Jan. 01, (17.17 hours) - Battery 444 or Batt. 485, the Hague or Wassenaar, Ockenburgh, rocket fired, several meters above the launch table the rocket turned 160 degrees. Blasting low over two cemeteries it came down in the houses in the Indigostraat, at the corner of Kamperfoeliestraat, at a distance of 3600 meters from the launch site. 38 people lost their lives. The doctors and nurses, who were very quick to the crash, were not allowed to enter the area until after the Germans had collected the remains of the rocket.

In 1955-1957 many Air Force officers in widely scattered field units, without coordinated effort, prepared papers and studies proposing military space projects. Small groups at Headquarters Air Research and Development Command, at the Ballistic Missile Division, at Holloman Air Force Base, and at Wright Air Development Center (WADC) sensed danger in the Government's unwillingness to give the new technology the urgent support they felt it deserved. Programs were proposed which called for organized space experiments, "at the earliest practicable date." Such experiments included orbiting satellites, manned and unmanned, a manned space station and a spacecraft voyage to the moon. (Bowen, Lee, The Threshold of Space, Sep 1960, published by the Air Force Historical Liaison Ofc, p.7)

At Cooke AFB, AFBMD retained responsibility for construction of technical facilities as well as research and development activities. At Los Angeles, the entire staff of AFBMD's Deputy Commander for Plans and Operations, under Colonel William R. Large, Jr., was transferred to man the new Office of the Assistant Commander-in-Chief, SAC (SAC/MIKE), that was established at AFBMD to manage IOC activities.

Qualifications: Qualified jet pilot with minimum 1,500 flight-hours/10 years experience, bachelor's degree or equivalent, under 40 years old, under 180 cm height, excellent physical condition.. Randolph Lovelace was director of the clinic where the Mercury astronauts had undergone their physical examinations. He and Jacqueline Cochran, the first American woman to break the sound barrier, wanted to prove that women were equally qualified to be astronauts. In early 1961 they arranged for 20 highly qualified female pilots to take the same physical tests undergone by the Mercury astronauts. Thirteen passed the tests, but NASA maintained its position that astronauts had to be qualified test pilots (all of whom were white males). One of the thirteen was the wife of a US Senator, and some congressional hearings were arranged. Despite the publicity NASA was still unwilling to place them in the official NASA training program.

Oddly enough, the selection of these women may have resulted in the first woman going into space after all. In May 1962 a Soviet delegation, including cosmonaut Gherman Titov and cosmonaut commander Nikolai Kamanin, visited Washington. Kamanin had been pushing for the flight of a Soviet woman into space since October 1961, and five Soviet female cosmonauts had just reported for training a month earlier. However the flight of a woman in space had little support from Chief Designer Korolev or Kamanin's military commanders. On May 3 Kamanin and Titov were invited to a barbecue at the home of astronaut John Glenn. Glenn, already politically-connected, was an enthusiastic supporter of the 'Lovelace 13'. Kamanin understood from Glenn that the first American woman would make a three-orbit Mercury flight by the end of 1962. Armed with the threat that 'the Americans will beat us', Kamanin was able to obtain a decision to go ahead with the first flight of a Soviet woman within weeks of his return. The Russians were obsessed with being first in space -- and even though NASA's female cosmonauts never materialised, Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union became the first woman in space on June 16, 1963.

Homer E. Newell, Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications, announced opportunities for study grants to competent astronomers for conceptual and preliminary design work leading to instrumentation to be flown in the 1969-1975 period. A description of the Apollo telescope mount was included.

TsKBEM was given a completely new structure as a result of the findings of the expert commissions on the disasters for the previous year, Mishin remained as the Chief Designer for the organisation, but each programme now had its own chief designer:

• N1: Boris Dorofeyev
• 8K98P solid propellant ICBM: Igor Sadovskiy
• N1 payloads: Vladimir Brorov [check]
• Soyuz 7K-TM, or Soyuz M, for Soyuz-Apollo: Konstantin Bushuyev
• Soyuz 7K-T: Yuri Semenov
• Soyuz 7K-S or Soyuz VI: Yevgeni Shabarov

Glushko proposed a Mars expedition launched by the Vulkan heavy-lift launch vehicle. The concept was treated like a bad allergy by the VPK. He later scaled it down and proposed it for launch by Energia (using 100 tonne modules instead of 230 tonne modules).

Mishin and Barmin, using budget provided by the Ministry of Defence, had designed a lunar base for launch by the N1 in 1969-1974. After the cancellation of the N1, Glushko pleaded with the Military-Industrial Commission for the work to be taken from Barmin and be given to NPO Energia. Glushko's alternative, Vulkan-launched base was elaborated within his bureau. Bushuyev developed spacecraft for the base. Prudnikova developed a modular lunar city, with living modules, factory modules, a nuclear reactor power module, and a lunar crawler with a 200 km radius of action. The project work was only finally cancelled after the Apollo-Soyuz flights.

As the only remaining contender for the Aelita design competition, Chelomei proposes a Mars flyby using an MK-700 spacecraft. A crew of two would be sent on a two year mission in a single launch of a UR-700M booster. The spacecraft would have a mass of 250 tonnes in low earth orbit and be equipped with an RD-410 nuclear engine.

An expert commission led by Keldysh examines the plan for a lunar base launched by the Vulkan booster. The plan is completely rejected. NPO Energia was told to quit dreaming and devote itself only to projects with national economic importance, like Buran. This put a definitive end to Glushko's lunar base projects studied in 1976-1978. But he just waited and started design work again on a lunar base using the Energia launch vehicle after the first Buran launch in 1988.

The study had been requested by the Defense Science Board after briefings by SAMSO late in CY 1977 on the subject of alternate basing modes. The study was concluded in April, and the results were presented in a briefing to the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board and the Defense Science Board. The study recommended the vertical shelter basing mode, with the horizontal shelter basing mode as a second choice.

British military communications; 6 deg E. Military communications. Expected life approx 7 years. Owner/operator: Ministry of Defence, Main Building, Whitehall, London SW1A 2HB. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 6 deg E in 1990; 29 deg E in 1991; 65 deg E in 1991; 34 deg W in 1992-1999 As of 5 September 2001 located at 34.01 deg W drifting at 0.003 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 11 located at 63.46W drifting at 4.595W degrees per day.

Japanese domestic communications; 154 deg E. Domestic communications. Launching organization Martin Marietta. Launch time 0007 GMT. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 154 deg E in 1990-1999 As of 5 September 2001 located at 154.04 deg E drifting at 0.006 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 116.78W drifting at 6.255W degrees per day.