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Aviation History
1957
1957 - 1572.PDF
660 At the Congress table: (right to left) Mrs. F. C. Durant, wife of the U.S. delegate, but representing the Japanese Astronautical So- ciety; Mr. K. W. Gotland, the British delegate; Mr. L J. Carter, secretary of the British Inter- planetary Society. THE ASTRONAUTICAL CONGRESS . . . Aircraft Company), who considered the case of a Moon Com-panion on such an orbit that it would remain in a constant aspect relationship to Earth and Moon. Such a station, it was claimed,would have properties which could become useful in any lunar satellite telecommunication system and, conceivably, for checkingthe Moon and Earth mass ratio. The physical recovery of research payloads fired to great heightsby research rockets, or launched into satellite orbits, was discussed by R. T. Patterson of the Glenn L. Martin Company. In manycases research information can be telemetered ro the ground and the payload subsequently allowed to vaporize in the lower atmo-sphere, but for certain research tasks it becomes necessary to make provision for recovery. Examples of studies requiring therecovery of payloads are: primary cosmic-ray research with nuclear emulsions; geodetic, weather, astronomic and spectroscoperesearch with photographic emulsions; and environmental research with animal tissues, structural materials and equipment.The results of this study, applied to useful payloads of 25 to 200 1b in spherically nosed bodies of 1 to 2ft diameter, fallingvertically from altitudes of 2,000 miles and higher, may be sum- marized as follows: (1) entrance velocities range upward from 21,000ft/sec. (2) the useful payload must withstand decelerations of at least 109 g.(3) total heat input to the body ranges upward from 4,000 B.Th.U.— a small part of the total kinetic energy of the system. This heat inputis accommodated by allowing a part of the payload (insulating layers on the nosing) to melt. Fiberg!as-reinfo"ced phenolic resin is specified asa good insulant, which is relied upon to remove all the heat input to the body by melting. Peak heat input and deceleration occur at altitudesof 60,o60ft or higher; the du'ation of heat input and deceleration are brief (about 10 sec), the velocities of parachute deployment and impactare moderate; water recovery is advantageous; location of the payload would be facilitated by means of an in-built beacon transmitter. Of great fascination, in that they concerned physical investiga-tion at the frontier to space, were two papers dealing with the suc- cessful Man-High experiment in which Major David Simonsascended by balloon to a height of 20 miles. Otto C. Winzen, of Winzen Research Inc., first described the history of the plasticballoon which his firm had pioneered, including details of the Rockoon experiments of 1952-53 whereby small solid-propellantDeacon rockets were fired from balloons to heights of 60 miles. The same rocket, when ground-launched, he said, could reach amaximum height of only 19 miles. Project Man-High followed a series of experimental flights withanimals (mice, guinea pigs and monkeys) designed to study the effect of cosmic rays at altitudes up to 126,000ft and for exposuretimes of up to 36 hours. In the subsequent manned experiments, one daylight flight was made to 96,000ft, using a 2m cu ft balloon;and another, in August this year, to 100,000ft—a 32-hour flight with a 3m cu ft balloon. The sealed cabin takes the form of an aluminium capsule 8fthigh and 3ft in diameter, having an artificial atmosphere of oxygen, helium and nitrogen; it is fully insulated against heatlosses at night and the intense solar radiation of the daylight hours. An air regeneration system and a separate air-coolingsystem form an integral part of the climatic control. In the second paper on this theme, Major Simons spoke of theimportance of the balloon system in simulating many of the con- ditions that must be faced in a manned satellite, providing as itdoes an invaluable tool for gaining an insight into the human factors involved. These include a sealed cabin atmosphere, isola-tion, radiation heat balance, and an opportunity to observe the earth and sky from above 99 per cent of the earth's atmosphere.The many applications of this technique, he said, included the fields of space-medicine, meteorology, atmospheric physics andastronomy. In conjunction with these papers, dramatic colour films wereshown, the first depicting preparations for Project Man-High; the sealing of Major Simons in the pressure capsule, the filling of theballoon with helium, and finally the take-off from an open mine in central Minnesota. Then came the film which the balloonist FLIGHT, 25 October 1957 himself shot from within the capsule, including the m^stincredible views of the Earth and space. Even so, as Major Simons remarked, the full beauty of a sunset as viewed from 100,000ft,with a thin haze of blue on the curved horizon and red and orange light striking up towards a dark purple sky, could never beadequately conveyed on film. The atmosphere was so clear that the stars no longer twinkled but appeared as bright points of lightof quite remarkable intensity. The next stage in astronautical development, that of sending anunmanned rocket to the Moon, received attention from both Rus- sian and American speakers at the Congress. The first part of thepaper by V. A. Yegorov of Moscow University was devoted to a general investigation of the initial velocities and trajectoriesrequired for lunar missions. The second part dealt with permis- sible errors in launching, considering first "hitting trajectories"corresponding to the various initial speeds, and second the more sophisticated circumlunar orbits allowing for return into theearth's atmosphere. It was emphasized that whereas the former objective could be achieved fairly simply without any correctivethrust being applied during the period of coasting flight, the circumlunar orbit with return to earth would involve at least onepower manoeuvre. Interplanetary Ballistic Missiles—a new Astrophysical ResearchTool, was the title of a paper by Prof. S. F. Singer of Maryland University, who introduced a controversial note into the proceed-ings by suggesting that the Moon might be used as a target for ICBMs with hydrogen-bomb warheads. The technical ability toshoot ballistic missiles at the Moon was now almost within reach and his object was to show that it was both desirable from theviewpoint of testing such weapons, and worthwhile as a scientific venture. As H-bombs became more powerful the point wouldsoon be reached where tests on the earth might present a health hazard to the world's population. His proposal would do awaywith this hazard by exploding the bombs on the Moon and measuring their performance from the Earth by means of gamma-ray detectors in the high atmosphere, by light-flash as observed from the ground, and by carefully scaling the lunar crater pro-duced by the explosion. The H-bomb race between the big Powers, Singer suggested, would then be reduced to the much more tract-able problem of seeing who could make the biggest crater on the Moon. Scientifically, he said, it was quite possible that by blasting-looseportions of the Moon and recovering them on earth for chemical study, we might learn something of the origin of the Moon bycomparing chemical ratios with those of our own planet. The faster objects liberated from the Moon, the speaker said, wouldact as meteors and produce luminous and ionization effects in the upper atmosphere, but the larger objects, particularly those whichenter with low enough velocities (corresponding to the escape velocity of the earth), might land without having lost much oftheir mass and without having been greatly heated. On the whole, this paper was received with rather mixed feelingsby delegates, for it clearly raises big political issues and emphasizes the need for some kind of international agreement on space-lawgoverning the exploration and exploitation of the Moon and planets. Unfortunately, space does not permit mention of more than afew of the technical contributions to this important symposium, and in this review I have felt it best to concentrate on subjectslikely to have more immediate interest. However, first-class con- tributions were made on a wide variety of topics related to astro-nautics, ranging from the probability of intelligent life on other worlds to variable, thrust control for space-vehicles, and ionicpropulsion systems. All these papers are being published in full in the I.A.F. journal, Acta Astronautica. I.A.F. congresses have been established as annual events, andthe next will take place in Amsterdam during the last week in August next year, with the possibility that 1959 will see a meetingin Moscow. Informal moment: (left to right) Mrs. L J. Carter, Mrs. K. W. Gotland and two members of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences—Mrs. A. G. Masevich (who is in charge of the teams tracking the Russian satellite by optical methods) and Miss L. V. Kurnosova.
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