May 25, 1961. President John F. Kennedy, at a joint session of
 Congress, declares a national space objective: "I believe that this
 nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this
 decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safe-
 ly to Earth."
     June 30, 1961. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay becomes Air Force Chief of
 Staff.
     July 21, 1961. Capt. Virgil I. Grissom becomes the first Air
 Force astronaut in space. He attains an altitude of 118.3 miles on
 the second Mercury mission.
     August 6-7, 1961. Flying in the Vostok 2 spacecraft, Soviet Air
 Force Capt. Gherman Titov becomes the first person to orbit the
 Earth for more than a day. He also becomes the first person to get
 spacesick.
     January 10-11, 1962. Maj. Clyde P. Evely sets a recognized class
 record for great circle distance without landing (jet aircraft) of
 12,532.28 miiles from Kadena AB, Japan, to Madrid, Spain, in a
 Boeing B-52H Stratofortress. The record still stands.
     January 12, 1962. Maj. Henry J. Deutschendorf, Jr., sets two
 recognized class records for 2,000-kilometer speed over a closed
 circuit with payload (jet aircraft) of 1,061.81 mph in a Convair
 B-58A Hustler at Edwards AFB, Calif. The records still stand.
     February 2, 1962. A C-123 "Ranch Hand" aircraft crashes while
 spraying defoliant on a Viet Cong ambush site. It is the first US
 Air Force plane lost in South Vietnam.
     February 20, 1962. Marine Lt. Col. John H. Glenn, Jr., becomes
 the first US astronaut to orbit the Earth. His Friendship 7 flight
 lasts nearly five hours.
     March 5, 1962. Capts. Robert G. Sowers, Robert MacDonald, and
 John T. Walton flying in a Convair B-58A Hustler bomber, are the
 only contestant in the twenty-first and last Bendix Trophy trans-
 continental race. The crew completes the Los Angeles-to-New York
 course with an average speed of 1214.71 mph and total elapsed time
 is two hours, fifty-six seconds. This is still the certified speed
 record over a recognized course between the two cities.
     April 30, 1962. Company pilot Lou Schalk makes the first offi-
 cial flight of the Lockheed A-12, the forerunner of the SR-71 high-
 speed reconnaissance aircraft, at Groom Lake, Nev. Two earlier
 "hops" had been made on April 25 and 26.
     May 24, 1962. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Scott Carpenter makes the fourth
 flight of the Mercury space program. The flight is less than perfect,
 as a number of in-flight problems leads to the astronaut overshoot-
 ing the recovery ship, the USS Intrepid (CVS-11) by more than 250
 miles.
     July 17, 1962. Maj. Robert White pilots the North American X-15
 to an altitude of 314,750 feet, thus making the first spaceflight in
 a manned aircraft. After the eleven-minute fight, Major White lands
 at Edwards AFB, Calif.
     September 12, 1962. Navy Lt. Cmdrs. Don Moore and Fred Fanke
 separately set two recognized class records for altitude with 1,000
 and 2,000 kilogram payloads (piston engined amphibians) of 29,475
 feet and 27,404.93 feet, respectively, in a Grumman UF-2G Albatross
 at Floyd Bennett Field, N.Y. Both records still stand.
     September 14, 1962. Maj. F. L. Fulton sets a recognized class
 record for altitude with 5,000 kilogram payload (jet aircraft) of
 85,360.8 ft. in a Convair B-58A Hustler at Edwards AFB, Calif. The
 record still stands.
     October 3, 1962. Navy Cmdr. Walter M. "Wally" Schirra, Jr., makes
 what is described as a "textbook" orbital flight during the fifth
 flight in the Mercury program. He flies in a 100x176 mile orbit, the
 highest to date, and completes nearly six orbits. He is also the
 first astronaut to splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
     October 14, 1962. An Air Force reconnaissance flight photographs
 nuclear-armed Soviet missiles in Cuba. Moscow subsequently agrees to
 remove the missiles under threat of US invasion of Cuba.
     October 25, 1962. Coast Guard Cmdr. W. Fenlon sets a recognized
 class record for great circle distance without landing (piston
 engined amphibians) of 3,571.65 miles from Kodiak, Alaska, to Pensa-
 cola, Fla., in a Grumman UF-2G Albatross. The record still stands.
     November 30, 1962. The first tethered hovering flight is made by
 the Lockheed XV-4A Hummingbird vertical takeoff and landing airplane
 at Marietta, Ga.
     December 14, 1962. NASA's Mariner II satellite scans the surface
 of Venus for thirty-five minutes as it flies past the planet at a
 distance of 21,642 miles.
     January 17, 1963. NASA pilot Joe Walker qualifies for astronaut
 wings by flying the North American X-15 to an altitude of 271,700
 feet or 51.46 miles. He is the eleventh man to pass the fifty-mile
 mark.
     February 28, 1963. The first Minuteman squadron, the 10th Stra-
 tegic Missile Squadron (SMS) at Malmstrom AFB, Mont., is declared
 operational.
     March 20, 1963. Capt. Henry E. Erwin, Jr., sets two recognized
 class records for altitude with 5,000 kilogram payload (19,747 feet)
 and greatest payload carried to an altitude of 2,000 meters
 (12,162.90 pounds) in a Grumman HU-16B Albatross at Eglin AFB, Fla.
 Both records still stand.  April 11, 1963. The first successful
 launch of a Boeing LGM-30 Minuteman I ICBM is conducted at Vanden-
 berg AFB, Calif.
     May 15, 1963. Maj. L. Gordon Cooper becomes the second Air Force
 astronaut in space as he makes nearly twenty-two orbits in his
 spacecraft, Faith 7. He is the last American to be launched into
 space alone, he is the first to spend a complete day in orbit, and
 because of a failure of the automatic system, he is the first to
 perform an entirely manual reentry. This is the last Project Mercury
 space mission.
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--- DB 1.39/004487
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