Jan 11 1962
From The Space Library
In his State of the Union message to the Congress, President Kennedy said: "With the approval of this Congress, we have undertaken in the past year a great new effort in outer space. Our aim is not simply to be first on the moon, any more than Charles Lindbergh's real aim was to be first to Paris. His aim was to develop the techniques and the authority of this country and other countries in the field of the air and the atmosphere.
"And our objective in making this effort, which we hope will place one of our citizens on the moon, is to develop in a new frontier of science, commerce and cooperation, the position of the United States and the free world. This nation belongs among the first to explore it. And among the first, if not the first, we shall be.
"We are offering know-how and cooperation to the United Nations. Our satellites will soon be providing other nations with improved weather observations. And I shall soon send to the Congress a measure to govern the financing and operation of an international communications satellite system, in a manner consistent with the public interest and our foreign policy.
"But peace in space will help us naught once peace on earth is gone .. ."
USAF B-52H flew nonstop and without refueling 12,519 miles from Okinawa to Madrid, breaking by 1,283.4 miles the 1946 record set by Navy P2V-1 "Truculent Turtle." Maj. C. E. Evely headed crew of eight making the 21-hour-52-minute flight.
At SAM symposium on aerospace medicine, Lt. Col. Burt Rowen (USAF), Chief of Bioastronautics at AFFTC, presented heartbeat and breathing records of Maj. Robert M. White during X-15 record speed flight of November 9, 1961. "When the President's Scientific Advisory Committee first became aware of the high heart and respiration rates [of pilots in high-performance aircraft] they became concerned with the question of success of the Mercury program. . . . But now this has come to he regarded as normal." Dr. Charles Sandhous of the University of California warned that an astronaut caught in space during a solar flare might age three years or more as a result of the radiation received.
At Eighth National Symposium on Reliability and Quality Control in Washington, W. T. Sumerlin of the Philco Corp. estimated that 3,000 engineers and others were now devoting full time to this "new field." E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. announced it had awarded grants totaling $1,693,300 to 161 American universities and colleges to strengthen the teaching of science and related subjects, to promote fundamental research, and to aid facilities for education or research in science and engineering.
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