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Aviation History
1963
1963 - 1057.PDF
1026 FLIGHT International, 27 June 1963 Missiles and Spaceflight Mr Brainerd Holmes, Director of the Office of Manned Space Flight of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and guiding brain behind the Apollo programme of manned lunar exploration, is resigning in order to return to industry (see news item below) It is believed that it is this last requirement which has proved impossible to meet with the requisite degree of certainty. Further very great difficulty is known to have been suffered as a result of limited knowledge of infra-red propagation through the atmosphere, and of spectral characteristics after absorption by (for example) carbon dioxide, water vapour, ozone and other atmospheric constituents. Many Midas satellites and components have been placed in polar orbit from Point Arguello, Calif, by US Air Force Atlas Agena booster, on some occasions synchronized to pass over a major missile launching from Cape Canaveral. The results have ob viously been discouraging; in fact, Dr Brown has testified that "the way the programme was going it would never produce a reliable, dependable system." The total Midas appropriation through FY1963 was $423m (£151.5m); "half of this," said Dr Brown, has been spent on work that "is not going to be applicable" to any future missile-detection system. HOLMES RETURNS TO INDUSTRY In the official announcement of the conclusion of the Mercury series of space flights, reported briefly last week, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration stated that the surplus Atlas boosters and Mercury spacecraft would be used "to forward other NASA programmes," and that the personnel of the Mercury team would be utilized to strengthen the Gemini, Apollo and other NASA programmes. "In the realignment of the NASA manned flight programmes," the announcement continued, "the Office of Manned Space Flight, as well as the NASA centres responsible for parts of the programme, will be realigned to permit Mr Brainerd Holmes, Director of the Office of Manned Space Flight, to return to a position in industry within the period of two years which was understood to constitute his obligation for government service at the time of his appoint ment." As for the programmes of space science, advanced research and technology, and applications, the management of the NASA centres responsible for these will be handled by the new Deputy Associate Administrator (following the resignation of Mr Thomas Dixon), when he is appointed. Dr Robert Seamans, Associate Adminis trator and General Manager, will then devote a large part of his time to "the establishment of all conditions and arrangements necessary to press forward most vigorously and efficiently with the Gemini and Apollo programmes, and to properly relate these to all the requirements and opportunities inherent in the Gemini and other manned space flight agreements between NASA and the Department of Defense." MIDAS AXED — Publication on June 15 of classified testimony given before the US House of Representatives Military Appropriations Sub-committee on May 6 reveals that the Midas (missile defence alarm system) programme has been ail-but terminated. The testimony was given by the Director of Defense Research & Engineering, Dr Harold Brown, and the published text is heavily censored. It has long been common knowledge that the technical difficulties of a system of this type are extremely severe, and the fact that the whole technology of the United States appears to regard them as insurmountable speaks for itself. Midas was a system employing a satellite in polar orbit—in one form, in synchronous orbit—to detect any launch of a large missile in the Soviet Union. Having detected such a launch, the satellite would then have to radio the information immediately to a suitable ground station. The following factors therefore arise: sufficient ground stations would have to be provided for every Midas satellite over the Soviet Union to be continuously in line-of-sight communi cation with at least one such station (one Midas station was to have been built at RAF Kirkbride, Cumberland); the detection system would have to be absolutely foolproof, and without fail respond only to the electromagnetic radiation emitted by the flame of a large rocket engine; and the detection system would have to func tion in all relative positions of Midas satellite and Soviet rocket, so that the latter could be detected against a background of Earth (day or night), the black void of outer space or the pale-blue luminous layer which separates the two. — AND BAMBI TERMINATED In the course of his House testimony referred to in the previous news item, Dr Harold Brown also announced the termination of Project Bambi (ballistic missile boost intercept). Bambi was an extension of the Midas system, capable of not only detecting ballistic launchings by any country but also of actually intercepting an enemy vehicle while it was still rising through the atmosphere under power. This would be a very much simpler task than that attempted by Nike Zeus, which has to intercept a re-entry vehicle travelling at hypersonic speed and having very low radar cross-section and a signature capable of random modifications by decoys. Bambi"s target vehicle would have been large, and followed an easily pre dictable trajectory from the moment of lift-off. Despite this apparently simple mission, the operational deploy ment of a Bambi system would be so expensive that even the United States would find it a severe burden. The DoD estimate of the cost of implementing it is said to be $50b a year. Moreover, such a proposal would involve weighty political, legal and moral issues; no lethal device is yet known to have been placed in orbit. FORD DECOYS Ford Motor Company's Aeronutronic Division, of Newport Beach, Calif, and the US Air Force Ballistic Systems Division at Norton AFB in San Bernardino, Calif, have completed negotiations on two contracts calling for the manufacture of decoy subsystems, to be carried by the Atlas F and Titan II ICBMs. The two production contracts total slightly more than $19m. Purpose of ICBM decoys is to deceive enemy ICBM defence systems. According to John B. Lawson, Aeronutronic general manager, "A potential enemy's radar would find it difficult, if not impossible, to tell an ICBM warhead—streaking down on its target —from an accompanying pack of decoys. Under such conditions his antimissiles, using this radar as their eyes, would be useless, unable to tell which was the actual incoming nuclear warhead. While it is possible to find a small target and to hit it with an antimissile it is something else again to discriminate that target out of a flock of items that appear very much alike to the ICBM defense system's eyes—the tracking radar." Lawson pointed out that the decoy subsystem production con tracts now mark Aeronutronic as a full-scale aerospace hardware manufacturer. Previously, the Division conducted research and development, but only limited production programmes. The new contracts stem from an R & D programme awarded in 1959. Titan HI Hardware Martin Company has produced its first major hardware item for the Air Force Titan III standard space launch system—a set of "battleship" propellant tanks for testing the big booster's transtage engines. The 9,7001b tanks, fabricated at Martin's Baltimore facility, were completed six days ahead of schedule, and delivered to Aerojet-General Corporation at Sacra mento, Calif, contractor for the 16,0001b-thrust engine burning storable liquid propellants. A second set of battleship tanks is being built at Baltimore for delivery to Martin's Denver division, where a major part of the Titan III work is being performed and where the core-vehicle engines will undergo ground testing.
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