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

ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962 17
establishment of what is now the NASA Flight Research Center
at Edwards, California, and directed the research on the X-1
(which in October 1947 first broke the speed of sound) and the
X-15. More recently he was NASA Project Director for the
multimilliondollar Project Mercury worldwide tracking and
ground instrumentation system.
FebruumJ 16: SAC combat missile crew launched successful Atlas ICBM
from Vandenberg AFB, California.
USAF awarded contract to Martin-Marietta Corp. for study of
design criteria for a Titan I11 standardized space launch vehicle.
February 17: 100-inch diameter, 53-foot long, solid-fuel rocket staticfired
for 98 seconds and developed 600,000 pounds of thrust by
Aerojet-General, the largest solid rocket fired to date.
February 18: NASA announced Project Fire, a high-speed re-entry
heat research program to obtain data on materials, heating rates,
and radio signal attenuation on spacecraft re-entering the atmosphere
at speeds of about 24,500 mph. Information from the
program would provide technology for manned and unmanned
re-entry from lunar missions. Under management of Langley
Research Center, Project Fire would use Atlas D boosters and
the re-entry velocity package would be powered by Antares solidfuel
motor (3rd stage of the Scout).
NASA Administrator James E. Webb, Assistant Administrator Hiden
T. Cox, and other NASA speakers addressed the annual convention
of the American Association of School Administrators. Mr.
Webb said: “Space science and space exploration have become
an integral and vital part of a great industrial and technological
revolution which is now taking place in our own country and
throughout the world . . . [the] rapid rate of change as much as
the change itself is one of the dominant facts of our time.” Dr.
Cox outlined NASA’s program of educational services to meet the
needs of education in and for the Space Age.
Four time-to-climb records claimed by USAF Northrup T-38 Talon
supersonic trainer.
Februury 19: NASA-AEC designated the Jackass Flats area of the AEC
Test Site as the Nuclear Rocket Development Station. Placed
under management of the joint NASA-AEC Space Nuclear Pro-
pulsion Office (SNPO), the new station has been used since 1959
for ground tests of Kiwi reactors.
In Voice of America broadcast, Alan H. Shapley of the National
Bureau of Standards’ Central Radio Propagation Laboratory,
reviewed the “new dimension to research in ionospheric science”
added by space vehicles. He pointed out that (‘scientific expedi-
tions landing on the surface of Mars or Venus, whether manned
or unmanned, will have to communicate by radio with terrestrial
headquarters. We must know which frequencies will get through
the planetary ionosphere, and which can be used with the radio-
mirror effect to talk from one part of the planet to another.
So far we have had only [the earth’s] ionosphere to study, but
this is like the doctor with only a single case. To understand a
disease he needs many cases.”
The Air Force Space Plan, a ten-year blue-print for military space
technology, was given to a House committee by Lt. Gen. James
Ferguson, DCSIRLT. The Space Plan foresaw a military need for