Scrapbook 2: Jun 1962 — Nike-Zeus, Scott Carpenter, lightning

3-Stage Zeus Successful in Test Firing

POINT MUGU, Calif. (UPI)—A three stage Nike-Zeus antimissile has been successfully fired in what Army officials termed a “high-altitude shot.”

“All three of the solid-fuel rocket motors were fired,” said Brig Gen John G. Zierdt, deputy CG of the Army Ordnance Missile Cmd.

The two main propulsion motors were fired in rapid sequence. The third stage fired later in flight at a “high altitude,” officials announced.

The 48-foot rocket lifted off its launch pad and with 10 minutes the third stage, which would track down and destroy an incoming enemy ballistic missile, successfully ignited. Actual time of separation is classified.

‘All Test Objectives’

The Nike-Zeus and its electronic guidance components is the only free world weapon against an attacking ICBM.

Officials said the Nike-Zeus met “all test objectives and all three stages fired.”

The first two stages of the package have nearly a half-million pounds of thrust. The third-stage power remained classified.

There was no electronically simulated target used in the firing as has frequently been tested in the past.

The Nike-Zeus does not have to make contact with its ICBM target but can destroy it if it comes within a lethal radius—a classified figure.

Before the firing there was a short delay in the countdown.

Third Time

The launch was the third time all three stages of the anti-missile missile were tested at this coastal site. Previously one of the three stage firings was successful but the other was “less than totally successful.”

The usual plume of smoke appeared as the countdown neared zero. The missile was launched from an almost vertical position.

The launch was the 13th Nike-Zeus firing from Point Mugu.

Senate Space Committee unanimously approved $3,820,515,250 in authorizations for the civilian space agency including sums for extensive expansion of the Cape Canaveral space base.

Included was $3,749,515,250 in authorizations for the year beginning July 1. That was $37,760,750 less than the Administration had requested but some $78 million more than approved by the House.

Earlier the committee requested detailed data on why astronaut Scott Carpenter floated on a raft for 90 minutes awaiting Navy helicopters while on Air Force flying boat, whose pilot was anxious to retrieve him, circled overhead.

Six questions, posed by committee members at a hearing, were relayed to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Defense Department by Chairman Robert S. Kerr, D-Okla.

The questions were submitted after D. Brainerd Holmes, NASA director of manned space flight, said he “detected no interservice rivalry” at the Cape Canaveral operations center where recovery operations were set in motion.

Sen. Spessard L. Holland, D-Fla., raised the rescue question.

Holland said the Air Force Rescue Service at Orlando, Fla., has confirmed that an SA16 flying boat circled Carpenter while paramedics and a raft were dropped to him. The plane, he said, was not ordered to rescue Carpenter, although the pilot of the plane evaluated the sea as calm and suitable for a landing.

Holmes said Rear Adm John L. Chew, plotting the rescue on Carpenter’s 250-mile overshoot, “dispatched anything and everything this country had” to effect the rescue. Chew, he said, took the view that the plane should make the landing if the “people on the scene” felt that it would not be hazardous.

However, Holmes was unable to say whether sea conditions had been evaluated on the scene as favorable or why Chew’s directive was held up.

Sen. Howard W. Cannon, D-Nev., told Holmes he wanted to know to whom Chew’s message was dispatched; who decided a sea landing was not safe, where that individual was when he made the decision, and why Chew’s message was not relayed.

Cannon said the Navy should also explain why an SA16 landing might be “hazardous” in a sea shown by photos to be calm.

Rocket Experts Haunted by Fear Of Lightning-Set Rocket Launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) A blinding streak of lightning hits a tall missile just as tons of fuel are being transferred into it.

An electrical storm prematurely triggers a rocket carrying a costly space capsule on its nose.

It hasn’t happened yet. But these ARE fears that have haunted the Air Force since it began running this test center a decade ago.

Right now, the greatest concern is for missiles that use solid fuel. These are inclined to be sensitive and tricky. The Air Force says they could be highly vulnerable to lightning activity.

For the future there is an even greater hazard — liquid hydrogen and other new, high energy fuels that will go into tomorrow’s spacecraft.

Here at the heart of the U.S. space effort, the Thor, the Atlas, the Titan all stand high above the surrounding terrain when they are ready for launching. Even taller Saturn and Nova vehicles and their equally tall gantries—some 40 stories high—are yet to come.

Properly grounded, each serves as a highly effective lightning rod. But, even with grounding, the hazard persists.

So says Lt Col Hal R. Montague of Mack, Colo., operations officer of the Air Force weather detachment that keeps constant watch on this treeless forest of high rockets.

“It isn’t the lightning itself that worries us so much. The real danger is that the current passing through the gantry might induce magnetic and electirc fields into the wiring and thus trigger the missile firing current.

“Lightning has hit missiles at the Cape several times — already at least once this year. None of the hits caused damage. But we have been lucky.”

The Air Force has not yet found a real safeguard against missile lightning strikes. But in mid-May it installed, at nearby Patrick Air Force Base overlooking Cape Canaveral, a newly-developed electrical storm warning device.

Designed to alert crews around missile launching pads to any serious buildup of atmospheric electricity, the device received its first tryout during a brief but intense thunderstorm shortly after it was installed.

Boston Developer

Known as the Lightning Alert System, it was developed for the Air Force Meteorological Development Laboratory, Bedford, Mass., by Arthur D. Little Co., Boston.

If it proves effective, one part of the equipment may be installed at each launching pad here, to provide a warning for the immediate locality.

The system would provide swift and accurate warning of incipient lightning hits so the missile crews could:

—Break off any hazardous fueling operation, and move fuel supplies to safe locations.

—Make sure the rocket is grounded adequately.

—Get out of the danger area.

The system consists of two sensing devices on the roof of the operations building at Patrick Air Base. They feed their information about electrical content of the atmosphere into a metal box, resembling a radio cabinet, in the hangar office used by Montague and Lt Col Peter E. Romo, Phoenix, Ariz., detachment commander.

Together the devices measure the potential buildup and decline of electrical energy in the atmosphere.

SHARP SATELLITE—This is an example of photographs made by the Tiros V satellite. This picture, transmitted to the Pacific Missile Range at Point Mugu, Calif., was taken over Egypt and shows (2) Suez Canal (3) Red Sea (4) Egypt (5) Nile River and (6) Mediterranean Sea. Two leading American newspapers have published stories indicating that even more powerful satellite cameras have enabled the United States to achieve a major intelligence breakthrough. (See story on Page 3.) —United Press International Photo

American, French Nike Outfits Given NATO Honors

By HENRY B. KRAFT S&S Ramstein Bureau

RAMSTEIN Germany (S&S)—An American Nike battery and a French Nike battalion, both located in Germany, have been judged the best Nike units in NATO and winners of the Spaak and Stikker trophies, according to an announcement made to 4th Allied Tactical Air Force (ATAF) by headquarters of Air Forces Central Europe (AIRCENT) at Fontainebleau, France.

Competition sponsored by AIRCENT is conducted annually at a Nike missile firing range in New Mexico to determine the best NATO Nike battalion as well as the best Nike battery.

D Btry, 3rd Bn, 71st Arty, located in the Stuttgart area, was judged the top Nike battery for scoring the highest number of points among all similar NATO Nike units which had been sent to New Mexico for actual firing of the missiles.

This outfit, which belongs to the 32nd Arty Brig, will be presented with the Paul-Henri Spaak trophy, named in honor of the former secretary-general of NATO, by Gen Samuel E. Anderson, deputy for air to Gen Lauris Norstad, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe on May 15.

NATO Secretary-general Dirk U. Stikker will personally present the trophy named after him to the commander of the 520th French Nike Brigade, a component of fourth ATAF just like 32nd Arty, also on May 15, the announcement said. The French outfit topped all similar NATO Nike units in firing scores.

Brig Gen Howard P. Persons Jr, CG of the 32nd Arty Brig, said in his headquarters in Kaiserslautern that he was proud of D Btry for winning such a coveted honor.

“Not only did D Btry of the 71st Arty win first place, but B Btry, also of the 71st, won second place,” said the general. “We feel very proud of those people. Achieving the highest scores of all Nike batteries in NATO is really something.”

The trophies are donated by two American firms, Western Electric Co and Hughes Aircraft Co.