Nov 1 1963
From The Space Library
Premier Nikita Khrushchev announced the launching of POLET I at a Moscow reception in honor of Laotian Prince Souvanna Phouma: ". . . the present spaceship is really new. While the previous ships placed into orbit made flights mainly in the direction imparted to them when they were launched from Earth, the spacecraft that was lofted today is making wide maneuvers in space, varying the orbital plane and altitude. "The fact that we have launched such a ship bears testimony that human ingenuity has reached a higher stage. Now man in space is no longer a prisoner of his ship. He controls it and guides its flight. The spacecraft has become ever more responsive to man's will." Stating that the U.S.S.R. had been given serious attention to President Kennedy's proposal for a joint lunar landing program, Premier Khrushchev added: "What could be better than to send a Russian and an American to the moon together, or better yet, a Russian man and an American woman? "If we could agree on further easing of tension, not just in moral but in concrete terms such as disarmament, this would give greater means, namely international means, to the development of science." (Pravda, 11/2/63, AFSS-Trans.; Shabad, NYT, 11/2/63, 1, 9)
U.S. reaction to U.S.S.R.'s launching of POLET I and Premier Khrushchev's subsequent expression of interest in U.S.-U.S.S.R. cooperation of manned space flight was summed up by NASA Administrator James E. Webb, who pointed out "the wisdom of President Kennedy's remarks on Wednesday that there is every indication that the Soviet Union is proceeding with a vigorous space program. "It also points out how important it is for us to pursue our broad-based program as assurance against surprise." U.S. space experts likened POLET I to the U.S. Gemini spacecraft, scheduled to make its first unmanned flight in late 1963 or early 1964. (Simons, *Wash. Post, 11/2/63)
GSFC awarded contract to Yale Univ. to design and develop a worldwide radio monitoring network for study of planet Jupiter. Four stations would comprise the global network, located at approximately every 90° longitude around the earth-one at GSFC in Greenbelt, Md., and the other three at U.S. satellite tracking stations in Hartesbeesthoek, South Africa; Carnarvon, Australia; and South Point, Hawaii. Primary duty of the stations would be to maintain a 24-hr. radio monitor of the mysterious low-frequency radio noises sporadically emitted from the planet. The data should provide information on Jupiter's magnetosphere, the interplanetary medium, and the earth's ionosphere. (GSFC Release G-25-63)
Major reorganization of NASA Hq. became effective (see Oct. 9 for details), consolidating the four major program offices into three and delineating and elevating certain staff functions. (NASA Releases 63-225, 242)
MSC announced a contract amendment to General Dynamics/Convair in the amount of $2,247,174 for two additional Little Joe II solid boosters for use in the Apollo test program. The two new boosters would be used in high-altitude abort test-around 60,000 ft.- testing the capability of the launch escape system to separate the command module from the booster. This amendment would bring total Little Joe II procurement costs to $8,928,637, including the four vehicles originally ordered and nearly $500,000 for design, development, and installation of two launchers at the White Sands Missile Range, N.M. (MSC Release 63-223)
Dr. Edward C. Welsh, Executive Secretary of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, spoke before the Society of Experimental Test Pilots in Washington : ". . . it occurs to me that perhaps some of our best known astronauts took greater risks, with less thoroughly tested equipment, when they were flying aircraft in the atmosphere than when they went into space .. . . I simply want to mention that our astronauts, just as all test pilots, had done many courageous things before the Space Age descended upon us and too few were recognized as heroes for those feats." (Text)
In address at a space exploration symposium at New York University, Dr. Eugene M. Emme, NASA Historian, reviewed the birth of the space age and its first half decade. Referring to the impact of space exploration upon society, he said : "Space exploration-with all of its novelty and drama and future potential for society-continues to jar the intellect, stir the emotions, and stimulate actions among peoples everywhere . . . . Our children, of course, have no doubt whatever that man will soon set foot on the surface of the moon, and then the nearby planets; it is only a question of exactly how soon. The rest of us old folks, conditioned as we are to the scientific and technological realities of the recent past, have a little difficulty comprehending either the reality or the significance concerning the mobility of mankind in space today and tomorrow . . . . "To the historian, the closing of the present kindergarten era of astronautics, with its tender philosophy, offers the germ for a new renaissance in the mind and spirit of mankind. It could well be a renaissance for mankind as was sparked with the new geography of Columbus and Magellan and the new astronomy of Copernicus and Galileo which helped loosen Europe from the Dark Ages; or when the new biology of Darwin for the physical organism, the challenges of Marx and the new psychology of Bergson and Freud for the conscious man assisted the great intellectual stimulus of the late nineteenth century as well as the humanitarianism and the technological boom of the twentieth century . . . ." (Text; Airpower Historian 1/64, 6-10)
U.S.S.R. announced launching of POLET I (Flight I), a new type of maneuverable spacecraft for use in manned orbital rendezvous flight. Initial orbital data were: apogee, 592 km. (368 mi.) ; perigee, 339 km. (211 mi.). After what were described as "repeated" changes in altitude and inclination, the spacecraft on Nov. 2 attained "final orbit" : apogee, 1,437 km. (893 mi.) ; perigee, 343 km. (213 mi.) ; period, 102.5 min. ; inclination, 58°55'. (Pravda, 11/2/63, AFSS-Trans.; Shabad, NYT, 11/2/63, 1; 11/3/63, 33)
Arecibo Ionospheric Observatory was dedicated by ARPA and USAF in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Largest radar-radio telescope of its kind in the world, A10 is a 1,000-ft-diameter bowl constructed in a natural bowl formed by several mountain peaks. As a radiotelescope, it should detect radiation from galactic sources considerably more distant than any yet detected. As a radar, it would be the most sensitive instrument yet built for ionospheric research. Dr. Thomas Gold, head of the astronomy department of Cornell Univ., which built and would operate the new facility, predicted that it would help make clear "the grand architecture of the Universe." (DOD Release 1358-63; Schmeck, NYT, 11/2/63, 9)
Titan II was launched 5,700 mi. down AMR in test of vibration levels prior to its employment as a booster for Gemini manned space flights. Also along on the flight was a pickaback capsule of instruments to study the exhaust plume of the missile. (UPI, NYT, 11/2/63, 9)
DOD announced that the Army would begin in November a series of "graduation firings" of the Pershing ground-to-ground solid-propellant missile by tactical units. Firings would be from Fort Sill, Okla. (DOD Release 1442-63)
Army Nike-Zeus was successfully fired from White Sands Missile Range, N.M. Continuation of tests were to aid in development of the more advanced Nike X system. (DOD Release 1444 63)
Chinese Communists claimed they had shot down an American-built, Nationalist-Chinese-operated U-2 reconnaissance aircraft near Shanghai in East China. This was the second U-2 the Chinese Communists claimed to have shot down over their territory. (NYT, 11/2/63, 6)
Defense Documentation Center (DDC) for Scientific and Technical Information was transferred from operational control of USAF to Defense Supply Agency (DSA), effective this date. Physical location remained at Cameron Station, Alexandria, Va. DDC was previously known as Armed Services Technical Information Agency (ASTIA). (DOD Release 1371-63)
Columnist William S. White, writing in the Washington Evening Star, charged that Premier Nikita Khrushchev was being supported in his efforts to slow down the U.S. space program by "one of the strangest coalitions we have ever known" in Congress, made up of conservatives who want to save money and liberals who want to spend the money on welfare. "The conservatives . . . ought to ponder what they are about here. For apart from the almost indescribable strategic and scientific significance of this program, there is the bottom fact that it is already nearly indispensible to the American economy and may later become indispensible in the absolute sense. "Automation, when fully launched, will create huge pools of unemployables. Politically, these must and will be cared for, under any foreseeable regime, Republican or Democratic. Is it not better to spend the money for space than to speed the day when all this money and more will have to be thrown about for the most gigantic-and also permanent-leaf-raking schemes in the world's history ? "The space program is the precise opposite of economic crackpotism. It is sensible conservatism's greatest future weapon against just such crackpotism." (Wash. Eve. Star, 11/1/63)
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