Dec 6 1961
From The Space Library
The first Project Mercury manned orbital flight, MA-6, was scheduled by NASA for early in 1962 after analysis of the data from the MA-5 chimpanzee orbital flight indicated that the Mercury-Atlas system and the tracking network were ready for manned orbital flight.
Astronauts Alan B. Shepard, Jr., commander, U.S. Navy, and Virgil I. Grissom, captain, U.S. Air Force, were awarded the first astronaut wings (almost identical design of a shooting star imposed on the traditional pilot's badge) in a joint ceremony by their respective services.
U.S.S.R. raised its expenditure on science by 12 percent in its 1962 budget. The Minister of Finance, Vasily Garbuzov, announced that the 1962 expenditure on science would be 4,300 million rubles ($4,773 million). Also announced was a 44-percent increase in the defense budget to 13,400 million rubles ($14,874 million).
Italian Air Force crew fired Jupiter IRBM from Atlantic Missile Range, the third such launching.
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