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

250 ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962
Center, TFX fighter was designed in USAF and USN versions, having
variable geometry wings for flight speeds up to 1,650 mph.
Contract which would procure up to 1,500 aircraft was said to
be bigger than “any fighter aircraft program since World War I1
in both numbers and dollars.”
November 24: DOD issued restrictions, it was reported by LA. Times,
on assigning new contracts to strike-threatened Lockheed Air-
craft Corp. pending settlement of its labor-management dispute.
Soviet astronomer Dr. Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky, head of radio-
astronomy department at S ternb erg Astronomical Institute,
MOSCOW, said in interview with western press that first place to
seek signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life is in Andromeda
Nebula. The spiral nebula is closest galaxy to our own Milky
Way-about 1.5 million light years awa . Reasoning that it
was likely an advanced civilization sho 119 d be able to harness
enough energy from its sun to create a powerful radio beacon,
and pointing out that no such beams had been detected from
other parts of our own galaxy, Dr. Shklovsky said such beams
could be detected by a single radiotelescope aimed at the entire
Andromeda Nebula.
November 66: MARINER 11 Venus probe established new communications
record, transmitting “excellent quality” data from more than 22.5
million mi. in space. (PIONEER v robe’s transmission had ceased
with position signal from 22.5 mdon mi. in 1960; PIONEER v had
ceased transmitting scientific data at 17.7 million mi.) NASA
said MARINER 11 signals were relaying good data on the four
scientific experiments on board. MARINER 11 was expected to
pass within about 21,000 mi. of Venus on Dec. 14.
0 Dr, Glenn T. Seaborg, AEC Chairman, predicted in interview that
in 20 years “we’ll be well advanced in the use of nuclear power in
space both for pro ulsion of rockets and for auxiliary power
within orbiting sate&tes.
“Around the year 1982 we will have already made, or be seri-
ously planning, a manned journey to one of the near planets.
And we’ll be using nuclear energy rather routinely in satellites
as an auxiliary source of electric power.
“For example, by then, we’ll probably be able to have [world]
television broadcasts relayed by satellites brought directly into
homes, . . . Within 20 years it might be possible to get recep-
tion direct from a satellite wherever a television set was located,
even in the darkest part of Africa . . . .
“I feel that even such predictions as I have outlined may be
too conservative in the sense that there may be spectacular
9,
developments that we do not even foresee . . . .
0 U.S. diplomatic source in Geneva disclosed U.S.S.R. had been conducting
nuclear tests at the rate of one every two days since
Nov. 20, the date reviously announced by Soviet Premier
Khrushchev as end o P current series.
0 Pertinent facts of human evolution should be included in preparation
for interstellar communication, according to Prof. Robert
Ascher of Cornell Univ. dept of anthropology and his wife, Marcia,
assistant professor in Ithaca College dept. of mathematics and
physics. Models of primitive man’s efforts in surmounting barriers
can be used as theoretical background for thinking about