Mar 2 1962
From The Space Library
Mercury astronauts visited the United Nations, and John Glenn, during an informal reception given by Acting Secretary-General U Thant, said: "To be here at the United Nations this morning and have all these tributes to our project and all the people that are working on it from people of this calibre, is indeed overwhelming all over again after yesterday. . .
"As space science and space technology grows still further and our projects become more and more ambitious, we will be relying more and more on international teamwork.
"And the natural center for this teamwork is the United Nations . . . ." Colonel Glenn also expressed the gratitude of Project Mercury to those countries who had cooperated in the flight operations.
In Nationwide radio-TV address, President Kennedy announced that the U.S. would begin atmospheric nuclear tests from Johnston and Christmas Islands in the Pacific during April unless such tests were rendered unnecessary by the clear willingness of the U.S.S.R. to take mutual steps toward "general and complete disarmament." Five Nike-Cajun rockets were fired from Wallops Station, Va., in a series of tests to measure atmospheric conditions at high altitudes. At 5:47 AM NASA scientists fired the first rocket to spread a trail of water vapor up to 89 miles altitude. At 5:54 AM the second rocket was fired. It loosed a cloud of sodium vapor starting at 26 miles and rising with the rocket to 84 miles. The cloud was spectacular in the sunrise and visible for hundreds of miles along the Atlantic coast. At 6:15 AM the third rocket jettisoned and detonated grenades one at a time at altitudes from 24 to 55 miles. Two additional Nike-Cajun rockets were fired in the evening with sodium and grenade experiments.
USAF reported that "an Air Force satellite had provided the first continuous data on the actual size and intensity of the inner belt" of proton radiation over the Equator at altitudes of 600 to 3,000 miles. Stating only that the data was acquired from a 23-lb. experiment aboard an Agena, the report said radiation intensity at the center of the belt was 600,000 proton particles passing through one sq. inch per second, previously estimated at 100,000.
A simple satellite plotter costing only a few hundred dollars and accurate to within 10 miles on any orbit was devised by Major William Gamble of the Canadian Defense Research Board. The Defense Research Board would use the device to give quick fixes on satellite orbits to radar stations.
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