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

58 ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962
and would measure air density variations caused by solar
radiation.
April 20: X-15 NO. 3 flew to 207,000 ft. and 3,818 mph (mach 5.33)
in a test of a special adaptive control system. Flight was made
from Edwards AFB, Calif., NASA’s Neil Armstrong as pilot.
Attempt at first flight test of NASA’s Centaur was canceled because
of troubles in the ground-handling equipment used to pump
liquid oxygen into the vehicle.
NASA published an integrated series of three Quality Publications
setting forth NASA’s intensified quality assurance program now
required in NASA space programs from R&D concept through space
operations. These publications required NASA prime and sub-
contractors on space system work to establish and maintain a
quality program that in many elements was beyond traditional
quality control. They also provided guidelines for NASA manage-
ment to evaluate contractor quality performance both as a factor
of current contract performance and as a consideration in award
of future contracts.
White House released report on “Strengthening the Behavioral
Science” prepared at the request of the President’s Science
Advisory Committee by a subpanel headed by Prof. Neal E.
Miller of Yale University. The report submitted that “the
general issues studied by behavioral scientists are critically
important to our national welfare and security,” and that (‘ways
must be found to strengthen these disciplines and improve their
use.” It recommended increasing general and specific education
in the behavioral sciences following the lead in the physical
sciences. It also suggested that the Social Science Research
Council be invited to appoint a standing committee, and that a
group of representatives of relevant governmental agencies be
created, to review and provide “appropriate advice in the light
of current possibilities and needs of behavioral science.”
0 USAF announced selection of seven USAF officers and one USN officer
for the second class in the USAF’S space pilot school. The class,
to begin on June 18 at Edwards AFB, Calif., would include LCdr.
Lloyd N. Hoover (USN), Majs. Donald M. Sorlie and Byron F.
Knole (USAF), and Capts. Albert H. Crews, Jr., Charles C. Bock,
Jr., William T. Twinting, Robert W. Smith, and Robert H.
McIntosh (USAF).
Jessie G. Vincent, automotive and airplane engine designer and
holder of over 400 patents, died in Detroit at age 82. Vice
president of the Packard Motor Car Co. from 1915 to 1948, Mr.
Vincent was codesigner of the Liberty Marine engine in World
War I and as an Army major helped get the Liberty engine into
production, at which time it was regarded as the world’s finest
power plant of its kind.
U.S. Army claimed a new world speed record for helicopters, when
Capt. William F. Gurley (USA) flew a YHU-1D Iroquois heli-
copter over a closed-circuit course near Fort Worth, Texas, at
133.9 mph, shattering a two-year-old Soviet mark of 88 mph.