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

ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962 73
next month. It was stated that the spacecraft would have
“no purpose in a medicine exhibit.”
May 9: In regular press conference, President Kennedy was asked
whether “proposed H-bomb explosion 500 miles up” would jeo-
pardize U.S. policy to restrict outer space for peaceful objectives
only. He replied that he did not think so and that it was a
matter that “we are looking into to see whether there is scientific
merit that this would cause some difficulty to the Van Allen Belt
in a way which would affect scientific discovery . . .
“I want you to know that whatever our decision is . . . it
will be done only after very careful scientific deliberation, which
is now taking place . . . Generally what we are attempting to
do is to find out the effects of such an explosion on our security,
and we do not believe that this will adversely affect the security
of any person not living in the United States.”
0 1S-nation 5th COSPAR meeting in final session voted to establish a
consultative group for determining the potential harmful effects
of experiments in space. Group of six scientists was charged with
recommending to COSPAR’S executive council possible action by
the international scientific community to sanction or condemn
such experiments. Other closing actions: (1) Maurice Roy of
the Ecole Polytechnique in Pans was elected President for
1962-63; (2) expressed “satisfaction at the intention of the U.S.
to launch a geodetic satellite carrying a flashing beacon for inter-
national use”; (3) proposed series of coordinated rocket measure-
ments of winds in the ionosphere from Oct. 1962 to Feb. 1963;
and (4) recommended numbering satellites during 1963 by the
ordinal number rather than Greek letter.
0 President Eennedy in answering a question on a uniform patent
policy among governmental agencies said that it was a “difficult
problem, because you have to balance off the gains on the one hand
and at the same time the incentives to companies to s end their
own funds in order to develop patents . . . so that we E. ave some
differences in the space agency problems, the Department of
Defense and perhaps some other agency of the Government.”
He said that it was a matter now under review and if changes
appear warranted that recommendations would be sent to the
Congress.
USAF announced that it had begun negotiation with United Tech-
nology Corp. for development of solid-fuel motors for use in
Titan I11 space booster.
Army Nike-Zeus test flight from Point Mugu, Calif., a partial
success in that “missile accepted and correctly executed control
commands transmitted from a ground guidance center,” although
third stage did not fire.
A Navy advanced Polaris was test-launched from submerged
nuclear submarine U.S.S. Sam Houston off the Florida coast.
Army Pershin missile destroyed in test flight from Cape Canaveral
when secon 3 stage became erratic, the second failure in last three
launchings after 13 straight successes.
In address to the Operations Research Society, Gen. Bernard
Schriever said: “Our continuing national security is dependent
on the rapid advance of technology and its adoption in operational
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