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

ASTRONAUTICAL Ahtb AERO~AU’I’ICAL EVE”l!s OF 1962 115
Goddard launched the fwst successful liquid-fuel rocket. The bill
was then referred to the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and
Space Sciences.
July 2: Lt. Col. John A. Powers, addressing the Texas Associated Press
Broadcasters Association, said that the next manned space
flight (MA-8) mi ht be as many as seven orbits. “We’ll go for
the full seven if a i systems work perfectly,” the Project Mercury
spokesman stated.
Reported that the Air Force Logistics Command (AFLC) civilian
retrainin program begun in October 1957 has proved to be highly
successf3. According to AFLC program director Eric W. Jordan,
80,000 civilian employees, whose skills have become obsolete in
today’s rapidly changing technology, will have been retrained
and placed in new jobs by the end of 1962.
July 2-5: Spacecraft FRIENDSHIP 7 was publicly displayed in Rangoon,
Burma; it left Rangoon on July 5 for Thailand.
July S: Stratoscope II balloon failed to reach planned altitude and
ejected dummy payload prematurely. Sponsored by NASA, National
Science Foundation (NSF), and the Office of Naval Research
(ONR), the 77-story-high balloon was on its final test launching
for use as a carrier of a 36-in.-lens telescope to an 80,000-ft.
altitude to photograph stars and the planets.
ARIEL 1’8 discovery of a new ion belt, at an altitude of 450 to 500
miles, was announced at the International Conference on the
Ionosphere, London, by Prof. James Sayers of Birmingham University.
Previous measurements had led physicists to believe
that the ionization levels declined gradually above 200 miles.
NASA Administrator James E. Webb announced establishment of
NASA’s Northeastern Operations Office, to be located in the
Boston, Massachusetts, area. The office will coordinate NASA’s
liaison with university and business contractors in the northeast
United States.
Reported that the U.S. would send a Mariner B spacecra.ft to Mars
in late 1964. to land on the red Dlanet in early 1965. The
launching of’ this heavily instrumented probe would mark the
beginning of the scientific search for extraterrestrial life.
Julg 4: American Meteorolo ’cal Society issued statement on the
implications of the contro ff of weather and climate, which endorsed
the resolution adopted in the United Nations on December 20
1961. U.N. resolution called for a cooperative internationai
effort to improve weather prediction and to explore the possibili-
ties of weather control and climate modification.
July 6: H43B Huskie helicopter piloted by Capt. Chester R. Rad-
cliffe, Jr. (USAF), set world’s distance record in a 900-mi. flight
from Hill AFB, near Salt Lake City, to Springfield, Minnesota.
Previous world’s record of 761.027 miles had been set by U.S.S.R.
helico ter in September 1960.
Poet Ro E ert Frost, in speech to the students of Middlebury College’s
Bread Loaf School of En lish in Vermont, said: “I’ve been thinking
in a scientific way f ately. Someone in Washington wants
me to do something about glorifying America-something about
the space age.
“The glory of it is that we’re making Promethean defiance
against the unknowablespace. That’s glorious-and that’s
a9 far a9 I go.