NASA Aeronautics and Space Report 1965

from Kitty Hawk to Cape Kennedy NASA the National Aeronautics and Space Administration presents Aeronautics and Space [Music] report this is astronaut Edward White as he stepped from the gmany for Warcraft into space he and James mcdot then flew on for 4 days completing our longest space trip yet next Germany 5 with veteran astronaut Gordon Cooper assigned as command pilot Cooper's 22 orbit Mission ended project Mercury now he will be involved in an even longer flight than MCD divits and whites geminy 5 is planned for 7 Days 112 orbits sharing the piloting duties will be Charles Pete Conrad like all the Mercury and gemman Pilots before him astronaut Conrad spends much of his time in training while in orbit the two men will conduct a variety of experiments these include a checkout of computer and radar equipment to be used on the first Rendevous and docking Maneuvers and from a vantage point similar to this they will take pictures of cloud cover and selected parts of the earth geminy 5 is the second long duration Mission and the third in a series of man space flights which are preparing the way for future Journeys to the Moon Rockets satellites research planes spacecraft products of the emerging Space Age many of these objects are now on display at the New York World's Fair and are assembled in one location the US space Park they constitute the largest collection of space Hardware outside Cape Kennedy there's an atlas rocket like those that boosted Mercury astronauts into orbit the Aurora 7 spacecraft in which Scott Carpenter flew three times around the world a two-man geminy spaceship and fullsize Titan 2 booster a replica of Ranger the lunar photographer and an actual scale mockup of a portion of the giant Saturn moon rocket in addition Marin tyos X15 these and many more pieces of hardware for this country's peaceful exploration of space are on view for visitors touring the US space [Music] Park when astronauts return from deep space missions their spacecraft will slam into the Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds to safeguard the men during this critical friction period NASA developed protective devices called heat shields shape combined with the right materials provide the best protection as the shield Burns melts and chars the intense heat is diverted from the spacecraft groundbased wind tunnels and simulators gave many of the needed answers to the problem of re-entry heating but to resolve the uncertainties a flight test program was required used for the experiment was a blunt shape 2 ft in diameter and weighing 200 lb called called project fire it was managed by NASA's Langley Research Center an atlas rocket boosted the fire package along a suborbital flight path on the downhill side of its trajectory some 187 Mi up a rocket engine ignited to Ram the fire package back through the Earth's atmosphere its speed over 25,000 mph as it burned its way toward Earth instruments sent information on heating intensity to ground stations ships and planes near Ascension Island in the South Atlantic project fire confirmed that future mcraft can be designed to withstand the Searing heat of re-entry after missions far out in space this has been an Aeronautics and Space report presented by NASA the National Aeronautics and Space Administration