Jul 21 1961
From The Space Library
MR-4 Liberty Bell 7, manned by Mercury Astronaut Virgil I. Grissom, made successful 15-minute, 118-mile-high and 303-mile-long flight down Atlantic Missile Range, premature blowout of escape hatch flooding capsule and making helicopter pickup of Grissom difficult. Capsule sank in 18,000 feet of water after warning light indicated helicopter engine was overheating and the capsule was cast loose. This was the second successful manned suborbital space flight.
President Kennedy signed NASA's fiscal year 1962 authorization bill providing for a total of $1,784,300,000.
USAF Discoverer XXVII destroyed by range safety officer 60 seconds after launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base.
At the request of Senator Paul H. Douglas, the membership of the American Astronautical Society was polled by the University of Illinois Observatory as to their opinion regarding the "scientific value" of the U.S. space program to land on and return one or more men from the Moon.
USAF processed 44 test pilots through the Dyna-Soar selection program, and reportedly both USAF and NASA test pilots would participate in the step I suborbital flight program.
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