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

ASTRONAUTICAL AND AERONAUTICAL EVENTS OF 1962 3
Janwry 8-15: Fiveday symposium on aerospace medicine held at
School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks AFB, Texas, which
included some 500 medical school professors, industrial scientists,
military, and other Government specialists.
Janwry 9: NASA’s Associate Administrator, Dr. Robert C. Seamans,
Jr., moderated a panel discussion on “Reliability-The Key to
Space Operations,” at the 8th National Symposium on Reliability
and Quality Control in Washington. Panelists John H.
Rubel, Assistant Secretary of Defense; Dr. C. Stark Draper,
Head of the Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT; Dr.
Simon Ramo, Exec. VP of Thompson Ramo Wooldridge, Inc.;
and Dr. Jack A. Morton, VP Device Development, Bell Telephone
Laboratories discussed means of comprehensive, planned
efforts to increase the Nation’s percentage of success in space
launchings and operations.
Addressing SAM’S Aeros ace Medicine symposium, Major General
C. H. Mitchell, Vice e ommander of AFCS, said that the “Russian
threat in space is becoming obvious . . . Clearly it is our responsibility
as a nation to insure that space is used to benefit all
mankind. We can insure this only through development of the
ability to conduct military operations in space with maximum
effectiveness . . .”
January 10: NASA announced that the Advanced Saturn launch vehicle,
to be used for manned flights around the moon and for
manned lunar landings with rendezvous technique, would have
five-engined first and second stages. The first stage (S-IB)
would be powered by five F-1 engines (total of 7.5 million pounds
thrust) and the second stage (S-11) would be powered with five
5-2 engines (total of 1 million pounds thrust). A third stage
(S-IVB) with a single J-2 engine would be used on escape
missions.
x-15 No. 1 piloted by Cdr. Forrest Petersen (USN) made its first
forced landing in 47 flights when its rocket engine failed to ignite
in mid-air after two attempts. X-15 was brought down without
incident at Mud Lake, Nevada.
0 NASA and AEC awarded 5-yr. contract for the development of the
Nerva engine to Aerojet-General Corp. At same time, Aerojet-
General signed a subcontract with Westinghouse Electric Corp.
for nuclear portions of the development which began in 1955.
January 11: In his State of the Union message to the Congress,
President Kennedy said: “With the approval of this Congress,
we have undertaken in the past year a great new effort in outer
space. Our aim is not simply to be first on the moon, any more
than Charles Lindbergh’s real aim was to be first to Paris. His
aim was to develop the techniques and the authority of this country
and other countries in the field of the air and the atmosphere.
“And our objective in making this effort, which we hope will
place one of our citizens on the moon, is to develop in a new
frontier of science, commerce and cooperation, the position of
the United States and the free world. This nation belongs
among the first to explore it. And among the first, if not the
first, we shall be.
“We are offering @ow-how and cooperation to the United
Nations. Our satehtes will soon be providing other nations