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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0094.PDF
94 ATLAS . . . approaching 25,000ft/sec or 17,000 m.p.h. While technically feasible, the shutdown of a large engine to give this precise velocity was considered to require undesirable complication in the engine control system. Fine adjustment of final velocity could be achieved more efficiently by ad hoc vernier engines, which could make a thrust contribution up to sustainer cutoff and thereafter apply just sufficient thrust for attitude and velocity trimming. Project MX-1593 differed in several major respects from the original child of MX-774. Range had been increased from 5,000 statute miles to 5,500 n.m., an increase of 1.325 statute. Allowable target error was reduced. Payload requirement went up, and, although all the numbers here are still classified, atomic devices were considerably heavier then than now. Added together, the new requirements meant a bigger missile than anticipated in 1948. This in turn meant much more power than the 75,0001b thrust for the first idea based on MX-774. This constant harking back to MX-774 may seem to be stretching comparisons, but the ideas prevailing in 1951 had their origins in the work of four years before. Convair investigated a range of propellant combinations to obtain a higher specific impulse. Nowadays we all have charts to refer to, but ten years ago it took a sustained effort before lox/alcohol was replaced by lox/kerosine. Study contracts for propulsion systems went out to North American Aviation's new Rocketdyne group who were working on the Navaho engine concept, and to Aerojet-General who had already built thousands of JATO units. In a sense Convair missed the boat by not getting into the propulsion business themselves; but they would probably never have been allowed to keep all the work. It was during 1951 that MX-1593 was named Atlas. Charlie Bossart is credited with thinking of the Greeks' Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders, although the fact that Consolidated Vultee was then owned by the Atlas Corporation may have influenced the decision a little. By the sound of the eager pencils at work on the drawing boards, everything was dandy with the programme. This was not entirely the case, and Convair pressed hard in Washington for a greater sense of urgency on Atlas but were virtually ignored. This was not the first time that an aircraft manufacturer had been accused of pursuing his own interests in the name of patriotism; in Los Angeles right now North American are having the same trouble with the B-70. It took a major outside event to send another ripple across the Atlas pond. In November 1952 the first hydrogen (thermonuclear) device was exploded by the US in the Pacific. Americans were relaxed and happy that the US was again ahead in powerful weapons. Washington authorized an examination of the possible warheads which could be developed for an ICBM, and even felt some missiles should be cut out completely, when a real storm broke. In August 1953, Georgi Malcnkov announced that the USSR had tested a thermonuclear bomb, and fallout proved it. Genera/ Dynamics!Astronautics make the Atlas in a plant built for the purpose north of San Diego. Atlas D sustainer engines are prominent in this photograph of the final assembly line FLIGHT International, 18 January 19 2 I Washington woke up to wondering if the ICBM was feasihe after all. The Secretary of Defense at the time, Mr Charles Wilso i, did not think that it was, and his scientific advisers undoubted y gave him good grounds for concluding that long-range ballist c missiles were a long way off. Regrettable as it may be, many maj< .r military systems become the subjects of high-level political manoe L- vring in which the pros and cons are discussed in anything but a scientific manner. Boiled down to essentials, need is weighs d against cost; and the costs are becoming phenomenally high. Tl e fact that a military service advocates a system is not considered proof that need for that system exists in the Federal budget. It was in an atmosphere of Department of Defense hostility that the missile programme was reviewed in September 1953 by an Air-Force-sponsored committee of highly respected scientist,, with the idea that their conclusions would have to be respected by the Secretary of Defense. The Strategic Missiles Evaluation Committee was headed by the late Dr John Von Neumann, the renowned mathematician. Its members were Dr Jerome Weisner, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Dr Simon Ramo and Dr Dean Wooldridge, of the newly founded corporation of that name; Mr Lawrence Hyland, of Bendix Aviation Corporation; Dr Allen Pucket, of Hughes Aircraft Co; Dr George Kistiakowsky, of Harvard; Dr Hendrik Bode, of Bell Telephone Labs; and Drs Clark Millikan, Charles Lauritsen, and Louis Dunn, of the Cali fornia Institute of Technology. In October 1953, Dr Von Neumann, as head of a separate Air Force advisory panel on nuclear weapons, reported that smaller, lighter and more powerful nuclear warheads could be developed. In February 1954 the SMEC concluded that, with the lightweight, high-yield bomb predicted by their chairman, the ICBM with a hydrogen warhead was feasible, and could become operational in the period 1960-62. An independent Rand Corporation study came to a similar conclusion. Now that the experts had decided that the Atlas was feasible, its designers could keep on making it. Substantial revisions were made to Atlas after the Von Neumann report. The 1954 version was 90ft long, 12ft in diameter and had five engines (not counting verniers) with a combined thrust of 650,0001b. A wooden mockup was built in that year, together with a metal tank test-section. It was at this crossroad that the missile was scaled down to 75ft, with a diameter of 10ft, powered by three engines. The prevailing philosophy was "why build something bigger than we need, in view of the anticipated smaller payload"; there was no thought at all of using the weapon as a space booster. Apparently, the Russians had to build bigger boosters because of their heavier warheads. The US made a racehorse, instead of a carthorse; but who could have foreseen a space race, in which the biggest entrant wins ? The Von Neumann committee made other recommendations which had a profound effect on Convair. They regarded the technical and scientific management problems of the ICBM pro gramme as being of greater complexity than could be reasonabh undertaken by any single company. The civil service did not have the technical capability, and two respected universities (CalTech and MIT) did not want the contract when it was offered. Ramo- Wooldridge Corporation accepted—reluctantly, we are told—the job of providing technical direction and systems engineering management to the whole project. A division of Ramo-Wooldridge Space Technology Laboratories, was eventually formed to handle the task for a profit. Their creation has been a sore point with the aircraft industry ever since, and a hot spot of controversy with many companies who resented their intrusions and at times cast doubt on their competence. Despite opposition, the newly formed Air Force Ballistic Missile Division badly needed Space Technology Laboratories, and protected their progeny accordingly. Atlas is Born In January 1955, Convair* was awarded a contract to produce the post-SMEC design. It was designated Strategic Missile 65, part of Weapon System 107A-1. The pro gramme had high priority; but it was not until a secret report from Dr James Killian's scientific committee on Soviet missile progress hit Washington that the Atlas became a crash programme in September 1955. Not only was Altas stimulated, but the Titan was ordered as a backup for Atlas, essentially in case the first ICBM did not work properly. Thor, too, was ordered as a stop-gap missile of much shorter range. Both profited from Atlas work. * Since 1953 a division of Genera! Dynamics Corporation. All Ath ;.< work is now handled by General Dynamics/Astronautics, formed in 195'- •
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