American USMC engineer mission specialist astronaut 1980-1992. Known as a religiously conservative astronaut; summed up many astronaut's fears of the shuttle, saying before a flight "I have no plans past MECO". 4 spaceflights, 20.6 days in space. Flew to orbit on STS-51J (1985), STS-26, STS-36, STS-42.

The XSSM-A-2 1600-km range version of the Navaho is canceled. The three airframes completed are abandoned. The USAF instructs North American to proceed instead with development of a 10,200-km range version of the missile using the same aerodynamics, engines, and navigation systems already in development. This is to deliver a 3150-kg nuclear payload, and is to be achieved by making a separable booster stage with two engines deliver a ramjet-only cruise stage to ignition velocity.

Cosmic radiation; upper-air pressures and temperatures research. Ship launch. Launched at 1608 local time. Reached 169 km. NRL Viking No. 4 research rocket fired from the USS Norton Sound, near Jarvis Island in the Pacific (0.19 N 161.42 W), at the intersection of the geographic and geomagnetic equators. It set an altitude record for an American single-stage rocket and was the first firing of the Viking from shipboard.

FBI agents interrogate Tsien Hsue-shen on allegations that he is a Communist. The same day his security clearance is revoked, making it virtually impossible to continue meaningful work in rocketry. The allegations seem unlikely to his associates at CalTech (his wife was the daughter of one of Chiang Kai-shek's leading military strategists). Two weeks later, Tsien announces his intention to return to China. Tsien, denied the possibility to work, becomes enmeshed in a tug-of-war between differing viewpoints in the US government bureaucracy: those that want to deport him as an undesirable alien, and those that want to keep him in the country because of what he knows.

Department of Defense assigned range responsibilities to the armed services: Army: White Sands, N. Mex., Proving Ground and nearby Holloman Air Force Base at Alamogordo; Navy: Point Mugu, Calif.: Air Force: Long-Range Proving Groud at Banana River, Fla. (now called Cape Canaveral).

The missile, now designated WS-104A by the USAF, was to deliver a 3150-kg warhead with a CEP of 450 m over a range of 10,200 km while cruising at Mach 3 at over 18 km altitude. The final missile would be developed in a three-phase program: Phase 1, using the reusable X-10 drone, would test the aerodynamics, structural concepts, autopilot, and inertial navigation system for the cruise missile using turbojet engines in an aluminum structure to achieve speeds of up to Mach 2. In Phase 2, the G-26 test vehicle would be a 2/3 scale version of the final version, testing the vertical launch booster, and a steel-structure ramjet-powered cruise vehicle that would reach Mach 2.75 and a range of 2300 km. Phase 3 would fly the G-38, the full-sized prototype for the operational system. The payload was sized to match the 20-kiloton W-4 nuclear warhead, 3150 kg in mass, 1.5 m in diameter and 2.3 m long.

Office, Chief of Ordnance directed that the Ordnance Guided Missile Center conduct a preliminary study of the technical requirements and possibilities of developing a 500-mile tactical missile that would be used principally in providing support for the operations of the Army Field Forces.

Bumper No. 8, a German V-2 with a 320 kg Army-JPL Wac Corporal, was fired from the Long-Range Proving Ground at Cape Canaveral at a very low angle of attack. The first-stage V-2 climbed 16 km before it exploded. The second-stage Corporal separated successfully, however, and traveled another 24 km. This was the first missile launch from Cape Canaveral.

Bumper No. 7 was the second missile launch from Cape Canaveral. This was to be a maximum range test of a two-stage vehicle, to study the problems in staging. The launch was delayed because of moisture in the vehicle. But when finally launched, the WAC achieved the highest sustained speed in the atmosphere to that date (Mach 9/2500 m/s) and 35.2 km altitude before impacting 305 km downrange.

Launched 10:09 local time. Reached 136.8 km. Carried Ionosphere, meteorites, sky brightness, density, biological experiments for Air Research and Development Command. Last of five Aeromedical Laboratory experiments (first four known as Albert series), it carried a nonanesthetized mouse, photographed by a camera, which survived the impact.

The First Symposium on Space Flight was held at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Participants included Wernher von Braun, Joseph Kaplan, Heinz Haber, Willy Ley, Oscar Schachter, and Fred L. Whipple. Among the topics discussed were an orbiting astronomical observatory, problems of survival in space, circumlunar flight, a manned orbiting space station, and the question of sovereignty in outer space.

The first field R-1 unit was formed - the 23th brigade (BON RUGK). Each brigade was equipped with six launchers. In January 1951 the 23rd deployed to Kamishin in Volgograd oblast. In August 1958 they were transferred to the Land Forces. The number of units fielded were small, reflecting the long delay in getting the R-1 into production. The field equipment was designed to also be used for R-2 missiles, which quickly replaced the R-1 in the field units.

A sea launched variant of the R-1, probably similar to the German 'Pruefstand VII' submarine-towed, pod-launched project, was also studied from 1949 to 1950, but not proceeded with.