Aug 15 1962
From The Space Library
In early morning broadcast, Radio Moscow announced Cosmonaut Nikolayev (VOSTOK III) had completed 61 earth orbits and Cosmonaut Popovich (VOSTOK IV) had finished 45 orbits.
Landing safely in Kazakhstan, U.S.S.R., Cosmonauts Andrian G. Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich had broken all records for number of orbits, miles traveled, and time in flight. Maj. Nikolayev in VOSTOK III had completed 64 earth orbits; 1,645,000 miles; and 95 hours, 25 minutes flying time. Lt. Col. Popovich in VOSTOK IV had completed 48 earth orbits; 1,242,000 miles; and 70 hours, 29 minutes flying time.
President John F. Kennedy, in message to U.S.S.R. Premier Nikita Khrushchev, said: "I send to you and to the Soviet people the heartiest congratulations of the people and the Government of the United States on the outstanding joint flights of Maj. Nikolayev and Col. Popovich. This new accomplishment is an important forward step in the great human adventure of the peaceful exploitation of space. America's astronauts join with me in sending our salute to Maj. Nikolayev and Col. Popovich." NASA press conference at NASA Hq. on the tandem Russian orbital flights of VOSTOK III and IV. Participants: NASA Administrator James E. Webb; Deputy Administrator Dr. Hugh L. Dryden; Associate Administrator Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., and Director, Office of Manned Space Flight, D. Brainerd Holmes. Mr. Webb paid tribute to the Russian accomplishment as "demonstrations of a very real technological capacity, an ability to plan and engineer and build and fly vehicles that can carry man for extended periods of time. . . They do have significance." Dr. Dryden felt that the flights essentially conformed to the stated Russian objective, "to subject two men to identical space exposures, and weightlessness. . . . plus . . . longer duration, which is needed to do this." Dr. Seamans noted that "as far as guidance accuracy is concerned, what they achieved is roughly comparable to what we achieve in our Mercury flights. To me the significant element here is that on the second flight they were able to take off within a limited period of time . . . countdowns can be protracted for one reason or another." Mr. Holmes said he was not surprised at the Russian flights: "I think we would be selling the Russians pretty short if we didn't feel that a year after they launched a Vostok on a booster that could lift that kind of a weight, something of the order of 10,000 pounds, that they couldn't indeed perform in this fashion." Asked whether the NASA manned space flight program could be accelerated, Mr. Webb answered that the booster program could be accelerated with a crash program spending another $1 to $2 billion a year. "You can get more done. It will be done inefficiently. We believe we have a program [now] that marries all of the considerations in an effective way . . ." To the question of who would first land on the moon, Mr. Webb replied, "I think we will make the manned lunar landing and return before they do." As to future Russian capability, Dr. Dryden said: "there is a possibility that the Soviets can do circumlunar flight before we can. I once said there is a fifty-fifty chance, certainly no better than that, that we could do that as early as they can. It is for this reason, in fact, that. our national goal was set at the lunar flight because this does require another booster on the part of the Russians as well as ourselves.
"Ever since the Space Agency has been formed we have been waiting for this other shoe to be dropped. People have told us every month, the Russians are going to produce this big booster in the next few months. Now four years have gone by and they have not yet shown us this big booster. To the best of our knowledge they have developed lighter-weight nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles rather than bigger space boosters. This is not to say that they may not be doing this. All I am saying is that they will require a bigger booster to land men on the moon."
Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in London press conference, said he did not believe the U.S.S.R. was leading the U.S. in space exploration.
"We have been putting all kinds of satellites in the air for meteorological readings and other scientific information, . . ." but the U.S. has not been indulging in "the same kind of spectacular" as the U.S.S.R.
"I think we should develop achievement upon achievement until it should be almost a matter of course for us to go to the moon, rather than indulge in the spectacular." Dr. Wernher von Braun, Director of NASA. Marshall Space Flight Center, said in Blacksburg, Va., that dual space flight of VOSTOK III and IV "was impressive from the standpoint of the whole operation, . . . [but] it does not look like the Russians used any new equipment. I don't think there was a technical breakthrough. . . ." When asked to comment on U.S. prospects of being first to reach the moon, Dr. von Braun said that manned lunar flights would require rockets bigger than any used either by the U.S. or U.S.S.R. so far. "We have such rockets under development, and the Russians also have to develop a new rocket to do this job . . . . Therefore I don't think we have any serious handicaps to overcome so far as the lunar program is involved." Sir Bernard Lovell, director of Jodrell Bank Experimental Station, England, said that flights of VOSTOK III and IV indicated "the Russians have a clear space superiority in the military, if not the scientific, sense." He urged that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. join each other in a cooperative attempt to explore the solar system with manned space ships.
Congratulating the U.S.S.R. for success of its VOSTOK III and IV space flights, Prof. Hermann Oberth, leading German space scientist, added: "I am convinced that the Americans will soon come up with something similar." NASA announced that a second attempt to send a Mariner probe towards Venus would be made within the next few days. The spacecraft and its mission would be identical to that of the first Mariner probe, which had to be destroyed shortly after launch on July 22, 1962, because of a deviation from planned flight path.
Soviet press agency Tass said that the cosmonauts traveling in weightless state could not depend on their sensory organs for correct signals. The cosmonauts had to rely on instruments to determine whether they were upside down or not, Tass added.
Prof. G. V. Petrovich, Soviet rocket specialist, wrote in Komsolskaya Pravda that within a few decades the solar system will seem no more forbidding than once-formidable Antarctica does today. When the solar system is conquered, man will be able to undertake interstellar flights. Noting that the rockets boosting VOSTOK III and VOSTOK IV into orbit were 20,000,000 horsepower, he predicted that during the Twentieth Century rocket liners would be built with engine capacity greater than 1,000,000,000 horsepower.
Walter L. Lingle, Jr., was appointed Assistant Administrator for Management Development, NASA.
NASA announced that its Goddard Space Flight Center had awarded three three-month study contracts for design of an Advanced OSO (orbiting solar observatory) satellite, to be launched into polar orbit during 1965. Advanced OSO would aid development of method of predicting solar flares. Contractors were Republic Aviation Corp., Space Technology Laboratories, and Ball Brothers Research Corp.
Announced that NASA had awarded contract to Rocketdyne Division of NAA for two-year continuation of H-1 engine research and development. Preliminary letter contract of $700,000 was signed toward estimated $9,000,000 total cost. H-1 engine is used in clusters of eight to power S–I stage of Saturn C-1 launch vehicle.
During mid-August: Chandler Ross, Aerojet-General Corp. Vice President, told House Committee on Sciences and Astronautics that two Aerojet concepts of recoverable/reusable boosters compared favorably to cost and capability of Saturn C-5. One concept was Sea Dragon two-stage unmanned vehicle with payload capability "well in excess" of a million pounds; and the other was Astroplane single-stage manned vehicle with payload capability of about 550,000 pounds. "In each case the incremental cost savings is of sufficient magnitude to warrant continued feasibility studies of these systems," Ross said.
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