The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 73, July 1969 - April, 1970 Page: 214
605 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
ied out before 1970 and that the program would eventually lead to
a manned lunar landing and a permanent manned space station."
The announcement of the program was the culmination of a great
amount of activity, mostly within NASA, during 1959 and the first
half of 1960. Wernher von Braun, as quoted in a staff report of the
House Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration, pre-
dicted manned circumlunar flight within eight to ten years and a
manned lunar landing and return mission a few years later. NASA
Administrator T. Keith Glennan, Deputy Administrator Hugh L.
Dryden, and Abe Silverstein, John P. Hagen, and Homer E. Newell,
all of NASA, foresaw manned circumlunar flight and instrumented
probes soft-landed on the moon during the decade. Roy K. Knutson,
chairman of the Corporate Space Committee, North American Avia-
tion, Inc., projected a manned lunar landing expedition for the early
1970's, with extensive unmanned instrumented soft-landings during
the last half of the 196o's."
In April, 1959, John W. Crowley, NASA director of aeronautical
and space research, notified NASA Centers and the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory that a research steering committee on manned space
flight would be formed to assist NASA Headquarters in carrying out
its responsibilities in long-range planning and basic research on
manned space flight. The committee held a series of three meetings
between May and December 1959. Its recommendations included a
manned circumlunar mission and formed the essential elements of
the NASA Ten-Year Plan, 1960-1970, presented to congressional
committees early in 1960.'
Meanwhile, during the summer of 1959, H. Kurt Strass, Robert
L. O'Neal, Lawrence W. Enderson, Jr., and David C. Grana, all of
Space Task Group (now Manned Spacecraft Center), and Thomas
E. Dolan of Chance Vought Corporation worked on advanced design
concepts of earth orbital and lunar missions with an ultimate goal
of a manned lunar landing within ten years." Also, a Space Task Group
(STG) New Projects Panel held its first meeting August 12 to dis-
cuss NASA's future manned space programs. The panel determined
that the following projects would be required to accomplish the goal
'Ivan D. Ertel and Mary Louise Morse, The Apollo Spacecraft: A Chronology, Through
November 7, 1962, NASA SP-4oo9 (Volume I of a projected 4 volume study; Washington,
D.C., 1969), 48.
8Ibid., 15.
'Ibid., 35, 36.
"H. Kurt Strass to I.D.E., interview, Houston, November 30, 1966.
214
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 73, July 1969 - April, 1970, periodical, 1970; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117147/m1/236/ocr/: accessed March 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.