Apr 20 1962
From The Space Library
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 subcontractors 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 management 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." 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 helicopter over a closed-circuit course near Fort Worth, Texas, at 133.9 mph, shattering a two-year-old Soviet mark of 88 mph.
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