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Rh IGY Vanguard (TV-3), the first with three live stages, failed to launch a test satellite.

The Air Force created a Directorate of Astronautics to manage and coordinate astronautical research programs, including work on satellites and antimissile-missile weapons. Brigadier General Homer A. Boushey was named to head the office. Later in the month the order was rescinded by James H. Douglas, Secretary of the Air Force, who considered the creation of such a group before the activation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency to be premature.

The American Rocket Society and the Rocket and Satellite Research Panel issued a summary of their proposals for a National Space Establishment. The consensus was that the new agency should be independent of the Department of Defense and not, in any event, under one of the military services.

A successful limited flight was made by the fourth Atlas fired from Cape Canaveral.

President Eisenhower, answering a December 10, 1957, letter from Soviet Premier Nikolai A. Bulganin regarding a summit conference on disarmament, proposed that Russia and the United States "…agree that outer space should be used for peaceful purposes." This proposal was compared dedicate atomic energy to peaceful uses, an offer which The Soviets rejected.

The Air Force received 11 unsolicited industry proposals for Project 7969, and technical evaluation was started. Observers from NACA participated. (See March 1956 entry.)

A resolution was adopted by NACA stating that NACA had an important responsibility for coordinating and conducting research in space technology,