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

MARCH 1962
March 1: John Glenn Dav in New York City. An estimated four
million people lined the streets to cheer the Mercury astronauts.
Mayor Robert Wagner presented the city’s highest award. the
Medal of Honor, to Col. Glenn and Robert R. Gilruth.
Third successful static-test firing of “Old Salty”-an H-1 engine
that had been submerged in salt water for four hours before each
of its test runs. Purpose of tests was to determine feasibility
and costs of recovering, rebuilding, and reusing booster engines
as opposed to cost of new engines. Early results indicated that
engines could be recovered and rebuilt at a cost of about 10%
of new engines.
NASA fired a Scout rocket from Wallops Station, Va. The rocket
flew 135 miles high and about 800 miles downrange in a re-entry
test reaching speeds of 19,000 mph.
Rift (Reactor-in-Flight-Test) bidders conference held at Marshall
Space Flight Center.
Morton J. Stoller was named Director of the Office of Applications
in NASA Hq., a post he had held in an acting capacity since
January 1962. He was made Deputy Director in November
1961.
Re orted in the press that a 3-ft. by 2-ft. metal fragment found on a
fapm in South Africa on February 21 was identified by numbers
stamped on it as a part of the Atlas booster that placed Ast,ronaut
John Glenn into orbit on February 20. Local reports of an
explosion about 1 AM on February 21 indicated that the fragment
came to earth after about 8 hours in orbit. Fragment was
reported as 4 ft. by 2-ft. ‘(stainless steel” in Capetown telegram
to NASA Feb. 26, 1962.
NASA selected Chance-Vought Corp. as contractor to study rendez-
vous of space vehicles. A primary part of the contract would
be a flight simulation study exploring the capability of an astro-
naut to control an Apollo-type spacecraft.
American Airlines 707 jet transport crashed in Jamaica Bay, N.Y..
seconds after takeoff from New York International Airport, and
all 95 persons on board were killed, the highest toll US.
history in the crash of a single airplane. The crash occurred
about one . ~ ~~ hour before the start of the giant Darade in honor of
v
Lt. Col. John H. Glenn, Jr.
March 2: Mercury astronauts visited the United Nations, and John
Glenn, during an informal reception given by Acting Secretary-
General U Thant, said: “To be here at the United Nations this
morning and have all these tributes to our project and all the
people that are working on it from people of this calibre, is
indeed overwhelming all over again after yesterday. . . ,
“As space science and space technology grows still further
and our projects become more and more ambitious, we wil be
relying more and more on international teamwork.
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