Page:Project Mercury - A Chronology.pdf/27

10 The first launch attempt of the Atlas was made at Cape Canaveral, Florida, but the missile exploded shortly after takeoff at an altitude of about 10,000 feet.

Two NACA groups focused their efforts on the problems involved in manned space flight. One group concerned themselves with performance of aircraft at high speeds and altitudes and with rocket research; the other group, with problems associated with hypersonic flight and reentry.

A study was initiated by the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory on the use of solid-fuel upper stages to achieve a payload orbit with as simple a launch vehicle as possible. This was the beginning of the Scout test-vehicle concept.

Alfred J. Eggers, Jr., of the NACA Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, worked out a semiballistic design for a manned reentry spacecraft.

A Jupiter-C (test vehicle in the Jupiter missile development program), with a scale-model nose cone, was fired 1,200 miles down the Atlantic Missile Range. The nose cone, an ablative type, reached a peak altitude of over 600 miles, and its recovery was one of the proving steps of the ablative reentry principle. The nose cone was displayed by President Eisenhower to a nation-wide television audience on November 7, 1957.

The second Atlas launch vehicle was destroyed in a launching attempt at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics launched Sputnik I, the first artificial earth satellite. This event galvanized interest and action on the part of the American public to support an active role in space research, technology, and exploration.