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

40 ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962
March 23: USAF combat missile crew launched an Atlas D ICBM from
Vandenberg AFB, Calif., during President Kennedy’s visit to the
missile base, the first time an American President had witnessed
a live launching of an ICBM.
NASA launched a Nike-Cajun rocket from Wallops Station, Va.,
which released an 80-mile-long sodium-vapor cloud to measure
air density and wind direction in the upper atmosphere.
Early tests of pressure and dynamic stability models of the Apollo
spacecraft were completed in wind tunnels at JPL and Langley
Research Center.
D. Brainerd Holmes, NASA’s Director of Manned Space Flight,
speaking before the Explorers Club in New York, listed one of the
NASA organizational accomplishments of recent months as “the
establishment of a liaison office with the Department of Defense,
particularly with the Air Force Systems Command.”
Bell Telephone Laboratories announced the formation of a new
corporation, Bellcom, Inc., to supply system engineering support
to NASA’s space program. The new corporation would be owned
jointly by AT&T and Western Electric Corp.
First U.S. patent granted to a citizen of U.S.S.R. in 10 years was
granted to Nikolai V. Soodnizin of Moscow on a powered device
for coupling and uncoupling lengths of pipe in an oil well.
U.S.S.R. recently began encouraging its citizens to apply for for-
eign patents.
March 24: Two-week meeting of Study Group IV of the International
Radio Consultative Committee (CCIR) of the International Tele-
communication Union (ITU) concluded in Washington, D.C.
Study Group IV reviewed technical phases of space communica-
tions, including the selection of frequencies for telecommunica-
tions with and between space vehicles. Over 200 representatives
from 30 countries participated in these sessions, Dr. John P.
Hagen serving as head of the US. delegation.
Prof. Auguste Piccard, pioneer Swiss explorer of the stratosphere
and ocean depths, died in Geneva at the age of 78. In 1931
Prof. Piccard ascended to 51,777 ft. in the gondola of a balloon of
his own design. In numerous balloon ascents in the 1920’s and
1930’s, he made many studies of radioactivity, atmospheric
electricity, cosmic rays, and other scientific phenomena. Turn-
ing from the air to the oceans, Prof. Piccard designed his bathy-
scaphe and in 1953 he and his son reached a depth of two miles.
In 1960 the U.S. Navy took an improved version of his craft
down to 37,800 ft.
Soviet Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, executed in 1937 on Stalin’s
orders and exonerated in 1956, was honored in the official military
newspaper, Red Star. It was pointed out that in 1932 Tukha-
chevsky insisted on the development of rocket engines and that
he persisted in this effort until purged.
March 25: National Academy of Sciences announced that the John J.
Carty Medal would be awarded Provost Charles H. Townes of
MIT for his pioneering work in the development of the maser
(microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).
Dr. Townes was credited with the conception of the idea for the
maser in 1951, which was subsequently used in radio astronomy
in recording and charting minute radio signals emanating from