May 9 1962
From The Space Library
In regular press conference, President Kennedy was asked whether "proposed H-bomb explosion 500 miles up" would jeopardize U.S. policy to restrict outer space for peaceful objectives only. He replied that he did not think So and that it was a matter that "we are looking into to see whether there is scientific merit that this would cause some difficulty to the Van Allen Belt in a way which would affect scientific discovery . . .
"I want you to know that whatever our decision is . . . it will be done only after very careful scientific deliberation, which is now taking place . . . Generally what we are attempting to do is to find out the effects of such an explosion on our security, and we do not believe that this will adversely affect the security of any person not living in the United States." 18-nation 5th COSPAR meeting in final session voted to establish a consultative group for determining the potential harmful effects of experiments in space. Group of six scientists was charged with recommending to COSPAR’s executive council possible action by the international scientific community to sanction or condemn such experiments. Other closing actions: (1) Maurice Roy of the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris was elected President for 1962-63; (2) expressed "satisfaction at the intention of the U.S. to launch a geodetic satellite carrying a flashing beacon for international use"; (3) proposed series of coordinated rocket measurements of winds in the ionosphere from Oct. 1962 to Feb. 1963; and (4) recommended numbering satellites during 1963 by the ordinal number rather than Greek letter.
President Kennedy in answering a question on a uniform patent policy among governmental agencies said that it was a "difficult problem, because you have to balance off the gains on the one hand and at the same time the incentives to companies to spend their own funds in order to develop patents . . . so that we have some differences in the space agency problems, the Department of Defense and perhaps some other agency of the Government." He said that it was a matter now under review and if changes appear warranted that recommendations would be sent to the Congress.
USAF announced that it had begun negotiation with United Technology Corp. for development of solid-fuel motors for use in Titan III space booster.
Army Nike-Zeus test flight from Point Mugu, Calif., a partial success in that "missile accepted and correctly executed control commands transmitted from a ground guidance center," although third stage did not fire.
A Navy advanced Polaris was test-launched from submerged nuclear submarine U.S.S. Sam Houston off the Florida coast.
Army Pershing missile destroyed in test flight from Cape Canaveral when second stage became erratic, the second failure in last three launchings after 13 straight successes.
In address to the Operations Research Society, Gen. Bernard Schriever said: "Our continuing national security is dependent on the rapid advance of technology and its adoption in operational systems. The pacing factor in this advance is not technology—it is management.
". . . two stages occur in the acquisition of new systems—the preselection phase and the implementation phase . . . Not enough attention has been paid to the more crucial phase—the decision to select a specific system from a galloping technology."
Cdr. George C. Watkins (USN) became the first man to make 1,000 aircraft landings aboard a carrier, when he landed an AD-6 aboard the U.S.S. Constellation.
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