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

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ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962 251
ossible civilizations on other planets. Problem of watching and
lstening for signals across space and developing means to reach
source of those signals is essentially same as problem of prehistoric
man making contact with other races or civilizations.
Ascher also declared whenever two civilizations have made
contact, conquest by dominant group has followed. Models of
those communications should be constructed and studied, Ascher
said, and applied to future interstellar communications.
November 26: Secretar of Defense Robert S. McNamara allotted
additional $50 mi 19 ion for development of radar and other com-
ponents in USAF RS-70 project. DOD announcement said restudy
of the project had been completed and that recommendations
had been submitted to President Kennedy last week.
U.S.S.R. waa building an atom accelerator about twice the size of
any in existence, it was reported. The “alternating gradient syn-
chrotron” would be able to accelerate a beam of protons to ener-
gies of 50-70 bev (billion electric volts), as compared to 33-bev
accelerator at Brookhaven. Atomic research station, with many
su porting facilities, was located near Serpukhov.
U.S.8.R. was building “largest radiotelescope in existence” near
Serpukhov, it was reported. 20-acre, cross-shaped radiotelescope
featured two movable antenna arms of l-km. length with support-
ing towers of 65-ft. height, the instrument modeled after cross
designed by Dr. Bernard Y. Mills of Australia. Chief character-
tic of cross was its ability to collect considerable amount of radio
energy emanating from an extremely small area of the heavens.
Another instrument at the radioastronomy station was radiotele-
scope with parabolic antenna 72-ft. in diameter. Station was
under direction of Dr. Viktor V. Vitkevich and operated by
Lebede Institute of Physics of Soviet Academy of Sciences.
November 26: NASA Flight Research Center announced investigation
of x-15 No. 2 accident on Nov. 9 had revealed probable cause
was succession of equipment failures coupled with landing gear
colla se. Inability of rocket engine to attain full power was
attriguted to faulty governor actuator which prevented engine’s
receiving suEcient amount of . Failure in engine’s
receiving mechanism did not a1 propellant ow landing flaps to come down
and resulted in high load on aircraft’s landing gear. Unusually
high landing-load caused collapse of main landing gear soon after
the X-15 touched down at Mud Lake, Nev. Pilot John McKay
sustained severe bruises, a back injury, and shock; but he had
been released from hospital and had returned to work at NASA
Flight Research Center. Accident was under continuing inves-
tigation by NASA and USAF engineers, with plans calling for
mechanical improvement in flap-lowering mechanism before an-
other x-15 flight.
Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel prize-winning chemist, predicted U.S. would
land a man on the moon in 1969.
Bell Telephone Laboratories reported TELSTAR communications
satellite’s refusal to res ond to transmitter cut-off commands
had been followed by t K e satellite’s turning off its command
receiver. Bell scientists expected to correct TELSTAR communications
system by remote control.