May 28 1956

From The Space Library

The RAND Corporation issued the first of a series of reports on the feasibility of a lunar instrument carrier, based on the use of an Atlas booster. A braking rocket would decelerate the vehicle before lunar landing, and a penetration spike on the forward point of the instrument package would help to absorb the 500 feet per second impact velocity. Instruments would then transmit information on the lunar surface to earth.

Historical Division, Office of Information, Space Systems Division, Air Force Systems Command, U.S. Air Force, "Chronology of Early Air Force Man-in-Space Activity, 1955-1960" (1964), unpublished, p. 5; H. A. Lang, Lunar Instrument Carrier: Landing Factors, RM-1725 (The RAND Corporation, June 4, 1956), pp. 1-3, 29, 31, 33-34.