Scrapbook 1: 1962? — Reusable rockets, Apollo, Farnborough, Kamanin
By WERNHER VON BRAUN
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (UPI)—The United States, working in cooperation with and on behalf of the other nations of the Western world, has one of the most important and exciting challenges in history — the exploration of the universe.
Few accomplishments have had such profound effect on the future of humanity as will the results of this immense and fascinating endeavor.
Achievements in the exploration of space are directly linked to overall technological advancement, and in our age such advancement is indicative of the relative position of nations. We Americans have already felt the sting of being second in a race in which we should, and could, have been first.
Any remaining doubts that we are really in a space race with the Soviet Union were dispelled by the decision last spring of President Kennedy to launch an ambitious program for manned lunar exploration.
We have the capacity to be first to the moon, therefore, we must be first.
Unmanned artificial satellites are being launched with increasing frequency to perform a wide variety of services for mankind.
Our Tiros meteorological satellites have proven their worth by permitting meteorologists to predict more accurately the weather and detect disastrous storms. The military has developed warning and reconnaissance satellites to help us maintain our military posture.
The first solar observatory was successfully launched last month. It is now reporting back to earth how the sun affects the weather and any threats it may pose for space travelers.
But perhaps the most immediate and practical interest is the communications satellite which will help put the man in the street in closer touch with his fellow humans around the world.
The suborbital flights of astronauts Alan Shepard and Virgil Grissom, and the more recent orbital flight of John Glenn, were carried out under Project Mercury.
Project Mercury will be succeeded by the Gemini manned spacecraft project, which calls for the orbiting of a two-man spacecraft. Gemini will be used to test the “orbital rendezvous” technique, by which an orbital launch vehicle and a manned spacecraft will be joined while in earth orbit and “relaunched” toward the moon.
Experience gained in this method of landing astronauts on the surface of the moon will be under Project Apollo. A three-man spacecraft, Apollo, will follow Gemini. It will effect circumlunar and lunar landing missions scheduled before the end of this decade.
Following the first tentative steps into space with Project Apollo, man will pull on his seven-league boots and take giant strides across space to the nearer planets of the solar systems. For Mars, and perhaps Venus, direct surface landings should be possible this century if the state of the art of astronautics continues to advance rapidly.
However, landings on frozen Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune may never be feasible, limiting man to landings on their natural moons.
What happens when we get in space? The environment will be hostile to man. He will be threatened by meteoroids, radiation, temperature extremes, lack of atmosphere and lack of pressure. But if he understands and obeys its laws, space will treat him well.
True, this goal to explore the realms of space is an ambitious program. But to me, it is a natural thing to do—to find out just what is out there and how we can use our new-found knowledge to better our way of life.
THE United States is thinking about getting into the second-hand rocket business.
For one very good reason: Economy.
So many missiles are now being hurled from the launch-pads at the three main space bases—Cape Canaveral, Florida, Wallops Island, Virginia, and Vandenberg, California—that Americans are beginning to count the cost.
Many rockets have boosters that fall back into the sea.
The possibility has now been considered of recovering the boosters, refurbishing the engines and using them again.
As some of these boosters cost as much as £350,000 each, big money is at stake.
Scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Centre, at Huntsville, Alabama—which proudly boasts that it is the rocket capital of the Universe—have been going into the technicalities of booster recovery from the sea.
In a report now being studied by British Space scientists they say:
“Dunking a rocket engine in salt water has about the same effect as dunking a doughnut in a cup of coffee—it doesn’t hurt much, and it can still be used.”
TENTH
The Marshall Centre scientists fished boosters out of the Atlantic, after firing from Cape Canaveral, checked them over, tested them, and came up with some arithmetic that has excited Space chiefs in Washington.
“Engines can be refurbished and put into firing shape again for about one-tenth of the cost of a new engine,” says scientist Rudy Barraza, in a report to Marshall Centre’s top man—Dr. Wernher von Braun.
HERO
Bull-necked, fair-haired Dr. von Braun was the main man behind Hitler’s V-2.
He is now one of America’s Space heroes, and a naturalised citizen.
A single engine, given the second-hand treatment, “may be used for as many as three to five Space flights,” says Dr. Barraza.
To learn about the second-hand rocket business, Marshall scientists dropped a big rocket engine into the sea off Cape Canaveral.
They sploshed it to and fro in the water many times before fishing it out and sending it back to Huntsville.
It was stored there, deliberately, for a fortnight to let the salt soak in.
Then it was taken to pieces, checked and reassembled. Only a few parts needed replacement. The engine was test-fired, and it worked well.
COATED
For the first test, the engine had been well-coated with special preservatives. So the scientists decided to repeat the test, using half the amount of preservative.
Again, it was sploshed in the sea. Again it was dismantled, checked—and fired successfully.
Finally the rocket engine was sent back to the Cape for a third time, plunked in the water without any preservative at all.
Once more, it worked like a dream when it was test-fired.
Says Dr. Barraza: “We are now working out ways of preventing engines from breaking up when they plunge into the ocean.”
’CHUTE
One way: a parachute system similar to that used to return Colonel John Glenn’s Friendship Seven Spaceship to the ocean.
This would be designed to keep the rocket in the water, without sinking too deep, long enough for it to be fished out by high-speed patrol boats.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which runs America’s Space business, is spending £400,000,000 on research this year.
And with the military rocket development programme going full blast, savings by using second-hand rockets are not to be dismissed lightly.
Moon rockets will use liquid fuel
By our Science Correspondent
IT has now been decided that the first manned expedition to the moon will be propelled by liquid-fuelled rockets, not solid-fuelled.
This settlers—temporarily—one of the bitterest arguments that has plagued the American space programme.
It was claimed by some that giant solid-fuelled rockets could be developed much faster, and would be cheaper and more reliable. Critics said that they would be heavier and less efficient and would mean an enormously heavy vehicle at take-off. And they emphasised that tricky technical problems might arise in large-scale solid rockets.
An article in a recent issue of Science describes some of the peculiar problems which crop up. The most striking is the fact that the burning surface of a solid propellant can act as an amplifier of sound.
What happens is that a pressure wave strikes the burning surface, and this may increase the rate at which the fuel burns. This releases more energy, which amplifies the pressure wave. The body of the rocket may form a resonating cavity in which a pressure wave continues to bounce back and forth, picking up energy from the burning fuel all the time. Eventually, the rocket may blow up.
The author of the article, Dr. F. T. McClure, of Johns Hopkins University, says that a slight change in a well-tested rocket, modification of “some trivial internal component,” may make it explode when the button is pressed—because the acoustic properties have been changed. A variation of a few thousandths of an inch in the fit of the propellant to the combustion chamber wall can change these properties radically.
The more potent the fuel, and the higher the pressures in the combustion chamber, the more severe these amplification effects are likely to be. Because these effects are so subtle and difficult to predict, it is very difficult to be confident in advance that a design for a large solid rocket will work in practice.
This is clearly one reason why Space Agency officials have decided to proceed slowly and cautiously with the development of giant solid rockets, and make the first moon landings with liquid fuels.
WE LOSE SPACE TOWN BID
By ANGUS MACPHERSON
A BRITISH bid to make Farnborough the centre of a £15,000,000-a-year European space industry has been turned down by the Continent.
The 12 European nations concerned have voted to set up a new space town at Delft, Holland.
British scientists considered that Farnborough—where the Royal Aeronautical Establishment has been working on space problems for more than ten years—was an ideal centre for ESRO (European Space Research Organisation).
American space firms are already planning to move into the new space town, with the hope of fat contracts for satellites or rockets to launch them.
ESRO’s programme calls for a £100,000,000 launch programme over the next eight years. It includes:
First launch of a European satellite by a Blue Streak combine early in 1966.
Eight deep-space probes towards the moon, and six artificial satellites to circuit the moon.
Hundreds of high altitude sounding rockets, and at least 20 grapefruit-size satellites.
A picked team will decide what space probes are to be made, and who is to make them.
It will charter rockets to launch the satellites—from France’s booming rocket industry, from the British-sponsored Blue Streak club, or from America.
The first director of the space town is expected to be Dr. Albert Lines, 47-year-old head of Farnborough’s space group.
TITAN SUCCESS
Vandonberg Air Force Base, California, Friday.—Titan I missile was successfully fired at target 5,000 miles down Pacific missile range, U.S. Air Force announced.—A.P.
Mystery man behind Soviet cosmonauts
A figure of mystery lurks behind Russia’s cosmonauts whenever they make a public appearance. His name is Lt.-Gen. Nikolai Kamanin.
The first time he came to the notice of British Intelligence was when he was noticed with Yuri Gagarin during the 24-year-old spaceflier’s London visit last year.
He popped up again earlier this month—this time hovering behind Gherman Titov in Washington. When the Press attache at the Soviet Embassy there announced the name of those who would be on the platform at Titov’s press conference, he included “Lieut.-General Kamanin.”
“Who is Lieut.-General Kamanin?” came a chorus of voices. “Oh,” said the Russian, “He is just—Lieut.-General Kamanin.”
Power in State Security force
Under pressure he added: “He is one of our oldest pilots and one of our oldest Heroes of the Soviet Union.”
I expected some frail, white-haired figure to totter in. Surprise, therefore, when the dapper, alert, not-a-day-over-45 figure of Gagarin’s watchdog appeared.
Now I learn that Lt.-Gen. Kamanin is a power in the State Security force of the Soviet Ministry of the Interior. And, I should say, judging by the black look on his face when Titov gave a piece of really interesting information, almost certainly the man who trains the cosmonauts in their glib answers.
THE ‘MARROW’ PUZZLES SCIENTISTS
Soviet scientists should not be surprised if their Western counterparts sometimes disbelieve them.
Top is the picture first released by Moscow of the rocket which launched Russian spacemen Gagarin and Titov into space. Western scientists called it “The Marrow.”
Bottom is the picture of the rocket published recently in Titov’s autobiography.
Question is: Who blunted its end, and why?