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

ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962 195
September 19: Reported in New York Times that US. had notified the
U.S.S.R. of its willingness to sign an agreement to cooperate in
the peaceful exploration and utilization of space. Within the
past 3 weeks, US. State Department had sent note to Moscow
calling for formal signature of a bilateral agreement on joint
weather and communications satellites and study of the earth’s
ma netic fields.
USAF Xtlas missile was successfully flown 5,000 mi. downrange from
Ca e Canaveral. As the Atlas rose, two cameras attached to provi
dP e pictures of blast-off were ejected and landed on the Cape.
Two additional camera capsules were ejected and recovered near
Grand Turk Island. This was the 100th Atlas missile launching
at Cape Canaveral.
0 USAF Mmuteman ICBM successfully fired from silo at Cape Canaveral,
the second such firing in as many days.
Air Force Association (AFA) convention in Las Vegas unanimously
adopted resolution calling for immediate clarification of U.S.
policy on the military uses of space. AFA policy statement said:
“Soviet space achievements, with their military implications,
make it clear that we cannot satisfy the national security requirement
in space with by-products from our civilian spacergram.
. . . Space must be used to press our deterrent capab ity,
to protect the future against the agonies and miseries of war, and
thus to provide the climate required for the owth of freedom.”
USAF named six men selected to pilot X-20 Fyna Soar) orbital
spacecraft. The pilots, all from Edwards AFB, included five Air
Force officers and one NASA civilian: Ca t. Albert H. Crews, Jr.;
Maj. Russell L. Rogers; Maj. James Id) Wood; Maj. Henry C.
Gordon; Capt. William J. Enight; and Milton 0. Thompson
(NASA). USAF also displayed full-scale mock-up of X-20 at Air
Force Association convention, iirst public showing of the space
glider.
0 14,000 International Association of Machinists (IAM) workers at
Lockheed Missiles & Space Co. plants threatened walkout effective
September 24.
Announced that the opening ceremony of the Roman Catholic
Church ecumenical council on October 11 would be televised in
the Vatican and relayed to the U.S. via TELSTAR satellite.
September 20: World’s largest movable radiotelescope, located at National
Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Green Bank,
W. Va., was turned on at midnight for the first time. The 300ft.diameter
telescope, built for $800,000 in about one year, was
expected to be trained on Venus as its first operational target.
0 AEC Chairman Glenn T. Seaborg told panel discussion of International
Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna that a U.S. nuclearpowered
spacecraft now in the initial-test phase could take two
men on a round trip to Mars in the 1970’s. He said that the
round trip, including one-month visit on Mars, would take about
a year.
September 21: Dr. Edward C. Welsh, Executive Secretary of NASC,
told Air Force Association convention in Las Vegas that “the
objective of our [national space] policy is to obtain and maintain
leadershi in space activities for the benefit of man’s freedom,
man’s we H -being, man’s understanding, and man’s scientific progress.
The details of the policy are not quite so clear, as those