Apr 20 1961
From The Space Library
National Academy of Sciences issued report by its Space Science Board which stated that "the history of geographic exploration on Earth tells over and over again of the deaths of bold explorers. To ignore this in the far more difficult and hazardous areas of man in space is foolish. Men will perish in space as they have on the high seas, in the Antarctica, in the heart of Africa, and wherever they have ventured into unknown regions." House and Senate approved bill to permit Vice President of the United States to serve as Chairman of the National Space Council.
Dr. John R. Winckler, of the University of Minnesota, reported at the American Geophysical Union, that the first direct sampling of a cross section of solar material had revealed that particles of heavier elements of the sun ejected by solar flares have been captured in the vicinity of the Earth in study of emulsions flown by balloons and rockets during the solar activity of the fall of 1960. Tracks of helium, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen had been detected.
On this day President Kennedy sent a memo to Vice President Johnson asking him to establish America's chances in a space race. JFK Memo (PDF)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
