Jul 21 1962
From The Space Library
NASA selected design for the Advanced Saturn launch complex northwest of Cape Canaveral, featuring a 2,500-ton crawler-mode vehicle recommended by the Launch Operation Center (LOC). Saturn C-5 launch vehicles (350 ft. high) would be erected and checked out vertically and then transported to the Complex 39, consisting of 4 launch pads about 9,000 ft. apart. Managed by LOC, Complex 39 construction supervision had been assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers.
President Kennedy sent telegram to aerospace unions and industries stating that a strike would "substantially delay our vital missile and space programs and would be contrary to the national interest." The International Association of Machinists, one union involved in threatened strike of 150,000 workers in major aerospace companies, immediately accepted the President's request to postpone strike for 60 days.
From Hyannis Port, President Kennedy announced that Dr. Robert R. Gilruth was one of the five Federal career officials who would receive the highest Government award, the 1962 President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service. Director of NASA Manned Spacecraft Center and of Project Mercury since its inception, Gilruth, the announcement said, "successfully carried out one of the most complex tasks ever presented to man in this country—the achievement of manned flight in orbit around the earth." The awards would be presented later at White House ceremony.
Launch of NASA Venus probe (Mariner) postponed because of malfunction in command destruct system of the Atlas-Agena B.
Reported that Premier Khrushchev bad witnessed test firing of Soviet Polaris-type missile from submerged submarine in the Arctic Ocean, believed by Western observers to be the first such Soviet test.
Soviet News Agency Tass announced that the U.S.S.R. was again resuming nuclear tests in the atmosphere, quoting an official Soviet Government statement, in part: "The explosions of the American nuclear bombs above Christmas and Johnston Islands have produced their echo—they have made Soviet nuclear tests in reply inevitable." Egyptian armed forces test-fired four single-stage rockets, which witness President Nasser said could hit any target in Israel. Two of the rockets, named "El Zahir" (Victorious), had a reputed range of 222 miles; the other two, named "El Kaher" (Conqueror), were claimed to have a range of 360 miles. Rockets were launched from a secret base 48 miles north of Cairo, and were built entirely by Egyptian technicians, according to President Nasser. After the firings, Cairo Radio announced: "The U.A.R. has entered the space age." NASA said by press to have "put alphabet in orbit" with abbreviated names such as woo (Western Operations Office), PLOO (Pacific Launch Operations Office), and recently NEOO (Northeastern Operations Office).
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