Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

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Project Apollo: Americans to the Moon
program, beyond Project Mercury, is expected to be included in the fiscal year
1962 budgetary request to be sent to the Congress in January 1961. With that
statement as a basic premise, our present thinking is outlined to in dicate the
probable course of future flight events (fig. 9). [not included]
Flight Program
Major Mercury flights probably will con tinue for several years.[8] Research and
development, and prototype flights of the advanced manned spacecraft are listed
to start in 1962 and to end in 1965. Early flights in this series would be used to
verify final design criteria for the spacecraft shape and its heat protection; it is
planned to use Atlas-Agena-B as the launch vehicle for these missions. Following
the Atlas-Agena flights, the Saturn vehicle will be used for full- scale development
and prototype flights.
Earth-orbital missions, using the final space craft, could conceivably
begin in 1966, with circumlunar missions following as soon as the state of both
technical and aeromedical knowl edge permits such flights.
Program Costs
The final chart (table I) lists the funding associated with the manned spaceflight
pro gram. In fiscal years 1960 and 1961, the ma jority of the funds allocated for
manned space flight will be devoted to Project Mercury.
TABLE I Manned Space Flight Funding [millions]
Fiscal
1960
1961
Project
Mercury
87.06
106.75
Advanced
manned
spacecraft
0.10
1.00
Total
87.16
107.75
In future years, we anticipate that an in creasingly larger proportion of
manned space flight funds will be allocated to the more ad vanced programs in
this area.
Concluding Remarks
NASA’s manned space flight program, for the present decade, calls for the
development and construction of an advance manned space craft with sufficient
flexibility to be capable of both circumlunar flight and useful earth-orbital
missions. In the long range, this spacecraft should lead toward manned landings
on the moon and planets, and toward a permanent manned space station.
In order to achieve this multiplicity of mis sions, the use of the modular
concept is pro posed. In this concept, various building blocks, or modules, of the
vehicle system are employed for different phases of the mission. Basically, the