Dec 3 1962
From The Space Library
Successful ground tests of Automatic Picture Transmission (APT) subsystem reported by NASA. To be flight-tested on a Tiros satellite next year, APT would eventually enable weather stations to obtain local cloud-cover pictures directly from orbiting weather satellites, thus making possible a world-wide weather satellite service.
Senator Albert Gore (D-Tenn.) told U.N. General Assembly's Political Committee that U.S. was seeking following goals in space policy: "To be guided by the general principles already laid down by the United Nations for establishment of a regime of law in outer space, and to negotiate an extension of those principles by international agreement.
"To conclude a treaty banning immediately the testing of any more nuclear weapons in outer space.
"To preclude the placing in orbit of weapons of mass destruction.
"To take all reasonable and practicable steps, including consultation with the world's scientific community, to avoid space experiments with harmful effects.
"To conduct a program which is as open as our security needs will permit and as cooperative as others are willing to make it.
"To press forward with the establishment of an integrated global satellite communication system for commercial needs and a cooperative weather satellite system, both with broad international participation."
DOD announced it had canceled plans for immediate development of detector-interceptor satellite (unofficially called "Project Saint"), and that the project was being "re-oriented towards achieving longer-term" objectives. Official explanation was that Saint had been "bypassed by technological developments." NASA and Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories launched Nike-Apache sounding rocket from Eglin Gulf Test Range, Ha. Intended to measure winds by sodium vapor method, rocket rose to 117-mi. altitude and emitted a fair vapor trail.
NASA request for AEC study of nuclear power unit was reported. 40-watt units for NASA interplanetary monitoring probes would be launched at rate of two per year for four years, beginning in 1964.
President Kennedy presented AEI's Enrico Fermi Award for 1962, carrying a $50,000 prize, to nuclear physicist Dr. Edward Teller, the citation reading: "For contributions to chemical and nuclear physics, for his leadership in the thermonuclear research and for efforts to strengthen national security." Temporary restraining order against Lockheed Aircraft Corp. and International Association of Machinists to prevent further IAM strike action was issued by U.S. District Judge Jesse Curtis, effective until Dec. 13. Hearings on Justice Dept. request for temporary injunction, based on report from President Kennedy's three-man board of inquiry, were set for Dec. 10.
Editorial on tactical fighter (TFX) program, contract for which was awarded to General Dynamics and Grumman Aircraft by DOD, appeared in Aviation Week and Space Technology: ". . . Underlying the whole TFX concept is one of the solid, basic technical explorations by the researchers of the old National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) that did so much to keep this country the international leader in supersonic aircraft development. Without the fundamental research into the variable sweep wing and the detailed development of this principle by the Langley research laboratory group headed by John Stack, the current TFX concepts of both final competitors would have been impossible. . . . The full story of the Langley contribution to the TFX program should be hammered home as an example of how these research and development investments eventually pay substantial dividends. . . ."
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
