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  Mercury - Gemini - Apollo
  Top priority (DX) status for Mercury spacecraft

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Author Topic:   Top priority (DX) status for Mercury spacecraft
moorouge
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Posts: 2458
From: U.K.
Registered: Jul 2009

posted 12-14-2014 07:00 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for moorouge   Click Here to Email moorouge     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
On 26th November 1958, with specifications for the spacecraft already issued to 20 firms and a request that a DX (top priority) rating be put on it, Project Mercury was announced.

Was this status every granted and, if so, when did it end? Did it continue through Gemini and Apollo?

Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 43576
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 12-14-2014 12:35 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The NASA compendium "Exploring the Unknown: Human Spaceflight" notes in connection to an April 27, 1959 memo from George Low to the House Committee on Science and Astronautics:
It took several months of discussion during the winter of 1958 to 1959 before consensus could be achieved, and only on 27 April 1959, did Eisenhower approve DX status for Mercury.
A March 13, 1962 memo from NASA Administrator James Webb to the President notes that Projects Mercury and Saturn had DX ("highest national priority") status.

The memo, which requested the same for the Apollo program, noted that:

NASA is prepared to drop Project Mercury from the list by the end of Calendar Year 1962, at which time its mission should be essentially complete. NASA will also expect to drop the Saturn vehicle project from the list except insofar as it pertains to the Apollo mission.

moorouge
Member

Posts: 2458
From: U.K.
Registered: Jul 2009

posted 12-15-2014 07:42 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for moorouge   Click Here to Email moorouge     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks for the response Robert. By this can it be assumed that neither Gemini nor Apollo itself did not have a DX rating?

moorouge
Member

Posts: 2458
From: U.K.
Registered: Jul 2009

posted 12-17-2014 11:19 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for moorouge   Click Here to Email moorouge     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
With reference to my previous post, I infer that in the absence of any documentation otherwise that despite the Kennedy aim of putting a man on the Moon before the end of the decade, neither he nor NASA thought it worthy of giving the project the 'highest national priority' status.

Wouldn't this then mean that the notion that the U.S. was in a race to beat the Russians something of a nonsense? One doesn't enter a race unless one is prepared to throw all one's efforts into winning it.

Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 43576
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 12-17-2014 11:32 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The Apollo program received DX priority on April 11, 1962 with the President's approval of National Security Action Memorandum No. 144.

Headshot
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Posts: 891
From: Vancouver, WA, USA
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 12-17-2014 12:08 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Headshot   Click Here to Email Headshot     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I noticed that Memorandum No. 144 references the National Aeronautics and Space Agency. I always thought it was the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Did McGeorge Bundy goof or did NASA's actual name change?

Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 43576
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 12-17-2014 12:25 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Given the date, it is an error, but Agency was used in place of Administration prior to the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958.
Before the NAS Act was finalized, NASA stood for National Aeronautics and Space Agency. It was Eilene Marie Galloway, who researched and wrote House and Senate documents for the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, who proposed that NASA be an Administration rather than an Agency. An Administration could have an administrator, enabling the new space agency to plan and coordinate across federal agencies.

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