Meanwhile Faget's and Paul Purser's proposal made early in the year for a clustered-rocket test booster to be used in payload design research and in manned vertical flights had undergone a politic modification. Only a year would pass before the experimental rocket went into operation. After exhibiting models of the contour couch and an outdated cone-shaped capsule, Gilruth turned to the proposed launch vehicle. You don't want to put a man in a device unless it has a very good chance of working every time. There are scheduled many Atlas firings in the next year and a half.
Reliability is something that comes with practice.
It is to be anticipated that this degree of reliability will occur as a result of just carrying out the national ballistic missile program. The Main Committee of NACA held its last meeting on August 21 and formally extended best wishes to NASA and Administrator Glennan, who attended the meeting. They then established a joint NASA-ARPA Manned Satellite Panel to draw up specific recommendations and a basic procedural plan for the manned satellite project. Composed of Gilruth, who served as chairman, and Faget of Langley, Eggers of Ames, Williams of the Flight Station, and George M. Low and Warren J. North of Lewis, representing NASA, together with Robertson C. Youngquist and Samuel Batdorf of ARPA, the panel began holding meetings during the last week of September. My preference is to state it in a quite different way - that what will happen . . .