Sep 19 1961
From The Space Library
NASA Administrator Webb announced that location of the new Manned Spacecraft Center would be in Houston, Tex., the conclusion of an intensive nationwide study by a site selection team. The Manned Spacecraft Center would be the command center for the manned lunar landing mission and all follow-on manned space flight missions. This announcement was the third basic decision on major facilities required for the expanded U.S. Range and the establishment of the spacecraft fabrication center at the Michoud Ordnance Plant near New Orleans, La.
Center at the Michoud Ordnance Plant near New Orleans, La.
Recovery of capsule of Discoverer XXXI was called off as capsule and satellite (launched Sept. 17, 1961) failed to separate and both remained in orbit.
USAF Bomarc B launched from Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., on command from SAGE Center at Montgomery, Ala., destroyed supersonic Regulus launched from Venice, Fla.
Air Force Systems Command formed a Bioastronautics Division, effective October 1, to consolidate all USAF applied research in this area into a single organization. School of Aerospace Medicine, now under Air Training Command, becomes a part of Air Force Systems Command.
In a speech to the USAF Worldwide Information Conference at Philadelphia, Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Hooks, Commander of the Office of Aerospace Research, reported that predictions of OAR's Solar Laboratory at Sacramento Peak, N. Mex., were borne out by the flights of the U.S.S.R.'s Vostok I and II. High proton shower activity associated with solar flares had been predicted for April 1961, except from April 11 through 14 (Major Gagarin's flight in Vostok I was on April 12). August 6, the day of the launching of Major Titov's 17-orbit flight, was the "safest day" for low solar activity on record since 1955.
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
