the others. The landings combined both public relations and hard science. Launched in early 1971, the Apollo 14 mission (Apollo was the lunar-landing program) included astronaut Alan Shepard hitting a golf ball on the Moon. On the next Apollo mission, astronaut David Scott demonstrated the effects of zero atmosphere by dropping a hammer and a feather at the same time. Astronaut James Irwin kept the camera rolling as both struck the Moon's surface at the same time. Though lighthearted, these "experiments" confirmed scientific theories. On a more serious note, each lunar mission brought back bigger bags of Moon rocks, which enabled scientists to learn more about the composition of the Moon. The metallic composition of the lunar surface turned out to be significantly different from Earth's, encouraging fresh speculation about the origins of the two bodies.

The driving force behind the passion for space exploration was the cold war, a period of political tension between the former Soviet Union and the United States. Ever since the Soviet unmanned satellite Sputnik I had beaten the Americans into space in 1957, the "space race " had been on. Each side was concerned about the potential military advantage the other might gain through superiority in space. Early in the 1970s, it appeared the American advantage was in Moon landings, while the Soviets excelled in extended stays in space.

To counter that supposed Soviet superiority, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the first U.S. space station, Skylab, in May 1973. The station was designed for astronomical observation and studies on the effects of weightlessness. NASA scientists also hoped the station could provide a permanent human presence in space. During its six years of operation, a total of nine astronauts on three separate missions spent twenty-eight, fifty-nine, and eighty-four days aboard Skylab, setting new space endurance records.

The cold war thawed briefly in the summer of 1975 when Apollo and Soyuz (the Soviet equivalent of the Apollo program) modules met and docked in space. Many thought the docking of the two nations' spacecrafts would soon lead to future international space stations, but that would not occur for another two decades. After two days of joint scientific experiments, the two spacecraft parted and returned to Earth, concluding the final Apollo mission.

Creation of the Silicon Chip

The computers of the early 1960s were mammoth machines, requiring entire rooms to house them. They were also so expensive that only large organizations and the government could afford them. Later, minicomputers were produced, which were more attractive to businesses and researchers in size and cost. The breakthrough that made the personal microcomputer possible came in 1971, when Theodore Hoff of Intel squeezed 2,300 transistors onto a thin chip of silicon, creating the microprocessor chip. This history-changing achievement converted much of the power of the bulky mainframe into a small chip that could be held in the palm of the hand.

The excitement surrounding the space program that marked the beginning of the 1970s soon faded as Americans confronted more pressing social issues: health, education, poverty, crime, and drug control. Disasters also struck the space program. In 1967, three astronauts had died on the launch pad when fire swept through the cabin of the Apollo 1 spacecraft. Three years later, three astronauts on the way to the Moon in Apollo 13 were almost stranded in space when the oxygen tanks on the spacecraft blew up and emptied. Using the lunar module as a lifeboat, the astronauts headed back to Earth. To conserve oxygen and electricity, they lowered the temperature inside the module to 38°F. Even so, the astronauts barely made it back to Earth before their limited oxygen supply was depleted.

These accidents (and mishaps suffered by the Soviet space program) raised public concern about the progress of space flight. When Skylab fell from the sky in 1979, that concern turned to scorn. In June of that year, NASA announced the $2.6 billion space station was in a decaying orbit

and the equipment designed to boost it higher had failed. To make matters worse, Skylab did not fall into one of the world's oceans, as NASA had hoped. Instead, it landed in western Australia. Luckily, the area was sparsely populated and no one was injured.

By the end of the decade, NASA's image was tarnished. Man never set foot on the Moon again after 1972 (and would not for the rest of the century). Beyond space probes (unmanned spacecraft) sent out to explore other planets and the outer reaches of our solar system, it seemed in the late 1970s that the era of space flight had ended.

LUCY AND THE SEARCH FOR EARLY HUMANS

While some scientists in the 1970s probed space to answer questions about creation, others looked underground on Earth, including Kenyan paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey (1944–) and his father, English archaeologist and anthropologist Louis Leakey (1903–1972). National Geographic television specials made the Leakeys famous by celebrating their discoveries of the fossils of ancestral humans, large-brained tool users in East Africa.

In 1974, a discovery near Hadar in the Afar region in Ethiopia shifted attention away from the Leakeys to American anthropologist Donald Johanson (1943–). While surveying the rugged landscape in the Afar region, Johanson and a team of anthropologists found the skeletal remains of a three-million-year-old hominid (member of the family of primates that includes modern humans). The fossil was older and more complete than any hominid ever found before. The shape of the pelvis showed it to be female, while the knee joint and thigh revealed that she walked upright. Her brain size was about one-third that of modern humans, yet larger than any apelike ancestor to have come before. In life, she would have stood about 3.5 feet tall, with long arms, a V-shaped jaw, and a large protruding face. Whimsically, members of the team named her Lucy, after the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," which had been playing over and over during the celebration at the team's camp the night of the discovery. Her Swahili name was more respectful: Denkanesh, meaning "you are wonderful."

The First Jumbo Jet

A revolution in air travel occurred on January 21, 1970, with the first commercial flight of the Boeing 747. Previously, the largest commercial plane was the Boeing 707, which could carry 132 people. In comparison, the 747 could accommodate up to 490 passengers—almost four times as many. The press labeled the jet an "air bus." Despite its size, its titanium body made it light enough to fly great distances. The 747 had a tremendous range, capable of going forty-six hundred nautical miles without refueling. These two features made it an ideal plane for transcontinental flights. By the end of the 1970s, millions of people had traveled in 747s.

Initially, experts did not believe the 747 would be a success. No airport in the world at the time had terminals that could accommodate its wide body. It was also believed that the future of air travel lay in supersonics, planes that can travel faster than the speed of sound. But supersonics produce a sonic boom as they take off, and the idea that this noise could become an everyday occurrence soon swayed public opinion against supersonics.

Debates between anthropologists quickly ensued after Johanson's discovery. Initially, Johanson argued that Lucy's upright stature and humanlike features made her a member of the genus Homo. This would place her in the same classification as modern humans and the Leakeys' more modern fossils. After considerable discussion, anthropologists decided to assign Lucy to the genus Australopithecus. The assignment meant that both Richard Leakey and Johanson could now claim they had found the remains of the earliest human. Leakey believed, however, that Australopithecus was part of a branch of the evolutionary tree that had eventually died out, while Johanson thought Lucy was an ancestor of modern humans.

American Nobel Prize Winners in Chemistry or Physics

Further discoveries merely intensified the disagreement between the two men. In 1975, Johanson's team found a large group of 3.7-million-year-old hominid fossils together, representing at least thirteen individuals, including an infant and several juveniles. These fossils became known as the "first family." Taken together, along with a skull found in Tanzania by Mary Leakey, Richard's mother, Johanson and his collaborators argued that they had found a new species. They called it Australopithecus afarensis, meaning the southern ape of the Afar region.

SPACESHIP EARTH: THE RISE OF ENVIRONMENTALISM

As interest in human evolution increased sharply in the 1970s, so did a corresponding interest in the fate of the planet. The decade launched unprecedented activism in support of the environment. Not since the years immediately following 1910 had ecology seemed so important to so many people—students, scientists, politicians, businesspeople, and most ordinary citizens. Terms such as Earth Day, environmental ethics, and the Gaia hypothesis arose during the 1970s to become part of the common American vocabulary.

Earth Day was first celebrated throughout America on April 22, 1970. On that day (and every April 22 since), millions of Americans participated in demonstrations, teach-ins, and community cleanup projects for the environment. The observance, coordinated by a group of organizers in Washington, D.C., was modeled after the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations of 1969. It was intended to galvanize public sentiment in support of environmental issues.

People around the country celebrated in a variety of ways. In New York, tens of thousands marched down Fifth Avenue. In Boston, a small group was arrested at Logan Airport protesting noise pollution and the development of supersonic jets. Students in Minneapolis and Chicago gained entrance to stockholders' meetings of major polluters, including General Electric and Commonwealth Edison, to demand changes in policy and priorities.

That first Earth Day launched the beginning of an environmental awareness in the United States and later around the world. It made people realize that some sense of environmental ethics, or responsibility, should be developed and applied to their daily lives. Unfortunately, not everyone shared this belief. Interior Secretary Walter Hickel, used the occasion of the first Earth Day to announce the approval of the proposed Alaskan oil pipeline. Environmental groups had opposed the pipeline in the belief that it would destroy the unique habitat of the tundra and disturb migratory patterns of many animals.

The First Uses of Fiber Optics

Optical fiber is a thin strand of glass or plastic capable of transmitting light from one point to another. The thin, extremely pure glass of an optical fiber, surrounded by a reflective casing, can bend light. This makes it possible to use light, specifically light generated by lasers, in place of electricity. Light can be carried faster, more cheaply, and more efficiently than electrical signals, which can be affected by motors, electrical generators, power lines, or lightning storms. Sounds are converted into a pattern of light, transmitted, received at the other end, then converted back into sound.

By the beginning of the 1970s, researchers believed that fiber optics had tremendous potential to improve the clarity and speed of telephone signals: A single hair-thin optical fiber could carry as many messages as a thick copper-wire cable containing 512 wires. One of the first such uses of fiber optics was in 1977 in Chicago. Two offices of Bell Telephone and a third for customers were successfully connected by light-carrying glass fibers. In 1978, the telephones at Disney World were linked through fiber optics; Disney also used them for video transmission, lighting, and alarm systems.

Despite such moves on the part of certain businesses and the government, an environmental consciousness arose in many people. Once they became aware that they had some sort of responsibility toward the natural world, they began to act. Numerous skirmishes between citizens and industry soon developed over the presence of artificially produced chemicals in food and the environment. Toxic-waste sites, the pesticide DDT, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) became rallying causes for those who believed the environment needed protection from big business. In 1972, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (newly formed in 1970) disregarded the objections of pesticide companies and banned DDT as dangerous to humans and wildlife. Many people found in this action a symbol of the need for strong oversight of science and industry.

At the beginning of the 1970s, CFCs could be found in nearly every household, not only as aerosol propellants in products such as hairsprays and deodorants, but also in foam mattresses, air conditioners, and refrigerators. In 1973, some scientists argued that accumulation of CFCs could erode the protective ozone layer of the upper atmosphere. The "ozone hole" would expose Earth to increasing amounts of ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, resulting in higher human skin cancer rates, lower crop yields, and a cooler global climate. Following these warnings, chemical companies, notably DuPont, insisted that if CFCs were dangerous, they would stop production immediately to protect the environment. They then did nothing for five years and lobbied Congress to postpone efforts to restrict the chemicals, calling for more studies. In 1978, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stepped in, banning CFCs in aerosol products in the United States.

The public's view of the environment and of Earth itself changed drastically over the course of the decade. Many had come to view the planet as a living super organism that can regulate its own environment, maintaining conditions that are favorable for life to survive on it. It is the living things on Earth that give the planet this ability. This idea, called the Gaia (pronounced GAY-ah) hypothesis, was proposed by English chemist James Lovelock (1919–) in 1979. Although the idea is still scientifically controversial, it places great emphasis on the quality of Earth's environment and the role humans play in Earth's destiny.

TOXIC AND NUCLEAR DISASTERS: LOVE CANAL AND THREE MILE ISLAND

Two high-profile industrial disasters in the late 1970s dramatically confirmed what many Americans had come to believe: The environment and human health were intertwined and must be protected accordingly.

In the 1930s and 1940s, corporations and citizens did not worry too much about what happened to the chemicals left over from industrial processes. While regulations existed, enforcement was haphazard or nonexistent. Corporations such as Hooker Company in Niagara Falls, New York, which made pesticides, plastics, and other chemicals, mostly just sealed them in fifty-five-gallon metal drums and left them someplace nearby. For Hooker, one convenient place was Love Canal, part of a Great Lakes canal system begun in the late nineteenth century but never completed. While children played and swam nearby, Hooker dumped more than twenty-one thousand tons of chemicals into Love Canal, then filled it in with dirt. In 1953, the company gave the covered-over lot to the town for an elementary school and a playground.

As young families built homes near the elementary school, many noticed that their basements leaked. Some thought they noticed chemical smells and strange colors in water that leaked in. Few knew much about the history of chemical dumping. A dramatic sign that something was amiss came in 1974, when one family's backyard pool rose two feet out of the ground. When they removed it, blue, yellow, and purple chemicals suddenly rushed in where the pool had been. By 1977, after several years of unusually heavy rain and snowfall, the former canal was turning into a marsh, and chemicals were noticeably seeping into surrounding soil and streams.

Families wanted to move from the area, but were stranded as their homes had become worthless. In 1978, after repeated requests, state, local, and federal officials finally tested the air and water in Love Canal basements. The results proved that the health of the residents in the area was in danger. The studies had found conclusive evidence of an abnormally

The Lasting Effects of Agent Orange

During the Vietnam War (1954–75), the U.S. military used several herbicidal (plant-killing) preparations to destroy forests and crops in South Vietnam, thereby depriving the enemy of hiding places and food. One of these preparations, a combination of two herbicides commonly used to kill weeds, was known as Agent Orange. Named for the orange identification stripe painted on the fifty-five-gallon barrels in which it was transported, Agent Orange was developed by the army in the 1950s as an alternative to biological weapons.

Agent Orange was sprayed over the landscape from cargo planes, boats, trucks, and backpacks. In 1971, following criticism from the National Academy of Sciences, international organizations, and the American public, the military agreed to stop using Agent Orange. By that time, approximately nineteen million gallons of the herbicide had been sprayed, destroying almost all plant life covering over four million acres.

The damage to plant life and animal habitats in South Vietnam caused by Agent Orange is still visible. The most severe damage occurred in man-grove forests along coastal areas. Scientists estimate that full recovery of these forests to their native state will take at least one hundred years.

More serious are the possible long-term health effects on the U.S. soldiers and others exposed to Agent Orange. Many Vietnam veterans suffered health problems when they returned home, but government officials said Agent Orange did not cause the soldiers' symptoms. At issue in these claims is dioxin, a by-product of Agent Orange. Medical researchers believe dioxin, an extremely toxic chemical, can cause birth defects, cancer, and nerve damage. While dioxin was present in all samples of Agent Orange tested, federal chemists and health officials thought it existed in quantities too small to be harmful. Despite lawsuits, the U.S. Department of Defense never agreed that Agent Orange was responsible for damaging the health of veterans.

high rate of miscarriages and birth defects. The announcement left homeowners angry, frightened, and frustrated. They organized the Love Canal Homeowners' Association to pressure officials to buy their homes so they, in turn, could buy homes elsewhere and move.

Shortly after the formation of the association, President Jimmy Carter (1924–) proclaimed the area a federal disaster area, freeing up funds for residents of the south end of the canal to relocate. However, this still left those in surrounding areas unable to move, despite growing evidence of high rates of cancer, kidney and bladder troubles, birth defects, miscarriages, nervous disorders, and other illnesses. After six months, the state agreed to pay for pregnant women and those with small children to be relocated, yet it forced them to return to Love Canal when the children grew older. Unsatisfied, residents continued to sign petitions, write letters, and hold demonstrations.

Creation of the Compact Disc

Thomas Edison's invention of the phonograph, or record player, in 1877 allowed recorded sound to be reproduced for the first time. Sound produced by a phonograph is first recorded as a spiral groove with varying amounts of indentation on a disk known as a record. A needle, or stylus, attached to a tone arm rides in the groove, vibrating as it travels over the uneven surface. Those vibrations are transferred through the tone arm to other elements in the phonograph that convert the vibrations into sound waves. Eventually, however, the groove and needle wear out, and the sound quality of a record deteriorates.

In 1972, less than one hundred years after Edison's invention, optoelectronics (branch of electronics dealing with light) made the development of the compact disc, or CD, practical. Lasers could burn small holes, or pits, into a microscopic layer on the surface of a disc. Other lasers could detect the pits and smooth areas on the disc, converting that information first into electrical impulses, then into sound waves. CD recordings came out stunningly clear, held more information than phonograph records, and suffered almost no wear. The first commercially successful audio or music CDs were introduced in Japan and Europe in 1982 and in the United States the following year.

Then in 1980, the state confirmed what some had long suspected: Among the chemicals at Love Canal was dioxin, a highly toxic substance. When this news was released, the state finally agreed to buy the nearby homes. After two years of anxiety and activism, homeowners there finally could afford to move. A decade later, the government put these houses on the market again, and a new community of homeowners moved in amid controversy over whether the site was still contaminated with toxic waste.

While residents around Love Canal faced the threat of toxic chemicals, those living in the shadow of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, faced the threat of radiation. In the 1970s, as people in the United States used increasing amounts of electric energy, nuclear power promised to be cheaper and cleaner than the burning of fossil fuels, which created air pollution. When an oil embargo by countries in the Middle East in 1973–74 created shortages and high gas prices, atomic energy seemed to offer a way for the nation to achieve energy independence. Support for nuclear power ran high.

But events on March 28, 1979, would quickly erode that support. At 4:00 a.m. a mechanical failure of the cooling system of the Three Mile Island plant was compounded by operator error. Technicians in the control room of the Unit 2 reactor, misunderstanding the nature of the problem, shut off all water to the reactor. With no water cooling it, the reactor became extremely hot—in excess of five thousand degrees—and began to melt. Within hours there was enough radiation in the containment dome to kill a person in minutes, and some radiation began leaking into the environment. It was another two days before the public learned how serious the accident was and officials began talking about a meltdown. Pregnant women and small children were evacuated from the area. Ironically, the worst danger of a meltdown passed before the evacuation order was given; by then, the reactor was underwater again. Nine days later, believing the core had cooled sufficiently enough, public officials encouraged nearby residents to return to their homes. Yet a year later, the reactor was still hot.

There were no apparent injuries at Three Mile Island, but the incident dealt the nuclear power industry a blow that sent it into sharp decline. In April 1979, a Gallup poll found that 66 percent of Americans believed nuclear power to be unsafe. Although that number declined to 50 percent nine months later, the event created an enduring caution in the country about the nuclear power industry.