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DEFINITION OF SPACE

For purposes of this treatment, the term


"space" will refer to those altitudes beyond
the 30 kilometer level, or the outer one per-
cant of the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

FRONT COVER painting of Captain Alan Shepard


by Commander Ted Wilbur, courtesy National
Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution

ABOVE drawing of Captain Wally Schirra


by Paul Calle, courtesy NASA
SPACE-
and the
UNITED STATES NAVY
by COMMANDER TED WILBUR

CONTENTS

Once a Fighter Pilot 4


To Leave the Earth 8
Settle Up — Settle Down 14
Navy Rocket Pioneers 18
Naval Research Laboratory 26
Rocket Power 26
Vanguard 36
The Navy’s Role 46
Rocket Politics 52
Manned Space 60
Support Forces 73
The Jewels of Isabella 78

Prepared by
the Editors of
NAVAL AVIATION NEWS

A Publication of the Chief of Naval Operations


November 1970

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office


Washington, D.C. 20402 - Price $1.75 1
facility.) He looked the situation over thoughtfully,
then laughed: “Swell! Let’s divert to Nassau and
pitch a liberty!”
Unfortunately, we made it into GBI in good shape.
The Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston has been
described by some writers as cathedral or monastic, a
sanctified place wherein astronauts preside as high
priests. It doesn’t hit m e that way; rather, it is a
geometric setup, neat and quiet. In the middle of the
complex there is a duck pond surrounded by care-
fully trimmed walkways. To get from one building to
another you have to make a few right angle turns to
avoid walking on the grass. Most people follow the
Center’s obvious rules of the road.
But when Alan Shepard came out of the LM simu-
lator that afternoon, and I suggested we go over to
the pond to get some pictures of him with a watery
He hadn’t changed much. Thinner, maybe even a background, it was interesting to observe how he got
little gaunt. Or was it the light? He stood in the green there. In a straight line. Over bushes, through a
dimness of the control room, a maroon sweater garden, across the lawns and up and down a few
draped casually on his form. The last of the “Original grassy banks. It was characteristic.
Seven” glanced up at Houston’s huge Lunar Module
simulator, then at the banks of flickering consoles.
The room was cool. An air-conditioning system Visiting with Captain Shepard was originally part of
droned monotonously off in some distant place. His a two-fold mission: I needed some current studies of
gaze shifted to the surrounding engineers and he mur- him in order to do a painting for the National Air and
mured a few words. Finally, we shook hands and I Space Museum; and, at the same time, it seemed a
told him what we needed. “Okay,” he said, “you can good opportunity to gather some fresh impressions of
get a few pictures now before this training session. our astronauts for the readers of N a v a l A v i a t i o n
We’ll talk later.” News. But something else came of it — this special
Talking to Captain Alan Shepard is a revealing ex- treatment of Space and the Navy.
perience. He exhibits two distinct sides. On one hand It had been said that Alan Shepard is the “intel-
he is serious and completely logical. Persuasive. But lectual” of the astronauts. He has his own ideas about
he counterpoints his forcefulness with injections of that. But as Vice Admiral Tom Connolly, DCNO(Air)
humor and wit. — who knew him well as a test pilot — puts it, “Alan
On May 5, 1961, I watched from the deck of the Shepard is one of the sharpest pilots and officers I
USS Lake Champlain as he was brought aboard fol- ever met. He really has it. There was never a doubt in
lowing his historic sub-orbital flight in Freedom 7. my mind that he had all the makings for eventually
The carrier’s crew gave him a tremendous ovation. A becoming an admiral.”
couple of hours later, America’s First Man in Space Shepard’s own view of his Navy experience focuses
hopped aboard my C-l Trader, and we were off to on flying. “Operating from carriers at night,” he says,
Grand Bahama Island where he would undergo an “was the hardest kind of flying I’ve ever done — or
extensive debriefing and physical examination. No ever expect to do. I’ve said for a long time it’s what
sooner had I cleared the bow than he was out of his separates the men from the boys.” Today he flies
seat in the cabin and up into the cockpit, with that T-38’s or the LLTV (lunar landing training vehicle) —
big wide grin spread across his face. Shouting above Bell’s Flying Bedstead. Only, you don’t fly that one
the noise of the COD’s engines, he described his in terms of hours, just minutes. The weird machine
morning’s monumental adventure, and it was easy to provides the pilot with the same thrust and ratio vec-
see he had been on top of the world, literally. tors as he gets with the lunar module.
National Geographic photographer Dean Conger Since that memorable day in May of 1961,
was on board, too, and, after a series of pictures were Shepard’s life has been a long series of successes —
taken, I pointed up ahead to where the Bahamas were and frustrations. As America’s first space hero, he
coming into view. By then it was mid-afternoon and, rode the crest of a national publicity wave. Of that
as usual, tall build-ups were forming over each island. experience a few things stand out in his mind. Like
I commented to Shepard that it would be a shame to the time he waited, all silvery suited up and ready to
spoil his day by running into a batch of bad weath- go, just inside Hangar S at the Cape. On the other side
er. (The strip at Grand Bahama has no instrument of the door were the reporters, anxious to see which

4
Above, Shepard carves a pair of crude san- At left, the jubilant astronaut cracks jokes
dals – one of his activities during survival on his way to Grand Bahama island. Above,
exercises for the Mercury astronauts in the the first American in space accepts con-
Nevada desert – training for the possibil- gratulations from President Kennedy. The
ity of a land recovery. other six astronauts are in background.

of the three “finalists” (Glenn, Grissom or Shepard) tion, saying that the decision would be up to NASA.
would emerge and make his way out to the loxed-up MA-10 never went.
Mercury Redstone. Months of training lay behind and When the Gemini program started, he was sched-
now the moment was at hand. The tension built as he uled again. Then ear trouble developed and Shepard
waited with growing impatience for the word to open was grounded. “The difficulty,” he says, “was termed
the door and face the crowd. Instead, the flight was Meniere’s syndrome — a form of dizziness. The prob-
cancelled. He had to wait three more days to start the lem is not considered very significant for an earth-
whole thing again. bound person, but it sure can finish you as a pilot. I
The subsequent triumph threw him into the spot- convinced myself it would eventually work itself out.
light. He now says he wishes he had a dollar for every But it didn’t.
picture that was taken of him — because then he “Tom Stafford had told me about Dr. House, out in
could retire. (Actually, investments in banking and Los Angeles, who could perform an operation on this
real estate have made him more than financially particular kind of inner ear trouble. At first it
sound.) “In the beginning,” he states, “there was a lot sounded a little risky but, in 1968, I finally decided
of glamour and excitement. It was new to the public. on having it done.
But there really wasn’t that much to it. John Glenn “With NASA’s permission, I went out to California.
went through a lot more than I did.” In order to keep the whole business quiet, Dr. House
When Shepard went to the White House to receive and I agreed that I should check into the hospital
NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal, he recalls that under an assumed name. It was the doctor’s secretary
President Kennedy was nervous and dropped it. From who came up with it. So, as Victor Poulis, I had the
the background came the voice of the President’s wife operation and six months later my ear was fine.”
saying, “Pick it up, Jack.” Mr. Kennedy retrieved the In the meantime, Shepard had accepted the posi-
medal, handed it to Shepard, and declared: “This dec- tion as Chief of the Astronaut Office, becoming a
oration has gone from the ground up.” major guiding force in the training, conduct and as-
Months later, in a similar ceremony for John Glenn, signment of the other astronauts. The performance of
as the President was about to bestow the award again, this duty required a certain amount of apparent de-
Shepard whispered to him, “Don’t drop it!” Mr. Ken- tachment which has at times been misinterpreted as
nedy broke up over that one. aloofness. There are those who consider Shepard cool
During the years that followed, Alan Shepard be- or even unfeeling. Reporters and associates alike com-
came known as “Hard Luck Al.” He was a backup ment on his ability to control the mood of a meeting
pilot for the final Mercury shot (MA-9) and then tried or conversation.
relentlessly to get approval for one last solo flight for But what really lies beneath his demeanor, and
himself. The capsule had already been completed. what is naturally overlooked or misunderstood by
(MA-l0 was named Freedom 7-II and is now stored in those outside the environment, is the basic fact that
the National Air and Space Museum in mint condi- he is an aviator — a test pilot — and that he functions
tion.) At a White House dinner, after checking with in a very similar fashion to, and responds to the re-
NASA’s James Webb, Shepard asked Mr. Kennedy for sponsibilities of, a typical commanding officer of an
approval of MA-l0. It was to be an extra flight of elite squadron.
protracted duration. The President deferred the ques- Shepard is proud of his Navy background and, be-

6
Freedom 7-II, above, never flew. It is now
stored in the Smithsonian Institution. At
right, Shepard monitors communications at
Mission Control in Houston as he sweats out
the safe return of Apollo 13.

cause of this, is well aware of its contributions to the genius-level IQ of 145). After graduation from An-
space program over the years — largely little known napolis in 1944, he was assigned to the destroyer USS
facts or unrecognized achievements by Navy scientists Cogswell before going on to Corpus Christi and Pensa-
and men. For example, during Mercury, Shepard him- cola. In the interim he took civilian flying lessons to
self was involved with the planning for recovery oper- better prepare himself for his future. Designated a
ations of the capsules and pilots. Tracking and locat- Naval Aviator in 1947, he joined Fighter Squadron
ing where his major interests and numerous aids were 4B (VF-4B) and then VF-42, flying Corsairs from the
developed and employed to insure success — UHF USS Franklin D. Roosevelt. He had test pilot training
and HF radio beacons, fluorescent dye markers, high at Patuxent River and remained there from January
intensity lights and special Navy depth bombs 1951 until July 1957 — a period interspersed with
(Sofar*) that explode beneath the ocean surface be- duty in VF-193, a night fighter squadron flying F2H
low the floating spacecraft, sending sound waves Banshees.
through the water to shore stations thousands of Of that tour he recalls an incident, while operating
miles away. off the USS Oriskany, when he had difficulty finding
the ship. His radio had failed and it was one of those
nights when things began to go so wrong — the edge
As he spoke of these things, and of the “spinoffs” of panic seeped in. He considered his situation and
of the program which are so beneficial to the public, thought: “Shape up, Al! You’re never going to get
the original idea of doing a “close-up” for Naval Avia- anywhere if you just sit out here and start worrying
tion News began to expand into a larger concept. The about it.” So, keeping his thinking machine on the
end result of that thinking is this special edition. It is move, he worked out the problem and made it back
not meant to be a detailed technical history but, in- to the ship okay. It was a principle he has consistent-
stead, a broad-brush view of just some of the indi- ly applied, as have thousands of successful aviators.
viduals of the Navy who have, each in his own way,
helped extend the reach of Man beyond the confines
of this planet — men who have also stimulated prog- The fact that the 47-year-old astronaut has hung on
ress in the pursuit of a better life here at home. to the program with such tenacity prompts a ques-
Effort has been made to avoid a “rehash” of fa- tion: Why? The others of his original group have each
miliar material. Much of the information presented gone their separate ways but, over the years, he has
concerns fairly obscure Navy men who worked be- continued to maintain an arduous training schedule.
hind the scenes. It is largely about imagination, per- He certainly hasn’t done it for the money, and there
sistence, success, failures and accomplishments. were all manner of alternatives he could have pursued
To this end, Alan Shepard stands as a symbol. The with a high degree of success.
story of how he fought to overcome the obstacles to In answer to that question, the commander of the
his return to space is not surprising to those who have forthcoming Apollo 14, Captain Alan Bartlett
known him for years. His record at Admiral Farragut Shepard, Jr., grins. And then he says, “Once a fighter
Academy reveals early leadership potential (and a pilot, what else can a fighter pilot do?”

*Sound Fixing and Ranging — COMMANDER TED WILBUR, 1970

7
C onsidering that it is traditional for sailing men to study the sun and stars — a necessity
if they are to navigate desolate seas with any assurance of success — it could be said that
the United States Navy has always had an interest in space. It could also be pointed out
that the Navy established its base of space technology, the Depot of Charts and Instru-
ments — later renamed the U. S. Naval Observatory and Hydrographic Office — over 140
years ago. Among its duties was the preparation of celestial charts and spatial information.

I t looks like a good day to set an


altitude record.” And, with
that, Lieutenant Pat Bellinger, Naval
eight hours and 51 minutes over Santa
Rosa Island, off Pensacola.
Some years passed before there was
the earth. Not a war plane, its lines
were conventional. Still, it was a fight-
er. Its adversary? — air. Two basic
Aviator #8, climbed into a Curtiss any official differentiation between elements made up the Apache project:
AH-3 pusher and soon found himself land and sea planes by the accepted the airplane and the man who flew it,
at 6,200 feet over Annapolis, claiming authority, the Federation Aero- Both needed air, in an environment
the first unofficial world’s altitude nautique Internationale (FAI). By where the “breath of life” was, liter-
record for seaplanes. The date was 1923, however, when the categories ally, rare,
Friday the 13th, June 1913. (Always had expanded to 42, including sea- A reciprocating, gasoline-driven en-
one to push his luck, Pat went on, the planes with various payloads, the gine needs air, with its high content of
next year, to become the first Naval Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics was oxygen, to function. So does a man.
Aviator to be shot at. Over the many credited with 22 out of the 33 world The engine of the Apache was a Pratt
years of his full life, he happily pur- records then held by the United & Whitney Wasp, a radial engine of the
sued adventure.) States. And by the end of the Twen- type Naval Aviation (with considerable
Because seaplanes were not yet a ties, the books showed that out of wisdom and foresight) had put its
recognized category, his feat was never some 100 competitive events involving money on. But it had a few improve-
set down in the record books. But it altitudes, flight duration, distance and ments attached: Scintilla magnetos, a
represents the manifest desire of early speed, Americans held over one-third special Stromberg carburetor, “BG”
Naval Aviators to join others of their the honors, including the coveted ab- spark plugs, and a “Rootes-type” super-
kind in reaching out from earth to solute altitude record for Class C charger — manufactured by the Alli-
climb ever higher toward outer space. landplanes. In the latter category, two son Engineering Company. (A super-
Bellinger challenged the heavens Naval Aviators had emerged to gain charger can, by various means, increase
again in 1915, making it to 10,000 this honor: Lieutenant C. C. Cham- the volume of air inducted by an
feet over Pensacola in a Burgess Dunne pion (appropriately enough) and Lieu- engine — a useful item in situations
AH-10 — a vehicle to which modern tenant Soucek — whose first name was where you don’t have much to begin
sweptback wings can trace their ances- Apollo. with,)
try, Later that same year, Lieutenant A man is more delicate; you can’t
“Caswell” Saufley flew in an AH-14 to
11,975 feet and, in 1916, successively
to 16,010 and 16,072 feet. Shortly
I n 1927, the Navy had a unique
airplane, the diminutive Wright
Apache. Its purpose was to fly higher
just pump him up with a Rootes
blower. So, early in the game, it was
learned that a certain amount of extra
afterwards, he crashed to his death than any other machine — to probe oxygen could be carried and adminis-
while setting an endurance record of the chilling secrets of the blue above tered in a fairly simple flask-and-tube

8
There are those who believe the matter should stop right there. After all, they argue, it
is a Navy’s business to sail its ships upon terrestrial waters — and not become involved
with grandiose notions about seas of space. But if we contemplate the motives of that
unknown man in ancient times who first hacked and whittled out a log and then paddled
into the unknown, we can more easily understand his modern counterpart. The tools have
improved; the ponds are larger. But he is still the same old restless fellow.

fashion. What was not fully under-


stood was the effect on a human body
of low atmospheric pressure at high
altitude. It was thought that inhalation
of oxygen by the pilot would be
sufficient for survival. The facts re-
futed this hopeful theory.
On the morning of July 25, 1927,
Lt. Carleton C. Champion took off
from the Anacostia Naval Air Station
in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to
break the existing landplane altitude
record of 37,569 feet, then held by
Lieutenant John A. Macready, U.S.
Army. The 425-hp. Apache climbed to Lieutenant Patrick N. L. Bellinger, Naval Aviator No. 8, at the controls of a Curtiss AH-3
a height registered as 47,000 feet on pusher-type seaplane. Bellinger was the first Naval Aviator to be shot at — in 1914.
the cockpit altimeter when two cylin-
der heads on the Pratt & Whitney flames. The strain of these maneuvers called “Sockem” S o u c e k b y h i s
Wasp engine suddenly blew off. Parts further tore up the engine. Still half friends) won his wings in 1924 and
of the broken engine hurtled past conscious, he glided to a cornfield, three years later found himself as-
Champion’s head, tearing pieces from having fought four fires on the way signed to the A p a c h e project. As a
the plane’s wings. As he ducked, the down. An official examination of the member of the Power Plants Division
rubber oxygen tube popped from his instruments showed that Lt. Cham- of the Bureau of Aeronautics in Wash-
mouth. He passed out within a few pion had actually reached a height of ington, Soucek shuffled papers for a
seconds, and the Apache rolled over, 38,419 feet, a new record. year before he ever saw the research
uncontrolled. As the plane fell towards In spite of the victory, obvious plane, which was then undergoing a
denser air, Champion awakened in a physiological problems had yet to be complete overhaul. But from all the
semiconscious state and found his ma- overcome. Champion’s successor saw technical correspondence and plans he
chine falling a n d a f i r e . Groping the need for a face mask which would was handling, he became intimate with
around, he found the lost tube, righted ensure that oxygen, under pressure, every detail of the Wright machine. A
the plane and went into a series of would reach the lungs. consuming desire to fly it prompted
sideslips and dives to blow out the The man named Apollo (he was Soucek to ask his boss, Admiral Wil-

9
To Leave the Earth
liam A. Moffett, if he could step into said, “I obtained the necessary parts more than nine pounds and yet would
Champion’s shoes. The visionary from the naval hospital, from the air provide complete comfort. The user
leader of Naval Aviation gave the station and from local drug stores.” was advised, however, to refrain from
go-ahead and Apollo Soucek prepared The apparatus consisted of oxygen wearing any clothing underneath. The
to venture out beyond all men. flasks in the Apache’s open cockpit, fur suit was to be worn next to the
One part of the training bears exami- rubber tubing to the mouth, “a clothes skin. Therefore, Soucek’s attire con-
nation — a contrast to today’s multi- pin-like gadget to clamp the nostrils sisted of: a caribou suit; a nutria
million-dollar space flight simulators shut,” and a tube attached to a hot fur-lined helmet/face mask; fleece-
(described later in this publication). In water bottle, “thus enabling the opera- lined, vented goggles; lambskin boots;
order to test an individual’s capacity tor to breathe normally — almost.” two pairs of muskrat mittens (“the
to function at high altitudes, the sub- Before attempting his assault on the second pair makes one’s hands rather
ject would be placed in a gradually altitude record, Soucek made five fa- clumsy”); golf stockings; and an ath-
rarefying atmosphere where, under the miliarization flights in the little plane, letic supporter.
scrutiny of flight surgeons, he would each time flying higher than before. “The golf stockings and jockey
attempt to do a number of things, all He discovered that his limit was about strap, ” said Soucek, “were in a sense
at once. There was a panel of little 33,500 feet; beyond that his goggles unnecessary refinements. By wearing
lights; if one came on, punching a frosted over and he couldn’t see the them I violated the underwearless doc-
switch beneath would put it out. On instruments. This seemingly insur- trine. They provided no additional
the side was an ammeter and a knob. mountable problem (which also in- warmth and were worn for civilized
Turning the knob at the proper rate duced the fear of “frozen eyeballs”) purposes only.”
would keep the meter’s needle zeroed. was eventually solved by Apollo’s On May 8, 1929, the A p a c h e w a s
With both hands thus occupied, atten- brother, Zeus. The younger man, a fueled with 40 gallons of gas, while
tion was given to the feet: by pumping Naval Aviator attached to the Naval the flight surgeon packed Soucek’s
furiously on a pedal, the irritating Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia, flew nose and ears with Vaseline-coated
whine of a supercharger-like device down to Anacostia with a special set cotton wads. Then the suit was don-
could be diminished. of electrically heated goggles he had ned, “ t h e e n d s o f t h e t r o u s e r l e g s
Apollo did fine on this curious exer- made. The lenses, a standard, pilot’s wrapped around and gripped in place
cise — for a while. But as the air within type, were equipped with a wire ele- by the clamping effect of the boot
the chamber grew thinner, confusion ment which was attached to an eight- tops.” His nose clip was attached and
limited his ability to play the “one- volt, rheostat-controlled storage bat- the helmet put on. “The pilot must see
man-band.” After what seemed an tery. In principle, this arrangement to it,” Soucek later advised, “that the
eternity he was too exhausted to go later proved excellent, the only objec- assistants do not draw up the helmet
on. The lights flashed, the needle had tionable feature being the weight of and neck piece straps too tightly; the
run amuk, the screaming noise pierced the battery, eight pounds. “That isn’t entire clothing regalia should fit
his ears. But only 25 minutes had much on an ordinary airplane,” said loosely in order that blood circulation
actually passed a n d S o c k e m w a s Apollo, “ b u t i n o n e w h e r e o u n c e s not be retarded. Over-zealous helpers
deemed “qualified to go to an altitude mean reduced height, the addition of are apt to draw up any slack strap very
of 28,000 feet without oxygen!” extra pounds is most undesirable.” As firmly in order to make the grotesque
it turned out, Zeus arrived too late; his looking pilot appear as shipshape as

A lthough a n u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f
the need for pressurization in
flight suits and cockpits was yet to
brother had already taken off.
Above 25,000 feet the temperature
drops as low as 89 degrees below zero.
possible.”
After a run of less than 75 feet, the
Apache leapt into the air and climbed
come, the requirement for oxygen at Experience from the Arctic, dating smoothly. It was an uneventful flight
altitude was well known. The method back to 1913, indicated that a proper to 38,000 feet, the engine and oxygen
of applying it was interesting. Of his flying suit, if made from the right systems of the little research plane
self-designed breathing device Apollo material (caribou skin), need weigh no functioning perfectly. Thereafter, prog-

10
ress lessened. “ A t t h i s h e i g h t , t h e
frost began to appear on the goggles”
and, by the time he reached 40,000
feet, engine rpm had dropped, “About
40 minutes had elapsed since leaving
the ground . . . I periodically felt
weak. Frost now covered the inside of
the goggles. But I knew that a record
was within my grasp, so I decided not
to return until I had gone as high as I
could.
“I pushed the goggles up on my
forehead and placed my head as low as
I could in the open cockpit. To my
surprise, I felt no excruciating pains
(from frozen eyeballs) whatever. In-
stead, the new visibility was encourag-
ing. I could discern colors on the
ground; the earth presented a beautiful
sight — perfectly natural but greatly
reduced in size. I thought I was over
the city of Washington, but was mis-
taken as subsequent events disclosed.

Lieutenant Carleton C. Champion at the time of his harrowing but record-breaking flight
to 34,419 feet in July 1927. During his descent, Champion successfully fought four fires.

At left, Lt. R. C. Saufley, Naval Avi-


ator No. 14, smiles in this 1915 photo.
Saufley established several world’s
altitude records before crashing to his
death at Pensacola the following year.

11
To Leave the Earth

“Soon the skin around my eyes


began to hurt, but my eyes themselves
did not pain. Fearing the results of
frozen skin, I pulled the goggles back
down. Then I could not see the instru-
ments, much less the horizon or any
reference point.”
Soucek was flying blind, barely. The
A p a c h e became extremely hard to
handle; it was near its stalling point.
The grease in the control system had
become stiff, causing difficulty in
movement of the stick — “it required
every bit of strength I had to lift a
wing. I attempted to use my knees on
the stick and my right hand to hold
the goggles away from my eyes about
an inch.”
To make matters more difficult,
Soucek had to operate the emergency
oxygen valve with the same, heavily
be-mittened hand while his left was
employed exclusively for the throttle

‘ . . . our last record will serve


only to sharpen the keen edge
of foreign competition.’ LT. APOLLO SOUCEK, SUITING UP AND READY TO GO

and supercharger valves. As a safety the Apache’s tank. But the Navy pilot foreign countries will go beyond the
precaution in case of blackout, those had set a new world’s altitude record. mark set by the A p a c h e ; o u r l a s t
controls were tensioned with a bungee record will serve to only sharpen the
cord. To keep them open required a
constant forward pressure. The fatigue
began to tell.
A lthough Apollo Soucek went
on to greater heights, his com-
ments on that particular flight are
keen edge of foreign competition.
“Many people have congratulated
me on my successful effort. Some of
“The plane dropped off in a right noteworthy. “It was valuable. Some- my friends and acquaintances have
spin. Removing the goggles entirely, I thing was gained. In the Navy, we been most enthusiastic in their expres-
grabbed the stick with my right hand enter research work such as altitude sions: however, I fear that some of my
and released the throttle and super- flying for a definite purpose; records more intimate friends do not think
charger controls from my left. Both are secondary matters that are useful very highly of my spiritual standing,
levers immediately closed. The spin only as goals for which we strive. The More than one of them has remarked,
cost 2,000 feet of altitude; to regain A p a c h e is a flying laboratory; the ‘Well, I suppose that’s about as close
that, plus a few additional feet, did height she attained proved the experi- to heaven as you’ll ever get!’
not appear at that time to be possible. ments were based on correct formulas. “A remark like that causes one to
Besides, I was somewhat alarmed to The equipment in some parts of the think and wonder about his past life.
find myself over Chesapeake Bay.” It plane and its power-plant is just a step But I’m not so sure that heaven is
took 25 minutes to get back to Ana- in advance of what will appear on such a desirable place, after all, if
costia and land — where it was found standard aircraft of tomorrow. conditions are anything like those I
that eight gallons of fuel remained in “It is natural to suppose that men in experienced above 40,000 feet.”

12
I t was one of those rare, crisp,
clear mornings in the District of
Columbia, when I knocked on his
basket at 42,000 feet, a young Naval
Aviator decided to build a better
vehicle. The airship officer, Thomas
cago Daily News would be co-
sponsors. Goodyear would provide the
balloon; Dow Chemical, the gondola;
door, a half-hour early. A man in a (“Tex”) Settle, working with C. P. and Union Carbide, the hydrogen.
robe greeted me, saying, “I was in the Burgess of the Bureau of Aeronautics, Scientists Arthur Compton and Robert
shower. Come in and get comfortable. came up with a design for a sealed Millikan offered equipment to study
I’ll make some coffee when I c o m e cylinder, about seven feet long, in cosmic rays. For an American pilot,
down.” Vice Admiral Settle (Ret.) which a man with a life support the Navy brought forth the only man
went back upstairs to complete his system and instruments could ride into in the world licensed to fly all types of
ablutions. the stratosphere. He called it “The aircraft, “lighter-than-air” specialist
The house was in an attractive, Flying Coffin,” When Settle showed Lieutenant Commander Tex Settle.
northwest Washington neighborhood. the proposal to Admiral Moffett, the The ascent from Soldier Field was
Looking out the window of the dining Bureau’s Chief ordered its construc- planned for August 1933. Although
room, I could see the sloping, wooded tion at the Philadelphia Naval Aircraft the gondola was designed for two men,
yard and then, gazing upward, follow Factory. it was decided that in the interest of
the lines of tall trees, their leaves But about this time there was an- saving weight, Settle would fly solo.
almost blanking out the blue sky other of the ever recurring “tight Once again, the “Lone Eagle” concept
overhead, It was a curious setting; the money” situations. As a result, budget came into play and LCdr. Settle be-
sylvan scene was somehow incongru- problems forced the cancellation of a came a page-one excitement to mil-
ous. For, as I thumbed through the number of research projects, including lions of Depression-ridden Americans.
scrapbooks he had left on the table — The Flying Coffin. Nevertheless, the Radio and newspapers followed every
two marvelous, meticulously main- idea persisted. In Europe, physicist step of the preparations until, on the
tained albums with green leatherette August Piccard developed it into a night of August 4, tens of thousands
covers and gold inscriptions stating spherical gondola and, by 1932, had of people jammed into Soldier Field to
simply: “Campaign I” and “Campaign made balloon ascensions to 53,000 watch the spectacular takeoff. As
II” — I reflected on the fact that the feet. searchlights played, the 600,000 cubic
friendly, unassuming man upstairs, The following year, Piccard made a foot “A Century of Progress” — the
who lived in a house surrounded by lecture tour in the United States. largest balloon in the world — was
trees, had once been the focal point of Suggesting that a new flight be made gradually inflated from a nearby stack
the beginnings of the Race for Space. at the Century of Progress Exposition of 700 steel hydrogen cylinders. By
In 1927, when Captain Hawthorne in Chicago, he succeeded in acquiring two in the morning, the 105-foot-
Gray of the U.S. Army lost his life due the necessary backing. The National diameter balloon, straining at the lines
to oxygen failure in an open balloon Broadcasting Company and the C h i - gripped by a score of Navy men,

14
Photographs from the Settle Collection

LCdr. “Tex” Settle looks on as a University of Chicago


scientist checks special instrument and flight equipment prior
to assault on the world altitude record. Below, the scene at
Soldier Field, Chicago, on the night of August 4, 1933 as
125,000 cubic feet of inflammable hydrogen gas mushrooms
the gigantic balloon up over the assembled crowd.
loomed above the crowd. Then utter
silence fell as Settle announced he was
going to test the gas release valve, a
critical control. He pulled the cord,
which went up through the folds, and
then let go. To his dismay, a shrieking
hiss persisted far too long. The valve
was not closing properly; somewhere
above, the cord was binding. Flight
was impractical. Yet, to rip the bag
and release the hydrogen in the midst
of the crowd was a more dangerous
alternative. Settle made his decision:
“Let’s go!”
Rivetted by searchlight beams, A A CENTURY OF PROGRESS AT AKRON
Century of Progress rose to 5,000 feet
in the pre-dawn Chicago darkness.
Settle worked the cord again. This opportunity to even t o y with it. A next attempt, regardless of weight
time the valve remained fully open and case is recalled where a farmer lei- considerations, he would have a part-
the balloon fell toward the railroad surely bulldozed over the remains (in- ner to help: Maj. Fordney.
yard. Ballast was dumped to lessen the cluding the pilot) of a plane which had As work progressed at a comfortable
rate of descent. The 15-minute flight crashed in his field. The scheme was to pace, word suddenly came from across
ended ignominiously with a crash hide it from searchers and then sell the the seas that a foreign attempt was
across the railroad tracks. A morning metal as junk, later. being made on the high altitude rec-
paper headlined the event: “SETTLE But, when in a pack, a dog works ord. On September 30, 1933, a sealed-
UP! SETTLE DOWN.” fast to get a bone. So, when Tex Settle cabin balloon named the “USSR,”
crawled out of his gondola in the manned by three Soviet aeronauts,
middle of downtown Chicago at an achieved a height of 62,230 feet!
early morning hour, he was naturally Although Russia was not a member of
concerned by the sight of the mob the FAI and therefore did not qualify
which was stomping all over his limp for official recognition, the record was
balloon. Puffing on cigarettes, a few a challenge.
were already cutting up the fabric, Sensing a potential for dispropor-
oblivious to the presence of explosive tionate publicity if another attempt
hydrogen. It wouldn’t take them long were made from Soldier Field, Settle
to get to the instruments. shifted operations to Akron, Ohio. In
Fortunately, the Marines arrived. As spite of the move and the relative
part of the launch crew, they had privacy afforded by the Goodyear

T here is something about the


demise of an aerial machine
that does something to people. The
observed the fall of the balloon and
Major C. L. “Mike” Fordney and four
of his men had taken a bearing and
zeppelin dock, newspapers continued
to give the preparations major treat-
ment — making much of the competi-
souvenir hunter emerges. Crowds have followed by automobile. The ensuing tive characteristics of the Russian and
been k n o w n t o r u m m a g e t h r o u g h operation “to keep the peace” until American craft. News-hungry reporters
wreckage, their apparent objective reinforcements arrived was fortunately devoured every bit of information
being to make off with whatever is successful and was noted with cryptic they could get, and sensational ac-
portable. A t t i m e s , e v e n t a t t e r e d praise by an appreciative press. The counts of the supposed “effects of
human flesh has had a peculiar appeal. bag was saved, would be repaired, and cosmic rays” splashed across the Sun-
If the wreck is remote, the finder has Settle would try again. But an the day supplements.

16
V ice Admiral Settle gently
stirred his coffee, his eyes
lingering on the towering trees beyond
before the other?’ Mmm. I said, ‘In
that case, upon observation of such
phenomenon, the unchanged one will
which killed its three crew members. It
was said that the Russian balloon may
have iced up. The time of year was a
the window. “The fruit fly experi- quickly don a parachute and bail out, factor, too. Some reports claimed that
ment, ” he said, “was interesting. I read returning as rapidly as possible to the Stalin, against advice, had ordered the
this morning, in the paper, a short safety of Earth. The other, continually dangerous flight in conjunction with
article about the Apollo 12 astronauts exposed to the strange rays, will wait the 17th Communist Party Congress
who observed the effect of cosmic rays until the cycle makes full turn and then being held in Moscow. He had
on a human being — they saw little then follow suit.’ I almost had them pointed to heaven and said, “Go!”
flashes of light, even when their eyes believing it.” The competition went on, but the
were closed. In a way, the cosmic rays Russians’ worthiest opponent had left
are still mysterious. They certainly
were in 1933, and much more was
made of them.
0 n November 17, the balloon, A
Century of Progress, manned
by a Naval Aviator and a Marine, arose
the arena. LCdr. Settle went off to
China to take command of the
Yangtze River gunboat, Palos. After a
“Back then, there was a belief that from the Ohio landscape to an altitude long and distinguished career in both
cosmic rays might affect the gender of of 61,237 feet — a new, official the air and surface Navy, he finally
a living creature. Since the reproduc- world’s record — yet still short, by retired from active duty, as a vice
tive cycle of the fruit fly is rather almost 1,000 feet, of the actual Rus- admiral, in 1963.
quick, it was decided to install a sian mark. The Soviets were magnani-
number of these insects in the gondola mous in their praise of Settle’s achieve- Thomas G. W. Settle, Class of ‘15,
for the flight into the stratosphere — ment, but part of one of the congratu- sipped his coffee and, with a sparkle in
into that region where they would be latory messages gave clue to their his eyes, thought back on an adventure
bereft of normal sky protection. The intent: “. . . may both our countries that earned him the Harmon Interna-
jars were prepared, each with an air continue to contest the heights i n tional League of Aviators Medal and
hole, of course, and each containing every s p h e r e o f s c i e n c e a n d t e c h - the Count de la Vaux Medal. The
what was claimed to be a virgin fruit nique.” flight was termed “another victory for
fly. Where this notion came from, I On January 30, 1934, the O s o - the American eagle” by the FAI but,
can’t imagine. For, as bad weather aviakhim made it to 72,182 feet be- as far as Tex Settle is concerned, it was
moved in, and the flight was re- fore plunging back to Earth in a crash the starting flag of the Race for Space.
peatedly delayed, the jars were con-
stantly full of tiny offspring. Noting
the concern about this particular ex-
periment, the reporters speculated.
And, somehow, the idea developed
that a man at high altitude, bom-
barded by the dreaded rays, might
come back — as a woman!
“Confronted with this strange prop-
osition of the Press, I struggled for a
reply that would satisfy. I told them,
in a very knowing manner, that if,
upon return, Maj. Fordney and I dis-
covered ourselves not to be as we had
left, we would immediately go back
up, get another dose, and be ourselves
again.
“But then they asked, ‘What if one
of you is more susceptible and changes

MIKE FORDNEY AND TEX SETTLE


TRUAX/GODDARD

Navy
J ust inside the main gate of the
Naval Shin Research and Devel-
opment Center on the banks of the
Potomac in Carderock, Md., there is a
small white building that has a tem-
porary look about it. You get the
feeling that someday you might come
back and find it gone — a reasonable
estimate, because the man who works
within is on the move. He always has
been. That is the way it is with
r o c k e t e e r s — if you are lucky, you
may discern a little patch of scorched
earth some place and know that one
has been there. It is about all they
leave behind — that, and an idea. You
begin to suspect they are not of this
world.
The thing that immediately strikes
you about Bob Truax is his energy —
and youth. He speaks, and you find
yourself on the edge of your chair. He
looks, and you see a fire in his eyes.
He moves — an equation suddenly
appears on the blackboard — and you
notice that his hands are constantly in
motion. He might have been an actor.
Instead, he is the rocket pioneer of the
Navy — a distinction shared with Dr.
Robert Goddard and a few others.
In order to put the work of Captain
Robert Truax, USN (Ret.), in perspec-
tive, it is necessary to go back a bit
and observe that there were three
recognized progenitors of our modern
space age. The first was a Russian,
Konstantin Ziolkovsky, whose pro-
posal for spaceships was published in
1903. Dr. Robert H. Goddard fol-
lowed with the classic, “A Method of
Reaching Extreme Altitudes,” in
1919. Then, in 1923, the German, Dr.
Hermann Oberth, published his study,
“The Rocket into Interplanetary
s p ace.”
Goddard was the only one to per-
sonally put his theory into practice,
starting about 1914 when he was a
physics instructor at Clark University
in Worcester, Massachusetts. In July of

18
that year, while recovering from pul- hypothesis; e a c h t i m e h e w a s m i s - and become associated with Wernher
monary tuberculosis, he was granted a quoted and humiliated. Even as he von Braun and the place called Peene-
patent, the first of more than 200 over tried to withdraw from the limelight, muende. When “Herr Wernher” was
his lifetime. During World War I, one the hecklers followed and Sunday sup- being interrogated about the develop-
of his developments was the prototype plements portrayed him as the “Mys- ment of the V-2 rocket by a U.S.
of the World War II bazooka. The war tery Professor.” The articles were com- technical team in Germany after WW
ended shortly after he demonstrated plete with wild illustrations of mad II, he said, “I don’t know why you ask
the remarkable antitank hand weapon preparations for his lunar trip. these questions of me when it is you
— too late for that conflict, but useful Branded a crackpot, Goddard dropped who have the teacher who expounded
in the next. His “A Method of Reach- from public view. Privately continuing the technology that has made the V-2
ing Extreme Altitudes” was quietly his work on rockets and space naviga- possible.”
released, in limited distribution, by the tion, he guardedly stored his notes in a Goddard was not so thin-skinned as
Smithsonian Institution in January file labeled “Formulae for Silvering to be truly disheartened by his own
1920. Then all hell broke loose. Mirrors.” countrymen’s derision in the early
The paper had been aimed at scien- While the average American made Twenties. He knew he was right (the
tific circles, but conjectures on its last sport of the man with a new idea, t h e philosophical advantage of a thinking
pages — especially one dealing with a European reaction to Goddard was man). I n 1 9 2 6 , h e l a u n c h e d t h e
rocket shot to the moon — had been seriously receptive. His Smithsonian world’s first liquid-cooled rocket from
seized upon by the popular press and paper found acceptance, and among a farm near Auburn, Massachusetts.
sensationalized. those who entered into correspond- More shots followed, until, on July 17,
At a time when everyone knew that ence was a mathematics student at the 1929, he got one off with history’s
rockets could not operate in the vac- University of Heidelberg, Hermann first rocket-borne instrument payload
uum of space — and that Jules Verne Oberth. The young gentleman was — a barometer, thermometer and cam-
had been a fiction writer — Goddard engaged in a pursuit similar to God- era. Unfortunately, a rocket has one
became the target of public ridicule. dard’s. In the years to come, Oberth especially obnoxious characteristic —
For a while, he tried to explain his would write a textbook on space flight noise, and a great deal of it. This
particular one caused neighbors to
a s s u m e a n airplane had crashed.
Shortly thereafter, he was enjoined by
a Massachusetts fire marshal to cease
and desist. A friend came to the
rescue. Colonel Charles Lindbergh sug-
gested to the Guggenheim family that
Goddard’s work was worth support.
Former Naval Aviator Daniel Guggen-
heim agreed. The financing resulted in
the building of a rocket experimental
station near Roswell, N.M. There God-
dard was able to make substantial
progress.
Robert Goddard’s publicity had not
gone unnoticed by American scien-
tists. Not long after the base at Ros-
well was established, the American
Rocket Society (ARS) was formed. A
h a r d c o r e o f “rocket enthusiasts,”
finding Dr. Goddard too remote (and
Captain Robert C. Truax, opposite page, front runner in early Navy rocket experiments, led the
way in development of reaction motors for aircraft and missiles. Above, his wartime civilian
uncommunicative), patterned their
associate, Dr. Robert H. Goddard, examines a turbo pump from a captured German V-2 rocket. own organization after Berlin’s Vercin
Dr. Goddard worked, under contract, for the Navy at the Experiment Station, Annapolis. für Raumschiffart — the German Inter-

19
'It was more
planetary Society. Soon, thunderous,
fiery birds were arcing skyward from
such unlikely places as Marine Park on
Staten Island, while, in a garage in
Alameda, California, violent experi-
an accident
ments with combustible powders were
being c o n d u c t e d b y a y o u n g s t e r than anything
named Truax.
“The first rocket I ever built,” says else that I
didn't kill
the bright-eyed man, moving his hands
in a manner reminiscent of a sculp-
tor’s, “was, I guess, when I must have
been in high school. I was a P o p u l a r
Mechanics fan and, in the early Thir-
somebody!'
ties, there was a splash made. Dr.
Goddard was doing a little bit, and the
German Rocket Society and the Amer-
ican Rocket Society were just then
getting formed. So, every so often,
they’d make the Popular Mechanics-
type magazine. It was far out. Any-
way, I got the bug to the extent of
wanting to go out and build what I’d
been reading about.” At right, the first
gasoline/oxygen rocket
Bob Truax looked at the sky and engine built by Truax in
clouds outside his small office. “I 1938. Below, Midshipman
guess it just appealed to me. So, I Truax with members of
started making rockets. Made gun- British Interplanetary
Society in England
powder rockets. Mixed up black pow-
Noted space writer,
der in the basement and put in a little Arthur C. Clarke, is
glue to make a sort of solid propellant. at far right.

Some of them burned fairly decently.


But others. . . . Well, for instance, I
found that Sparklett cylinders (used to
make carbonated water), when filled
with smokeless powder, do not m a k e
very good rockets. They explode and
send steel all over the place. Once, I
blasted the door of my Dad’s garage
with flying metal particles.
“But then I made one with a tooth-
powder can which I stuffed full of
nitrate film. That makes a pretty good
rocket.” Truax leaned back, chuckling.
“The only trouble is that after work-
ing fairly well for a while, it came
apart, a n d s e n t t h e s e s t r e a m e r s o f
flaming celluloid all over my backyard
and I had to run around stamping out
the fires.
“Well, with the Depression and all, “I never found out what my budget “Perhaps the only real good that
money was tight, so I went to the was; it was sufficient for my needs. came out of the Annapolis thing was
Naval Academy and, after a while, And they even assigned a little welder the write-up I did in late Spring of
started to build myself a rocket over in to me — Sugar Evans — who was a 1939 for the Naval Academy Log. T h e
the Steam Engineering Building where whiz with a torch when I had to cut technical reports were published by
they had lathes and other such stuff. I up boiler plates and pipes.” the ARS (American Rocket Society)
had it finished by 1937 — just the Since spare time is rather limited at but went largely unnoticed. However,
combustion chamber, a rather sophisti- Annapolis, Truax decided to stay at the Log article came to the attention
cated, cooled, liquid-propellant type — the Experiment Station over his of Commander A. B. Vosseller. He was
and I took it over to the head of the Christmas leave (1937) in order to get a ‘big boat’ (patrol plane) man, and
Marine Engineering Department and his rocket going. “I had ten days. One they apparently were having trouble
asked if I could set it up in the problem was that I needed gasoline with the PBY-2’s. The Catalinas were
foundry and run it. And he said, ‘Why and liquid oxygen for fuel. Gasoline underpowered for certain conditions.
don’t you take your. . . . rocket and was easy, but lox was like the atomic So he dropped me a note along about
get the hell out of here!” So, I took it bomb! So, I settled on compressed air. graduation time and said, ‘Before you
across the [Severn] river to the Exper- It was more an accident than anything go out to the fleet, why don’t you
iment Station.” else that I didn’t kill somebody! drop in and talk to me?’ Vosseller was
At this point, Midshipman Truax “But the rocket worked and at- head of the Plans Division of the
found himself subjected to an interro- tracted attention. I remember the Bureau of Aeronautics (BuAer).
gation by several other heads of de- workmen would come out of the “Having an idea of what he wanted
partments, whose concern was pri- building during lunch hour to where I to talk about, I ran up to Washington,
marily safety. Young Truax adroitly was set up and sit around eating their where he pointed out the problem by
applied a principle he would never lunches and watch the crazy kid run- saying, ‘Do you think you can put a
forget — always have an answer. ning his rocket. It made a godawful rocket on an airplane?’ Well, I just
Spouting physics to physics instruc- racket — only 25 pounds of thrust — happened to have a little analysis, as
tors, he made an impression. Captain but enough to drive you batty! They’d applied to the PBY, in my pocket.
Cox, C. O. of the Experiment Station, throw rocks at it, at the exhaust, and Then, what he did was suggest I
finally said, “Well, fellows, what do watch them go up in the air. Two big submit a patent paper on my JATO
you say we give him a chance?” guys got a plank and tried like the (Jet Assisted TakeOff) unit — and that
As Truax recalls, “Once the boss had devil to hold it in the jet. Quite a time he would use it as a vehicle to get me
spoken, it became a grand idea. they had! assigned to the Bureau and to get

At left, young Truax adjusts his


compressed air/gasoline rocket.
Above is his regeneratively
cooled engine on its test stand.
Truax devoted most of his spare
time and leave periods to these
experimental operations.

21
a project started, actually develop it! Annapolis to run the thing. From the Captain Truax recalls, “In 1942, just
“It took a little time. I put two years Bureau files, I had selected Bill Schu- before I left the Bureau and went back
in the carrier Enterprise (CV-6) and a bert, Jim Patton and Ray Stiff, all to the Experiment Station at Annapo-
destroyer before I was finally ordered Reserve ensigns, to lend a hand. lis, Dr. Goddard walked in. During the
to BuAer. The job was to set up a Several months later, the Bureau set year before, when the international
project for JATO’s for the PBY. Be- up Dr. Goddard in a facility we had situation had been getting tense, the
cause the term ‘rocket’ was always established at Annapolis.” Guggenheims had recommended that
associated with crackpots, I was the he work for the government as he had
‘jet propulsion’ man. I worked up a
scheme estimated to cost $65,000. My
boss, Commander Bolster, thought this
I t is a point of interest that God-
dard, in the years leading up to
World War II, had offered his services
in WW I. He had been doing some
contract work for the Navy out in
New Mexico, and now, here he was in
several times to the government, and Washington!
that he had been rejected. Perhaps the “He astonished me a little when he
“crackpot” image preceded him. Then said he thought the rocket had come
too, his previous rough treatment at to the point where it needed engineer-
the hands of the Press, which resulted ing treatment, as opposed to the labo-
in a secretive method of operation, ratory type of effort, and he needed
probably branded him as an eccentric someone to be his chief engineer. I
outside his small circle. But two mili- said, Who do you have in mind,’ and
amount was more than BuAer was tary men, a n A r m y flyer named he answered, ‘How about you?’ That
ready to put into such a venture, but Boushey, and a Naval Aviator, Lieu- was what surprised me. Goddard had
suggested that I take my proposition tenant Fink Fischer, did all they could been engaged as a private contractor
to Commander L. C. Stevens, the head to bring recognition to Dr. Goddard, using government facilities. His work
of the Experiments and Development Both men were interested in the de- and the Navy’s were to be separately
Branch. Without any haggling at all, velopment of rocket-assisted takeoffs administered but co-located. As a
Cdr. Stevens, a particularly forward- for airplanes and eagerly sought to result, Goddard became Director of
looking officer, told me to write out a recruit Goddard for this purpose. One Research on Jet Propulsion, at Anna-
project order for that amount. I could story has it that at a point when the polis, while I was officer in charge of
have kicked myself for not having war was imminent and a rocket re- the Navy people. Both efforts were
asked for $165,000. search program seemed to have some supported by BuAer as Project TED
“Well, that done, and with an urge possible merit, both Captain Boushey 3401, and Goddard’s assignment was
to get my hands a little dirty — I just and Fink Fischer simultaneously went the same as mine — to build a JATO
couldn’t sit up there in Washington after the famous rocketeer. Boushey for the PBY Catalina.”
and be a bureaucrat — I went back sent an airmail letter. But Fink Fisch- Others were also at work on the
down to the Experiment Station at er’s telegram arrived first. problem of a rocket-assist for aircraft.

One of the BuAer projects at Annapolis


was a radio-controlled flying wing.
This particular version made one
successful free flight, dropped from plane.

At right, the Navy crew at morning


muster at the Experiment Station.
Dr. Goddard’s office and shop were
located in the right half of building.

22
The Army Air Corps, with the help of propellant for military application. the spark plug. I remember looking at
a former collaborator of Goddard’s, Needed was something which could be his unit, and it just had tubing in every
Dr. C. N. Hickman, sponsored a pro- stored in a tank for a long time and direction — s p a g h e t t i a r o u n d a n d
gram at the Guggenheim Aeronautical not evaporate. Goddard was of a dif- under and over. Very complex com-
Laboratory at Cal Tech (GALCIT). ferent mind; liquid oxygen was his pared to the self-igniting system.
Captain Homer Boushey, working out baby, and he figured it would be all “The requirement itself proved
of Wright Field, conducted a series of right. eventually to be unnecessary for JATO
tests in mid-1941, using rockets to “My first plan was to use nitric acid and had the unfortunate effect of
thrust an Ercoupe into the air. Solid as the oxydizer and gasoline as the making Dr. Goddard’s problem much
propellants were used in both locales, fuel. This combination proved very more difficult.
and Dr. Hickman’s work was paralleled hard to ignite. In an effort to find a “At any rate, by the time Fink
by the Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance at fuel that would ignite spontaneously Fischer came down from Washington
Indian Head, Md. The smokeless pow- on contact with nitric acid, we tried to join us in 1942, we had developed a
der used in these experiments burned n u m e r o u s chemicals. Turpentine thrust chamber — a full size,
at an uncontrollable rate (some would worked well, but aniline proved best 1,500-pound thrust chamber, working
explode), a factor which made them and became standard in rockets for regeneratively, without requiring any
impractical for service use. Although many years. extra coolant. It was, I decided, time
the British development of extruded “I can remember Goddard, looking for me to go off to flight training and
cordite was an improvement — Lt. out his window, watching one of my become a Johnny-come-lately Naval
Fischer made successful takeoffs in a test runs, a look of absolute amaze- Aviator.”
Brewster F2A-3 Buffalo on May 26, ment on his face, because here we
1942, using British antiaircraft rockets were, turning on, turning off, turning he work Lt. Truax had done on
(which spewed burning particles over
the tail of the fighter) — the Navy’s
on, repeatedly. And there Goddard
was, having such a devil of a time with
T controls and propellant feed
systems had led his group to the
main program was concentrated on his non-spontaneous propellants. discovery of the spontaneously ignit-
development o f a l o n g d u r a t i o n , “He’d have to fire his with either a ing chemicals so widely used later. But
cooled rocket motor. spark plug or a squib (a pyrotechnic the bulk of Dr. Goddard’s experimen-
“We were asked,” Truax continues, device fitted in the nozzle). But with tation at that time still was centered
“to build either a restartable unit or first ignition, the squib, of course, on gasoline and liquid oxygen. On
one that had an idling period. This would be blasted out or, in the case of August 1, 1942, a Catalina flying boat
really threw Goddard a curve because the spark plug, the tip would be was delivered to the group at the
none of his prior work had been burned off. In either case, this meant Annapolis Experiment Station. The
directed toward meeting such a re- he couldn’t light off a second time — flying boat was modified to accommo-
quirement. I had decided, long before, and that was the requirement. He tried date Goddard’s installation. The unit
that liquid oxygen was not a tractable all kinds of arrangements to protect w a s v e r y complex, with numerous

Truax and his staff are shown at left during a visit


from Dr. Van Karman (in white coat) of Cal Tech. Above,
JATO units light off during 1942 PBY tests in Severn River.
Craft made one successful takeoff prior to mishap.

23
An F4U-1 Corsair starts takoff
run on USS Altamata (CVE-18) in 1944
after widespread acceptance of
JATO units for fleet use.

In spite of considerable success, the


Army changed its mind around 1943.
In view of the long runways at its
disposal, the need for JATO dissi-
pated, and they dropped the project.
In the Navy, too, there were those
with similar feelings — as Bill Gore
found out.
thermocouples and safety relays. As a Gore was a long time rocket enthu-
result, the test runs conducted in siast. As an enlisted man and aviator in
September by Lt. Fischer were only the Marine Corps, he had built a
partially successful. Salt spray and the radio-controlled model dirigible pro-
vibration of the PBY kept shorting out pelled by the powder of Roman can-
the relays, thus shutting down the dles. His official paper on the use of
unit. After five unsuccessful attempts, JATO for flying boats and carrier
Fischer, in a desperate effort to get the aircraft eventually resulted in his as-
plane into the air, had the special signment to the rocket desk in BuAer
safety thermostatic cutoff switch re- and promotion to a commissioned
moved. He was making sure the JATO grade. He had been Fischer’s copilot
unit would keep running throughout a on the early PBY test and had put on
complete takeoff. On the sixth test, his own show in an F4F Wildcat. N o w
the plane took off satisfactorily. Un-
Capt. Bill Gore
he was out for big game, the Com-
fortunately, during the seventh run, mander, Fleet Air Wing Two — Rear
vibration loosened a liquid oxygen Admiral John Dale Price.
line; the resultant fire seriously dam-
aged the aft end of the airplane.
hung around,
Nevertheless, further development
work culminated in successful flight
probing for I f any man could put JATO on
Navy airplanes, Admiral Price
would have to be that man. As Gore
tests of a JATO-equipped Catalina b y
May 1943. Tests performed with this
a chink in recalls, it took him three days to fly a
PBM Mariner from Annapolis to Kane-
and other aircraft made it evident that
JATO could reduce a takeoff run by the armor ohe Bay, Oahu, in the Hawaiian
Islands. Then for the next five days, he
33 to 60 percent — or permit greatly cooled his heels outside the Admiral’s
increased payloads. One of the project office until it became evident he was
test pilots, Marine Lieutenant William not exactly welcome. But after that
L . G o r e , engineered a remarkable 6,000-mile trip, the Marine Aviator
demonstration of JATO potential took a risky chance; he finally burst
when he decided to “sell” it to the into Admiral Price’s office and ex-
Pacific Fleet. It was not an easy task. claimed, “I’m here, Sir, to sell you
As previously mentioned, the Army rockets!”
Air Corps had gone to some lengths to The Admiral quietly replied, “I’m
develop a JATO capability of its own. trying to fight a war and what does
Washington send me? A guy with a
rocket.” A n d t h e n , w i t h m o u n t i n g
vigor, “We don’t need rockets. W e
n e e d a i r p l a n e s ! Get the hell out of
here!”
As a famous man once said, “Noth-
ing succeeds like persistence. . . .” Bill
Asphalt potassium per-
Gore hung around Oahu, probing for a
chlorate JATO was demon- chink in the armor. And then he
strated in 1943 on F4F-3. thought of the solution — a contest.

24
Arranging to put on a demonstration hardly believe it, especially since the 3,000 lives had been saved because of
of comparative takeoffs between an other flying boat was still thundering its use. It also played a part in unique
ordinary PBM and one equipped with about, unable to even get airborne! It salvage operations, several times en-
JATO, Gore set a time, knowing the turned out that Gore’s crew chief had abling downed flying boats to take off
Admiral would come out to watch, if loaded the other plane’s sand in its from extremely shallow waters. The
only for the sport of it. As an added stern, far aft of its center of gravity; most remarkable case concerned a
inducement, it was stipulated that there was no way it could fly. JATO-equipped, four-engined PB2Y-5
each plane would be loaded with ten But Admiral Price had seen JATO. Coronado that had been forced down
tons of sandbags. The opposing pilot “I want that on every plane in the in desert sand south of the Salton Sea
was one who also shared the Admiral’s Navy,” he said, and from then on, he in California. A ditch 2,000 feet long
disdain for rockets, so he was bound was JATO’s strongest supporter. was bulldozed out, filled with water,
to do his best. and the seaplane floated. From this
The night before the contest, Gore he liquid propellant JATO narrow ditch, it made a successful
told his crew chief to have 20,000
pounds of sand put in each PBM. The
T units of 1943 were reliable and
worked well. However, their inherent
JATO takeoff and returned to its
home base.
next morning, sure enough, the Ad- handling difficulties and the fact that But the chief result of the Truax/
miral was on the seawall watching as they were impossible to service in Goddard liquid propellant JATO pro-
the seaplanes taxied in the bay. At the forward areas led to the switch to solid gram at Annapolis was that it laid the
signal, Gore cut in his rockets and propellant units. By the end of the groundwork for the use of rocket
sailed into the air. The Admiral could war, it was claimed that more than power in Navy guided missiles.
W hile young Robert Goddard
was antagonizing New Eng-
land neighbors with his noisy contrap-
The formal dedication of the Naval
Experimental and Research Labora-
tory on July 2, 1923, was equally
tions i n I 9 1 5 , a n o t h e r v i s i o n a r y impressive; Franklin D. Roosevelt,
gentleman was penning a far-reaching Assistant Secretary of the Navy, was
proposal for the N e w Y o r k T i m e s the principal speaker. Edison was not
Magazine. In July of that year, Thom- present at the ceremony, which took
as A. Edison went on record as saying place at the Bellevue Magazine in
the Navy should have its own scientific southwest Washington. As a matter of
staff to sift the ideas of our inventive fact, he never visited the lab. (Some
nation; that it should have its own said he might have, had it been located
laboratory, indigenous to the Naval on Sandy Hook.)
Establishment, in which the ideas or Nevertheless, Edison sent a recom-
inventions could be tested and adapted mendation which was followed to the
to the special needs of the Navy. letter — that the research institution
Secretary of the Navy Josephus Dan- be headed and administered by naval
iels wasted no time. American involve- officers, and that the scientific work
ment in the War to End All Wars was be placed in the hands of civilians. By
imminent, and the myriad problems of the end of the first year, the few
readying a fleet for the conflict were scattered radio research groups (and
beginning to inundate the former pub- one in water sound study at Annapo-
lisher. He immediately contacted Edi- lis) had been scooped up and de-
son, asking that the Wizard recruit a posited at the Washington facility —
technical advisory group composed of four officers and 92 civilians. They
leading scientists in various fields. were off and running. And four dec-
They would screen the hundreds of ades later, there were four of the
inventions submitted to the Navy, original plank-owners still aboard.
determining which had merit and The accomplishments of the Naval
which were crackpot notions. With Research Laboratory (NRL), as it later
typical enthusiasm and energy, Edison came to be named, range far and wide.
rounded up 24 of the biggest names in Many of its members were destined for
the scientific-engineering community. greatness in diverse fields. The NRL
These luminaries, operating under the list of inventions and achievements is
title Naval Consulting Board of the lengthy — too long for this confined
United States, drew up a proposal for perusal of Navy space-related activi-
a research laboratory to be located ties. Therefore, most of our observa-
either at Annapolis or in southwest tions will be interwoven with other
Washington, D.C. Edison, on the other stories throughout this book. One fact,
hand, had a strong, personal prefer- however, warrants our attention at this
ence for Sandy Hook, at the mouth of point: NRL invented radar.
New York harbor. Other considera-
tions (one of which was the war itself)
had a tendency to bog the committee
down, so it was not until 1920 that
A s has already been noted, sig-
nificant achievements are not
easily come by — fun to look back on,
the elite group was to assemble for the perhaps, but at those moments of
purpose o f w i t n e s s i n g t h e g r o u n d actual pursuit, elusive goals sometimes
breaking for the laboratory. existing only in the form of dreams or,

26
possibly more often, nightmares. If breadboard (simplified design) model the world, a transmitter and receiver
one is lucky, he may even have one of was translated into specifications for that could detect aircraft by radio
those remarkable “accidents” which standard equipment used throughout pulses.
open up new avenues. But, it still boils the fleet. An example was the radio Shipboard installations were con-
down to a thinking man’s game. Such direction finder and airborne radio for stantly improved until, in extensive sea
was the case with radar. the giant dirigible, USS Shenandoah. It trials during fleet maneuvers in 1939,
Back in the early Twenties, the was this practice of bird-dogging the radar’s practicability was proven. Its
terror of the German U-boat was still new discoveries, combined with in- possibilities were immense, not only
fresh in people’s minds. War from house research where necessary, that for aircraft warning but for navigation
beneath the sea had become an awe- led NRL to radar. and gunfire control. A particularly
some reality. At the same time, radio effective demonstration involved night
was just coming into its own. President
Harding had broadcast the 1922 dedi- While still at the Anacostia Air-
craft Radio Laboratory in
cation of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922, A. H. Taylor and Leo Young
destroyer attacks on major fleet units.
By 1941, nineteen NRL radar
models were in use aboard naval ships.
Washington, using a transmitter built noticed the interference caused by a That same year, Page developed the
and installed by an NRL man, L. A. ship passing in the river between their plan-position indicator — the familiar
Gebhard. Commerical programs were radio transmitter and a receiver on the radarscope with the round face and
beginning to make their first impact other side. This was a curious phenom- the sweeping hand.
on the American life. Wireless had enon, of great interest to the two All this had been accomplished by a
made itself indispensable to the fleet scientists. Here was a discovery that handful of dedicated men in naval
as far back as ‘17 and ‘18, and now somehow seemed important. research. By soliciting the help and
new objectives were established. After the consolidation with NRL, cooperation of the American radio
Greater range, round-the-clock com- L. A. Gebhard designed the equipment industry, they had come up with a
munication, more channels (with in- (used by Breit and Tuve of the Car- workable system which enabled an
creased stability) — these were goals of negie Institution) which measured, by operator to “see” in the dark, eventu-
NRL, the little group which had be- radio pulses, the height of the iono- ally over great distances. And if any
come the recognized leader in Ameri- sphere. Then, in 1930, NRL scientists object could be seen — regardless of
can radio development. Because the observed continuous-wave radio reflec- weather conditions or through a vac-
small Navy organization was of modest tions, in the form of “beats,” from an u u m such as space — there were a
means, the eager scientists often re- aircraft in flight. Now they really had number of directions toward which
sorted to a form of bird-dogging. They t h e i r h a n d s o n s o m e t h i n g . A t t h a t the information could be applied.
sniffed over new discoveries and ap- point, Taylor determined that inten- Most important, the invention and
plied them to their own use. Lacking sive research should be undertaken by development of radar — the system of
the wherewithal to make components the Radio Division. Radio Detection And Ranging —
themselves, they often prodded the By the following year, complete opened the door for accurate measure-
radio industry into making them. plans for an aircraft early warning ment and tracking assessment.
This is not to say that NRL did not system had been worked out on paper. Without radar, today’s space pro-
do impressive radio research on its At the time, the system seemed prob- gram would be impossible.
own. The NRL-developed, Taylor- ably more applicable to Army needs,
Hulbert wave-propogation theory revo- but the Navy work continued. Taylor
lutionized prior thinking on how radio assigned the task of actually building a
waves travel. And the Laboratory de- pulse system to Leo Young and an-
signed some very ingenious gadgetry — other promising engineer, Robert M.
guidance circuitry for the first success- Page. In 1934, the continuous-wave
ful radio controlled aircraft (1924), system was demonstrated to members
and later, for target drones. As for of Congress. Then Page succeeded in
prototype development, many an NRL building, for the first time anywhere in

NRL’S 150-FOOT STEERABLE ANTENNA

27
R obert Collins Truax completed
his flight training on June 1,
1943. Designated a Naval Aviator, he
received orders to Patrol Squadron
101, then operating out of Perth,
Australia. Since the unit was flying
PBY’s, he considered the assignment
an opportunity to test JATO units in
an operating environment.
But, as an aeronautical engineering
officer with r o c k e t e x p e r i e n c e a n d
with “things booming in the JATO
business,” his orders were suddenly
cancelled and he found himself back at
the Experiment Station, Annapolis.
In reality, the previous work of the
Truax/Goddard team on JATO had
met fruition. The Aerojet Engineering
Corporation had assumed the reins,
and all kinds of JATO units were being
prepared for fleet use. Truax shifted
his sights to guided missiles.
The Germans were ahead of us. So,
too, were the Russians, for that mat-
ter. We now realize they had test
flown a rocket powered interceptor in
May 1942 (then they had dropped the
project as being relatively impractical).
It was in 1926, inspired by the works
of Goddard and Oberth, that Johannes
Winkler started the development of
liquid propellant takeoff assistance de-
vices in Dessau, Germany. With hind-
sight, it is noteworthy that most of the
subsequent German work on rocket
motors had a strong resemblance to
Dr. Goddard’s inventions, particularly
the innards of the horrendous V-2.
While their wartime JATO work more
or less fell by the boards (probably for
the same reason that the Army Air
Corps had lost interest), much activity
was generated around the weapons
known as guided missiles,
Whereas American interest was, by
comparison, limited to a miniscule
scratching about in the budget barn-
While Americans scratched yard by a few perceptive visionaries,

in the budget barnyard,


the German effort was moving ahead
in giant strides. Their Army’s Peene-
the German effort moved muende Center and luftwaffe boss
Goering’s laboratory at Trauen were
ahead in giant strides lavishly f u r n i s h e d a n d w e r e un-
doubtedly the world’s most modern
rocket research centers. Before the

28
war’s end, V-2’s were being produced
in large numbers, rocket-powered mis-
siles were being used against Allied
bombers, a n d d e v e l o p m e n t s i n t h e
rocket field promised the Germans an
opportunity to actually hit America
with exotic weapons.
Though German rocket development
was outstanding, i t d i d n o t m e e t
Hitler’s goal. It was a monumental
gamble — that failed. The odds were
right; the plays were wrong. In some
instances, lack of time was a factor.
Military expediency led the Germans
to accept some untried and not-so-
good ideas, in order to “get something
into the air” and working against their
enemy.
Goering originally established the
Trauen facility, giving it almost un-
limited powers, simply because the
Peenemuende laboratory was a politi-
cal threat to his air force. He was
afraid Dornberger and von Braun
might come up with something that
would win the war and he, and h i s
people, would have had no part in it.
He eventually closed down Trauen
when “routine” setbacks at Peene-
muende led him to believe it was no
longer a threat to his Luftwaffe’s
prestige. Actually, at that time (late
1942), Trauen was ahead of Peene-
muende development, and its longer
range program was far more promising.
The ME-163B V2 rocket plane, first
flown in 1943, was fast, yet it was
abandoned because of the danger in its
operation; it had a tendency to ex-
plode on landing. The N a t t e r , h a l f
piloted aircraft, half guided missile,
had only one operational test. The
pilot was killed and the N a t t e r w a s
ash-canned.
When the first German radio-con-
trolled bombs (the HS-293 and the
Fritz-X) began to hit Allied ships in
the Mediterranean, an emergency call
went out to the U.S. Navy; NRL
responded, o n a c r a s h b a s i s . T w o
destroyers, equipped with signal-
analysis gear recorded the German
missiles’ guidance signals and brought
back the data. Within 12 weeks, NRL
scientists had built a countermeasure.
This equipment not only jammed known. The A-9/A-10 combination, had made the rounds, and, in October
the German signals but, on several with a pressurized cockpit for a human 1943, he was asked to build the engine
occasions, took over control of the pilot, was designed to strike American for the Gorgon, an ambitious BuAer
weapons and diverted them harmlessly cities. Fortunately for the U.S., Ger- design for a television guided, pilotless
into the sea. Allied bombing of land- many’s time ran out. aircraft.
based support facilities also helped “ T h e G o r g o n paved the way for
slow down the German operation, but
this, and the jamming technique, only
s e r v e d t o stimulate t h e e n e m y ’ s
B ack at his Annapolis station, Lt.
Truax studied intelligence re-
ports which revealed the advancements
expanded Navy activity in the missile
business,” T r u a x s a y s . “ T h e y h a d
c o m e u p with this air-to-air thing
counterthinking. in the German missile field. He was powered by two small 9.5-inch jet
Their analysis of attacks performed also familiar with U.S. Navy efforts to engines. In effect, they were scale
in the Mediterranean and Bay of Bis- produce an effective air-to-surface mis- models of what was actually our first
cay indicated that more naval ships sile. Glombs and Glimps were being turbojet engine. But, small as they
would have been sunk or damaged had developed, and the Bureau of Ord- were, they cost $11,000 each! The
the “mother” aircraft involved been nance (BuOrd) was moving ahead on boys in the Bureau said, ‘We can’t
carrying conventional bombs rather the Pelican/Bat program. But these afford that!’ So they asked me for a
than pilotless aircraft. Hence, German devices were only glider bombs. It was rocket.” Truax grins as he recalls,
emphasis shifted to antiaircraft mis- the route the Germans would soon “We put it together in about 45 days,
siles — guided “flak” — and surface- discard. and it went into production at Reac-
to-surface weapons. Luckily, in a 1941 memorandum, tion Motors. Some 80 or 90 of them
Twelve individual projects were car- “Summary and Recommendations for were built by early 1944.
ried through to full development for a Jet Propulsion Program” (remember, “About that time,” he continues,
operational use; the majority were in those days it was judicious to call a “the kamikazes were giving us fits in
rocket propelled. Of these, the V-2 rocket a jet), Truax had urged develop- the Pacific, so everyone began looking
(A-4), and Enzian are probably best ment of guided missiles. The memo around for a surface-to-air missile.

German X-4 was a liquid-propelled, rocket-powered, wire-guided missile designed for air-to- Above, German V-2 is erected for launch at
air operations. Emphasis on this type of weapon eventually dissipated. In the case of the White Sands. Weapon proved possibility of
radio-controlled glide bombs, HS-293 and Fritz-X, an Allied strike destroyed all aircraft rocket propulsion for space flight. Director
modified to carry the missiles. Fuel shortages precluded replacement by the Luftwaffe. of engineering, von Braun, was jailed by
Gestapo on sabotage charge: he talked
too much about rockets for future space
travel — instead of weapons. Hitler released
him after being pursuaded the young profes-
sor had been carried away by the program.

30
Now, BuAer and BuOrd sort of com- any tolerances or anything else, and time the war ended, the American
peted with each other; BuAer called just put the unit together. Then, when rocket budget was 13 million. We had
them pilotless aircraft and BuOrd the Navy said to Reaction Motors ‘We found German development included
called them guided missiles. It turned need 100 of them,’ Reaction Motors advanced homing devices: infrared,
out BuOrd had the best term. Any- would say, ‘OK, where are the draw- acoustic, electromagnetic (radio) and
way, BuOrd put their money on the ings?’ And we’d have to say, ‘Draw- television. They had an accurate veloc-
Johns Hopkins people who had de- ings? Drawings? What drawings?’ So, ity measurement system which made
veloped the VT (proximity) fuse, and then they’d have to cut the thing apart use of the Doppler effect. And tele-
said, ‘Look, we need a surface-to-air to see how it was made . . . and try to metering was employed to its full
missile,’ and then BuAer decided to do duplicate it! extent.
the same, and they went out to indus- “Actually, it worked out fine in the In the case of the V-2, it is incon-
try and begin to let contracts for the long run, though. The L a r k got its ceivable that the Germans considered
L a r k . When it came to propulsion, engines. U n f o r t u n a t e l y , ” a n d h e r e the weapon to be an end in itself, or
they decided on rockets, Down they Truax winces a little, “the develop- that, with all its complexities, it was
came to Annapolis and told us what ment time, instead of being 90 days developed (at a cost of billions and
they needed. So, we took the basic (or some ridiculous figure we were manufactured in great quantity with
G o r g o n engine design and came up hoping for) — as a counter to the the highest priority) merely to deposit
with a prototype for the twin engine kamikazes — turned out to be con- 750 kilograms of explosive on Great
Lark. They liked it and turned it over siderably more. I think we knocked Britain. These were men looking to the
to Reaction Motors for production. down the first airplane target after stars.
“We did our part very quickly, but 1950.” But that singular man, the one who
we paid somewhat for our speed. You had been the prime mover — the
see, we had a fellow in our group who
was an expert at making thrust cham-
bers. He could take a sketch, without
0 n December 7, 1941, the day
of Pearl Harbor, the United
States had no rocket weapons. At the
inspired genius who laid the ground-
work for all development in modern
rocketry and space flight — did not
live out the war. Dr. Robert Goddard
died on August 10, 1945.
His 214 patents covered every basic
aspect of rocket design, construction
and operation. Goddard had shown
the way; his few followers would now
be joined by others in the new tech-
nology.
Along with the fairly limited war-
time indulgence in rocketry, “pilotless
aircraft” provided a proving ground
for the men with bigger dreams. After
Goddard’s early experience with the
lunatic image, his acolytes took heed.
You might not encourage a “trip to
the moon,” but you could certainly
solicit support for seemingly bizarre
methods of hitting the enemy — or so
it seemed in the 1944-1945 period.
The relatively primitive ASM-2 B a t
did reasonably well. So did the equiva-
lent German glided, guided bombs
(they even sank a battleship with two
Fritz-X’s). Then there was the Navy’s
Project Anvil, not quite in the context
of this story, but interesting as a
review of the thinking of the time.
Anvil was the conversion of two
Navy PB4Y’s to “drones.” Not only
from a distant, secure position, the
television-equipped, lethal bomber
down through the anticipated flak,
0 ne result of the Navy’s growing
experience a n d e x p a n d i n g
interest in rocket propulsion and guid-
had we discerned the German effort to onto its target. The operation was ance systems was the report of Novem-
develop long-range guided missiles of plausible — an opportunity to throw a b e r 6 , 1 9 4 5 , “Feasibility of Space
their own, we had also detected elabo- wrench into the German missile opera- Rocketry,” b y C o m m a n d e r H a r v e y
rate precautions for insuring a high tion, without loss of American life. Hall and Lieutenant Robert DeHavil-
degree of security. In the fall of 1944, the first PB4Y land. They were members of a group
It was decided to try to hit the exploded prematurely while still over assigned by BuAer to make a study of
exotic German weapons — with an England, before reaching its crew- future rocket applications. “That re-
American exotic weapon. The scheme bailout point.* Operation of the port,” says Truax, “represents the first
was actually straightforward, and not second bomber was successful; the United States space program. It pro-
particularly hazardous. With the Heli- Heligoland target was hit on Septem- posed that a project be set up for the
goland missile training base as a target, ber 3, 1944. No further work was purpose of constructing and launching
the plan was for a plane, loaded with done with the PB4Y (and other) an earth satellite for scientific pur-
high explosives and a remote radio- assault drones since the Army was poses.”
control system, to be taken off and working on a parallel program. But the The satellite project, called HATV
established on level flight long enough Navy efforts with pilotless aircraft (High Altitude Test Vehicle), consisted
for the controlling aircraft to take contributed to the development of of a single stage, liquid oxygen/
over. Then the plane’s explosive cargo guidance components and design cri- hydrogen rocket capable of achieving
would be armed and the crew would teria for the more sophisticated mis- an orbit around the earth. The stain-
bail out, leaving further journey of the siles of the postwar period. less steel craft was to have nine indi-
drone to the skill of the controlling *The pilot was Lt. Joseph Kennedy, the vidual motors producing thrust of up
plane’s pilot. His job was to guide, older brother of President John Kennedy. to 300,000 pounds at altitude. Inde-

32
On opposite page, a V-l explodes during 1948
attempt to launch the missile from a
submarine, the USS Cusk (SS-348). These
experiments paved the way for the Regulus program.

At left, a dummy Viking after launch from USS Norton


Sound (AV-11). Above, the 1945 Navy HATV concept, the first
U.S. satellite proposal. In 1958, the Navy offered Project
Mer, a plan to send a man into orbit in a collapsible
pneumatic glider, boosted by a giant launch vehicle.

pendent studies confirmed the ve- with a study on the feasibility of an consternation and admiration that
hicle’s feasibility. An orbit date in the earth satellite and, on May 12, RAND would be felt here if the United States
early Fifties seemed reasonable. presented their report. It was called were to discover, suddenly, that some
However, cost estimates ran as high “Preliminary Design of an Experi- other nation had already put up a
as $8,000,000, far more than the Navy mental World-Circling Spaceship.” In successful satellite,”
would have for such a research en- June, another BuAer/AAF meeting The aeronautical board of the War
deavor. The BuAer group decided to was held at which it was pointed out Department made no decision regard-
speak to the Army Air Force about a that the AAF (armed with the b r a n d ing which service would have jurisdic-
possible joint effort. At the first meet- n e w RAND study) was on an equal tion of the program, if at all. But the
ing, which took place on March 7, level with the Navy’s position. End of Chief of Naval Operations provided
1946, in Washington, the Navy’s rock- joint project. enough money to the BuAer group to
et progress was laid out and the plan The RAND report was a well con- keep the project alive. Then LCdr.
for a joint Army Air Force/Navy ceived document. It contained recom- Truax arrived back on the Washington
experimental satellite program was mendations that were improvements scene in September 1946.
presented. The Army representatives over (and more ambitious than) the Since the end of the war, he had
at the meeting were impressed; they Navy’s HATV concept. But most re- been moving about out West. “Once
agreed to discuss it with their superiors markable were its two prophetic con- the war was over,” Truax says, “peo-
up the line. A few days later, Cdr. Hall clusions: that a satellite with appro- ple began to complain about the noise
was informed that the Army Air Force priate instrumentation could be one of at Annapolis, and I was given to
would not support the Navy satellite the most potent scientific tools of the understand that my group would have
program. 20th century, and that a United States to vacate the Experiment Station. So I
Instead, the Army Air Force had satellite would inflame the imagination picked up my troops, bag and baggage,
asked the West Coast RAND (Research of the world. “To visualize impact,” and went out to California, first to
ANd Development) group to come up the study stated, “one can imagine the Mohave (the pilotless aircraft unit),

33
and then to Point Mugu where we somewhat by the NRL Viking program. for a ballistic missile. “At this time,”
became the Propulsion Laboratory of At war’s end, NRL had turned its says Truax, “I completed study for a
the Naval Air Missile Test Center. attention to a question which was an long-range (1,100 mile) missile for
Shortly after, I was ordered back to the outgrowth of the work done by Sou- fleet use and succeeded in getting a
Bureau to head up the rocket desk.” cek, Settle and others so many years BuAer endorsement on it. The missile
before: What lies above us in that vast program was rejected by CNO (Chief

T ruax took charge of the devel-


opment o f t h e e n g i n e s f o r
Hall’s HATV project. But during the
upper area which contains less than
one percent of the earth’s atmos-
phere? In 1945, some of the captured
of Naval Operations) but development
of the engine for such a missile was
initiated and it ended up in the X-15.
following year, a number of events German V-2’s were put to use as high “Well, a desk in Washington wasn’t
took place which were to have a altitude research vehicles. But, because really my idea of the best place to
bearing on the Navy’s future role in the ex-weapon was relatively compli- build a rocket,” Truax admits. “So, I
space. The U.S. Air Force came into cated, in limited supply and unsuitable looked around a little bit, and decided
being as a separate service in July I947 for extended high altitude test pro- that a place up in New Jersey — Lake
and, in September the Department of grams, it was decided that a com- Denmark — looked promising. Al-
Defense was created, replacing the War pletely new, smaller, and more eco- though it was only 35 miles from New
Department. The initial Air Force em- nomical sounding rocket was needed. York City, t h e l o c a t i o n w a s i n a
phasis was placed on strategic bombers Originally proposed as the Neptune, comparatively wild, hilly region where
and air-breathing missiles rather than the 45-foot Viking emerged. Designed noisy activity could be conducted
satellite programs. This gave Truax and to carry a 500-pound instrument pay- without bothering nearby residents.
the BuAer group a clear field — for a load, it was used primarily for upper “And, it was a matter of economics.
while. In 1948, because of its lack of air research. Bob Truax supervised Test and evaluation take a whale of a
military value, funding for HATV was development of its power plants. lot of money. If a government finances
cut off by the Joint Research and And while he was at it, he “moni- construction of expensive test facilities
Development Board. Harvey Hall went tored” the power plants which were on a contractor’s property, it commits
back to civilian life. used in the X-l (the first piloted itself to continuing contracts. So, in-
To Bob Truax, who had also cham- aircraft to exceed the speed of sound) stead, the Navy had a philosophy at
pioned the satellite proposal, the death and the D-558-2 (the first to hit Mach that time of doing all testing of con-
of HATV was a blow — softened 2) and wrote an interesting proposal tractor-developed engines, both recip-

Above, the successful Viking. Other craft


with engines bearing the Truax stamp are
depicted at right: the D-558-2, as it drops
from a P2B; the Bell X-1, designed for
1,700 miles per hour; and the exotic X-15,
shown here with extra propellant tanks.

34
rocating and gas turbine. I decided we kind, he teamed up with three fellow- the war they kept on moving, yet
should do the same for rocket engines members of the American Rocket incredibly managing to manufacture
and I got the facility authorized. Its Society (ARS) and eventually roosted liquid propellant airplane rocket en-
mission was to furnish high quality in the backwoods New Jersey town of gines (X-l, D-558), JATO units and
test stands and so forth to contractors Wanaque. Upon testing a dandy little engines for the Gorgon and Lark.
and other government activities with engine of Wyld’s — it could fit in the The Naval Ammunition Depot at
inadequate facilities of their own. We palm of a hand and delivered 200 Lake Denmark provided a haven where
could also test and evaluate engines horsepower — the group incorporated noise and hazard had been a way of
and propellants to assure BuAer that and decided to sell it to the Navy. life since the Revolutionary War. So,
contract specifications were being met. Lieutenant Fink Fischer was on the when it was eventually decided to
Commander Dayton Seiler, my prede- 1941 Bureau desk when the four-man inactivate it as a depot in the postwar
cessor in the Bureau job, was ordered company presented their invention. period, BuAer selected the location as
in as officer in charge and I went along Fischer, of course, knew a good thing a site for its rocket activity. Reaction
as his exec.” when he saw it, especially a rocket; a Motors had finally found a home.
development contract was let. Now What was the facility called? “Well,”

T he station was ideally located,


and before Truax arrived, there
was already one rocket manufacturer
subsidized, the little company set up
headquarters in Pompton Lakes (be-
hind a storefront window which said
says Truax, “it started out as the Naval
Aeronautical Rocket Laboratory, paral-
leling the Naval Turbine Laboratory,
on the premises, Reaction Motors, Inc. “Pat’s Tailor Shop”) and immediately but then some people said, ‘Oh, no!
RMI had produced the first com- proceeded to disturb the peace. We’re only going to do t e s t i n g u p
mercial rocket engine in the United Because operation of an item such as there. (They knew that Truax always
States. The small firm had its spiritual a 6,000-pound thrust rocket engine liked to get into development w o r k . )
origin in New York City’s Greenwich has a tendency to irritate an average It will be called the Naval Air Rocket
Village, where many a genius (and not man — it shakes the ground, cracks Test Station.’ So, that was the change
a few crackpots) have been known to sidewalks, breaks dishes and induces in the name.
flourish. There, in 1937, a young man flabby eardrums — a $50,000 lawsuit “Only trouble was, that came out
named James Wyld discovered that a (exactly ten times the amount of their NARTS — which is pretty close to
pantry was an inferior place to operate Navy backing) was initiated against NUTS. Not exactly the image we
a rocket. S e e k i n g o t h e r s o f h i s RMI. Off they moved, and throughout wanted.”

At left, Bob Truax, Fred Durant and Dayton


Seiler were early members of the NARTS
group at Lake Denmark. The facility offered
many advantages for noisy activity. Durant,
above, is now director of astronautics
for the National Air and Space Museum.

35
T he Naval Air Rocket Test Sta-
tion lasted ten years. During
that period, its scientists were active in
Truax and his associates were by no
means alone in their thinking. As has
already been remarked, Soviet rocket
unfortunate statement to the Press
r e f e r r i n g t o independent satellite
studies by the three services. Angry
the screening of a number of mono- technology was far more advanced reaction from home and abroad was
propellants, fuels and oxydizers for than was generally believed by most immediate; here, because secrecy h a d
auxiliary and prime power plants. Americans. The Russians actually had been compromised, and from the
Their work included evaluation of high a history of remarkable progress in Soviet Union, which denounced “mad-
energy fuels with an eye toward the rocket development. In 1936, they man Forrestal’s earth satellite” as an
feasibility of safe handling aboard were testing multistage rockets and in “instrument of blackmail.”
ships at sea. 1940 were starting mass production of
The in-service responsibility for the
burgeoning liquid propellant rocket
program h a d r e s t e d l a r g e l y w i t h
the small military rocket called K a t -
yusha, which was widely used through-
out the war. Their first experimental
T his then was the prevailing
atmosphere in which Truax
and his rocketeer associates tried to
NARTS until 1956, when BuAer be- rocket-powered fighter was designed in promote flight into space. Fortu-
gan to divide its interest in such work 1939 and was delivered for flight nately, their arguments found oppor-
between the Naval Air Missile Test testing in October 1941. While their tune support in 1954. For in that year,
Center (NAMTC) at Point Mugu, for practical technology as applied to wea- plans were being made for the Third
flight test and evaluation, and NARTS, pons of the V-2 nature was inferior, International Polar year of the
for static test and development. (Bu- their theoretic status was on a par with 1957-1958 period of expected sunspot
Ord, meanwhile, had been given cog- Peenemuende’s. activity. Meetings, in Europe, of the
nizance of all solid propellant work.) Contrary to popular belief, prac- International Scientific Committee re-
In 1960, NARTS was disestablished tically all the leading German rocket sulted in an expanded program for the
and its facilities were turned over to men ended up in the United States. International Geophysical Year (IGY)
the Army. The Lake Denmark work What the Russians did get were hun- – one which would include the
which had been started by LCdr. dreds of German workers and ordinary 1aunching of small satellite vehicles for
Truax in 1948 had been completed. engineers, to add to their own already scientific purposes. Interest was
And Truax himself had long since left well developed core of rocket tech- aroused in both the U.S. and Russia.
the scene. During the early Fifties, he nology. As a result, by 1948, there On July 29, 1955, President Eisen-
had taken opportunity to broaden his were at least two Soviet projects hower announced that the United
knowledge. To his B.S. in mechanical drawn up for long-range rockets. One, States would launch “small, un-
engineering, he added a B.S. in aero- the TT-1, was a three-stage liquid manned, earth-circling satellites” as a
nautical engineering and, in 1953, rocket designed for high altitude and part of the U.S. contribution to IGY.
topped them off with a master’s degree orbital flight. Obviously, it was not an overnight
in nuclear engineering. It was during For the space dreamers of the world, decision. During the early NRL Viking
these years that he also found time to 1948 was a year of ups and downs. experiments at White Sands, N.M., the
make a number of ardent appeals for Because of “political readjustments,” concept of an “ideal rocket” for high-
an American space flight and satellite the Soviet satellite project was side- altitude research began to evolve with
program — the development of astro- tracked, for a while. Here in the the accumulation of experience. And
nautics. Whether addressing his co- United States, the Navy’s HATV was with the use of smaller, lightweight
members of the ARS, speaking at the cancelled. But studies continued. Rear measurement payloads, the require-
Congress of the International Astro- Admiral Dan Gallery applied his per- ment for a smaller, less expensive
nautical Federation in Europe or writ- suasive powers to a revival of the idea rocket resulted in development of the
ing articles, he h ammered again and of a joint Air Force/Navy earth satel- highly reliable Aerobee series. An NRL
again with his theme: W e c a n h a v e lite vehicle — to no avail. Secretary of study in 1954 indicated the feasibility
space flight in our time. Defense James Forrestal then issued an of successfully placing a satellite in

36
To furnish the site, the entire Viking
launch complex at White Sands, in-
cluding tanks, plumbing, electrical
hardware and gantry, was knocked
down, shipped to Cape Canaveral and
orbit, using a vehicle based on the of enough launch components to com- reassembled.
Viking as a first stage and the Aerobee prise 16 vehicles. Two of these would In purpose, the satellite program,
as the second. be the older Vikings which would be under the direction of the National
At about the same time, a Naval used for crew training and testing of Commitee for IGY, was strictly a
Aviator attached to the Office of the third stage. NRL’s Dr. John Hagen scientific venture, part of an overall
Naval Research, Commander George was named director, a n d a y o u n g plan to extend knowledge in the field
Hoover, sought to enlist the aid of engineer named Paul Walsh became his of geophysics. It was a tri-service
Wernher von Braun in a joint Army/ deputy. Milt Rosen who had put to- i n d u s t r y endeavor. Army teams,
Navy satellite program. Although Dr. gether the original proposal would be trained by NRL, operated most of the
von Braun’s Army rocket people in technical director, and a handful of tracking stations where IGY scientists
Huntsville, Alabama, were more inter- other Viking men would make up the would extract data from the satellite
ested in the dream of putting up a operational team. itself as it circled the earth. The Air
huge space station, they could see a Force provided the launching site and
ne of the first problems was selec-
tiny satellite as a step in that direction.
They agreed to support Cdr. Hoover in 0 tion of a launch site. White Sands,
a project called Orbiter, based on the where testing of the Viking and Aero-
the Navy was responsible for the de-
sign, construction, testing, and launch
of the satellite itself,
Army’s Redstone booster and small, b e e had been done, was out of the By July 1957, the program encom-
solid propellant Loki rockets. question due to the danger, to popu- p a s s e d t h e u s e of six preliminary
When the Air Force tossed its hat lated areas, of falling pieces from the rocket systems for test purposes, to be
into the ring with a proposal for an multistage launch vehicle. Of various followed by six complete rocket guid-
Atlas/Aerobee-Hi vehicle, it appeared other more appropriate sites, Cape ance-and-control systems. Following
the time had come for serious govern- Canaveral was chosen as being most the successful launch of an actual
ment evaluation — and a decision. economical. The Air Force was already satellite, the next task would be to
The Committee on Special Capabili- building up the Florida complex and follow the little “moon” and to pre-
ties was set up within the Department the Army’s Redstone missile program dict its future orbits by tracking.
of Defense, under the chairmanship of was there. When Dr. Hagen suggested a The minitrack system of radio angle
Dr. Homer Stewart. After some time sharing of facilities, the Army de- tracking was developed at NRL under
the Stewart Committee chose the NRL murred on the basis that nothing could the direction of Roger Easton. Easton
proposal. Project V a n g u a r d w o u l d be allowed to interfere with the U.S. recalls that, “The minitrack system
have three missions: place in orbit at ballistic missile program. (The Army’s was designed to enable scientists, for
l e a s t o n e s a t e l l i t e d u r i n g the Jupiter-C was also coming into being.) the first time, to follow the launching,
1957-1958 IGY, accomplish a scien- D r . H a g e n t h e n m a n a g e d t o f i n d direction of launch, and movement of
tific experiment in space, and t r a c k enough money in the emergency fund multistage rockets; and to localize the
t h e f l i g h t t o d e m o n s t r a t e t h a t t h e of the Secretary of Defense to permit time of arrival of the satellite over any
satellite had actually attained orbit. c o n s t r u c t i o n o f Vanguard’s o w n given ground location within six
Vanguard actually started on Sep- launch complex on the Cape. As a minutes.
tember 9, 1955, when the Navy was dividend, the block house and launch “Minitrack used established radio
authorized to proceed with the NRL pad would be made available (after interferometric principles, A beam of
proposal. A contract was awarded to V a n g u a r d ) for future use in other radio energy is sent to receiving anten-
the Martin Company for the building programs. nas on the ground as the transmitter-

37
equipped satellite approaches and ure,” even though there had really
passes by overhead. By comparing the been no such thing. The project, which
path length from the transmitter to had been a fairly open operation all
one antenna with the path length from along (largely ignored by the Press as
the transmitter to the next antenna, an uninteresting American scientific
and so forth, it is possible to locate experiment) became a “U.S. Navy
the satellite in its orbit, determining its folly.”
a n g u l a r p o s i t i o n b y r a d i o phase-
comparison methods. Similar measure- he pressure was on; if Vanguard
ments with another set of antennas, at
right angles to the first set, help to fix
T could not be our “vanguard in
space, ” at least it would be second. A
the satellite accurately. Essentially, we White House statement said so. On
had to create ten minitrack antenna October 23, TV-2 was successfully
stations across the world.” launched. But TV-2 was only another
To this Dr. Hagen adds, “Captain systems check n o t t h e c o m p l e t e
Win Berg was the senior naval officer rocket, so no one cared. TV-3 was the
Dr. John P. Hagen, head of the assigned to the team. He did an out- one to watch — the one with the
NRL Vanguard task force, had standing job in getting international satellite — the one which would sal-
mountains of problems to overcome. cooperation. Minitrack stations were vage some semblance of national pride.
located and arranged for by groups (A three-pound NRL satellite would
from many countries eager to share in be an emaciated answer to the 200-
the operation. Many foreign nationals pound Russian Sputnik, but, at least it
were brought to NRL where they took would be something.)
an intensive training course in the On November 3, TV-3 was on the
principles of radio tracking.” pad; December 4 was the launch target
The status of Vanguard in Septem- date. The lengthy countdown proce-
ber 1957 was roughly this: Test Ve- dure was started under an ever-increas-
hicle Zero (TV-O) had been success- ing goldfish-bowl atmosphere. Press
fully launched, proving the capabilities conferences in Washington and myriad
of the pad complex and down-range newspaper accounts began to whip up
facilities. The flight of TV-l, which at a national “satellite fever.” The mem-
that time was the second stage, dem- bers of the Press were not permitted,
onstrated successful trajectory, control of course, o n t h e a c t u a l s i t e ; n o
and upper atmosphere ignition. Con- matter, they somehow kept tabs on
stant checkout difficulties in the every small detail of the activities at
hangar slowed progress on TV-2 but, the V a n g u a r d complex. On the
Dr. J. Paul Walsh was Hagen’s towards the end of the month, it was
deputy, is now superintendent of NRL’s
scheduled day of launch, the beaches
Ocean Technology Division. being readied on the launch stand. and balconies around Cocoa Beach
However, on October 4, 1957, the sprouted a fantastic display of long-
Soviet Union announced it had put an range photographic equipment. Roads
earth satellite in orbit. in the vicinity of the Cape were clogged
Suddenly, the Vanguard scientific with cars, area motels bulged with
program, w h i c h h a d b e e n m o v i n g reporters and correspondents from
along at an unhurried pace while its here and abroad. This was the day
scientists and engineers were ironing America would go into orbit.
out the bugs inherent in the launching Out on the pad, things began to go
of any new rocket, found itself spot- wrong. Loose plugs, leaks, sticking
lighted as the losing contender in a valves — and finally fatigue — beset the
space race with Russia. The NRL weary c r e w . T h e c o u n t d o w n h a d
Vanguard operation, which consisted reached T (ignition time) minus 50
of only 15 staff people out of a minutes shortly before 9:00 p.m.,
180-man team, began to feel the when weather forecasts indicated ex-
effects of national disappointment. cessive winds for proper takeoff. The
That prophetic conclusion of the 1946 test was scrubbed.
RAND report had become a reality. On December 6, TV-3 finally rose
The minitrack system of tracking As could be expected under the off the launch stand — about two feet,
was developed by Roger Easton, circumstances, there was a good bit of before toppling over in a tremendous
shown above with Vanguard satellite, speculation as to reasons for the “fail- explosion that shook the blockhouse.

38
As the flame and smoke cleared away, him to. And there was no other and too little interested in interservice
the Vanguard crew in the firing room qualified operator. problems not to wish the advanced
could see, through the six-inch thick It took two tantalizing hours to Vanguard missile and its crew a full
glass window, the forlorn little silver move the 100-foot gantry back to the success in their endeavor.
satellite lying where it had fallen in the simmering rocket where the engineers “We were honestly and gravely con-
smoldering debris, undamaged and could loosen the stuck umbilical. cerned about the time schedule on
beeping merrily away. It was an ex- About then high winds set in. Another which the Vanguard program was plan-
cruciating scene. scrub. ned. After all, two years ago, when
TV-4 was launched on March 17, that program was initiated, the V a n -
few weeks before, perhaps
A with a sense of foreboding
about Vanguard, the Secretary of De-
1958. Its performance was flawless;
Vanguard I went into an orbit that will
endure for more than 2,000 years. The
g u a r d constituted a brand new ap-
proach for the design of a satellite
vehicle, whereas our own proposal
fense had ordered the Army to enter next day, Dr. Wernher von Braun essentially involved the utilization of
the satellite contest. So now, as the made a speech: existing sets of hardware for this par-
Vanguard crew cleaned up the mess of “Let me first express to you, and to ticular accomplishment.
TV-3 and prepared the TV-3 B.U.
(back-up) rocket, they could look over
and watch Dr. von Braun’s people
busily setting up their Jupiter-C. T h u s
it was that on January 31, 1958, they
had a ringside seat for the launch of
the Western World’s first satellite, E x -
plorer I. NRL minitrack stations con-
firmed von Braun’s achievement.
On February 4, the TV-3 B.U. made
a beautiful takeoff. At 60 seconds into
the flight, a wire separated in the
guidance system a n d t h e 7 2 - f o o t
rocket tumbled through the sky, ex-
ploding in a fiery blob.
TV-4 was wheeled out. The work
went on, still subjected to frustrating
setbacks and impossible predicaments.
As an example, on the night of March
7, when the countdown reached T
minus 35 seconds, the switch was
thrown that would cause the helium
umbilical cord to disconnect and drop
from the side of the rocket. But
nothing happened. A hold was called whomever may be present from the “Any such thing as successfully de-
and the crew stared, through blood- Navy, my most heartfelt congratula- signing and developing a three-stage
shot eyes, at the frost-coated umbili- tions on the most wonderful success of missile, with three brand new and
cal-draped bird. It couldn’t go any- our friends of the Vanguard project. unproven stages, on a time schedule of
where with that attached. Well, they “Some of you, inspired by what you two years was absolutely unheard of,
could send a man up on the arm of a have read in the papers, may think and when I say at this moment that I
“cherry picker,” and he could yank that we have always had a very strong want to congratulate our friends of the
the umbilical out! They had resorted competitive feeling toward the V a n - Vanguard program on their fabulous
to this procedure once before, and guard program. This is not exactly the success, I really mean it. What was
now it was standard practice to have case. We have always felt, at the Army done by the Vanguard group in these
the little motorized crane standing by. Ballistic Missile Agency, that the Van- two years is absolutely unprecedented
It was standing by, all right, but the guard vehicle was an advanced design, — the development of such a missile in
union man who drove and operated compared to our own, and we were such a short time is something that has
the machine was not. No one had told too much ‘space men’ in our hearts never, never been done before.”

43
B ob Truax did not share in the
belated success of Vanguard I.
He had not agreed, in 1954, with the
further cited for his “performance of
duty while assigned to the Bureau of
Aeronautics from June 11, 1953, to
original configuration of the vehicle, J u n e 2 1 , 1 9 5 5 . ” During that time,
namely, the combination of the Viking Commander Truax independently
and Aerobee rockets and the addition made a study titled “A Means for
of a solid third stage. “In the long Making the Guided Missile Submarine A 40-foot Hydra vehicle is
run,” he says, “practically everything a Primary Naval Weapon.” blasted out of the sea, demonstrating
that a firing system can withstand
was changed. The first stage engine Truax’s study had contained most of a marine environment and that a
was changed from the RMI to a the elements of the U.S. Navy’s cur- water-launched rocket can be
General Electric. This required a rent fleet ballistic missile program — stabilized in the open sea.
change of propellants from lox and an interesting subject to be examined
alcohol to lox and gasoline. The Aero- later in this treatment. was ever to use any of his ICBM
bee was then found to be too small When, after two years of badgering hardware, he was going to control the
and had to be increased in size. As by Truax, BuAer gave an apparently program.
time went on, it became a program of final “no” to his proposition for a Truax became Deputy Director,
changes. My only connection with the submarine-launched ballistic missile, Weapons System 117L — the Ad-
ultimate V a n g u a r d was the second the impatient Commander offered his vanced Reconnaissance System. This
stage, which used the same general services to Trevor Gardner, the Air became the Discoverer, Midas, Samos
class of propellants as the old JATO Force assistant secretary who was program. “ F o r a l o n g t i m e , ” s a y s
units.” building up a ballistic missile team Truax, “it was the entire Air Force
Truax had championed the United under General Schriever in Inglewood, space program.”
States experimental, scientific satellite California. Truax was received enthusi- The concept of the satellite sur-
program loud and clear. Once the astically by the now famous Western veillance system had its origins in the
cause had been picked up (largely Development Division and was im- 1946 RAND report. In the intervening
b e c a u s e t h e C e n t r a l Intelligence mediately placed in charge of creating years, it had barely escaped the oblit-
Agency had become aware of Russian a new missile — subsequently known eration suffered by many other pro-
progress in development of a satellite as the Thor IRBM. grams. General Schriever had it trans-
program), he had moved on to other Once this program was underway, ferred to the Ballistic Missile Division
fields. For example, when he received Truax began to hear rumors that the and, as Project 1115, it began to grow.
the Legion of Merit (in 1958, at the Air Force space program, an out- As is now we11 known, it was a
time of Vanguard), he was cited, some- growth of the old RAND study, was reconnaissance system –from space.
what belatedly, for his services in going to be transferred to General S a m o s , for instance, was capable of
pioneering and advancing the Navy’s Schriever’s WDD. Though the study taking pictures from a 300-mile orbit.
efforts in the field of guided missiles was still in the paper stage, Gen. Truax originally had been loaned to
and rockets. But, in addition, he was Schriever had ruled that if the project the Air Force for a period of two

44
years. At the Air Force’s request, this 1959. The resultant classified study decade ago a r e s t i l l b e i n g “ d i s -
loan was extended an additional year. established the Navy’s future direc- covered.”
After that, since a transfer of some tions and its role in the Space Age. A few days ago, he called us and
kind was apparently unavoidable, Gen. Bob Truax retired from active duty said, “Hey, you know that old study
Schreiver arranged to have Truax (now in June 1959, after a remarkable on the externally stowed missile that I
a Captain) assigned to the newly career of rocket pioneering, testing, let you borrow? Well, they’re kicking
formed Advanced Research Projects development, and farsighted planning. the idea around up there and I want to
Agency, with the hearty concurrence Today, as he applies the same talents, let them read my paper.” We got the
of the latter. and same singleness of purpose, to file over to his little white building
In May 1958, he reported to ARPA another infant field — research and within the hour.
as the project officer on the Advanced development of Surface Effect Ships — Robert C. Truax will always be a
Reconnaissance System. Then, as his some of the ideas he proposed over a Rocketeer.
retirement approached, he returned to
his old home, the Bureau of Aero-
nautics, for his final months on active
duty. His boss there was Captain
Thomas F. Connolly, who was heading
up the Pacific Missile Range. “After I
arrived back at the Bureau,” Truax
recalls, “Capt. Connolly said, ‘Bob, I
know you are about to retire, but
before you go, I’d like you to do some-
thing more for us. I’d like you to do a
paper on the Pacific Missile Range and
what you think we should do with it;
and I’d like you to do a study on the
Navy in Space — what its potential is
— and what you think the Navy’s
policy should be.’
“Well, he liked my report so well he
had it duplicated. I think every ad-
miral in the Navy got a copy.”
On the basis of Captain Truax’s
report, the Connolly Committee on
the Navy’s use of space and the science
of astronautics was formed in April
THE BOSS OF

V ice Admiral Thomas F. Con-


nolly frowned. He
glanced out a window of his fourth
had

floor Pentagon office and had noted


the Washington smog drifting by. His
gaze shifted to the spotless white
model of the lunar module on his ended up with the assignment. It was VICE ADMIRAL THOMAS F. CONNOLLY
desk; then his eyes moved over to a decided to make me an assistant chief
similar, impeccable model of an air-
craft. The miniatures seemed almost to
glow against the polished wood sur-
face. His expression mellowed.
On the wall behind his chair was a
large R. G. Smith oil painting, one of
the finest pictures of an aircraft carrier
ever done. In it, the USS Enterprise
looms out of a murky, morning haze
on the South China Sea; a group of
Navy fighters is flashing by the nuclear
carrier, down low. Towering clouds
rise above, dominating the scene. To-
ward the top of the picture, the air
begins to clear and a view of blue
space beyond can be observed.
It is an appropriate setting for the
Deputy Chief of Naval Operations
(Air) — the boss of U.S. Naval Avia-
tion. But, at the moment, Admiral
Connolly was thinking back to that
time in the late Fifties when things
began to move in space. “Missilery —
ballistic missilery — had come on with The 60-foot directional antenna atop Laguna Peak at the Navy Astronautics Group
a very great rush. The United States Headquarters, Point Mugu, Calif., is landmark for motorists on Pacific Coast Highway.
realized that the Soviets were building
enormous rockets and would soon of BuAer — for Pacific Missile Range nautics.’ For the next year or so I did
have an intercontinental capability. affairs. what I could from the Washington end
So,” said Admiral Connolly, “we “In a very short time I could see that to help out Admiral Monroe and his
moved out very sharply in that period. if the needs of the Navy were to be people at the Pacific Missile Range
“I had just come into the Bureau met, the job would have to be ‘for (PMR). It grew into a fine operation.”
from command of a carrier and found Pacific Missile Range a n d A s t r o - The Naval Missile Center at Point
that an effort was being made to find a nautics.’ There was no good agency Mugu, California, was the nucleus
flag officer to take charge of the within the Navy capable of handling around which the Pacific Missile Range
Pacific Missile Range, which, together the possibilities of space with respect was developed. During WW II, it had
with the Atlantic Missile Range and to naval military missions. So, we had become c l e a r t h a t i f t h e n a t i o n ’ s
the White Sands Missile Range consti- to make that provision for ‘astro- guided missile program was to pro-

46
gress, the Navy would have to have a “Mastery of Space” takes space. A n d meet the national need. This evolved
test range based on naval require- money. Fifteen million dollars in con- into Space: the Polar Orbit Range was
ments. The result of this decision was struction were expended by 1961, and developed for southward launchings
the establishment of the Naval Air the range encompassed more than from the Naval Weapons Facility at
Missile Test Center in 1946. The origi- 10,000 miles. Major projects com- Point Arguello.
pleted were MILS (missile impact lo- “ AS the size and range of the missiles
cation systems) buildings at Hawaii, increased, it became possible to build a
Eniwetok, Midway and Wake Islands. fractional orbiting missile. That is
New construction at Point Mugu in- what a ballistic missile really is. Well,
cluded a hangar, sea-level climatic with the Office of Naval Research and
laboratory, instrumentation buildings, NRL being the first to get going with
mess halls, BOQ’s and storage facili- an earth satellite — the little Vanguard
ties. One of the significant develop- ‘grapefruit’ — we had learned a lesson.
ments was the Life Sciences Depart- Vanguard went through a lot of grow-
ment where experiments were con- ing pains and difficulties before it
ducted on animals and men in multiple showed that it worked just as it was
stress environments and where “space supposed to. Drawing on that experi-
journeys” were made by flight sur- ence, we asked the Johns Hopkins
geons and Naval Aviators, with and people to come up with a navigational
without full pressure suits, in a satellite concept. It was aptly dubbed
ground-based “space ship,” in order to Transit, and was the first real attempt
study the effects of breathing pure on the part of the Navy to make sure,
oxygen at high altitude. from beginning to end, that an earth
“We were tremendously spurred on satellite would work for us. My office
by this new area of endeavor,” the had the responsibility for its advance-
Admiral continued. “Although there ment. In all of this, we had the close
was some criticism by a few agnostics cooperation o f t h e D e p a r t m e n t o f
and those who were constantly vying Defense, the Army, the Air Force and
for the dollar, we received a great deal the then-young NASA.”
of support — from Admiral Burke, Admiral Connolly leaned forward.
who was Chief of Naval Operations; “But, where does the Navy g o i n
Admiral Russell, the Vice Chief; and space? Right then, we decided that we
Admiral Pirie, DCNO (Air). had better find out what was solid —
“Ten thousand people,” Admiral what our legitimate prospects were for
Connolly said, “staffed the huge PMR the future. I gathered up the best
complex which comprised five dif- people I could get my hands on — Bob
An Atlas/Burner II blasts off, carrying ferent ranges. It was a very fast moving Truax, Win Berg, Bob Freitag, and a
into space two Navy satellites: the Lidos and highly successful operation, not lot of others — and then, one by one,
for geodesy, and the ionospheric Orbis Cal. only capable of handling the ballistic we called in every branch of scientific
missile firings of both the Air Force and industrial endeavor connected
nal sea test range was only 75 by 150 and the Navy, but also of doing the with space and had them lay out their
nautical miles. job with the shorter range weapons. programs. This constituted the so-
As the national missile program With our excellent radar coverage, we called ‘Connolly Committtee’ and re-
gained momentum, the need for in- could really do the shots that covered sulted in the study known as ‘The
creased range capacity grew critical; long distances and, at the same time, Navy in the Space Age’.”

47
The Navy Navigation
Satellite, developed
by Johns Hopkins
University scientists
is powered by solar
cells and batteries.
System was used
in world cruise
of USS Long Beach.

tem was similar to minitrack but used


a high-powered, continuous wave
transmitter to illuminate the satellite
by radio. Reflected energy data from
the target would then be obtained
The committee’s report became the WORK! And that’s what we have been from various receiver sites and the
master plan for U.S. Navy space pro- doing over the years. Now we have object could be pinpointed. When the
grams; Its chairman became a Rear that reliability. system became fully computerized, it
Admiral, and Assistant to the Chief of “After we had determined just what took only seconds for analysis of a
the newly formed Bureau of Weapons, w a s s o l i d for the Navy, the lineup satellite detection to get to the head-
for PMR and Astronautics. The stated looked like this: Communications, quarters of the Naval Weapons Labora-
policy of the new organization was Geodesy, Navigation, Weather Fore- tory at Dahlgren, Virginia, and thence
that the Navy would pursue research casting and Surveillance, but not to the North American Air Defense
and technological developments neces- necessarily in that order. Command (NORAD) for further con-
sary to enhance its ability to conduct The NRL minitrack system of the sideration. By 1970, more than 5,000
operations in space which were in V a n g u a r d satellite program was orbiting objects have been observed by
support of roles and missions assigned pointed out by Admiral Connolly as NavSpaSur.
to the Navy. It would work in partner- the forerunner of the present Navy “Navigation,” said Admiral Con-
ship with the other services and would Space Surveillance System, commonly nolly. “With a satellite, you have your
vigorously support national civilian known as NavSpaSur. It may be re- own star. Only, instead of just putting
space programs. called that minitrack was designed by out visible light as an ordinary star
“Our basic objectives of ten years Roger Easton to locate satellites which does — a light that cannot be seen
ago,” said Admiral Connolly, “are transmitted on a fixed frequency. But through clouds — our star would put
essentially the same today, with a few what about a quiet Sputnik? N e e d e d out radio signals that could be picked
refinements added. R e l i a b i l i t y is a was a detection system to locate and up at any time. And, since we could
long, drawn out, painstaking matter track all man-made objects in space. accurately fix the position of any
that can’t be solved by enthusiasm A new plan was submitted to ARPA, satellite, at any time, a ship could use
alone. The final recommendation of approved, and by early 1959, NRL’s our star to get a very accurate fix on
our committee had been to GET TO NavSpaSur was operational. The sys- its own location as Transit orbited by.

48
“We, and other people,” the Admiral
continued, “foresaw that space c o m -
m u n i c a t i o n s would be a great aid.
NRL was, even then, bouncing signals
off the moon. They were using the
moon as a reflection device in order to Connolly Committee said as he successful vehicle that can go into
send a message from here in Washing- glanced over at the window, “we had space and take men to the moon and
ton to our station in Hawaii. This, of weather forecasting — the surveillance back, q u a l i t y e q u i p m e n t h a d t o b e
course, led to the ComSat organization of the earth and the movement of its created. Equipment that no one had
which is both federally and indus- cloud formations.” dreamed of before. If it hadn’t been
trially financed. This is how we get live Vice Admiral Connolly reached over for that quality and the built-in redun-
TV shows, instantly, all over the to pick up a paper which an aide had dancy of the systems, we never would
world. brought in. He examined it, signed it, have gotten our Apollo 13 boys back
“Geodesy. This meant the ability to and sat back, thoughtfully. “We found home.”
locate things on the ground. Even in a lot of ancillary uses for our space Admiral Connolly has been de-
our modern day and age, there are still program. For example, it wasn’t con- scribed by the Press in various ways,
a great many places on the face of the templated in the beginning, but we most often as “ peppery.” The descrip-
earth that the charts show to be in found we could use the very accurate tion didn’t fit as he got up and walked
such and such a spot, when they are navigational positioning derived from to the window. “I really think that the
actually many miles away. The world’s Transit to put in the inertial guidance space program has brought the world
maps had been put together by accept- platforms of our aircraft. If you have together. In these terrible times, I
ance of surveys done by various en- precise knowledge of exactly where think that the success of the manned
tities. Soviet maps, Chinese maps, In- you are at the moment of launch from space flight program, more than any-
dian, British, French and even going a carrier, you can do a very precise thing else, has kept alive a certain
back to old Portuguese and Italian navigational job in getting to a target, warm respect for, and trust of, the
maps. All have inaccuracies. So, all-weather. United States.”
geodesy was a thing we could do with “I think it has been absolutely fan- He gazed out the window at the
satellites. tastic to see what has come out of the milky sky. “It looks like it might clear
“And, finally,” the chairman of the disciplines of space. In order to have a up. But, you never can be sure. . . .”

49
at the boundaries between large bodies
of air which have differences of tem-
perature and humidity. In 1925,
Reichelderfer introduced the Nor-
wegian papers on air mass analysis and
techniques throughout t h e N a v y ’ s
meteorological community. The con-
cept has been important to the devel-

T he threat of the German zep-


pelin in World War I hastened
the formation of the Naval Weather
tion. After two years of molting with
the bird people, the Naval Aerological
Service was transferred to the newly
opment of meteorology.
After many notable achievements,
Cdr. Reichelderfer was transferred to
Service. It was apparent that the Allied formed Bureau of Aeronautics. the inactive list in 1938. He then be-
Aviation Forces in Europe needed One of the key figures in the de- came Chief of the Weather Bureau, a
environmental support in order to velopment of the Naval Weather Serv- position which he held until 1963.
combat this new threat. Thus, at the ice was Francis W. Reichelderfer. As a The Naval Weather Service’s climb
suggestion of the Commander, U.S. naval officer and aviator, Reichelderfer into space began on the wings of the
Naval Forces in Europe, initial steps was a triple threat man, qualified in 1917 airplane. Wing-mounted meteor-
were taken to form a special meteor- balloons, dirigibles and multi-engine ological instruments provided a profile
ological group to meet the needs of aircraft. As a meteorologist, he was a of the atmosphere through which the
Naval Aviation. The requests for this pioneer in developing aviation weather plane flew. By 1939, the balloon-
service soon spread beyond those of services and, f r o m 1 9 2 2 t o 1 9 2 8 , borne radio transmitter, meteorologi-
aviation and, by war’s end, the embry- supervised the reorganization of the cal instrument package had become
onic Naval Weather Service consisted Navy’s weather service. It was during the routine method of obtaining upper
of over 200 officers and men. this period that he came across some air soundings. It is still used today.
In 1919, the Naval Aerological Serv- research done by the Norwegian, (Helium-filled balloons frequently
ice was literally pigeon-holed in the Bjerknes. The Norwegian’s theory, still attain altitudes in excess of 100,000
Bureau of Navigation when the valid today, dealt with the concept of feet and provide information on the
weathermen found themselves located air masses and frontal systems and atmosphere.)
in the Photography and Pigeon Sec- observed that most “weather” occurs I n 1 9 5 4 , a small group of Navy
meteorologists joined with their col- as important as routine ship weather toring system m a d e u p o f t h r e e
leagues from the Weather Bureau and forecasts. Over the past two decades, 24 x 30-inch satellites that will be
Air Force to form the Joint Numerical man has learned much about space placed in a circular orbit at an altitude
Weather Prediction Unit at Suitland, environment, but the focal point of equal to 20 earth diameters. The satel-
Maryland. A year later, the group was space environment is the sun. lites are being fabricated by Navy
routinely making operational com- The sun is not just a quiet, orange scientists at NRL. Solrad-Hi is also the
puter forecasts. In 1959, the Navy ball that rises in the east and sets in first solar satellite system able to
established the Fleet Numerical the west. Frequent storms rage across continuously monitor the sun and
Weather Central at Monterey, Califor- it, spraying large volumes of gas, and have a real-time readout capability.
nia, to support fleet meteorological electric energy fields, into space. For- In order to make use of these obser-
and oceanographic needs. tunately, not all the blasts from these vations of the sun, the researchers at
To support the environmental serv- storms strike the earth. But when they NRL and the Naval Weapons Center,
ice needs of the forces’ effort, data do they cause all kinds of communica- Corona, California, are in the process
from ships at sea and island and land tions’ blackouts. This happens because of developing techniques to forecast
stations are used. In addition, Navy most radio systems depend upon the the sun’s activity and its influence on
aircraft are used for meteorological electrified blanket, the ionosphere, Navy communications. Once these pre-
and oceanographic observations. The that surrounds the earth at an altitude diction methods are established and
VW-l Typhoon Trackers and the VW-4 of 60 to 300 miles. When a solar translated into computer programs,
Hurricane Hunters of the Pacific and magnetic storm is taking place, the the Naval Weather Service will begin
Atlantic, respectively, fly the tropical increased electrical flow from the sun providing this information on a rou-
storm watch. to the earth overcharges the iono- tine basis. It is presently planned to
However, the Navy’s need for new sphere and can light up the polar issue these forecasts from the Fleet
and sophisticated weaponry and sup- regions like a neon tube — the aurora Weather Facility at Suitland.
port of naval communications will borealis. As man becomes more sophisticated,
force the Naval Weather Service to In mid-1973, the Naval Weather so do his military systems. The prob-
extend beyond the fringes of the Service will make a quantum jump lems of space environment forecasting
earth’s atmosphere. With satellites and into space when S o l r a d - H i will be will be staggeringly difficult, but then,
other space traveling vehicles, the need launched on a Titan. Solrad, a contrac- so are those of air masses and fronts.
for space weather reports is becoming tion of solar radiation, is a sun moni- — LCDR. NEIL F. O’CONNOR
aptain Robert F. Freitag, USN (Ret.), is probably was to fly, Freitag applied himself assiduously to his

C the only officer in the Navy to be awarded the


Legion of Merit for being a salesman.
This man, Admiral Connolly emphatically states, was a
studies at MIT. Imbued with a feeling of responsibility
toward the Navy, he was at the top of his seven-day-a-
week Navy class. His reputation for superior perform-
tremendous motivator. “He was cited for being that one ance as an engineer reached new proportions after he
person in the Navy most responsible for bringing the was assigned to BuAer as an aerodynamicist. Throughout
P o l a r i s concept into an approved status so that the the war years he was consistently rated by his superiors
program could be set up and started. Bob Freitag was a as “outstanding” and “the finest engineer they had ever
personal crusader — a real stem-winder. He devoted his worked with.”
entire career to the furtherment of rocketry and Upon the cessation of hostilities, Freitag was faced
missilery and was the chief stimulator of not only Polaris with the problem of choosing a career. Either he could
but also the Pacific Missile Range and the Navy’s space stay in the Navy with the inevitability of having to go to
programs.” sea periodically; or he could go into industry and
Freitag never had a day of sea duty. He was neither concentrate solely on engineering. Being of a practical
inventor nor pioneer. He did not wear the wings of a nature, he decided to accept a job as Chief of Aero-
Naval Aviator but most of his assignments were in the dynamics for Aero-Products Propellers.

Bureau of Aeronautics. Paradoxically, as a middle grade The postwar Navy was also aware of the value of
officer, he moved in high level, senior Navy and national specialization in certain fields. Thus, when the AEDO
circles, exerting a profound influence. How this was (Aeronautical Engineering Duty Only) program was
accomplished, largely in the complex environs of Wash- initiated, he quickly returned to active duty where his
ington, is best answered by the man himself. first assignment was to join the Naval Technical Mission
Bob Freitag speaks softly, with economy of words. in Europe.
“Let me explain,” he says, “the background of the
arly in 1945, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had ordered

E
ballistic missile program; it has a direct relation to the
present space program. Without one, the Navy wouldn’t forces in Europe to preserve and take under
have the other.” control “records, plans, documents, papers, files
Polaris was an outgrowth, Freitag points out, of our and scientific, industrial and other information and data
post-World War II interest in missile weaponry. How he belonging to . . . German organizations engaged in mili-
became involved was pretty much by accident. As a tary research.” An immense collection process was soon
youngster, Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic underway, with particular emphasis on rocket and
had stimulated his desire for a career in aviation. But missile technology. Along with tons of reports, docu-
with prospects of higher monetary return, he accepted ments, data and notes, Allied forces gathered up nearly
advice that he should take engineering law in college. 100 V-2’s, complete with production machinery and
Then, threatened with the pre-war draft, he switched to associated equipment. They also managed to dismantle a
aeronautical engineering, an immune curriculum which huge supersonic wind tunnel which was then shipped to
would enable him to complete his studies. It wasn’t easy; the Naval Ordance Laboratory in Maryland for use in
because of his part-time job managing a soda fountain, it rocket development. General Dornberger, von Braun and
took him more than five years to earn his degree at the the leading rocket technologists of Germany voluntarily
University of Michigan. But just prior to graduation in turned themselves over to the Americans in Austria.
1941, he was approached by Captain Lyle Davidson, an The job of the Naval Technical Mission in Europe was
enterprising naval officer who was making his own to sift out what might be useful to the United States. In
personal effort to recruit promising, upcoming engineers that capacity, Freitag was primarily interested in super-
for the Navy. Although Freitag’s grades were not the sonic wind tunnels, but he had also been tasked to
best, the captain offered him an ensign’s commission and interview the German rocket people. It was an oppor-
postgraduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of tunity for enlightenment. By the time he returned home,
Technology — an attractive inducement, especially since LCdr. Freitag was not only an expert on guided missiles
the young man had recently married. but he had also decided to devote his energy to their
The aeronautical engineering program did not involve future naval development.
pilot training but, thinking beyond his first desire, which As Assistant to the Director of the Guided Missile

54
Division, in 1948, he planned the Navy’s experimental submitted a paper on surface-launched missiles; now he
work with the captured German equipment and the was trying to convince people that ballistic missiles
guided missile programs which included Viking a n d could be fired from the sea itself.
Aerobee, an evolution which would progress into the

T
Sparrow, Rigel and Regulus weapons. he Regulus was an air-breathing pilotless aircraft
“During this 1948-1949 period,” says Freitag, “while and, although Freitag was able to guide the
on another assignment to Europe, I became deeply program to a successful conclusion, including
involved with a joint Army, Navy, Air Force effort — deployment of operational missiles aboard aircraft car-
coordinated with the British — to evaluate the Soviet riers, cruisers and submarines, there were obvious draw-
missile program. It soon became apparent to me that the backs to its combat potential. Truax, meanwhile, pre-
Soviets were going like the devil on ballistic missile pared a new study entitled “A Means for Making the
development. While we in this country were doing Guided Missile Submarine a Primary Naval Weapon,”
almost nothing along those lines. My interest expanded which pointed up the shortcomings of the thinking at
very rapidly beyond the ‘pilotless aircraft’ concept, that time.
which had been our main concern, to the idea of selling The original plan for Regulus involved the use of three
ballistic missiles to the Navy. submarines for two missiles — one which surfaced and

“The first thing to be done was to take what we had — l a u n c h e d t h e R e g u l u s missiles while the other two
the relatively small NRL Viking — and see if we could provided radio guidance. Within the Regulus program, an
make a weapon version of it. By 1952, it looked pretty advanced inertial guidance system was under develop-
promising. Meanwhile, I had a tour of duty at Cape ment which eliminated the need for the two guidance
Canaveral where I became even more convinced that submarines and provided greater security by eliminating
ballistic missiles were in our future. It was during this the need for radio transmission that could be intercepted
tour at Cape Canaveral in 1951 that I first became or jammed. Still, both Truax and Freitag reasoned, a
acquainted with Wernher von Braun when the Army much greater improvement could be achieved by utiliz-
missile team launched the B u m p e r R o c k e t , a V - 2 ing ballistic missiles which could be launched under
modified by adding a second stage WAC rocket. So, water to avoid detection of the launching submarine and
upon my return to Washington, I got myself assigned to which could fly at extreme altitudes and hypersonic
the surface-launched missile branch, and it was there speeds and prevent interception by active defenses.
that I began to work with Captain Grayson Merrill and “During the war,” Truax states, “the Germans had
Bob Truax. I had known them both over the years but proposed a towed submersible barge from which a V-2
this was the first time we were actually able to work would be launched. It was a very cumbersome thing —
together.” with liquid oxygen, only one missile per sub, and it had
In 1953, Freitag’s primary assignment was “to look to be towed around. It was very unhandy. As bad as the
after the R e g u l u s program.” Truax was working on Regulus. What was needed was an increase in the ratio of
advanced planning for future missilery. Both men, along warhead payload to submarine weight. The ballistic
with Capt. Merrill and NRL’s Milt Rosen, were convinced rocket was the answer. It is very dense — a pressure
of the superior potential of the ballistic missile. The vessel that can be exposed to sea pressure without a lot
weapon version of the Viking had been turned down of protection. You could plaster the missiles — a great
eventually in favor of smaller missiles, but the Viking many of them — all along the outside of the submarine.
had at least demonstrated the feasibility of successful Once released from the side of the sub, a missile would
launches from the rolling deck of a ship at sea, as well as rise to the surface, much like a buoy, and from there it
many of the very advanced techniques of rocketry could be fired on command. You would have a
required for ballistic weapons such as gimbaled rocket tremendous increase in payload, secret mobility, and
engines for control and guidance, a separable nose cone economy (because no elaborate launch pads or facilities
for payload development and lightweight, efficient were required). The disadvantage was a reduction of
structures. Many of the very early techniques of today’s submarine speed as long as the missiles were attached.”
space systems originated in the early Viking research, And, as Truax puts it, “At that time, just the idea o f
including much instrumentation, payload design and putting a missile on a submarine — let alone the notion
space photography. As far back as 1947, Truax had of putting a nuclear warhead on an underwater missile —

55
was considered pretty kooky! We didn’t get very far with important programs. Therefore, in July of 1955, BuAer
it.” was ordered to cease and desist in the matter of the
By 1954, while the Air Force was moving ahead with FBM.
its ICBM’s and the Army was developing its Redstone, Nevertheless, the gears of the Freitag/Hyatt motor
the Navy was engaged in an internal reappraisal regarding were already meshing. Letters had previously been sent
the proper role of the missile in naval operations. In a out to 22 aerospace contractors and laboratories request-
complete turnabout from the earlier period, BuOrd was ing ideas on solutions to the myriad problems of
advocating a winged missile (pilotless aircraft), known as launching a 1,500-mile rocket from a submarine beneath
Triton, while BuAer was thinking in terms of ballistic the surface of the sea — a rocket with a nuclear warhead
trajectory rockets, a somewhat paradoxical reversal of that would strike an ‘inland target with pinpoint ac-
their traditional experience and roles. Some officers curacy. Detailed design proposals were soon forthcom-
questioned the assignment of missile priorities in view of ing, not only from industry but also from NRL, the
the state of the art and budgetary considerations, while Naval Air Missile Test Center, the Army Redstone
others called for a diversified research and development Arsenal and the Naval Ordnance Test Station. The FBM
program with emphasis on the ballistic type missile. program, they said, was feasible.
It was in this unsettled atmosphere that Cdr. Freitag
and a civilian BuAer scientist, Abraham Hyatt, decided
to take the initiative. “We knew the Russians were
moving real fast,” states Freitag. “So we looked at all
the different efforts that were going on and put them
together in a study for a ship-launched ballistic missile.
There were three key men who gave us tremendous
support throughout this episode. They were Rear Ad-
miral Bill Schoech, chief of R&D in BuAer; Captain A. B.
Metsger, head of the Guided Missiles Division; and Rear
Admiral Jim Russell, Chief of BuAer — who later really
put his career on the line for this operation.
“The study was completed in late 1954 at just about “Then a fortuitous thing happened,” says Freitag.
the time that the presidential committee on weapons “Admiral Russell and Captain Tom Moorer* had already
systems, chaired by Dr. James Killian, president of MIT, convinced the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air,
came out with a major recommendation that ballistic James H. Smith, of the importance of the FBM, and
missiles be developed: ICBM’s — IRBM’s — and (almost they apprised him of its controversial nature. So, when
as an afterthought) sea-launched missiles. Commander Admiral Burke was named to take the reins as the Chief
Pete Aurand was involved with the Killian Committee of Naval Operations, former Naval Aviator Smith im-
and it was because of his efforts that the policy mediately briefed him on the problem. The first thing
statement included that final item. As a result, for the Admiral Burke did was rescind the order which had
first time we were able to start getting the attention of restricted BuAer’s work on the FBM. As I recall, he was
key Department of Defense and Navy personnel.” sworn in on a Friday and on Sunday Russell and Metsger
were already going over the plan with him. Then he just

T
he fleet ballistic missile (FBM) enthusiasts in the said, ‘Go! Full speed!’ and he told BuAer to get the
Navy did not have easy sailing, even on their own thing sold — internally and externally.”
waters. While launchings from cargo (or “Q”) Freitag, who had by now established the firm base of
ships were practical, submarine operation was the elusive practicality rather than conjecture and who had success-
goal. Ballistic missiles of the time were either of short fully enlisted the necessary support of his own organiza-
range or would prove too large (100 feet long) for easy tion, embarked upon a selling campaign aimed at
handling aboard a submarine. Then, too, there was the convincing those outside the Navy. Of particular signifi-
question of who would have cognizance of the program, cance was the strong support Freitag had enlisted in the
BuOrd or BuAer? The Killian Committee had lent Bureau of Ships. There, under the leadership of Com-
support to the Freitag/Hyatt study, but not until there mander “Red” McQuilkain, feasibility studies of ballistic
was an improved degree of miniaturization in electronics missile launch ships and submarines as well as ship
could there be a viable FBM system. Needed, too, was a navigation and fire-control systems were evolved which
solid propellant of sufficient specific impulse. None was further reinforced the feasibility of the concept. “Once
in existence; nor was there a suitable navigational Admiral Burke had said ‘Go,’ there was no more conflict
system, an accurate guidance system or an acceptable between BuAer and BuOrd. It was ‘all shoulders to the
fire-control system. It was argued, logically, and with wheel,’ and we worked like hell.
good cause, that the FBM would be a continuous drain *Admiral Thomas H. Moorer is now Chairman of the Joint
on Navy funds — to the great detriment of other equally Chiefs of Staff.

56
“But, at about that time, a tentative Defense Depart-
ment decision was made in response to the Killian
report: T h e A i r F o r c e would develop ICBM’s
(5,000-mile range); both the Air Force and the Army
would develop IRBM’s (1,500-mile range) — the Air
Force would be prime and the Army would be back-up.
Navy was out!
“The factor was that the Navy had just been given the
satellite project, Vanguard, an endeaver believed to have
tied up all of Navy’s capability — we were presumed to
be too busy developing Vanguard to have anything to do
with an IRBM. The Army was kept in business because,
with von Braun’s team at Huntsville, they had a
capability (although no real requirement). In essence,
the Air Force appeared to have the ballistic missile
market cornered.”
Curiously, the DOD decision did recognize the validity
of the Navy’s requirement for the FBM — which was a
form of IRBM. The door was still open and Bob Freitag
rushed through — all the way to Huntsville where he
spent three days with his old acquaintance, Dr. von
Braun.
“I proposed to von Braun,” states Freitag, “a very
simple proposition. He could see that the Navy require-
ment made a lot of sense. We knew the United States
wouldn’t be able to stay in Turkey and Italy and other
places forever with our rocket weapons — we were just
drawing fire to those countries. But if we put the launch
platforms at sea, we would still have all the advantages.
So, I suggested that he redesign his missile for shipboard
operation, which in essence meant putting a fourth
gimbal on the guidance platform to take care of pitch
and roll. We (Navy) would take care of shipboard
installation — all the fire control – but he (Army) would
have the rocket. In effect, with his brains and our good
looks — our requirement and his capability — we would
have something we could work with.”

T
he Navy had been working with von Braun for a
few years. Commander Hoover had generated
enthusiam for Project Orbiter prior to the V a n -
guard decision. “Orbiter,” says Freitag, “was essentially
the Explorer, which was finally launched two years later.
It was a matter of taking a Redstone and putting more
stages on it.
“Well, von Braun accepted. He said, ‘I will support it
and take it through Army channels and you can take it
through Navy channels.’ Then, when I got back to
Washington, Admiral Russell said, ‘Fine,’ and it went on
up the line.”
Somewhat to the surprise of the Pentagon, the Army
and the Navy had formed an alliance for a fleet ballistic
missile. In effect, the Department of Defense was
confronted with a counterproposal to its directive. Two
of the services had planned a logical joint ballistic missile
program. Under the circumstances it was difficult to say
no. The Polaris program was underway.
During the early development peri- ployed all manner of tactics, subtle, series of Department of Defense re-
od, Commander Freitag stayed on in direct and circumventive — but he views. A team had been formed of
the Office of the Chief of Naval Opera- never lost sight of his goal: the U. S. Army, Navy, Air Force and DOD
tions, “just across the street” from Navy in space. people for the purpose of inspecting
BuAer, where he helped with the or- For Step Two of the master plan, he all facilities for missile operations —
ganization of the Polaris program. A advanced the idea of building up the and even aircraft flight testing — in or-
nationwide industry team was called Missile Test Center at Point Mugu as a der to determine what the optimum
in. Top management attention was se- counterpart of the Atlantic Missile range configuration should be. This
cured and many industrial con- Range. “The idea of having a Pacific committee, which was called the Spe-
tractors (in addition to those in the Missile Range (PMR) was, first, to have cial Committee on Adequacy of Range
Navy and NRL) were welded together a targeting area for ICBM’s and Facilities, finally recommended: a West
in a cohesive team. “It was through IRBM’s, and also to have a launching Coast range (PMR) which would be
this fantastic type of operation,” says base for polar orbiting satellites. A t basically under the Navy; the mid-
Freitag, “ t h a t I c a m e t o k n o w t h e that time, it was believed that Cape continent land range at White Sands,
right people — the ones who would Canaveral was unsuitable for certain which consolidated the White Sands/
prove to be so helpful later on.” satellite vehicles because of safety Alamogordo area into one good range;
and the East Coast range under the Air
Force.”
According to Cdr. Freitag’s thinking,
especially during the 1957-1959
p e r i o d — after the Russians had
launched their Sputniks and Explorer
had been so successful, and then, of
course, the Navy had its Vanguard — it
was time that consideration be given
to satellites from an operational stand-
point. “There were items coming along
such as Transit, SynCom and T i r o s ,
weather satellites and so forth, but it
seemed as though the Navy always
ended up working for someone else.
Vanguard was working for the IGY;
and Transit, which was generated by
t h e N a v y / J o h n s H o p k i n s Applied
Physics Lab, was being run by the Ad-
vanced Research Projects Agency
(ARPA) group.
With one arm up to the shoulder problems; the falling stages would rep- “There were also,” Freitag reflects,
blade in Polaris, he then busied the resent a danger.* “many people within the Navy who
other by stirring the pot wherein the “The planning operation,” Bob were content with that situation. For-
space stew simmered — and a p p l i - Freitag recalls, “put me right on the tunately, Tom Connolly was on the
cations bubbled. Fifteen years of ex- Army circuit, the Air Force circuit and scene, as assistant for plans to the
perience in the ways of the Navy — the then-new NASA circuit. During Chief of BuAer. I had known him back
and, for that matter, the Army, Air that entire course of time (approxi- during World War II when he was a VP
Force and industry — came to the fore mately two years) I made over 200 (flying boat) pilot and then at Flight
as Freitag set his sights on space. Long presentations — up and down every Test at Patuxent River and, of course,
ago he had learned the few basic rules hall, in and out of offices, stopping later at TPT (Test Pilot Training), but
of making progress in an organization: people in passageways, doing every- now I had the opportunity to work
dedication (with humor); understand- thing I could think of — just trying to directly with him. Because of his posi-
ing (especially of the opposition); and make this thing go. tion, I knew that he was the best man
flexibility. (There is more than one “Because of this perseverance, we to convince that the business of testing
way to get aboard. If you think about were able to convince the Secretary of at PMR was not only important for
it, it doesn’t always have to be a left- Defense that we had to have a range our flight test aspirations — but that it
hand pattern....) Now, he was rapidly on the West Coast to do the training was also probably going to provide a
becoming a virtuoso of the art, and and also the operations. What I am real opportunity for space.
variety was the keynote of his reper- speaking of here was a long drawn-out “He spent a lot of time looking over
toire. As he maneuvered from individ- my proposition and finally agreed with
ual to group to committee, he em- *It is still true. it. In order to give it proper focus, I

58
recommended a plan that ultimatelv cerned. In that year, a directive was his brand — PMR, Transit, SpaSur and
resulted in what is now known as the issued which said in effect that the Air ANNA among them. His Operation
Connolly Report. Admiral Russell, who Force was to be, with a few minor ex- Starlight was an amplification of the
was then Vice Chief of Naval Opera- ceptions, the sole agent for all space Connolly report, but with emphasis on
tions, also gave his support. I had ex- programs. If the Navy was to stay in the future ten to twenty years. In his
plained to him that the same sort of the game, we would have to work many writings and lectures (some said
ingredients existed in the space ques- through the USAF. when the first man would step on the
tion of that year (1959) as had existed “Well, in the long run, we were able moon, Freitag would be there deliver-
in 1955 with ballistic missiles.” to make this procedure work. In some ing the speech), he emphasized two
respects it was a blessing in disguise. points: the value of astronautics and

F reitag pointed out to Admiral


Russell the need to educate all
the appropriate offices at the same
For instance, I was among those who
at one time were in favor of adding
another stage to Polaris and making it
the future outlook for the Navy. The
value, he pointed out, often comes
from explorative research. “What is ex-
time: OpNav, BuShips, ONR (Office a launch vehicle. The idea was to cre- perimental today, may become essen-
of Naval Research), practically every- ate a device for reconnaissance — tial tomorrow. In the beginning, there
one in the Washington Navy. “We had bomb damage assessment, and so forth were few who could see the potential
to get the really good key people to- – that would be launched from the of a satellite, just as today there are
gether; otherwise, we would be forever sea, make one orbit and be recovered. those who question the exploration of
trying to get off top dead center.” It was a pretty advanced proposal; we the moon and planets. But the new
Admiral Russell bought it; Freitag called it Sea Scout. technology enriches life in this world
was told to write up the charter. Two “Although it was a good idea,” says and makes it easier for us.”
days later, with Admiral Burke’s bless- Freitag, “it probably would have sop- The basic programs which he
ing, Russell signed it. ped up all the money the Navy had, if planned, prodded, pushed, organized
Captain Thomas F. Connolly was we had gotten approval. But, of and guided still form the nucleus of
named chairman of the 1959 a d h o c course, due to the directive we today’s astronautic Navy: communi-
committee on astronautics. Members couldn’t get it. Instead, we put all our cations, surveillance, weather, geodesy,
of the twenty-man board included, money into payloads — scientific in- navigation — and support.
along with Freitag, Truax and Berg, rep- struments and satellites — and, to get And what of Bob Freitag? In 1963,
resentatives of various key divisions of t h e m u p t h e r e , we used Air Force after 22 years of active duty, he re-
OpNav, BuShips, BuOrd, BuAer, boosters, which they furnished. It tired from the Navy. It had become
BuMed, ONR, NRL and PMR. Not worked out very nicely. A highly ef- obvious that, as a captain, he had
only did the group examine what was fective program reached the highest plateau in his own
going on in space and sort out what “In retrospect, I often think back to promotion structure. His particular tal-
was important, but they “equated those days of 1955 when we were try- ents had been devoted more toward in-
their findings with Navy requirements ing to sell Polaris, and one of the big novation and pathfinding than to the
and set up a program that made sense. objections was the problem of pin- acquisition of c o m m a n d experience.
In addition, they recommended an or- point navigation. There were those To the man who had been called
ganization to execute it. who said it just couldn’t be done. Yet, “Mister Astronautics of the Navy,”
“It was a rather comprehensive job. it was only five years later that an Admiral Connolly gave counsel:
Two new sections were established in earth satellite, Transit, was tested as a “Through the years you have been
CNO: OP-54, which was under Admiral navigational system — and the follow- with us, you have given a direction and
Pirie, DCNO(Air), and looked after ing year it was operational. In only impetus which has been invaluable.
things like PMR; and OP-76, an office five short years we were using a system You have done here what had to be
truly responsible for space matters, that was a hundred times more accu- done. Now, it is time you devote your
which is still with us today. And, near rate than anything that had ever been energies to the civilian space program
the end of the year when BuAer and done before. But, back in 1955, there where your capabilities can reach their
BuOrd merged to form the Bureau of were people who could not even c o n - full potential.”
Weapons (BuWeps), an astronautics di- ceive of a satellite. Thus, since 1964, Captain Robert F.
vision was established to parallel the “Well,” understates Freitag, “we ed- Freitag, USN (Ret.), has been Direc-
aircraft division. The Navy was ready ucated them.” tor, Manned Space Flight Field Center
to play an integral part in the develop- Development for NASA. Among his
ment and fulfillment of the national
effort and particularly of the military
space programs.
C aptain Bob Freitag may have
b e e n a “mover behind the
scenes,” largely unrecognized by the
responsibilities — which include liaison
with Congress — has been the Manned
Space Flight Center at Houston.
“However,” Freitag continues, “the public and the general naval communi- Ask Bob Freitag what all this means
biggest problem came along in 1961 ty, but he left a lasting mark on the in the infinite scheme of things and he
when, again, the Navy was almost put Navy’s future in space. By 1963, prac- will probably smile and quietly say,
out of business as far as space was con- tically every Navy space project bore “What good is a newborn baby?”

59
manned balloon, a conclusion based
I n 1935 after the record flight of
Tex Settle and Mike Fordney,
another balloon, sponsored jointly by
on the fact that a rubber balloon
expands during ascension into the
Cdr. Malcolm Ross and LCdr. Victor Prather the Army Air Corps and the National stratosphere — to the point where it
lift off Antietam enroute to a world record Geographic Society, rose to the then finally explodes.
altitude of 21½ miles, set in May 1961. Be- incredible altitude of 72,395 feet. Its But, at the end of the war, Navy
low, Navy astronaut Charles Conrad, Jr., sealed gondola manned by Captains A. interest began to center on the use of
commander of Apollo 12, operates a lunar plastics, which do not have the expan-
landing training vehicle. The X-15 rocket-
W. Stevens and O. D. Anderson, Ex-
powered aircraft, right, used to explore the plorer II established a mark unchal- sion characteristics of rubber. The first
edge of space, benefited from acceleration lenged for two decades. Undoubtedly, plans for a manned balloon flight into
force studies conducted at the Navy’s WW II had a tendency to divert inter- the upper atmosphere were made by
Medical Acceleration Laboratory. est in high altitude research experi- the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in
ments. And, too, there were those who 1946. At that time, it was realized that
felt that the mark set by Stevens and a stable platform, from which scien-
Anderson could not be surpassed by a tific observations could be made, was

60
SPACE

needed to gather information on near- of scientific instruments. A sealed Because of a lag in technology, the
space physics, nuclear energy, cosmic cabin was to be supported by 100 of ambitious plan for manned flight was
radiation and in connection with fu- the balloons at an anticipated altitude replaced in 1947 by Project Skyhook,
ture high altitude flight. The inherent of 100,000 feet for 10 hours. which involved the use of polyethylene
limitations of conventional aircraft Dr. Jean Piccard and Mr. O. C. balloons carrying instrument packages
and the rockets and rubber balloons Winzen were among the principals in to extreme altitudes. Thousands of
used in high altitude studies precluded the project, working along with ONR’s these balloons were sent into the
their use for carrying observers to the Commander George Hoover. Their stratosphere for basic research.
stratosphere. concept was to use a thin plastic In 1952, a new technique was devel-
The original project, Helios, w a s material which permitted a reduction oped in which meteorological Deacon
named for the Greek sun god. A in the weight of the balloon itself to rockets were lifted above 70,000 feet
contract with the University of Minne- only a fraction of that of a rubber by Skyhook balloons. At a fixed alti-
sota and General Mills, Inc., called for balloon, thereby allowing the plastic tude, a pressure switch would fire the
the construction of plastic balloons cluster to reach a considerably higher Deacon from an almost vertical posi-
and a gondola equipped with a battery altitude. tion. With the aerodynamic drag of

61
The early Stratolab gondolas were
sealed aluminum balls. Stratolab
V’s balloon hoisted an open, cage-like
gondola equipped with adjustable
In 1956, Stratolab I, manned by “Venetian blinds” on its side to provide
Lieutenant Commanders Malcolm D. variations of the sun’s radiation ef-
Ross and the above mentioned M. L. fects. What made this feature possible
Lewis, attained a record altitude of were the special full-pressure space
76,000 feet. As the flights progressed, suits worn by Ross and Prather.
the altitudes increased until on May 4,
1961, Cdr. Ross and LCdr. Victor A.
Prather* (MC), a scientific observer,
reached 113,739 feet in Stratolab V.
T he Navy Mark IV life-support
garment had its origins in the
early Thirties, not long after the ex-
The Stratolab experiments made a ploits of Soucek and Champion. Pi-
number of contributions to the oneer globe-circling aviator Wiley Post
manned space flight program. Protons, requested the B. F. Goodrich Com-
associated with solar flare activity on pany to fabricate a type of rubber suit
the sun, were measured and found to that he could wear in an attempt to
be of such high intensity as to have an break the Italian aircraft altitude rec-
ominous import regarding their effects ord of 47,000 feet. Engineer Russ
Ross and Prather, wearirng full-pressure on man in space. This discovery neces- Colley came up with a fairly rigid suit
flight suits sit in Stratolab V
sitated development of a system of heavy rubberized cloth, capped
gondola awaiting hook-up for flight.
whereby solar flare activity could be with a diver’s helmet. (It was stitched
predicted and monitored. together on Mrs. Colley’s home sewer;
lower altitudes thus eliminated, the Telescope astronomy provided a it eventually ruined her machine.)
rocket could achieve a near vacuum means of obtaining photographs of a Such an outfit had a bizarre appear-
ballistic trajectory and attain heights quality and resolution heretofore im- ance. One day in 1934, Post made an
greatly in excess of those reached by possible with earth-bound telescopes. emergency landing in the desert and,
surface-level firings. This efficient Subsequently, an infrared system en- spotting a car that had pulled up on a
operation had been proposed by LCdr. abled unprecedented astronomical nearby road, he plodded over to it in
Morton Lee Lewis of BuAer in 1949 study. his strange suit and helmet, waving at
while conducting Skyhook experi- *It is regrettable that both Lewis and the driver. Post had to chase the
ments aboard the USS Norton Sound. Prather lost their lives in Stratolab-associ- frightened man around the car before
So successful were the Skyhook’s ated accidents: Lewis in a ground accident catching him and convincing him that
while testing a balloon gondola suspension
that in 1954 plans were laid to entrust system; and Prather at the conclusion of the he was truly of this planet.
the lives of men to a thin film of record Stratolab V. Prather fell from the Within 20 years, most of the prob-
sling of the recovery helicopter into the sea.
polyethylene plastic. Project Stratolab Water filled his suit before rescuers could
lems of suit maneuverability had been
came into being the following year as a get to him. solved. Colley devised swivel joints,
practical, economical method of ob- rotating bearings and fluted joints. (He
taining fundamental data in the fields had observed a tomato worm in his
of astronomy, astrophysics and phys- garden and was inspired by its che-
ics of the upper atmosphere. During nille-like bands expanding and con-
the next six years, five S t r a t o l a b tracting. Thus, the 1952 suit resem-
flights were made, four of which used bled a conglomeration of tomato
gondolas originally constructed for the worms and small rubber tires.)
abortive Helios project. Its joints allowed neck and shoulders
Test equipment included cameras to to move in one plane only — but this
photograph the formation, growth and was progress. Since rubberized fabric
decay of contrails created by jet air- tends to take on the flexibility of
craft; special gamma telescopes for sheet metal when pressurized, a suit
cosmic radiation study; and, most im- pressure of 3.4 psi (equivalent to
portant, a wide variety of aeromedical atmospheric pressure at 35,000 feet)
experiments. Captain N. L. Barr of the was selected so as not to destroy
Medical Corps developed a telemetered mobility in zero-pressure conditions.
(radio-transmitted) version of an elec- This pressure also allowed the user to
trocardiograph to record the pilots’ breathe 100 percent oxygen at all
physiological reactions, heart reactions times without resorting to fatiguing
and respiratory conditions. MODEL I HIGH ALTITUDE SUIT AT ACEL pressure breathing and at the same

62
shield. Picked for its mobility, com-
pactness, reliability and pressure in-
tegrity, the suit looked more like a
conventional flight suit than its man-
from-Mars-appearing predecessors.
NASA had used the Mark IV suit
earlier, during its X-15 research project
— a forerunner of Mercury, Gemini
and Apollo designed to probe the
outer fringes of the earth’s at-
mosphere. The X-15 was an explora-
tory vehicle used to examine aerody-
namic heating, stability and control at
high speeds on the edge of space —
problems likely to be encountered in
manned space flight. LCdr. Forrest S.
Petersen, one of the pilots assigned to
the X-15 project, wore the suit while
NAVY MARK I FULL-PRESSURE SUIT reaching the then record altitude of
102,000 feet in the rocket-powered
time did away with the uncomfortable craft. “We found out a great deal
face mask. The Navy’s Air Crew about space and equipment,” he says.
Equipment Laboratory at Naval Base, “We learned about reaction controls
Philadelphia, meanwhile developed an and how much a man could handle at
aneroid pressure suit controller which high speeds. We also learned a lot of LCdr. Petersen, Navy X-15 pilot, wears
automatically sensed the cabin altitude lessons and techniques in manufactur- Mark IV full-pressure suit later adopted for
and pressurized the suit accordingly — ing equipment which would withstand NASA’s space flight program.
a welcome improvement over the previ- the extreme high temperatures caused
ous manual control system which was by friction.”
annoying if not hazardous. Among other things studied during
The lab began working on space this initial preparation for space flight
equipment well before any object had were the biological and physical ef-
been placed in orbit. Work began to fects of acceleration forces occurring
provide an emergency suit for pilots at in the X-15. The National Advisory
50,000 feet. Step by step the re- Committee for Aeronautics (NACA),
searchers added improvements until after two years of intensive study of
they had a garment which would the problems likely to be encountered
enable man to work outside the earth’s in manned space flight, submitted a
atmosphere. Six years and 25 experi- proposal to the Department of De-
mental models after Colley’s semi-rigid fense for the construction of an air-
accordion pleats, the Navy and Good- plane capable of the extremely high
rich developed the Mark IV full pres- speeds and altitudes necessary for the
sure suit with features that gave it a desired exploration. The X-15 was
head start on the space age. Weighing designated the test vehicle, and NACA
only 20 pounds, it was made from began preparations for its flights by
nylon fiber coated with neoprene. defining the flight profiles needed to
In its development, problems had to gather the needed information. The
be solved in the areas of weight and Navy’s Aviation Medical Acceleration
bulk reduction, ventilation, air and Laboratory (AMAL), Johnsville, Penn-
water tightness, mobility, temperature sylvania, was asked to provide an
insulation and land/sea survival capa- environment in which man and ma-
bility. The Mark IV overcame these chine could be subjected to practically
problems so well that NASA selected a all of the actual flight stresses and
modified version in 1959 and ordered phenomena caused by acceleration
21 suits for use by the Project Mercury forces.
astronauts. The NASA “life support In order to determine how these
garment” added a coating of silver factors would affect the pilot’s control
spray as a heat buffer and radiation abilities, AMAL (now the Aerospace

Drawing by Paul Calle


Courtesy NASA
Medical Research Department) com-
bined its centrifuge with the Naval
Aeronautical Computer Laboratory’s
(NACL) analog computer to reduce all
variables concerning pilot toleration to
acceleration forces to known factors.
The tests included studies of the
pilot’s ability — under high G loads —
to exercise the precise manual control
necessary to keep the X-15 on its
exacting flight profile, execution of
emergency procedures during uncon-
trolled gyrations and application of
minute corrections necessary to bore-
sight the only safe re-entry corridor.
In March 1957, the first centrifuge
program was conducted at AMAL to
evaluate pilot tolerance, performance
and ability to control the aircraft at
forces up to 8 G’s. By November, a
second series was begun to evaluate
the pilot’s ability under specific flight
conditions during exit and re-entry of
the atmosphere. In this group of tests,
the pilot was able to control the
centrifuge through NACL’s “closed
loop” system linked to its computer
which, by processing control signals
together with aerodynamic equations,
placed the appropriate G forces on the
gondola. More tests in the summer of
1958 led to changes in the instrument
panel and to improvements in the during the launch phase of manned seven Mercury astronauts began their
pressure suit. space vehicles. Pilot physiology and acceleration training at Johnsville and,
As the tests for the X-15 project performance of launch and orbital for the first time, were able to experi-
came to an end, NASA (which had by tasks were the subject of the tests, ence some of the physiological effects
this time absorbed NACA) came for- which simulated the effects of of the acceleration they might expect
ward with new requirements. Data was two-stage and four-stage accelerations to encounter during launch and
needed to evaluate three types of ranging from 3 to 15 G’s. These tests re-entry. Using a preliminary test
proposed spacecraft — the high drag aided in the solutions of some basic model of the proposed M e r c u r y
capsule, the high drag variable lift questions concerning the degree of three-axis side-arm control stick and a
capsule and the glide capsule. Navy, manual vs. automatic control which Mercury-type control panel built by
Marine and Air Force pilots were would be appropriate in achieving or- the Naval Air Development Center, the
selected to participate in the simula- bital research. The simulation also seven astronauts made 147 runs in the
tion program — which evolved into the enabled evaluation of an astronaut centrifuge. Participating engineers and
astronaut acceleration simulation contour couch developed at Johnsville scientists made another 98 runs in
training program. The high drag cap- in conjunction with NASA’s Langley order to become familiar with the
sule (Mercury spacecraft) was the type Research Center. problems of launch and re-entry G
selected, based in part on the results of Later that summer, the original forces. In all, the Mercury astronauts,
some 231 dynamic runs in the cen-
trifuge. These dynamic runs explored
problems associated with each type of
craft. Further acceleration testing
commenced in June 1959 when the
centrifuge was used to simulate
boost/orbital problems anticipated

X-15, left, soars upward in quest for space


data. Below, Navy centrifuge is prepared for
test to study effect of acceleration forces.
Wally Schirra is assisted before simulated
space flight in centrifuge gondola. His right
hand rests on Mercury three-axis control.
Alan Shepard, below right, tries acceleration
couch at the Aviation Medical Laboratory.

65
NASA also called on the Naval Aero-
space Medical Institute (NAMI), Pensa-
cola, Fla., to contribute to the Manned
between 1959 and 1963, took part in Space Flight program. There a number
eight acceleration training programs of NASA-requested studies were con-
ranging from familiarization and ducted over the years, including the
equipment refinement to complete effects on man of spatial disorienta-
mission runs and continuing refresher tion, sound and vibration, and pro-
training. longed low-grade rotational forces (the
While the Mercury project was still latter in connection with problems of
being readied, other space programs providing an artificial gravity in an
were being serviced by AMAL’s cen- orbiting space station). Physiological
trifuge. They included human engi- research with small mammals at NAMI
neering studies for use in G e m i n i produced bio-packs for the primates
design, military astronauts’ classes who preceded man into space. Other
from the USAF Aerospace Research research studied the effects of pro-
Pilots School and feasibility evalua- longed weightlessness and lack of exer-
tions for NASA’s Manned Spacecraft cise on an astronaut’s cardiovascular
Center. In June 1963, astronaut train- system. Additional experiments ranged
ing for the Gemini program began. A from the study of cosmic radiations’
wide range of normal and emergency effect on the ionization of a space-
conditions were simulated and a con- craft’s atmosphere to research into the
tinuing evaluation of the Gemini cock- effects of high and low magnetic fields
pit was conducted. Studies of Apollo on man. (The moon’s magnetic field is
mission problems started a few months only one-thousandth that of earth.)
later in September and the following NAMI studies concerning capsule
month, initial full-scale Apollo simula- egress and sea survival led to a decision
tion runs were commenced to provide to develop a flotation device for the
early information for preliminary re-entry craft. The Naval Air Rework
equipment design based on the effects Facility (NARF) at NAS Pensacola got
of acceleration on crew performance. the job of developing and constructing
Training for astronauts and design the device. Under the direction of
evaluation of spacecraft equipment John Staples, a flotation collar was
continued throughout the Gemini pro- designed and fabricated for use with
gram while preparations were made for the Mercury capsule. Later, other ver-
the Apollo series. In June 1965, sions were built in NARF’s shops for
Naval Aerospace Medical Institute bio-pack AMAL completed its services to the the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft.
is fitted on monkey, Able, during early Apollo program with a series of tests Special recovery equipment for lifting
space flight. Richard Gordon, undergoes
water survival training at Pensacola, center. which evaluated two types of Apollo the capsules from the sea was also
Below, UDT members rig Navy-developed pressure suits and collected data for designed and built by the facility. Not
flotation gear on Gemini capsule. suit refinement and selection. to be left out, one other Pensacola
activity joined in advancing the space
program. NAS Pensacola’s Schools
Command assisted by providing water
survival training for the astronauts.
The Navy’s Air Crew Equipment
Laboratory (ACEL), in addition to its
earlier work in developing the Mark IV
space suit, fitted and trained the astro-
nauts in its use. During the training
phase, ACEL’s low pressure chamber,
also used for the Mercury project, was
put to use. The capsule was placed
inside and the atmosphere was evacu-
ated to near space-like conditions;
then various emergencies were simu-
lated, from fire in the capsule to loss
of interior air pressure.
N avy support for the American
manned space program does not
end with research into the upper at-
lar data to the Navy’s Blossom Point,
Md., station to support subsequent
Apollo flights.
should anything go wrong during lift-
off and they are forced to use the
emergency escape system to blast clear
mosphere or development of space-re- Satisfied that solar radiation presents of an errant booster, the U. S. Marine
lated equipment. Day to day support no obstacle to manned spaceflight, Corps is standing by on the beach. The
of the NASA program has been and NASA next called on Navy support to Marines manning two amtrac retrievers
still is an important service provided tell its launch controllers the precise 6,000 yards from the launch pad are
by Navy units. Beginning before the microsecond at which to launch the among those nearest to the spacecraft.
launch of a manned spacecraft, a spacecraft. Using the ultimate in accu- If Apollo’s escape system deposits the
195-pound Navy satellite in earth orbit racy — the Naval Observatory’s cesium capsule in the surf or on the beach, the
detects and measures the intense pro- beam atomic clock — NASA con- amtracs will rush to rescue the astro-
ton streams sent into space by solar trollers are assured of conducting nauts. Though, fortunately, the Ma-
flares. The 30-inch diameter S o l r a d launch, in-flight control and recovery, rines have not been called on, they
satellite developed by the Naval Re- with the utmost exactness. have been on duty for every major
search Laboratory, was first used at As the astronauts lie strapped to space flight since 1965 when NASA
NASA’s request to provide informa- their couches in the nose of the launch first requested that they provide sup-
tion in support of Apollo 8. Since then vehicle awaiting blast-off, they may be port for the Gemini program.
Solrad satellites have telemetered simi- comforted by the knowledge that Should an emergency occur further

73
Navy’s earth orbiting SOLRAD satellite USMC amphibious retriever vehicles stand by on Cape Kennedy beach prior to Apollo
relays solar activity data for NASA use. launch. Below, RAdm. Davis, TF-130, plans force movements in support of Apollo 13.

into the initial climb toward space,


other Navy ships are spotted along
the spacecraft’s track. In earlier flights
this included tugboats and mine-
sweepers equipped with Underwater
Demolition Team (UDT) swimmers a
few miles offshore. A variety of other
naval vessels stretch around the globe
along the planned flight path.
To control these naval units, the
Navy’s Manned Spacecraft Recovery
Force, maintains 24-hour surveillance
of ships’ positions and their readiness
condition as well as weather condi-
tions in the primary and contingency
recovery areas.
The Commander, Manned Spacecraft
Recovery Force is responsible for the
training of his force in addition to its
control and coordination. Some 200
individual ships and large numbers of
naval aircraft have participated in re-
covery operations since the Navy’s
first involvement in 1958. The re-
covery forces are divided into two task
forces: TF 140, the Atlantic Recovery
Force under control of the Atlantic
Recovery Control Center (RCCA) at
Norfolk, Va., and TF 130 under con-
trol of the Pacific Recovery Control
Center (RCCP) at Kunai, Hawaii.
Either can handle recovery during any
Two-mile-long NavSpaSur transmitter radiates a million watts. Sea Kings of HS-4 prepare to launch in support of Apollo recovery
Reflected energy detected by receiver sites pinpoints spacecraft. operation and are on station well in advance of capsule re-entry.

phase of the mission, and each con- used to fix the position of passing
tinually moves its forces to maintain spacecraft.
the best recovery positions as the Below, at sea, spread across thou-
spacecraft’s ground track shifts during sands of miles of ocean, the ships and
earth orbit. The recovery ships receive aircraft of the Manned Spacecraft Re-
up-to-date information from RCCA, covery Force wait. Destroyers, aircraft
RCCP and NASA’s Mission Control carriers and assorted auxiliaries, to-
Center. gether with helicopters, carrier-based
Task Force commanders, utilizing fixed-wing and land-based patrol air-
the recovery control centers’ complex craft, all there to perform specific
communications system, are able to missions, remain at the ready for the
maintain voice contact with all ships moment when they will play their part
and aircraft in the recovery force. The in m a n ’ s v e n t u r e i n t o s p a c e . A s
Navy communications satellite system, re-entry time draws near, the ships
now part of the Defense Satellite take up their final positions, aircraft
Communications Systems (DSCS), are launched and all eyes turn skyward
contributes to this network of control. in an attempt to detect the telltale
In addition, DSCS maintains constant streak of flame marking re-entry.
communication with the spacecraft. When it comes, and radar and visual
And, as mentioned previously, the contact are made, the recovery ship
Navy assists NASA, in another way, in (normally an aircraft carrier) and its
maintaining accurate information helicopters move toward the exact
about a spacecraft. The Naval Space splashdown point. Should splashdown
Surveillance System (NavSpaSur) devel- occur outside the planned area,
oped for DOD’s Advanced Research longer-ranging S-2 Trackers, E - l
Project Agency is capable of tracking Tracers and P-3 Orions are on station
and identifying space vehicles orbiting waiting to spot the floating capsule,
the earth. Part of NORAD since 1961 mark its position and radio its coordi-
NavSpaSur, through use of its three nates. This seldom occurs, and it is
transmitting and six receiving stations most likely that the first on the scene
in the southern United States, is able will be one of the recovery carrier’s
to determine azimuth and zenith angles airborne helicopters.

75
a poverty-stricken lot — and I am talk- of Exploration that will make the dis- But, even more important, where
ing about a project that would cost a coveries of Columbus seem tame by would we be today had we not un-
great deal of money . . . . comparison.... Landings on the moon dertaken to meet the challenge of
“If we allow events to take their and journeys to the nearer planets may space? What have been the benefits —
natural course, we will probably have well come within our lifetime — but the “spinoffs?”
space travel eventually . . . but you and these things will happen only if we As a result of space technology, man
I would very likely not be alive to see act now. is beginning to learn how to solve
it. I, for one, am not content to let the “The cost of even a satellite station problems that have beset him through-
matter rest thus. To me, one of the has been estimated at upwards of a bil- out history — hunger, sickness, social
greatest thrills of living is the emo- lion dollars — a staggering sum. But, ills, crime and pestilence. If you ask
tional lift, the sense of wonder and look, take the billion dollars and the people at NASA, they will identify
awe that comes from witnessing, first- spread it over a period of ten years of more than 3,000 spinoffs from space
hand, great human achievements. If the station’s usefulness. Divide this that are of benefit to mankind. Most
the majority of Americans feel the by approximately fifty million tax- of these have been applied in the
same way, the arguments of immedi- payers and we have just two dollars highly technical fields of medicine,
ate utility are unnecessary . . . . per taxpayer per year. Two bucks — a electronics, astronomy, geophysics,
“If the people of this country just pint of cheap whiskey. Wouldn’t you meteorology and oceanography.
want to, they can provide the give that up each year for a ringside On the Navy side of the coin, let us
‘jewels of Isabella,’ opening a new Age seat at one of the greatest adventures examine a sampling of space-related
on which mankind has ever embarked? contributions which have resulted in
To me there can only be one answer. the betterment of mankind.
A pig, rooting in the mud, would pass Foremost among these is the Navy
by a diamond for a half rotten potato, navigation satellite system, often re-
but if the people of this country ferred to as Transit, which actually
would do the equivalent, then the came about because of the curiosity of
pioneering spirit of our forefathers is two young scientists at Johns Hopkins
indeed dead, and decadence has University’s Applied Physics Labora-
truly begun.” tory (APL). In 1957, Drs. W. H. Guier
Bob Truax’s 1953 cost estimate and G. C. Weiffenbach found that
really wasn’t too far off. For example, when tracking the first Russian
the fiscal ‘71 budget for NASA is $3.6 Sputnik, they were able to fix its posi-
billion. In terms of the federal budget, tion by measuring the Doppler shift of
it represents 1.7 percent of the total — its signal. An idea occurred that if the
roughly $17 per person in one year. reverse would be true, signals from the
Since the Manned Space Program uses satellite could be used for precise po-
about one-third of NASA’s funding, it sitional fixes on the earth. As a result,
costs the average American less than the Navy navigational satellite system
$6 to have man walk on, and investi- became operational in 1964. (The USS
gate, the moon! Long Beach employed the system on a
Compare this with $400 per person round the world cruise that year.)
we spend on social actions — federal In 1967, Vice President Humphrey
expenditures for education, health, announced that the government was
housing, social security and veterans releasing the system, designed original-
benefits — or with the $35 per person ly for Navy ships, for commercial
on alcoholic beverages, $17 on tobac- shipping. Since that announcement,
co or $16 on cosmetics.* the history of the system has been well
When we consider that each of us is marked. The Navigation Satellite Set
spending nearly 25 times as much each (Navset) was used by the SS Manhat-
year on the human resources programs tan on her legendary voyage through
than on space, it becomes clear that the Northwest Passage. The Queen
even if we had no space program — Elizabeth II has used it since her
even if every dollar spent on space maiden voyage. It is employed by the
were spent on health or housing or ed- Glomar Challenger and several other
ucation — the impact on those pro- oceanographic research ships, and
grams would hardly be noticeable. cable-laying and rescue vessels.
Navset, which provides data for com-
*Statistics provided by George M. Low of puting a navigation position, costs only
NASA in May, 1970. $12,000 per unit. Its accuracy pro-

DR. FRIEDMAN AND THE CRAB NEBULAE


vides a tolerance of one-tenth of a nau- NRL pioneered solar rocket astron- “There have been,“ states Dr. Fried-
tical mile, a fact which accounts for omy with the V-2’s in 1946, and today man, “some totally unexpected sur-
the remarkable positioning of naval the program is still one of the foremost prises in this work. For instance, we
ships involved in recovery of manned in the country. The list of NRL space had some slight clues that since the
space flights. According to Captain research firsts is voluminous: ultravio- sun is an X-ray source we might find
C. J. Seiberlich, commanding officer let spectra beyond the atmospheric, stars with a somewhat higher output.
of the USS Hornet, “Had Navset not cutoff, detection of X-rays from the But what we have found are stars with-
been aboard, the navigation problem sun and associated high altitude pho- in the galaxy with a billion times the
in the South Pacific recovery of tography, the solar radiation satellites sun’s X-ray output!
Apollo 12 would have been (Solrads), and so forth. “When we look at external galaxies
considerable. In an effort to reduce the huge mass now we detect X-ray and radio-wave
The Johns Hopkins APL, which of technical achievements and goals emissions so powerful that it becomes
works largely under Navy contract, down to layman’s terms, a visit was difficult to explain the radiation mech-
also developed thin wafer-type solar made to NRL’s space research director, anism on the basis of conventional nu-
cells for use in satellites. Their heat Dr. Herbert Friedman. clear physics. It becomes a borderline
pipe, which transfers heat immediately Dr. Friedman joined NRL in 1940 question of whether there is enough
from the nuclear power unit of a and since then has conducted or di- energy in nuclear fusion available to
satellite to any other of its parts while rected programs devoted to measure- produce the emissions we are now
maintaining uniform temperature is ments of ultraviolet, X-ray and high- looking at. We find that some of these
now being used commercially in cook- energy radiations. Thinking back on the are 100 times more powerfuI than the
ing utensils. earlier days he recalls, “The V-2 gave X-ray spectrum and so one has to look
Johns Hopkins’ scientists more re- us a vehicle for sun research. One result for other, possibly unimaginable,
cently created a new rechargeable car- of the subsequent work is that we can mechanisms.
diac pacemaker to treat patients requir- now predict solar flares — and there- “But so much data is pouring in that
ing artifically generated electrical fore communications blackouts — we believe the answers will come. This
heart-triggering pulses. The problem of which have a direct bearing on our fundamental research, this looking for
reliably powering remote electrical de- manned space shots. answers without really knowing what
vices of minimum weight and size was “Beginning with the simplest forms the questions are, is necessary. Who
intensively studied for spacecraft ap- of ultraviolet and X-ray photometers, would have thought 30 years ago that
plications. Current versions of these we have progressed to moderately from nuclear physics would come
tiny (one inch, two ounce) nickel- large telescopes, image converters and atomic power, and from atomic phys-
cadmium cells require recharging every high resolution spectrographs in the ics the laser, or that from solid-state
18 months. The Hopkins team hopes present generation of rockets. After physics, transistors and molecular
to extend this to 20 years or longer. having spent so much of the early years circuitry.
Manned space flight obviously re- in the study of the sun, it was only “The first phase of exploratory sci-
quires precision in timing. Not only natural to look further out — to see ence is behind us. Now we have a level
did the Naval Observatory develop the what could be done with more distant of technological sophistication that
atomic clock,but observatory person- places. permits us to move ahead in space re-
nel have provided the star charts as- “One result of this deep space re- search with far greater economy.”
tronauts use in navigation and visual search is the supporting evidence of Navy goals in space are a mixture of
orientation. the ‘big bang’ theory that the uni- the search for scientific knowledge, ap-
The list of Navy contributions and verse was created billions of years ago plications for national defense and
their applications is too lengthy for by the explosion of a fireball.” peaceful benefits to mankind, and the
complete coverage in this general Dr. Friedman and the Navy astron- sheer human adventure of man — that
treatment. But it is worth our time to omers contend that at one time all the same old restless man — trying to
take one last look at certain activities matter for a potential universe was escape the cradle of his surroundings.
of the Naval Research Laboratory. Ob- contained in a primordial fireball, a As Dr. Friedman and others have de-
viously, such NRL work as that done tremendous single atom of 10 billion clared, “Ultimately the yield of new
on environmental systems for Polaris degrees temperature. This condition knowledge will far overshadow all the
submarine crews had its carry-over into existed only a second, then exploded more obvious benefits of space
similar systems for spacecraft. More into stars, galaxies and planets. The ra- technology.”
fascinating, however, is their actual diation from the blast still pervades
space research program. deep space and this echo of creation is
yet detectable by radio astronomy.
The evidence was obtained by an X-
ray telescope carried on an Aerobee Dawn on the Atlantic
rocket 102 miles above the White off the Kennedy Space Center.
Sands range. Photograph by JOC James Johnston

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