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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 0439.PDF
214 FLIGHT, 13 February 1959 Missiles and Spaceflight ... PROGRESS IN ROCKETRY INTERNATIONALLY known and respected as president ofthe International Astronautical Federation, the U.S. lawyer Andrew G. Haley has devoted his attention over many years tothe field of rocketry. He has now written what is clearly intended as his definitive essay on the field in general, and this impressivevolume* was published last month. The book includes chapters which outline the early history ofrocketry in a manner which surpasses anything attempted hitherto. In particular, the sections dealing with the early growth of theAmerican rocket and missile industry are of such value as to constitute a great service for posterity. In his broader histories of the international scene, Mr. Haleyis slightly less sound, and, although he tries to be scrupulously fair, one could argue that he fails to give proper prominence tothe weapons of Congreve and Le Prieur. From early history Mr. Haley turns to consideration of howrockets work. In a single paragraph we find both "This exhaust stream is often called a jet, and properly so," and "a rocket canoperate where there is no atmosphere; a jet cannot." Later in the same chapter is this explanation of the jet-deflection systempioneered by the V-2: "A stabilization system, external to the powerplant proper, adjusts the position of heavy graphite vanesplaced in the exhaust. This deflects the exhaust and moves the centre of thrust in the forward end of the thrust chamber tosome desired point off the longitudinal axis of the missile, which steers the missile, to a certain extent." And later, when the authorstarts to describe actual hardware, one's confidence becomes pro- gressively more and more sapped. The worst feature of all is that Mr. Haley appears not to beaware of the vast quantity of information which has been officially cleared for publication by his own government, and by those ofother Western nations, during the past five years. Throughout, he approaches the subject in the frame of mind which assumesthat nothing is officially known about current work; thus we get the following remarkable statements. Atlas is stated to have"inertial guidance . . . supplied by the Bosch Arms (sic) Com- pany." Titan is "designed to be a successor to the Atlas," is saidto have a second-stage engine "made by the Reaction Motors Corporation (sic)" and "initial flight tests have begun at theCape Canaveral missile test center." (As this review is written Titan has yet to get off the pad.) *"Rocketry and Space Exploration," by Andrew G. Haley. D. Van Nostrand Company Ltd., 358 Kensington High Street, London, W.14. Price Sis. Illustrated. DYNA-SOAR PHYSIOLOGIST Until recently director of the aviation medicine accelerationlaboratory at the U.S. Naval Air Development Center, Johnsville, Pennsylvania, Dr. Herbert G. Shepler has joined the PilotlessAircraft Division of Boeing Airplane Company, where he will direct the human factors group associated with the developmentof the Dyna-Soar piloted boost glide vehicle project. Dr. Shepler's most recent assignment prior to hisretirement from the Service was the study of human factors in the NorthAmerican X-15, including the develop- ment of a water capsule which wouldoffer protection for the crews of future space vehicles. Competitive contracts for first-phasedevelopment of the Dyna-Soar are held by the Boeing and Martin companies.The Boeing team includes Aerojet- General, launching-base design de-velopment and boost rocket systems development; Chance Vought, pilotcapsule and escape system develop- ment; General Electric, tracking andtelemetering system management; Goodyear Aircraft, radio guidance system management; NorthAmerican Aviation, automatic flight and landing system manage- ment and first-stage booster development; R.C.A., high-resolutionradar development; and Ramo-Wooldridge, reconnaissance system management. BIG BUSINESS Space research allocation in the 1960 fiscal-year U.S. budget pro-posed last month by President Eisenhower amounts to no less than $485.3 million. Included in this National Aeronautics andSpace Administration figure is $333.07 million for research and development, as detailed (col. 2), and the remaining money is for Dt. H. G. Shepler Bomarc is said to have "two of the Aerojet-General Corpora-tion's liquid rocket engines" and to be "produced at the Boeing Airplane Company's Wichita, Kansas, facility." Nike Herculesis said to have "a three-motor first-stage booster" while Rascal has apparently "undergone successful flight-testing, demonstratingpinpoint accuracy at up to a 300-mile target range." In a single event-packed flight, the Bell X-2 is said to have "exceeded 2,200miles per hour and gained 127,000ft of altitude before going out of control on its first flight test. It crashed due to a turn madeat too great a speed. ..." Of Britain, Mr. Haley says "a Royal Aircraft Establishment. . . advises the Royal Air Force (no mention is made of the Ministry of Supply anywhere in this chapter). . . . Rocket pro-pulsion development is carried on at Wescott (sic). . . . Other ranges are being completed at North Coates. . . . Britain ... •has started work on a 2,500-mile-range ballistic missile known as the Black Knight." After extensive dissertations upon such rudi-mentary vehicles as the Lop-Gap and Stooge, Mr. Haley says "the Thunderbird ... is a radar beam rider . . . variouslyreported as using both a solid and a liquid propellant rocket . . ."; and of Seaslug "designed by the Navy, it is being manufacturedby Armstrong Whitworth." Avro's Blue Steel is merely hinted at as a rumour. The author goes on to describe the Snarler "tested in 1950 ina Hawker P.1702 (sic)" and devotes a major paragraph to the long-defunct Sprite—but completely fails to say anything tangibleabout the Screamer, Super Sprite or Spectre. The Screamer and Spectre were the first completely controllable, variable-thrustrocket engines in the world; this journal devoted five pages to the former as long ago as July 27,1956, but Mr. Haley does not appearto have heard of it. He is similarly unconvincing when he turns to France and Canada—he tells us Velvet Glove is in productionat Cold Lake—and his illustration of an RTV-2 he describes as a "British ramjet missile." It is in fact tragic that so potentially valuable a work shouldbe marred by such weakness—and by such poor sub-editing that one reads of the "Junker Airplane Company," "Rheinmetall-Borsing" (twice), the German Institute for "Segelfug," the "U.S.S. Babero," "Captain Charles E. Yaeger" (three times), theFrench "Espadron" and the Trident "built by Ovest Aviation" (twice). It is to be hoped that the publishers, who are renownedfor works which can be relied upon, will soon issue a revised edition. Only then will it be possible to give Mr. Haley's bookthe unreserved praise which half of it already merits, w. T. G. salaries and expenses ($94.43m) and construction and equipment($57.8m). Corresponding appropriations for the 1959 fiscal year are:research and development, $50m (plus $20.75m supplementary estimate); salaries and expenses, $83.lm (plus $3.354m); con-struction and equipment, $48m (plus $24.25m). In addition, transfers totalling $154,619,532 have been made, or are beingmade, to NASA from the Department of Defense (Air Force. Advanced Research Projects Agency, Navy and Army projects). The NASA research and development total is divided intoseven main programmes, estimates for which are listed below. '..;..•;:••.• '.'•••.,:. - 1959 1960 $ million $ million Aircraft, missile and spacecraft research (support of NASA plant, JPL plant, andresearch contracts) 13.995 33.026 Scientific investigations in space(sounding rockets, Earth satellites, lunar , and deep-space probes, Vanguardprogramme) 110.563 118.344 Satellite applications investigations(meteorology, communications) 8.10 28.0 Space operations technology(manned spaceflight, space-rendezvous techniques) 37.661 73.0Space-propulsion technology (solid-fuel rockets, high energy fuel ;rockets, million-pound single-chamber • • - . : :engine, nuclear rocket-engines, space engines, auxiliary power units) 29.0 64.2 -» Space systems technology r'-(advanced vehicle systems, booster ^ recovery systems, orbiting space laboratories) 1.0 5.0' i-Supporting activities -r (tracking and data acquisition) 4.3 11.5 Totals 204.619 333.07
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