Jul 15 1962
From The Space Library
First NASA balloon carrying bioscience payload of two rhesus monkeys and four hamsters traveled faster and higher than planned after launch from Goose Bay, Labrador, requiring alternate plan for early jettisoning to effect daylight recovery. Payload was recovered 45 miles north of Prince Albert in Saskatchewan, all animals reported dead upon recovery. Conducted by Ames Research Center Life Science Laboratory, experiment was designed to check primary cosmic radiation.
Reported from Stockholm, Sweden, that NASA team had arrived to launch four Nike-Cajun rockets for cooperative investigation with the Swedish Committee for Space Research of high-altitude, bright night clouds. Rockets would be launched from Jokkmokk in northern Sweden.
NASA announced that two technical notes propose new concept on the mechanics of solar heating of the upper atmosphere. Dr. Isadore Harris (TN–D-1443) and Dr. Wolfgang Priester (TN–D-1444) of Goddard Space Flight Center proposed that corpuscular radiation (i.e., solar wind) in association with hydro-magnetic waves may be the energy source required to explain the results obtained from orbiting satellites. Harris' note provided for the first time a diurnal picture of the thermosphere (120 to 2,050 kilometers above the earth's surface). Priester's note postulated the physical properties scientists are likely to encounter during a complete 11-year solar cycle when upper atmospheric conditions change according to solar flare activity.
Resumption of 17-nation Disarmament Committee session meetings in Geneva. Appeal of President Kennedy for Russians to "join in a creative search for ways of ending the arms race" was rejected in Tass statement published in Moscow—the U.S. was attempting to "conceal its rejection of general disarmament." NASA announced that nine selected college graduates had begun a year of intensive training in NASA's first Management Intern Program. After four training periods of three months (3 in Headquarters offices and 1 at field center), successful interns will be offered permanent. NASA employment in administrative positions.
Radio Corporation of America announced that its Radar Division had developed a new technique applying the doppler effect to monopulse radar, to allow for velocity measurements of a space vehicle up to 100 titles more precise than by conventional methods. Developed for the Army Signal R&D Lab at Fort Monmouth, the new technique could be applied to radars already in service.
Astronaut Virgil I. Grissom (Captain, USAF) promoted to Major, USAF.
Pioneer flight surgeon, Dr. Bernard L. Jarman, who was appointed the first medical examiner of the Civil Aeronautics Agency in 1927, died in Washington.
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
