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

ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962 47
that investigation would begin with the Army’s family of Nike
missiles, to be followed by the USAF% Atlas.
Apd3: USAF said it would procure twelve additional Thor space
boosters to meet future requirements. Since January 1957 there
have been 142 launches of Thor with 11 1 successes, thirteen partial
successes, and eighteen failures.
LCdr J. W. Young piloted F4H-1 to its seventh world time-to-climb
mark, reaching 25,000 meters in 230.44 seconds.
April 4: NASA Administrator James E. Webb, speaking before the
National Association of Broadcasters in Chicago, cited NASA’s
space sciences program as “a quest for fundamental knowledge”
without which the applied science and technology “would soon
run dry. . . . Suppose we had laid out a program five or six
years ago, directly tied to manned space flight. We would
never have discovered the Great Radiation Belt, which . . .
constitutes one of the severest manned-space flight problems we
face.”
0 Soviet cosmonauts have had changes introduced into their training,
including special gymnastics, in an attempt to offset nausea
induced by prolonged weightlessness, according to Trud, news-
paper of the Central Labor Union.
0 Army fired Pemhing missile 200 miles at AMR, 29th success out of
33 test f igs.
0 AFSC formed the Research and Technology Division, Provisional,
to “plan and manage AFSC’S basic research, applied research, and
advanced technology and . . . create a broad base of research
and technology for rapid use in the development of Air Force
aeros ace systems.”
0 AEC an B DOD in a joint announcement designated an 800-by-600
mile area around Christmas Island in the Pacific as a U.S. nuclear
test mea, effective April 15.
0 U.S.S.R. was converting a 1300-mph bomber into a transport so
it can claim the first supersonic commercial aircraft, Najeeb E.
Halaby, FAA Administrator, stated.
0 James T. Koppenhaver was appointed NASA’s Director of Reliability
and Quality Assurance, succeeding Dr. Landis S. Gephart
who resigned to take a position with private industry.
April 6: X-15 No. 3 flown to speed of 2,830 mph (mach 4.06) and to
altitude of 179,000 ft. in a test of new ada tive control system
to be used in Dyna-Soar and Apollo vehices. NASA’s Neil A.
Armstrong was pilot. Whereas the previous control system was
automatic only while the X-15 was within the atmosphere and
the pilot had to control flight with reaction jets while in space,
the new system would be automatic in both regimes.
0 Two outstanding challenges to science today were the conquest of
space and the achieving of controlled fusion power, Dr. Peter L.
Kapitza, one of Russia’s leading physicists, wrote in the April
issue of the Bulletin o the Atomic Scientists. Very-long-range
rockets would have litt f e practical use except as a means of cheap,
safe disposal of radioactive waste in outer space, he said.
0 Army launched Nike-Zeue missile in what was described w a
successful intercept of a simulated ICBM nose cone.
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