October 1964
From The Space Library
NASA Assistant Administrator for International Programs Arnold W. Frutkin said in Aerospace: "The prime purpose of the National Aeronautics and Space Admin-istration's international space program is to serve broad foreign policy objectives through useful scientific and technical projects. "But a practical consequence for the American aerospace industry is that the program has stimulated a level of space activity abroad which might not otherwise have been achieved. Purely as a by-product, then, cooperative space projects have created limited markets for American know-how and hardware overseas. .. ." (Aerospace, Fall 1964, 10-15)
The French Government reported two successful firings of its four-stage Berenice rocket, a mach-12 re-entry test vehicle, from the Ile du Levant testing center in the Mediterranean. Tests were conducted by the Office National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aerospatiales (ONERA ) . The Berenice project was designed to supply re-entry data for use in France's strategic missile program. (Av. Wk., 12/7/64, 25)
Interviewed in Data, Maj. Gen. Samuel C. Phillips (SAF ), director of Apollo program in NASA Hq., replied to question about "all-up" concept of testing in the Apollo program. "The general test policy requires that all-up testing will be the basic approach to the flight test program. This requires that where prac-ticable, all flights will be scheduled as complete space vehicles using all live stages and as much of the lunar mission flight hardware as can be made available. This policy results from the recognition that true operational suitability of the flight hardware can only be obtained by operating the systems in the space environment and that the total number of development flights and total elapsed time can be reduced by making all flights as fully representative of the operational configuration as possible." (Data, 10/64, 7-13)
William C. Schneider, Gemini program deputy director, NASA Hq. discussed flight readiness of Gemini launch vehicles and spacecraft in Data interview "The launch vehicle is leading in flight readiness and this is as it should be. The Air Force Titan II has been under development for over four years, and 33 flights have been made in the program. NASA has benefited fully from the results of this extensive qualification flight test program that is now complete. The spacecraft, however, is still in the developmental phase of testing and is simply a younger program. In addition, the GIN's will be essentially identical throughout the Gemini Program. This is not true of the spacecraft. . . ." (Data, 10/64, 15-21 )
Vincent L. Johnson, NASA Director of Launch Vehicle and Propulsion Pro-grams, was interviewed in Data on Centaur launch vehicle. "At this point in the Centaur development program, the major por-tion of the ground tests have been completed, and three development flights have been accomplished. Three more development flights remain before the vehicle will be considered operational in a single-burn con-figuration in early 1965. The two-burn capability will be certified by two additional development flights providing a proven operational two-burn capability in 1966. I would like to note, however, that lunar flights can and will be accomplished by single-burn Centaurs in 1965 and 1966, and perhaps also in future years during those lunar opportunities that allow single-burn trajectories. . . (Data, 10/64, 27-31) During October: Lt. Cdr. M. Scott Carpenter was awarded special gold medal by International Association of Man in Space, commemorating Astronaut Carpenter's Project Mercury orbital space flight. (Dryden, Ltr. to Carpenter, 11/5/64)
Dr. Wolfgang Priester, after a year's work at Goddard Institute for Space Studies as a senior research scientist, returned to Bonn Univ. to become Director of its Institute of Astrophysics and Space Research. (Goddard News, 11/2/64, 8)
At two meetings of European Conference on Satellite Communications in Geneva, representatives proposed plans for regional comsat network independent of the U.S., while not ruling out participation with U.S. in global network. (M&R, 11/9/64,12-13)
- October
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
