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Aviation History
1960
1960 - 2202.PDF
556 FLIGHT, 7 October 1960 Convention scene: a speaker addressing the Air Force Association ..:•;;. - ., during one of its sessions MISSILES AND MONKEYS By Kenneth Owen "Flight" photograph Visits to the US Air Force Association Convention in San Franciscoand to the USAF Aerospace Medical Center, San Antonio, are reported in this article, the second in a series covering a three-week tour of theUSA sponsored by the US Departments of Defense and of State and the US Information Agency. (See also pages 584-5.) Next week, theStrategic Army Corps, Fort Bragg; the Air Force Missile Test Center, Cape Canaveral; and die Pentagon, Washington. Air Force Association Convention, San Francisco (continued)N EW concepts of USAF/industry integration in fields ofmanagement and control were described on the second day of the AFA convention at an Industry Seminar withnine main speakers. One of these, Maj-Gen O. J. Ritland, com- mander of the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division, gave also areview of his Division's missile and space programmes. Of the 19 major programmes currently assigned to AFBMD,Gen Ritland said, all but five were concerned with searching out the possible advantages suggested by space. Beyond the Atlas, theimminent Titan 2 and the forthcoming Minuteman, possible follow-on missiles were being studied. "These studies include butare not limited to a still smaller, lighter-weight, cheaper and ever less vulnerable ICBM." Turning from missiles to space, Gen Ritland said: "Our imme-diate goals are early warning, observation and communications. These are the requirements of the hour, dictated by the peril ofthe times and by the raw facts of circumstance." Referring to the Discoverer programme, he added: "The fact that we have provenone recovery theory does not mean that we are satisfied with the method we have adopted as being the best or most economicalsystem possible. In fact, we have embarked on a priority effort to study the feasibility of developing a manoeuvrable capsule, toensure easy recovery at a predetermined time and place." Apart from the Discoverer, Midas and Samos satellite systems,AFBMD was engaged in five other major space programmes. In the area of space communications, the Division was working ontwo related projects designated Advent and Flag, both designed to feed eventually into a working global communications satellitesystem. Defence against the ICBM might possibly be achieved throughthe development of "orbiting sentinels," intercepter satellites cap- able of sensing the heat of a ballistic missile launch and of instantlydespatching rockets against the aggressor missiles. In addition to these various future projects, AFBMD was responsible for boost-ing the payloads required by the Transit, Tiros, Courier, Mercury, Dyna-Soar and 609A programmes. Two requirements peculiar to military space operations were"the boosting of large numbers of satellites into the celestial traffic pattern"; and the chore of economically maintaining these satellitesystems once they were in place. One possible way to reduce costs was to develop recoverable boosters—"Or we may arrive at a lowerper-pound-of-payload cost by designing and using a military launching vehicle system featuring a more economical booster.At present we are assessing the technical feasibility of each of these approaches . . ." One of the most pressing requirements,also, was to improve the reliability of the satellites' complex electronic and mechanical equipment. "On the basis of investigative studies," Gen Ritland declared,"we have evolved a concept we call SMART (Satellite Main- tenance and Repair Techniques). Present indications point toward an actual economic advantage to be accrued from manned main-tenance systems for orbital payloads—a true military reason for putting men into space." What amounts to a revolution in the management of Serviceprogrammes, involving the increasing use of non-profit corpora- tions as an integrating link between the Services and the manu-facturing companies, was described and amplified by several of the other speakers at the Seminar. As one speaker phrased it, "A needhas matured and has been recognized for a new kind of institution with a new kind of talent not readily available in proper formwholly within the military or wholly within industry." Two of these new-style organizations are Aerospace Corporationand the Mitre Corporation, whose work was described by the two company presidents, respectively Dr Ivan A. Getting and C. W.Halligan. Aerospace works as part of the Ballistic Missile Division complex at Inglewood, Los Angeles, while Mitre is a constituentunit of the newly formed Command and Control Development Division at L. G. Hanscom Field, Bedford, Mass. Both AFBMDand CCDC are elements of Air Research and Development Command. In the accomplishment of USAF missile and space missions,Aerospace Corporation acts not only as technical director and systems engineer, but also as a planning centre and clearing housefor all BMD programmes. Together with other ARDC divisions and associates, BMD and Aerospace Corp will join in the technicallink between the total requirements specified by the USAF and an integrated finished product delivered by industry. "AerospaceCorp will give technical definition to military necessities. Industry will translate that definition into usable hardware and educatedpayloads," according to Gen Ritland. The Hanscom complex comprises a number of USAF andsupporting organizations which function as a team to propose, develop and provide command and control electronic systems. Themain residents are the Command and Control Development Division (of ARDC), the Electronics Systems Center (of AirMateriel Command, the logistic team member), and the Control Defense System Office (of Air Defense Command), with supportfrom the Mitre Corp, MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, and ARDC's Cambridge Research Laboratories. Rome Air Development Centerat Rome, NY, also supports the resident Hanscom units with laboratory facilities. The problem which Hanscom faces is that in many ways weapontechnology has outpaced the technology of command and control. The speed and power of our weapons, the philosophy runs, will beof little use if our reaction time is too long. The new art for weapons must be followed by new concepts for command, controland management. One of the principal areas of Mitre's work described by MrHalligan was the conceptual planning which would establish the basic design principles for command and control systems. Thiswould deal with strategy, what was needed for peace and what must survive for various kinds of war. It would define the broadcommand for the co-ordination of these elements, and for com- munication between commands and to higher commands. Itwould determine the right balance between command and control systems, and the output would in turn be valuable for the industry'sown planning. Another of Mitre's major activities was that of inter-systemdesign. This considered questions of functional and technical compatibility among systems; common use of techniques and
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