Nov 16 1963

From The Space Library

U.S.S.R. launched cosmos XXII into earth orbit. Ini­tial orbital data : apogee, 394 km. (45 mi.) ; perigee, 205 km. (127 mi.) ; period, 90.3 min.; inclination, 64°56'. (Pravda, 11/17/63, 1, AFSS-T Trans.)

President Kennedy visited Cape Canaveral, his third tour of the test site within two years. Flying in from Palm Beach, where he was spending the weekend, the President spent three hours watching the launching of a Polaris missile from the submerged nuclear submarine U.S.S. Andrew Jackson, riding in a. helicopter over the Merritt Island Launch Area (MILA) where NASA is con­structing facilities for Saturn V launches, visiting the Saturn I rocket on its launch site. Speaking of the Saturn I flight sched­uled for early December, the President said that if successful it would give tie U.S. "the largest booster in the world and show significant progress in space. "I think that would be an important milestone for us." The President was briefed on Projects Gemini and Apollo and the related booster programs by a group of NASA officials including NASA Administrator James E. Webb, NASA Associate Admin­istrator Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., and MSFC Director Dr. Wern­her von Braun. At one point in the illustrated lecture, the President lagged behind his party to examine models of the var­ious boosters in the space program. He picked up a model of the 72-ft. Atlas D which had boosted the Project Mercury astro­nauts into orbit and compared it with a model of the 281-ft. Saturn V intended to propel Project Apollo astronauts to a manned lunar landing. "This is fantastic," the President said. (NYT, 11/17/63, 1; Wash,. Post, 11/17/63, 2)

U.S. and U.S.S.R. were reported to have a draft of a resolution on legal aspects of space exploration and to be circulat­ing it for comment to other members of the 28-nation U.N. Com­mittee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space prior to formal sub­mission. It was announced on Nov. 8 that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. had reached general agreement. (Brewer, NYT, 11/17/63, 34)

Soviet Marshal Nikolai I. Krylov, writing in Izvestia, claimed that Soviet ICBM'S "in many respects exceed both quantitatively and qualitatively" the strategic rocket potential of any other nation. The new-model tests in the Pacific in the spring of 1963 had produced "fabulous super-sniper accuracy" over a range of 8,000 mi., he said. Among characteristics of Soviet Imes, the Marshal listed "unlimited range," relative ease of operation, combat readi­ness "within minutes," and capability of launching from mobile field installations having no preliminary engineering work. (NYT, 11/17/63, 39)

• November

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