Page:Project Mercury - A Chronology.pdf/26

Rh The Air Force disclosed that a $41 million guided missile production facility would be built at Sorrento, California, for the Atlas launch vehicle. Convair was announced as the prime contractor.

A five-stage, solid-fuel rocket test vehicle, the world’s first, was launched to a speed of mach 15 by the NACA Langley Aeronautical Laboratory's Pilotless Aircraft Research Division. October

NACA scientists were engaged in preliminary studies of the need for a follow-on, manned-rocket research vehicle to the X-15.

Personnel of the Air Research and Development Command approached NACA officials on the possible cooperation of NACA in a research airplane project as a follow-on to the X-15 project. NACA agreed to consider the plan and directed its laboratories to initiate feasibility studies relative to the range of speed for the proposed vehicle and an estimate of the time frame in which the vehicle could be developed.

Personnel of the NACA were studying the possibilities of utilizing existing ballistic missile boosters, which were then under development, for manned orbital space flight.

The United States proposed before the United Nations Assembly that study be initiated toward international agreements assuring the use of outer space for peaceful purposes only.