Astronautical and Aeronautical Events of 1962 - NASA's History Office

ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962 99
June 11: USAF Office of Scientific Research Summer Seminar in Geo-
physics, in which some 200 scientists participated, convened at
C,oudcroft, N.M, the seventh annual such review of progress in
the theoretical and technical aspects of geophysics.
June 12: X-15 No. 3 research airplane flown to an altitude of 180,000
ft. and a speed of 3,445 mph. (mach 5) by Maj. Robert White
(USAF). Primary objective of flight was checkout of X-15 with
adaptive control system.
Piloting a NASA F-106 supersonic jet airplane from Pope AFB,
N.C., Astronaut Virgd I. Grissom notified Jacksonville, Fla.,
air route traffic control center that his Tacan radio navigation
aid had one out. Flying above clouds and around thunder-
storms, 6rissom began operating an emergency radio beacon
signal and was directed to a safe landing under a thunderstorm
at Patrick AFB by Miami air traffic control center.
FAA disclosed that a tiny cotter pin and a bolt less than an inch long
may have caused the March 1 disaster-95 people killed in
Boeing 707 jet airliner seconds after takeoff from Idlewild
Airport.
USAF C-123 transport fitted for aerial spray operations returned
to Langley AFB, Va., after spraying 17,000 acres of Iran and
Afghanistan to bring locust pla e under control.
Egypt President, Gama1 Abdel &ser was among those visitors
“intrigued” by Mercury capsule FRIENDSHIP 7, on display in
Cairo. “How do you get out of the thing?” President Nasser
reportedly asked.
June IS: United Nations’ scientific and technical subcommittee of
the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space agreed on a
world-wide technical pro ram in Geneva. Program prepared by
28-nation meeting provi 5 ed for the exchange of scientific data,
encouraged a series of international space research projects
(world-wide survey of earth’s magnetic field, polar cap experi-
ments, cooperation in fields of space communications and weather
satellites, and the IQSY program), and established international
launching ranges for sounding rockets near the equator.
0 In testimony before the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and
Space Sciences, NASA Administrator James E. Webb indicated
that decision on the number of orbits, three or six, planned for
the next Mercury flight had not been decided and that the selected
pilot-astronaut would also be announced soon. On the relation-
ship between civilian and military space activities: “President’s
[space] policy has been, in accordance with the law, to develop
the space rogram as a civilian peaceful effort to the fullest extent
possible, gut always pressing with the kind of technology that
would permit us to move rapidly in the military field if we were
required to do so. It is a little bit like ‘keep your powder dry’
with respect to the military side . . .”
Deputy Secretary of Defense Rosmell L. Gil atric stated to
the Committee that DOD “was interested in deve P oping the tech-
nology” but we [DOD] have as yet no approved program for the
development of a manned orbital system.” Gilpatric said that
DOD was “very conscious of the need to take out technological
insurance” so that the U.S. could be “prepared and not sur-
prised” in the event that the U.S.S.R. attempted to make
“hostile use of space.”