April 1962
From The Space Library
Dr. John C. Houbolt, of NASA’s Langley Research Center, writing in the April issue of Astronautics, outlined the possible advantages of lunar-orbit rendezvous for a manned lunar landing as opposed to direct flight from earth or earth-orbit rendezvous. Under this concept, an Apollo-type vehicle would fly direct to the moon, go into orbit around the moon, detach a small landing craft which would land on the moon and then return to the mother craft, which would then return to earth. Advantages would be the much smaller craft having to perform the difficult lunar landing and take-off, the possibility of optimizing the smaller craft for this one function, the safe return of the mother craft in event of a landing accident, and even the possibility of using two of the small craft to provide a rescue capability.
Mach 2.2 windowless supersonic transport A-60 design announced by the College of Aeronautics, Cranfield, England, which featured six buried turbojet engines and 73° sweep slender delta wing. The A-60 design differs from the Sud Super Caravelle being studied as a joint Anglo-French project.
NASA awarded: $447,000 contract to MIT for research on organizational and management concepts suitable for large scale technology-based enterprises with particular application to NASA; and $500,000 contract to Univ. of Calif. (Berkeley) for interdisciplinary space-oriented research in physical, biological, and engineering sciences.
TIROS IV continued in operation and, to an extremely great extent, provided excellent data. Over 20,000 pictures have been received. 217 nephanalyses had been prepared up to March 26, and 199 transmitted over national and international weather circuits. Nineteen special storm advisories were issued to such countries as the Malagasy Republic, Mauritius, New Zealand, and Australia. In more than seven cases, the Tiros data led to significant readjustments in the analyses of the National Meteorological Center. TIROS IV nephanalyses have been used at both Australia and McMurdo Sound in connection with forecasts for Antarctic operations.
General Electric announced that a laser beam of narrow, coherent light had been used to punch holes in diamonds, the hole being cut in 200 millionths of a second, generating temperatures in the 100,000° range and without causing structural damage.
British Broadcasting Corp. announced that 30% of Britain's population-15,000,000 people—listened to its radio coverage of Astronaut Glenn's three-orbit space flight on Feb. 20, comparable to the size of the audiences that listened to Sir Winston Churchill's wartime broadcasts.
United Technology Corp. fired 35-ton segmented solid booster for a duration of 130 seconds, developing thrust of slightly more than 100,000 lbs for the entire burning time.
Reported that Electro-Optical Instruments Inc., had developed an ultra-high speed Kerr cell framing camera capable of taking six frames at a rate of 100,000,000 frames per second with exposure times as brief as five nanoseconds. Designated KW-600, the camera may have wide applications in aerospace studies of physical phenomena such as arc and plasma gas discharge, explosive detonation, hypervelocity impact, shock wave studies, and nuclear instrumentation.
TIROS II was turned on late in April from unknown spurious source. An engineering investigation was run in early May before turning it off again. An analysis of the data indicated that at least some usable IR data was obtained. It was interesting to note that the IR electronics and tape recorder are still running after 17 months in orbit. Continued operation of the satellite was not feasible because of power problems.
Tass reported that Soviet astronomers of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory discovered molecular oxygen in the outer atmosphere of Venus, using 157.6-in. solar telescope and a special spectograph. Also reported were indications of the presence of nitrogen.
The Canadian Astronautical Society holds its final meeting in Toronto before merging with the Canadian Aeronautical Institute.
- April
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