May 1 1963
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (2MB PDF)
Testifying before House Subcommittee on Manned Space Flight, NASA Deputy Associate Administrator and Director of Manned Space Flight D. Brainerd Holmes said that "the recent Gemini is a different program than the one with which we started. It had two fundamental purposes originally which we have not given up and which we still consider to be of paramount importance-to gain experience in prolonged weightlessness and to gain experience in rendezvous before Apollo . . . . "However, as we developed the Gemini program, we found it was not wise to have only an updated Mercury spacecraft. We found as we developed the subsystems for Gemini that it was much wiser to incorporate technology known today-not something that was early developmental technology of the past. This concept would lead us step by step toward Apollo, and we would reap tremendous benefits from it. In addition . . . it became quite apparent to us that this would be a very useful Earth orbital spacecraft . "In developing the Gemini subsystems, we find that they are better and more sophisticated than initially conceived and the spacecraft is much more sophisticated than anticipated. Therefore, the costs tend to be higher and the time scales longer . . "We had planned to have the first manned Gemini flight the second flight, during the first quarter of 1964. Our present plan is that the first manned flight in the series would not be until the fourth quarter of 1964. Our current plan grew in part from the advisability of having more sophisticated subsystems, which required more time, and in part from a reorientation of the program to include a second unmanned flight before the manned’. . . the Titan II . . . has had some developmental problems over and above what we had anticipated. However, the problems are always encountered in a developmental program. In our opinion it will be safer to use the Titan II for manned flights if we have two structural missions. We will have more time to eliminate the developmental problems . . . . "We are planning an unmanned flight at the end of this year and about the middle of next year. We plan to have a manned flight in the last quarter of 1964 . . . ." (Transcript)
Senator Russell Long (D.-La.) introduced bill (S. 1436) "to prescribe with greater particularity the conditions under which proprietary interests of the United States in inventions may be waived pursuant to section 305 of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958." Bill was referred to Senate Committee on the Judiciary. (NASA Leg. Act. Rpt. II/64)
NASA Launch Operations Center reorganization announced. Operating under interim organization since it became operational July 1962, LOC now had 14 offices and divisions reporting directly to Office of the Director, Dr. Kurt H. Debus, and a Deputy Director and four Assistant Directors. (LOC Spaceport News, 5/1/63)
NASA Ames Research Center announced award of contract to Thiokol Chemical Corp. for "hypervelocity test device," to be part of Hypervelocity Free-Flight Facility now under construction at Ames. Thiokol would design, build, test, and deliver the wind tunnel structure, to be used with light gas gun to test designs for manned orbiting spacecraft, vehicles returning from moon and planets, and possibly vehicles entering atmospheres of other planets. (Ames Release 63-20; NASA Release 63-89)
NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Industry Affairs, Walter L. Lingle,Jr., reviewed NASA procurement policies before National Capitol Section of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) : "It is our objective in NASA to have one overriding objective in all of our procurement policies; and that is so to make our contracts that we will achieve the highest standards in reliability and systems performance . . . ." (Text)
Dr. Eugene B. Konecci, NASA Director of Biotechnology and Human Research, said in Los Angeles press interview that NASA planned to use balloons to float men for 30 days or more in sealed capsules at 100,000-ft.+altitudes. Such experiments would test life support systems for future manned spacecraft. (AP, Wash. Eve. Star, 5/1/63)
NASA-sponsored meeting with representatives from labor and management held in Gulfport, Miss., with more than 100 men representing 30 organizations at the session to work out advance agreements on wages, hours, and working conditions for workers involved in construction of NASA Mississippi Test Facility. Meeting was "first such conference ever sponsored by the Federal government in advance of the award of a construction contract." (N.Y. Herald Trib., 4/28/63)
New York Times reported Australian scientists had established charred metal sphere found in western New South Wales had come from "a space vehicle of some sort." Australian Government was trying to determine original owner of the object, about 15-in. in diameter and 10-lb. in weight. (NYT, 5/1/63, 6) )
Titan I ICBM exploded during attempted launching at Vandenberg AFB. USAF spokesman said no one was injured and damage to silo launch facility appeared slight. (AP, Wash. Post, 5/2/63; DOD Release 624-63)
A. M. Nowitsky, Director of Spacecraft Sterilization, Lockheed Missiles & Space Co., said in speech before Aerospace Medical Association meeting in Los Angeles that sterilization of lunar space craft was essential to prevent contamination of moon and to detect any organisms on the moon: "For millions of years the moon has been a vulnerable target. in the path of extraterrestrial debris, possibly organic, bacterial and living-possibly disease-causing and preserved in a state highly acclimated to unfavorable environmental extremes. "If such forms do exist and are in any way dangerous or destructive, their earl detection would prove vital to man's future planetary exploration and the protection of earth from mutual contamination." (Miles, L.A. Times, 5,/2/63)
France's General Jean Thiry announced France would build nuclear test center on Mururoa Atoll, in Pacific Ocean near Tahiti. (Middleton, NYT, 5/2/63)
International Association of Machinists (IAM) postponed scheduled nationwide strike against Boeing Co. after receiving telegram from President Kennedy and revised contract proposal from Boeing. Union set vote on new proposal for May 10. (AP, NYT, 5/3/63714)
Dr. William M. Helvey, Chief of Space Environment and Life Sciences Laboratory, Republic Aviation Corp., told American Medical Association in Los Angeles that test volunteers exposed to pure oxygen in altitude chamber during four two-week periods had developed anemia but, remained otherwise healthy. (Science Service, Wash. Daily News, 5/1/63)
Brig. Gen. Samuel C. Phillips (USAF), Director of Minuteman Program, said at Norton AFB that the U.S. ICBM had "achieved more than was asked in all respects, including range and payload." (Dighton, AP, Wash. Eve. Star, 5/1/63)
AF Weapons Laboratory at Kirtland AFB, N.M., was assigned to AFSC's Research and Technology Div. (RTD), Bolling AFB, Va. (AFSC Operational Highlights, 11)
In address at dedication of General H. H. Arnold advanced range instrumentation ship (ARIS), Cape Canaveral, General Bernard A. Schriever (USAF) said "Instrumentation is a key element of technology in the Space Age. It plays a crucial role m the rapid progress of our research and development efforts, through the provision of more complete and accurate information on test results. As a result. far fewer tests are required than was formerly the case . . . " Comparing the 2,500 test firings of V-2 to the less than 50 of Thor IRBM, he said: "Better instrumentation is a major factor in this dramatic redaction." He recalled General Arnold's foresight "demonstrated as far back as 1917," when he and Charles Kettering worked on development of "The Bug" pilotless guided airplane-in many ways "25 years ahead of its time . . " "Throughout his career 'Hap' Arnold was a pioneer of new ideas . . . " In 1938 he predicted development of variable-wing aircraft. In 1944 he organized Army Air Forces Scientific Advisory Group under Dr. Theodore von Karman, charging these scientists to "'think about supersonic speed airplanes, airplanes that would move and operate without crews, improvements in bombs... communications systems . . . television, weather, medical research; atomic energy, and any other phase of aviation which might affect the development and employment of the air power to come . . . ." (Text, AFSC Release 35-R-36)
Ground-breaking ceremony for new astrophysics and space research laboratory in Chicago, part of Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies, Univ. of Chicago announced. (Chic. Trib., 4/28/63)
The astronauts making the United States' first two-man Gemini endurance space flight next year would be wired for sound as never before-to a pair of small magnetic tape recorders registering their physical and mental reactions second by second throughout the flight. (Space News Roundup, 1/8/64, 2)
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