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

ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1982 203
tion, now rapidly approaching the $4 billion mark. In addition
to the intensive study the space budget underwent, the committee
also conducted 26 investigations, issued 16 reports, held 124 days
of hearings, and heard 236 witnesses.
“Indicative of the committee’s activity is the more than
2,175,000 words of testimony taken this year incorporated into
approximately 3,860 pages of printed hearin s. . . .”
September 29: NASA Administrator James E. Web % announced that the
project management of the liquid hydrogen-fueled Centaur launch
vehicle and the hydrogen-fueled M-1 rocket engine would be
transferred from Marshall Space Flight Center to the Lewis
Research Center. Studies were being initiated to adapt Centaur
as a stage to other boosters. Mr. Webb said: “The transfer will
allow the Marshall Center to concentrate its efforts on the Saturn
vehicles for the manned lunar landing program. . . . It will
permit the Lewis Research Center to use its experience in liquid
hydrogen to further the work already done on one of the most
promising high-energy rocket fuels and its application to Centaur
and the M-1.”
USAF launched satellite from PMR with Thor-Agena booster.
0 At the 13th Congress of the International Astronautical Federation
(IAF), meeting in Bulgaria, the 1962 Guggenheim International
Astronautics Award was awarded to Prof. James A. Van Allen.
September SO: NASA launched Aerobee sounding rocket from Wallops
Station, the 259-1b. instrumented payload reaching 106-mi.
altitude in test to map sources of photons in specific wavelengths
in the nighttime sky. PayIoad landed about 61 mi. downrange,
with recovery not attempted.
Tropical storm developed 420 mi. east of Puerto Rico, travelin on
path that would cross impact area for Astronaut Schirra’s t % ird
orbit. NASA flight officials were closely watching the storm to
determine whether it would necessitate postponing Schirra’s
MA-8 flight scheduled for Oct. 3.
During September: Conclusion that wheel-shaped space station was
technically feasible and identification of problems that still exist
were revealed in NASA Technical Note D-1504, compilation of
11 papers by NASA Langley Research Center staff. Selection of
this 150-ft.-diameter, 171,000-lb. structure was result of studies
by Langley for more than 2 years and detailed analyses by North
American Aviation, Inc., for past 6 months. The report indi-
cated the space station primarily would provide *a means of
learning to live in space, where zero-gravity and variable-gravity
experiments could be performed, closed life-support systems
could be qualified, and rendezvous techniques and systems
developed. Chosen model could support up to 38-man crew.
Issue of ARS’ Astronautics contained series of articles by NASA
Langle Research Center scientists and others, reviewing LfLRC
researcz program on manned space-station technology since
early 1960.
Search for two huge meteorites believed to have fallen in western
Virginia near Covington and West Virginia near Clarksburg was
conducted by Dr. Frank Drake, Director of National Radio
Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank, W. Va. Reports by wit-