Feb 17 1959
From The Space Library
VANGUARD II (SLV-4), the fifth U.S.-IGY satellite, successfully launched payload containing photocells designed to produce cloud cover images for 2 weeks ; precessing or wobbling prevented significant interpretation of data.
USAF Committee presided over by Dr. J. Allen Hynek, Associate Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Cambridge, Mass., recommended that the USAF continue to take a positive approach to UFO's, investigate reported sightings by all scientific means, and keep the public fully informed of existing policy. Of the unknown objects sighted, it reported, no scientific evidence supports the conclusion that the objects were spacecraft.
Roy W. Johnson, Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), testified before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics that DOD and ARPA had no lunar landing program. Herbert F. York, DOD Director of Defense Research and Engineering, testified that exploration of the moon was a NASA responsibility.
U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Science and Astronautics, Missile Development and Space Sciences, Hearings, 86th Congress, 1st Session (1959), pp. 346, 359.
S. 1096, introduced by Senator Johnson of Texas and Senator Bridges and referred to Aeronautical and Space Sciences. Reported out March 5 (S. Rept. 82). Passed the Senate March 10. Referred to House, Science and Astronautics. Reported out March 18, amended (H. Rept. 226). Passed the House, amended, April 14. Senate agreed to amendments April 15. Became Public Law 86–12 on April 22, 1959. Authorized $48,354,000 for NASA.
