Nov 7 1962
From The Space Library
NASA announced selection of Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. to build lunar excursion module (LEM) of the three-man Apollo spacecraft. In announcing the selection, NASA Administrator James E. Webb said: "We are affirming our tentative decision of last July . . . using lunar orbit rendezvous as the prime mission mode to accomplish initial manned lunar flight.. . . Studies [of alternate approaches], now completed, along with a great deal of related analyses . . . during the intervening months, make us confident that our present course is the proper one." D. Brainerd Holmes, Deputy Associate Administrator of NASA and Director of Manned Space Flight added that more than 1,000,000 man-hours of some 700 scientists, engineers, and researchers had been devoted to studies of the Apollo mission. ". . . The results of these studies added up to the conclusion that lunar orbit rendezvous is the preferable mode to undertake." Apollo lunar spacecraft will be composed of command module, service module, and lunar excursion module.
NASA fired two experimental rockets into upper atmosphere within a half-hour of each other, to obtain a comparison of electron density profile with wind profile measured at about the same time. First rocket, two-stage Nike-Cajun, attained 82-mi. altitude with a 55-lb. payload to obtain measurements of electron density and electron temperature in ionosphere at night. Second experiment, using two-stage Nike-Apache, involved use of sodium vapor clouds to measure atmospheric winds and diffusion; rocket reached 34-mi. altitude before ejecting its vapor cloud, which extended to peak altitude of 103 mi. Twin launchings, conducted at NASA Wallops Station, marked first time such experiments were conducted together. Experiments were conducted by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Geophysics Corporation of America.
Advanced USAF missile, Atlas F, was successfully fired more than 4,000 mi. from Cape Canaveral. The missile was 150th Atlas to be launched since the first went aloft June 1957, including 31 launched as space vehicles.
AEC announced University of California Lawrence Radiation Laboratory and Texas ARM Activation Analysis Laboratory would conduct NASA- and AEC-funded research in methods of determining chemical composition of lunar surface.
First week in November: Armour Research Foundation reported to NASA that surface of the moon may not be covered with layers of dust. Initial Armour studies indicated dust particles become harder and denser in higher-vacuum environment such as that of moon, but studies had not proved that particles eventually become bonded together in rock-like substance as vacuum increased.
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