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

ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962 259
“TO conclude a treaty banning immediately the testing of any
more nuclear weapons in outer space.
“To preclude the placing in orbit of weapons of mass deatruction.
“TO take all reasonable and practicable steps, including consultation
with the world’s scientific community, to avoid space
experiments with harmful effects.
“To conduct a program which is as open as our securit n.eeds
will permit and as cooperative as others are willing to ma I e it.
“To press forward with the establishment of an integrated
global satellite communication system for commercial needs and
a cooperative weather satellite system, both with broad inter-
national participation.”
December 3: DOD announced it had canceled plans for immediate
development of detector-interceptor satellite (unofficially called
“Project Saint”), and that the project was being ‘le-oriented
towards achieving longer-term” objectives. Official explanation
was that Saint had been “bypassed by technological develop-
ments.”
0 NASA and Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories launched
Nike-Apache sounding rocket from Eglin Gulf Test Range, Fla.
Intended to measure winds by sodium vapor method, rocket rose
to 117-mi. altitude and emitted a fair vapor trail.
NASA request for AEC study of nuclear power unit was reported.
40-watt units for NASA interplanetary monitoring probes would
be launched at rate of two per year for four years, beginning in
1964.
President Kennedy presented AEC’S Enrico Fermi Award for 1962,
carrying a $50,000 prize, to nuclear physicist Dr. Edward Teller,
the citation reading: “For contributions to chemical and nuclear
physics, for his leadership in the thermonuclear research and for
efforts to strengthen national security.”
Temporary restraining order against, Lockheed Aircraft Corp. and
International Association of Machinists to prevent further IAM
strike action was issued by U.S. District Judge Jesse Curtis,
effective until Dec. 13. Hearings on Justice Dept. request for
temporary injunction, based on report from President Kennedy’s
three-man board of inquiry, were set for Dec. 10.
Editorial on tactical fighter (TFX) program, contract for which was
awarded to General Dynamics and Grumman Aircraft by DOD,
appeared in Aviation Week and Space Technology:
“. . . Underlying the whole TFX concept is one of the solid,
basic technical explorations by the researchers of the old Na-
tional Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) that did SO
much to keep this country the international leader in supersonic
aircraft development. Without the fundamental research into
the variable sweep wing and the detailed development of this
rinci le by the Langley research laboratory
fohn Htmk, the current TFX concepts of both
would have been impossible. . . . The full
contribution to the TFX program should be hammered home as an
example of how these research and development investments
eventually pay substantial dividends. . . .”