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

ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962 31
ing apparatus, 080’s 13 instruments were focused constantly on
the sun with a pointing accuracy of 1 minute of arc. This was
the ftrst of a series of Osos to be launched by NASA in the next
11-year sun cycle.
March7: NASA established the NASA Launch Operations Center at
Cape Canaveral, with Dr. Kurt H. Debus as Director. Report-
ing to the Director of Manned Space Flight at NASA Hq., the new
Center would serve all NASA projects launched from Cape Canav-
eral, absorbing Marshall Space Flight Center’s Launch Operations
Directorate. Similarly at Point Mugu, Calif., the NASA Test
Support Office was redesignated the NASA Pacific Launch Opera-
tions Office, with Cdr. Simon J. Burttschell as Acting Director.
D. Brainerd Holmes, NASA’s Director of Manned Space Flight,
testified before a subcommittee of the House Science and Astronautics
Committee on the very large and complex manned space
flight program. The most important step in space capability
in 1961, he said, “was not that of awarding particular contracts
or making technical decisions, but rather Mr. Webb’s carefully
planned reorganization of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration.” Speaking of future launch sites for the Advanced
Saturn vehicle as the workhorse of the manned lunar
program, he said: “. . . it shows our plans for an entirely new
come t of launching our large space vehicles. Instead of literally
assem t ling or building the launch vehicles on the pads as we do
at present, this arrangement would permit assembly and test
at a location remote from the launch pads and under cover,
protected from weather. It will be possible to have vertical
transfer of the entirely assembled vehicle to the launch pad in a
tested condition. This arrangement should offer many advantages
in order to permit better and more thorough checkout,
and to assure more rapid launching and efficient utilization
of each pad. For the extremely tight schedules that will be
required for launch operations in support of orbital rendezvous,
this rapid launch capability is highly desirable.”
6 Escape-velocity ayloads with the nuclear-engine Rift as the 3rd
stage on an A cf vanced Saturn booster would be more than double
that of a 3-stage, all-chemical Advanced Saturn and higher
than that of the Nova 12-million-pound-thrust vehicle, according
to testimony given to a subcommittee of the House Committee
on Science and Astronautics by Harold B. Finger, NASA’s Director
of Nuclear Systems.
Dr. Homer E. Newell, NASA’s Director of Space Sciences, testifyin
before a subcommittee o€ the House Committee on Science an 2
Astronautics, said: “Because of this great breadth and scope of
s ace science, and because of the many basic scientific problems
t Fl at it encompasses, our country must have a sound and vigorous
space science program if we intend to maintain our position of
leadership in world science . . .
“The space science of today is needed to sow the seeds for
the harvest of future applications of space knowledge and tech-
nology. The weather, communications, and navigation satellites
of today grew out of the scientific engineering and research of
the past decades. Their perfection, and the development of new