Jan 19 1965
From The Space Library
An unmanned instrument-packed Gemini spacecraft (GT-2) was launched from Cape Kennedy on Titan II launch vehicle in suborbital shot preliminary to U.S.'s first two-man venture. Aboard was an automatic sequencer which issued orders at precise times en route to fire the rocket's second stage, to separate the spacecraft from the rocket, to jettison the spacecraft's storage section, to cartwheel the spacecraft into a reentry attitude, and to open the spacecraft's parachutes. The rocket reached a maximum altitude of 98.9 mi. and a speed of 16,708.9 mph before impacting 2,127.1 mi. downrange. The Gemini spacecraft descended by parachute into the Atlantic 16 mi. short of the planned impact point and 52 mi. from the carrier U.S.S. Lake Champlain which recovered the capsule an hour and 45 min. after launch. The capsule was reported in excellent condition. Major experiments for which the test was intended were apparently complete successes: a test of the heat shield; a test of the retrorocket system; and a test of the sequencing system. Despite its successes, the test had some difficulties: a fuel cell that would be the primary electrical system in the spacecraft during long-duration manned flights failed to operate before launching because of a stuck valve; the temperature was found to be too high in the cooling system of the spacecraft. ( NASA Release 64-296; MSC Roundup, 1/3/65, 1; Wash. Eve. Star, 1/19/65; Houston Chron., 1/19/65; UPI, Rossiter, Wash. Post, 1/20/65; AP, Balt. Sun, 1/20/65)
Dr. Burton I. Edelson, staff member of the National Aeronautics and Space Council, spoke on communications satellites at the AIAA meeting in Las Cruces, N.Mex. He said: "There is a general growing interdependence of politics, economics, and technology, and in no area do these forces interact more noticeably, than in international communications. When we try to predict the course that communications satellites systems will follow in the years to come we must consider not only decibels and megacycles, rocket thrusts and orbital elements, but the competitive economic pressure of transoceanic cables and the political aspirations of developing nations. . . . "Finally, I believe the words of Arthur C. Clarke, the visionary who first conceived of the communications satellite, will be fulfilled: 'Comsats will end ages of isolation making us all members of a single family, teaching us to read and speak, however imperfectly, a single language. Thanks to some electronic gear twenty thousand miles above the equator, ours will be the last century of the savage." (Text)
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