on the Mercury space flight simulator at Ellington Field, Texas. This equipment, formerly known as the procedures trainer, was originally installed at Langley Field and was moved from that area to Houston. Personnel of the Manned Spacecraft Center and the Farrand Optical Company conducted the acceptance tests. January 8, 1963 (Tuesday) The Spanish coaster Nueva Guinea exploded and sank off Santa Cruz de La Palma, Canary Islands. One crew member was reported missing and two injured. Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was exhibited in the United States for the first time, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in an event attended by President Kennedy and 2,000 other guests of honor. The masterpiece was on view for 27 days in Washington, during which 674,000 visitors came to see it, then moved on to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from February 6 to March 4. On January 8 and 9, representatives of Manned Spacecraft Center, NASA Headquarters, Flight Research Center, Langley Research Center, and Ames Research Center conducted a Design Engineering Inspection of the advanced trainer for the Paraglider Development Program, Phase II-B(1). North American Aviation received 36 requests for alterations. On January 8 and 9, Manned Spacecraft Center outlined requirements for McDonnell to consider concerning Gemini aborts in orbit. These included onboard controlled reentry for all aborts, except in the event of guidance and control system failure; onboard selection of one of the emergency abort target areas; navigational accuracy to a radius error at the point of impact; and crew capability to eject from the spacecraft with the paraglider deployed. January 9, 1963 (Wednesday) A relatively rare total penumbral lunar eclipse took place, with the Moon passing entirely within the penumbral shadow without entering the darker umbral shadow. Flight Operations Division outlined detailed requirements for the remote stations of the Gemini worldwide tracking network. Each station would need five consoles: Gemini system, Agena system, command, aeromedical, and maintenance and operations. The Gemini and Agena consoles would have 42 analog display meters and 40 on/off indicators. John W. Lewis, Jr., was elected Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. January 10, 1963 (Thursday) The space program of Soviet Air Forces selected its second generation of cosmonauts, with 15 men training for future Soyuz missions, including Vladimir Shatalov (Soyuz 4, 8, and 10), Anatoly Filipchenko (Soyuz 7 and 16), Georgy Dobrovolsky (Soyuz 11), Yury Artyukhin (Soyuz 14),