Feb 7 1962
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (2MB PDF)
In a special message to the Congress, President Kennedy proposed the creation of a "Communications Satellite Corporation" to be financed through the sale of stock to communications companies and the general public. This privately-owned corporation would have the responsibility to develop, own, and operate communications relay stations in space. The President declared that the creation of a satellite communication system would be "a measure of immense long-range importance."
In regular press conference, President Kennedy was asked for his "evaluation of our progress in space at this time" and whether the U.S. had changed its "timetable for landing a man on the moon?" He replied: "I have Said from the beginning we've been behind. And we are running into the difficulties which come from starting late. We, however, are going to proceed. We're making a maximum effort, as you know, and the expenditures in our space program are enormous. And, to the best of my ability, the time schedule, I hope, has not been changed by the recent setbacks." President Kennedy requested $156 million supplemental appropriations for NASA during FY 1962., $85 million of which was to cover Advanced Saturn, the Centaur vehicle program, and the M-1 engine program.
AEC and NASA announced that the Catalytic Construction Co. had been selected as construction contractor for nuclear rocket development facilities for Project Rover at the AEC Nevada Test Site near Las Vegas, Nev.
Army launched Nike-Zeus from underground cell, at White Sands.
Harrison E. Salisbury reported that "in the most advanced echelons of Soviet Science there is emerging a tendency to seek a nonmaterialist concept of the universe." According to the former Moscow correspondent who recently toured the Soviet Union for two months, "some of the most eminent figures in the galaxy of Soviet physicists, astronomers and mathematicians are involved," although they are not believers in formal religion or dogma.
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