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

284 ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962
Admiral Raborn said USN was planning 10-year study of the
atmosphere (“ATMOS”) which would be coordinated with separate
research on oceans.
During December: Soviet Prof. V. Nikiforov, in article entitled “Chem-
istry in the Cosmos and on the Moon” which appeared in Soviet
journal Aviation and Cosmonautics, suggested use of a chemical
foam envelope on the moon to protect cosmonauts from
temperature changes, solar radiation, and materials on the $eat unar
surf ace.
Sir Bernard Lovell of Jodrell Bank in an interview with London
Daily Telegraph: “. . . Although the Russians may have [space]
superiority purely in the sense of rocketry, the Americans have
tremendous superiority over the Russians in their ability to
instrument their space vehicles and in the extraction of space
informa tion.
“If you made an assessment of the scientific information we
have obtained about the earth’s environment from space vehicles,
you could find that this was very heavily biased in favour of the
Americans. They have mounted more sophisticated experiments
in their satellites and space probes and they have made them
work much better.”
During 1962: Dr. Louis Smullni of MIT’S Lincoln Laboratories suc-
ceeded in detecting a laser reflection from the moon, although at
too low a signal level and too long a pulse length for quantitative
measurements. This was considered a first step in use of laser
reflection for scientific research.
White Sands Missile Range, N.M., was busiest missile test center,
recording 2,615 “hot’ ’ tests.
Man’s conquest of space accelerated on a broad front. The U.S.
achieved manned orbital flight three times, provided man with
his first close-up of another planet with MARINER 11’s fly-by
of Venus, brought global communications a step closer with the
orbiting of the first active repeater communications satellite
TELSTAR I, and saw the X-15 exceed its design speed and altitude
(4,104 mph and 58.7 mi.). U.S.S.R. achieved first dual manned
space flight in an effort that racked up an impressive total of 112
orbits, and launched a space probe toward Mars.
During the year the U.S. successfully launched a total of 61
satellites, deep-space probes, and probes, the U.S.S.R. 17, accord-
according to the U.N. Public Registry. Of the U.S. total, 20
were launched by NASA, 41 by DOD.