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Show Cutback in Personnel Coming at Missile Base A change in the budget of the Athena program which will result in a reduction of personnel was announced on Monday by Air Force officials. offi-cials. Only those directly involved involv-ed with the Athena program will be affected by the change, said Major Julian Salas, Officer in Charge of the Space and Missile Systems Sys-tems Organization at Green River. Major Salas further added that it is not known when this reduction will become effective or how many per- sonnel will be involved. Hei stressed that the cutback is a result of evaluating the defense dollar and the missile mis-sile program will be geared to fit a reduced budget. "This will not result in a change of the length of the program," he empasized. "The program is a continuing contin-uing one but will be on a smaller basis in the future." The final word as to how many personnel will be affected af-fected will be made by Atlantic At-lantic Research Corporation. The cutback in personnel will involve ARC and the Honeywell Corporation. It will not, however, affect af-fect personnel connected with .the Army's White Sands Missile Range force, its civilian civ-ilian service or the Army contract personnel. One of the three launjh pads currently being used will be closed shortly, Major Salas said. "We don't intend to use the pad again for the standard stan-dard Athena or the newer Athena H." There will also be a reduction reduc-tion of,, the number of launches laun-ches from about two per month to about one per month in the future. The evaluation of required personnel per-sonnel for that reduced launch rate is currently being be-ing studied. |