Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1965 - NASA's History Office

ASTRONAUTICS AND AERONAUTICS, 1965 15
became Secretary of Defense. NASA would be using 224 computers in
various branches of its operations. (Fay, Wash. Eve. Star, 1/12/65)
January 1.3: x-15 No. 3 flown by NASA pilot Milton 0. Thompson to maxi-
mum altitude of 99,400 ft. and maximum speed of 3,712 mph (mach
5.48). Purpose of the flight was to collect air flow data and record
measurements of skin friction on the aircraft’s surface. (NASA X-15
Proj. Off.; FRC Release; X-15 Flight Log)
NASA launched a two part 99-lb. sounding rocket payload from NASA
Wallops Station which reached an altitude of 614 mi. but did not
separate in flight as planned. Launched on a four-stage Javelin (Argo
14) and designed as “mother-daughter’’ experiment, the payload was
to separate into two sections at about 170-mi. altitude with radio signals
to be sent from daughter to mother as they continued to rise separately.
The technique was devised to provide more accurate profiles of electron
density in the upper atmosphere. Telemetry data would be
analyzed to determine why the sections did not separate. (Wallops
Release 65-3; NASA Rpt. SRL)
NASA successfully launched an Aerobee 150~
sounding rocket to peak
altitude of 110 mi. from Wallops Island, Va., with instrumented pay-
load to measure the ultraviolet and visible light emitted from the earth‘s
atmosphere between 37 mi. and 125 mi. An Attitude Control System
(ACS) was also flown. Good spectral data were collected. (NASA
Rpt. SRL)
Reported that NASA Administrator James E. Webb had ruled against a
protest by a group of NASA astronauts of the NASA decision to limit the
first manned Gemini flight to three orbits. The astronauts had re-
quested that the GT-3 flight should be “open-end,” leaving it to the
astronauts as to whether they should go for three or even 30 orbits.
(Macomber, Copley News Service, Sun Uiego limon, i/i3/65)
XC-142A V/Stol, flown by Ling-Temco-Vought test pilots John Konrad
and Stuart Madison, made a flawless first transition flight. The trans-
port aircraft took off like a helicopter, adjusted its wings for conven-
tional flight, and then circled the field, reversed the process, and mad4
a vertical landing. The XC-142~’s first transition flight came only
six flights after its initial hover flight on Dec. 29, 1964. It was the
Nation’s first V/Stol built for operational evaluaticn rather than
research. (AP, CSM, 1/13/65)
NASA Langley Research Center scientists Harry W. Carlson and Francis
E. McLean said that for the first time there was hope for a significant
reduction in the sonic booms expected from proposed supersonic air-
liners. A plane flying faster than the speed of sound compresses the
air around it into shock waves trailing from the nose, wings, engine
inlets, tail, and any other protuberances. Near the plane there would
be separate waves, producing “near field effects.” Traced on a graph
to show changes in pressure, the waves would make a jagged line
resembling the letter “N.” As the waves traveled toward the ground,
they would coalesce into two powerful waves-one appearing to trail
from the nose and one from the tail-producing “far-field effects”
also shaped as a letter “N” in terms of pressure patterns. The sharp
peaks of this N-shaped wave were suspected of causing most of the