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Aviation History
1959
1959 - 2066.PDF
4 September 1959 109 for spaceflight. South Africa also might be able to offer not unattractivelaunching areas. Development costs are cheaper in the Commonwealth than in the U.S.by a factor of perhaps one-third, or in some cases even more. The development and production of modern jet airliners has shown this.The development costs of a two- or three-man spaceflight project should be, present calculations indicate, similar to those of a modern jetairliner. The U.K. has developed or is developing two modern jet air- liners. Therefore one 2-3 man manned space project whose costs werespread throughout the Commonwealth should not prove an excessive financial burden. The Commonwealth has the trained manpower and the engineeringfacilities and combined industrial resources to carry out even relatively large experiments in this field without placing too heavy a burden onits economy, providing it acts as a Commonwealth and not as a series of poorly co-ordinated single units. Know-how in rocketry is available inthe U.K. and Australia. Canada, India and Australia can all offer nuclear fuels for later more-advanced experiments. The U.K. has thethird largest nuclear engineering industry in the world. The essential facilities are present.Certain rules must, however, be rigorously followed. Firstly, cost necessitates a rigorous selection of projects. Small relatively low-costprojects to gain experience would seem to be the first choice. These could be carried out perhaps alongside very long spread-out (and there-fore less costly per annum) development work on very advanced fields of especial suitability. A good example is the field ol nuclear rockets.It would seem they will eventually be essential. This implies that rigorous limitation of development work on large complex projects usingchemical fuels in the coming years might be economically wise. Slow research and development work in the nuclear rocket field—while gaining some spaceflight experience—seems more profitable. The rule of simplicity must be firmly engraven on any U.K. orCommonwealth spaceflight project. Reliability also must be a watch- word. The utilization of existing facilities wherever possible—e.g., com-munications systems and launching or tracking bases, both Common- wealth and U.S.—should also be a maxim. . . .Design for recoverabihty or re-use is also important where many flights are projected. One journey is not always cheaper than manyjourneys in spaceflight; both vehicle size and the number of journeys involved should be closely watched in terms of expense. Launchingsite location must also be watched in terms of vehicle assembly and perhaps even manufacture. Within these limits the Commonwealth can plan. If it does so oneinteresting factor which may emerge may well be the growth of Australia not merely as the home of a U.K., Canadian, Indian and Commonwealth-fed spaceflight engineering industry. Australia may also become the centre for a new type of nuclear engineering industry concerned withnuclear-powered rockets. It will be, remember, wasteful to construct— and in the case of nuclear rockets to engine-test and develop—too manycomponents of a spaceflight vehicle far away from the launching site. This applies even when frequent air transport is available when long-term planning of developments is undertaken. When the development work on a project is to be spread over many years foresight can be usedto plan the programme for efficiency and economy. In this case it seems logical that money would be saved by the concentration of developmentwork at an early stage in the area where testing, final assembly and launching must be carried out, namely in Australia. In a paper entitled The Performance of Nuclear ThermalFission Rockets, Dr. O. H. Wyatt gave a clue to one line of research followed at Langley, Bucks, by the Hawker SiddeleyNuclear Power Co. Ltd. Unlike many earlier essays on this topic, his paper included a great deal of basic calculation in order toascertain the probable performance of rocket units in which a thermal fission reactor is employed for heating the propellantsdirectly. The fuels selected for study were U-235 and Pu-239, withgraphite moderation. Assuming 50 per cent voidage and a peak graphite surface temperature of 2,500 deg C, it was shown thatspecific impulses of 675 and 325 could be achieved with hydrogen and ammonia, respectively, at a maximum working-fluid tempera-ture of 2,000 deg C. Dr. Wyatt went on to assess the weights, calculate the burn-out velocities and describe suitable trajectories.Altogether his conclusions were that, as at present visualized, a nuclear rocket using hydrogen propellant would be as good as, orbetter than, future chemical rockets; using ammonia its per- formance would fall between that of present and future chemicalrockets. Since nuclear rockets inevitably have relatively low mass ratios, their performance vis-a-vis chemical rockets improves atlarger payloads. The first technical paper to be presented at the Commonwealth meeting was by W. T. Fisher of Bristol- Aerojet Ltd. (left), who spoke on "Alti- tude Sounding by Solid Propellant Rockets and its Economics" "Flight" photograph Presenting in the absence of the authors the paper CanadianFacilities by Dr. P. A, Lapp and A. E. Maine of de Havilland Aircraft of Canada, Mr. b. Wall gave details of the Canadianspace research committee. Formed in June of this year, the Associate Committee on Space Research was jointly organized bythe National Research Council and the Defence Research Board. Under the chairmanship of Dr. D. C. Rose of N.R.C., this grouphas co-ordination duties and will advise on international co- operation. Scientific subjects to be studied include geomagnetism,the aurora, meteorology, cosmic rays, radiation from the sun and the chemical composition of the upper atmosphere. The Canadian/ U.S. joint satellite project also was described byMr. Wall. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administra- tion had recently accepted proposals by D.R.B. for joint experi-ments, and a satellite instrumented by Canadian scientists from the Defence Research Telecommunications Establishment was tobe launched "some time after 1960" from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The satellite "will permit probing by radiopulses of the ionosphere's upper side. The vehicle will pursue a polar orbit and will direct pulses downward. This will bereflected back to the satellite and the information will be tele- metered to ground stations." As well as this satellite, two high-altitude research rockets willbe instrumented by DRTE and launched by NASA. These experiments, which will take place later this year, are designed tostudy the electron density in the ionosphere. An interesting possibility was put forward in the conclusion tothe Canadian paper. "It has been found that the intensity of the recently discovered Van Allen radiation belts decreases consider-ably in the region of the Earth's magnetic poles 3 and for thisreason it may be inferred that a launching site for manned space journeys located in Canada's remote northlands might prove to bevery advantageous. As a corollary to this, the vast territories in the north of the country, far away from population centres, wouldseem to favour the location of a large launching complex from a safety point of view. A near-polar site could be of great impor-tance to astronautics and the matter seems worth careful examination . . ." Final Discussion The chairman of the concluding session of the meeting, Dr.Hilton, posed three questions as the basis for the final general discussion: were we any nearer to British action towards a realspaceflight programme, should the Commonwealth act as a unit in this field, and where should British launching sites be located? The third of these questions received the obvious answer fromH. J. Higgs of the Weapons Research Establishment, Australian Ministry of Supply, who earlier in the symposium had presentedSome Remarks on Woomera as a Space-vehicle Tracking and Launching Station. Mr. Higgs said he agreed with the suggestionof a joint Commonwealth space authority; the organization of NASA might provide a useful guide. M. J. Brennan of Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) and formerlyof Saunders-Roe said that 20-30 lb satellites could be launched immediately, at very little expense, by using Black Knight as afirst-stage booster. G. K. C. Pardoe of de Havilland Propellers suggested that the B.I.S. could follow-up the symposium bysummarizing the full extent of British work which could be con- sidered as part of an integrated space programme. Anotherspeaker suggested that each country in the Commonwealth should be given responsibility for a specific part of the launching vehicleand satellite, after the Society had examined existing facilities and persuaded the appropriate governments to put money into a jointproject. Summing up on behalf of the British Interplanetary Society,Dr. Shepherd made two main announcements. The society would organize a second Commonwealth symposium, he said, probablyin 1961; and a joint panel would be formed to summarize the feeling of this meeting and to decide what future plans should bemade. Industry and Commonwealth-country representatives would be included in the panel membership. The Commonwealth symposium, Dr. Shepherd commented,had received little support from the Ministry of Supply (although the Ministry representation at the I.A.F. Congress was strong),but the society was delighted with the British industry attendance. It was obvious, the chairman submitted, that a spaceflight projectbased on Blue Streak and Black Knight, as outlined in the Pardoe paper, would in fact be carried out, simply because this countrywould have the hardware. He agreed with the suggestion of a Commonwealth space agency; some such organization wouldhave to be established. Earlier in the symposium Dr. Hilton had given an analysis ofthe attendance at the meeting which showed that there were 14 participants from foreign countries present. As a footnote to ourreport of the meeting it is perhaps of interest to note that the 14 included four from the Israeli Ministry of Defence, two fromthe Soviet Embassy, and one from the headquarters of Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Omaha. KENNETH OWEN
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