Scrapbook 2: Jun 1962 — Polaris, Centaur, Scott Carpenter

CAPE CANAVERAL (UPI)—The Navy’s missile-firing submarine fleet will take a major step forward next month with the maiden flight of a Polaris missile capable of hitting harder and ranging 1,000 miles farther than ever before.

The added range is expected to put all of Russia within striking distance of American Polaris-armed submarines.

Current versions of the Polaris are capable of hurling their warheads up to 1,725 miles when fired from a submerged submarine. The new model—known as the A3 Polaris—will have a maximum range of 2,800 miles.

‘Ultimate Goal’

“The A3 Polaris is the ultimate goal toward which we’ve been working,” said a spokesman for the Polaris project. He indicated it would include a host of improvements over its predecessors, the A1 and A2 models.

It is expected to have room for a bigger nuclear warhead, though the Defense Department has kept the exact details under close security wraps.

The first of the new 2,800-mile Polarises will be fired from a fixed launching pad, and the Navy has set next month as the target date for the launch. Then the A3 Polaris will go through a complete land and sea testing program before being put on combat-ready submarines sometime late in 1963.

The new Polaris will be the same size—31 feet long—as the current version. Its longer range are the results of refinements in American missile technology.

The two main factors responsible for the big jump in the Polaris’ range are “hotter fuels” and a lightweight construction.

House Unit Assails ‘Low-Pressure’ Centaur Effort

WASHINGTON (AP) — House investigators have blamed both government and industry for making only “a low-pressure effort” to perfect Centaur, “a very important and badly needed” space rocket.

A report by the Science and Astronautics Committee voiced deep concern over a series of delays and mishaps, including explosions, that have plagued the Centaur program. The liquid hydrogen booster is designed to kick a heavier payload farther into space than any other chemical rocket.

The committee said the Centaur program is now at least 18 months behind schedule. It asked the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to decide within 30 days whether Centaur merits more time, money and talent and the top priority rating that the congressional group believes it should have.

In a finding that Centaur appears to have had “a low-pressure effort during its entire history,” the committee criticized the prime contractors, General Dynamics Astronautics, saying it provided a staff of insufficient number and quality.

NASA also was accused of inadequate management of the program. The report noted that for some time a handful of Air Force officers, loaned to NASA, attempted from Los Angeles to supervise intricate technical phases of Centaur development that were being carried out in San Diego and in West Palm Beach, Fla.

There was no immediate comment from NASA.

The committee said that Centaur, because of problems and delays, had already lost two of its assigned missions, launching of the military communications satellite and NASA’s space probe to the vicinity of Venus.

The report found that development of the Centaur engine by Pratt and Whitney was first delayed by lack of funds because NASA gave higher importance to other rocket programs.

Then there were three explosions of test engines, the committee reported, that were belatedly traced to ignition troubles.

After months of delay, the first Centaur was launched from Cape Canaveral last May 8, only to blow up 54 seconds after lift-off.

The latest chapter in Centaur’s history of mishaps came when a backup vehicle, sitting idle on a test stand, was badly damaged by the nearby explosion of an Air Force missile.

The report said that NASA has yet to set a date for another launch attempt and that it is unlikely to take place before early next year.

SEATTLE (AP) — Secretary of State Dean Rusk has urged that space activities be brought under international regulation at once—lest space be turned into a military arena.

Rusk took a “somber look at what could happen” in a speech prepared for a Seattle World’s Fair audience the day after U.S. astronaut Scott Carpenter’s successful orbiting of the earth.

Unless there is international space supervision and peaceful cooperation, which the United States has proposed, and which has not won Communist acceptance, Rusk said:

“The frontiers of space might be pierced by huge nuclear-propelled dreadnaughts, armed with thermonuclear weapons.

“The moon might be turned into a military base.

“Ways might be found to cascade radioactive waves upon an enemy.

“Weather control might become a military weapon.”

Rusk said man can put outer space to uses which might imperil civilization and even life on earth—or he can use it to benefit the human race.

The secretary of state recalled that when the United States first developed the atomic weapon, late in World War II, it followed up with a plan for international control. The Soviets rejected this as “atomic blackmail,” thus bringing on the postwar nuclear arms race, he said.

“Now we are in the earlier stages of another scientific technical, and human adventure, as staggering to the imagination as the unleashing of the atom and as challenging to man’s ability to organize his affairs with at least a modicum of good sense,” Rusk continued.

Rusk outlined U.S. proposals to make space a peaceful area. Among them were keeping outer space free for use by all nations, extension of international law to outer space, making applications of space technology available to all nations, and the outlawing of orbiting mass-destruction weapons.

Reds’ Goals

As for Communist tactics in general, the U.S. foreign affairs chief noted the difference between Moscow’s advocacy of a slower pace in attempting to communize the rest of the world versus Peiping’s “hard,” militant line.

“But both of the major branches of the Communist movement are determined to bury us, and each seems intent on demonstrating that its effort of interring us is the more efficacious,” he said.

Outlining what he termed a “win” or “positive” strategy against the Communists, the secretary of state said the United States seeks to build the strength of the non-Communist world, promote close ties with industrialized nations, step up economies of backward areas, and develop a world community of nations — “a world of order and justice under law.”

Scott Carpenter Receives Navy’s Astronaut Wings

WASHINGTON (AP)—M. Scott Carpenter, America’s second man in orbit, has received the Navy’s special astronaut wings.

Lt Cmdr Carpenter smilingly offered to let any other naval aviator wear them—but only for a day at a time.

Presentation was made by Secretary of the Navy Fred Korth, who said he was hopeful this is “only the beginning of many such ceremonies.”

Third Recipient

Carpenter is the third man to get the Navy’s special astronaut wings. Cmdr Alan B. Shapard Jr., the first American into space, and Marine Lt Col John H. Glenn Jr., the first American to orbit the earth, received the wings earlier.

Carpenter, in one of the rare instances he has worn his Navy uniform since becoming an astronaut more than three years ago, was the honor guest at a luncheon given by Korth before the ceremony.

Army Signal Satellite Project Given USAF

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shaking up the military communications satellite program, the Defense Department stripped the Army of the main development role and gave it to the Air Force.

The Army, which has been working on the “Advent” program for nearly two years, was left only the responsibility for the system’s ground equipment while the Air Force develops the spacecraft.

A Defense Department spokesman said the action is expected to result in the beginnings of an operational system, by 1964, rather than 1966. The military system would function entirely separately from the proposed worldwide civilian satellite communications system.

The spokesman refrained from criticizing the work of the Army, which has spent about $170 million on the project so far. Another $100 million has been sought for the coming year.

The compelling fact in the decision, he said, is that the 1,300-pound satellite now contemplated in the Army program would be too heavy for the rockets now available.

He also said project costs have been running high.

The objective will be a 500-pound satellite which can be lofted by the Air Force’s Atlas-Agena rocket combination, already a veteran of space experiments.

The spokesman said there would be little loss in efficiency in making the payload smaller.

“You save perhaps two years and essentially you don’t lose very much performance,” he said.

The plan is to send up more than three but fewer than 10 microwave satellites to circle the earth in a 24-hour orbit around the equator. They would operate at an altitude of 22,300 miles and be used to relay voice and other messages almost instantaneously.

The system would be operated with a ground station near Camp Roberts, Calif., and another near Ft. Dix, N. J. A shipborne station also is planned.

At the same time, the Defense Department announced the Air Force will develop a second system of 40 or 50 smaller communications satellites which would move about the earth in a polar orbit from 5,000 to 7,000 miles up. It would have both voice and teletype channels with this medium altitude system. The spokesman said the Defense Department is “hedging our bets” for an urgently needed communications satiellite network.

Some of the parts already developed by the Army will be usable in the revamped program, the spokesman said.

The spokesman summed up the impact of the move as “putting the Air Force into space and the Army on the ground.”

The action leaves only the Navy’s Transit Navigation Satellite System out of the Air Force fold, as far as military space projects are concerned.

The Defense Communications Agency, a Pentagon organization covering all the services, was given responsibility of assuring the meshing of the ground and space components of the Advent System.

There was no immediate indication what effect the Defense Department move would have on contracts which have already been granted by the Army.

Chiefly affected would be the General Electric Co. in Philadelphia which is developing a satellite for the Army, and the Bendix Corp. in Ann Arbor, Mich. where work is being done on communications equipment for ground stations and the satellites.