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

ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962 139
space. Likewise, all space missions involving re-entry and land-
ing require that the spacecraft move back through the air space
on their return to earth. . . .
“It now appears that the manned vehicles which will be
developed over the next five to ten years will enter the atmosphere
rather steeply, level out, and glide at altitudes ranging from
about 25 to 60 miles for distances perhaps as great as 7,000 to
10,000 miles before landing. Inevitably, it will become necessary
to know in advance whether any portion of the re-entry phase
of a manned space flight violates the territorial air space of
another State because of the altitude at which its land or terri-
torial waters may be overflown. . . .
“It would be most unwise to attempt to reach a solution to the
so-called ‘boundary’ problem on the basis of the difference
between the regimes of aerial flight and space flight. But even
if it were possible to define a boundary between those regimes on
scientific and technical grounds, it would bear no necessary
relationship to the national interests which the principle of
territorial sovereignty is designed to serve.
“I think it is evident that if this problem is to be solved it will
be done on the basis of an accommodation of the political interests
of the States concerned, and not on the basis of scientific or
technological criteria.”
August 4: James A. Martin, NASA X-15 Program Manager, in letter to
the Washington Evening Star clarXed the method of computing
mach number in high-speed flight. “Mach number is a direct
function of atmospheric temperature at the altitude at which the
vehicle is 0ying. This temperature varies from day to day for
the same altitude. Because of this, it is possible that the same
number of feet per second at the same altitude can be more or
less than a given Mach number.”
He pointed out that on November 9, 1961, Major Robert
White 0ew the X-15 to speed of 6,005 feet per second; on June
27, 1962, Joseph Walker flew to 6,020 feet per second, at about
the same altitude as Major White. However, because of differ-
ences in atmospheric temperatures for the two days, Major
White attained higher mach number (M 6.04) than Walker
(M 5.94).
August 4-6: Thousands of teen-agers toured NASA Lewis Research
Center and witnessed special lecture-demonstrations during
“Youth Da 5,” co-sponsored by LRC and the Cleveland Press.
August 6: USAF 9 aunched an unidentified satellite from Vandenberg
AFB, using an Atlas-Agena launch vehicle.
Soviet Cosmonauts Gherman S. Titov and Yuri A. Gagarin hinted
in a press interview that the U.S.S.R. would attempt prolonged
manned orbital flight some time during 1962. Colonel Gararin
remarked: “Recently in Japan I said that new flights through
space are not far off and expressed confidence that they would
certainly take place this year.”
Major Titov then added: “I also am of the same opinion and
want to add that the time already is past when the length of
cosmic flights will be only hundreds of thousands of kilometers.
I think that flights of future cosmonauts will be more prolonged
and the route of their cosmic ships will measure millions of
kilometers.”