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

42 ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962
lating the space environment beyond the required conditions,
and that, if possible, the equipment be tested on the less expen-
sive sounding rockets prior to use on the more expensive satel-
lites. . . .
“To state the matter another way, we desire assured and dem-
onstrated performances and reliability. The cost of the neces-
sary engineering and tests is small compared to the cost of a single
i‘ailure. We do not wish to be the first to use the newest and
most advanced device nor the last to give up the obsolete. A
moderately conservative engineering approach with adequate
analysis and test is indicated as the best design philosophy.”
March 27.- Dr. Edward Teller, testifying before the House Committee
on Science and Astronautics, recommended a program for estab-
lishing a large and independent colony on the moon, as a means of
having a working base in space and control of near space from a
standpoint of national security. A nuclear reactor should be de-
veloped to operate on the moon, eventually to furnish the power
to extract water from the moon’s rocks and soil, he said.
March 28: US. submitted to the U.N. a supplemental list of U.S.
space launching, covering the period of Peb. 15 to March 15,
1962, updating the coverage of the first U.S. list submitted on
March 5, 1962. This second official list did not include Astro-
naut John Glenn’s 3-orbit flight, since the US. contended that
the U.N. roster was supposed to contain only those space objects
still in orbit, not those that had already re-entered. U.S.S.R.
listed all its space flights in its report to the U.N. on March 26.
Although MA-6 flight was not registered, the U.S. submitted in-
formation on the Glenn fight to the U.N. on April 3.
U.S. and Soviet space officials ended two days of technical discus-
sions in New York on possible cooperation in outer space. No
public announcements were made.
Senate Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee unanimously
approved a bill for ownership and operation of the Nation’s com-
mercial communications satellites.
In speech at Worcester, Mass., Gen. Curtis E. LeMay stated that
the U.S.S.R. is “moving at full speed for a decisive capability in
space” and that the U.S. could not afford a “fatal technological
surprise in the 1970’s.” Gen. LeMay pointed out that many
people looked at military space operations as “merely an exten-
sion of nuclear weapons. . . . This may not be the case at all.
Our national security in the future may depend on armaments
vastly different from any we know today, and believe me they
won’t be ultimate weapons either.”
David Sarnoff, Chairman of the Board of Radio Corp. of America,
speaking to the Institute of Radio Engineers in New York, called
for the free world to organize an international community of
science, stnffed by its best scientific brains, to expand knowledge
of basic science and to attack pressing world problems such as
global communications and weather and adequacy of world’s
food, water, and power supplies.