Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On a cold foggy morning in the Mojave Desert,a B-36 sat on the main runway at Edwards Air Force Base,ready for takeoff. Slung beneath its bomb bay was an X-1A rocket plane,which would soon be manned by Chuck Yeager on an ambitious test flight into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Right now Yeager was sitting in the back of the B-36’s cockpit getting ready for his flight. He had a long day ahead of him.

As the Sun burned the last shreds of mist off of the runway, Veronica Lodge,Enid Rollins,Betty Cooper, and Ginger Lopez stood beside a radio relay van on the edge of the runway. Betty’s father Hal would be acting as propulsion controller for this mission. Veronica’s father Hiram would be a chase pilot,flying behind the B-36 in an F-101 to assess the flight path. Enid’s father David and Ginger’s father Michael were manning radar tracking stations out in the desert.

At 8:14 am,warning klaxons sounded and the B-36 began rolling down the runway. At 8:17,the plane took off (kicking up a cloud of dust in the process) and headed towards the southeast. A few minutes later,only its contrail was visible in the distance,tailing off towards Cuddeback Dry Lake.

——————

At 8:36,Yeager got up and moved towards the bomb bay,supporting himself with hand holds and later grabbing onto a rope ladder. Assisted by crewman Jack Ridley,Yeager entered the X-1A and the hatch was closed at 8:45. Yeager spent 40 minutes checking out his systems and listening to the banter over his helmet radio.

On the ground,the girls could hear the conversations between the planes. Hiram Lodge had taken off at 8:22 and headed due north,following the old X-1 traffic pattern towards the Three Sisters. He could see the B-36 out of his left window. At 9:16,he reported that winds and weather were Go for drop.

At 9:23,the B-36 began its run east. The final countdown began at 9:27. 

“Forty seconds,Chuck.”

”Roger. On internal battery. Rate scale checked.”

”Thirty.”

”Twenty.”

”Roger. Launch light is on.”

”14. 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,drop.”

—————-

(From Yeager:an autobiography)

OTHER VOICES:HAL COOPER

I was propulsion engineer for Chuck’s speed record break attempt,based in the control van on the lakeshore. After a normal drop at 31,000 feet, engine chambers #4, #2, and #1 were ignited and the airplane was accelerated up to .8 Mach number. A flight path was formed holding .8 Mach number up to 43,000 feet where chamber #3 was ignited and the airplane accelerated in level flight to 1.1 Mach number. A climb was again started passing through 50,000 feet at 1.1 Mach number, 60,000 feet at 1.2 Mach number and a push-over was started at 62,000 feet. The top of the round-out occurred at 76,000 feet and 1.9 Mach number. The airplane was accelerated in level flight up to 2.4 Mach number where all of the rocket chambers were cut. The flight path was very normal and nothing uneventful happened up to this point. After the engine was cut, the airplane went into a Dutch roll for approximately 2 oscillations and then started rolling to the right at a very rapid rate of roll. Full aileron and opposite rudder were applied with no effect on the rate of roll of the airplane. After approximately 8 to 10 complete rolls, the airplane stopped rolling in the inverted position and after approximately one-half of one second started rolling to the left at a rate in excess of 360 degrees per second, estimated by the pilot. At this point the pilot was completely disoriented and was not sure what maneuvers the airplane went through following the high rates of roll. Several very high ‘g’ loads both positive and negative and side loads were felt by the pilot. At one point during a negative ‘g’ load, the pilot felt the inner pane of the canopy break as the top of his pressure suit helmet came in contact with it. The first maneuver in which the pilot was able to exert any sort of control was an inverted spin at approximately 33,000 feet. The airplane then fell off into the normal spin from which the pilot recovered at 25,000 feet.

————

 Yeager: I’m down to 25,000 over Tehachapi. Don’t know whether I can get back to the base or not.
Chase (Lodge): At 25,000 feet, Chuck?
Yeager: Can’t say much more, I got to save myself.
Yeager: I’m—(illegible)—(Christ!)
Chase (Ridley): What say, Chuck?
Yeager: I say I don’t know if I tore anything up or not,but Christ!
Chase (Lodge): Tell us where you are if you can.
Yeager: I think I can get back to the base okay, Jack. Boy, I’m not going to do that any more.
Chase (Lodge): Try to tell us where you are, Chuck.
Yeager: I’m (gasping)…I’ll tell you in a minute. I got 1800 lbs of source pressure. I don’t think you’ll have to run a structure demonstration on this damned thing!
Chase (Lodge): Chuck from Lodge, if you can give me altitude and heading, I’ll try to check your flight path from outside.
Yeager: I’m at 18,000 feet. I’m about—I’ll be over the base at about 15,000 feet in a minute.
Chase (Lodge): Yes, sir.
Yeager: Those guys were so right!
Yeager: Source pressure is still 15 psi, I’m getting OK now.
Yeager: I got all the oscillograph data switches off. 4 fps camera off, it’s okay.
Bell Truck: Jettison and vent your tanks.
Yeager: I have already jettisoned the tanks. Now I’m venting both lox and fuel. 
Bell Truck: Roger.
Yeager: I cut it, I got—in real bad trouble up there.
Yeager: Over the base right now, Hiram, at 14,500 feet.
Chase (Lodge): I have you at 120,straight and true. Looking very good,Chuck. 

———-

At 9:35,Yeager commenced final approach to the runway. He landed with an audible thump not far from where the girls were sitting. They’d heard all of it on the radio.

At 9:42,a very sweaty Yeager emerged from the X-1A’s cockpit. He was given medical treatment at the base hospital and released shortly after noon. He spent the rest of the day undergoing debriefings.

————

The Bell X-1A, 48-1384, was an experimental rocket-powered high-speed, high-altitude research aircraft. It was one of four second-generation X-1s (including the X-1B, X-1D and X-1E), specifically designed to investigate dynamic stability at speeds in excess of Mach 2 and altitudes greater than 90,000 feet. It was a mid-wing monoplane with retractable tricycle landing gear. The airplane was 35 feet, 6.58 inches long with a wingspan of 30 feet, 6 inches and overall height of 10 feet, 2.37 inches. The wheelbase, measured from the nose wheel axle to the main wheel axle, was 13 feet, 5.13 inches. . The main wheel tread was 4 feet, 3 inches. The X-1A design gross weight was 10,668 pounds.

The X-1A was powered by a single Reaction Motors XLR11-RM-5 rocket engine with four independent combustion chambers. The XLR11 was fueled with ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen. It produced 6,000 pounds of thrust.

The Bell X-1A made its first flight on February 14,1953 with Bell test pilot Arthur Weasley in the cockpit. It reached its highest speed, Mach 2.44 on Flight 10 (December 12,1953). Its highest altitude was 90,440 feet on its 24th flight (September 17,1954). On August 8,1955, while still on board its B-50 drop ship, the unpiloted X-1A suffered an external explosion. The rocketplane was jettisoned and destroyed when it hit the desert floor near Delamar Dry Lake.

————-

Chuck Yeager left Edwards AFB shortly after his wild ride in the X-1A. He was later posted to Rammstein Air Base in West Germany and George AFB in California. In 1962 he returned to Edwards as Commandant of the Aerospace Research Pilots School,a post he held until his retirement from the Air Force in 1975,with the rank of brigadier general. He is currently living in nearby Lancaster and raising six dogs.

Chapter Text

In March 1954,operational testing of the Naval Research Laboratory’s Viking II rocket began at Cape Canaveral in Florida. Viking pioneered important innovations over the V-2,which had inspired it. One of the most significant for rocketry was the use of a gimbaled thrust chamber which could be swiveled from side to side on two axes for pitch and yaw control, dispensing with the inefficient and somewhat fragile graphite vanes in the engine exhaust used by the V-2. The gimbals were controlled by gyroscopic inertial reference; this type of guidance system was invented by Robert Goddard. Roll control was by use of the turbopump exhaust to power RCS jets on the fins. Compressed gas jets stabilized the vehicle after the main engine cutoff. Similar devices are now extensively used in large, steerable rockets and in space vehicles. Another improvement was that initially the alcohol tank, and later the LOX tank also, were built integral with the outer skin, saving weight. The structure was also largely aluminum, as opposed to steel used in the V-2, thus shedding more weight and allowing more payload capacity.

The director of Viking procurement was Clifford Blossom,originally from Kansas City. Blossom was born on July 22,1918. He spent his early adulthood working for Boeing,and in 1945,he was hired by North American Aviation and served on their High Altitude Transport Vehicle (HATV) design team. 

North American's HATV proposal was an ogival single-stage-to-orbit vehicle, with tanks made from 18-8 stainless steel. In common with other HATV designs, the tanks had to be pressurized to maintain rigidity. The tanks would be pressurized via gas bottles in the engine compartment and not insulated. Instead insulation blankets would shroud the vehicle on the pad, and be jettisoned at lift-off. Propulsion would be via a single central high-expansion ratio engine of 325 kN thrust, surrounded by eight low-expansion ratio engines of 127 kN thrust each. As propellant was exhausted and higher altitudes were reached, the low-expansion engines would be throttled back, allowing the more efficient central engine to provide most of the delta-V to orbit. The ascent profile involved flight to 130 miles altitude, where the liquid engines would shut down. After coast to apogee four small solid motors would fire to circularize the orbit at 350 miles altitude. Two all-moving slab tailfins provided roll stability. Pitch and yaw control were provided by throttling the eight peripheral motors. The HATV components would be delivered horizontally by rail to the pad and stacked vertically using a gantry crane. Propellant during fuelling would also be delivered via tank cars by rail. The gantry would roll back for launch, and a water deluge would cool the pad to minimize damage during launch. 

Ultimately,the HATV never advanced further than a paper study,and Blossom left NAA in 1948. In 1937,he married Penelope Herrick. Their two children,Cheryl and Jason,were born on Christmas Eve in 1943. They were raised in Oxnard,California.

———

(From The Creative Company:A History of Aerojet)

In December 1947 the Navy gave a contract to Aerojet for the development of the entire Aerobee sounding rocket, later known as the Aerobee 100. In those days, the preliminary design: activity was simple, direct, and effective - as described by Bob Gerson: "One day Young and I were assigned to prepare a preliminary design for a high altitude sounding rocket The next day we visited Caltech to review the data they had gathered on a similar rocket which they had tested in their wind tunnel. It was somewhat smaller as it was based on a 1500 lbf thrust chamber. We came back to Aerojet, and the next day laid out the Aerobee sounding rocket. We did a fairly complete weight analysis based on the known specific impulse for the 2600 lbf thrust chamber with RFNA and aniline/furfural alcohol propellants and the GALCIT drag studies. We also did a prediction of burnout altitude and final altitude utilizing stepwise integration run on an electromechanical Marchant calculator. The first flights showed the design to be conservative by about 5%."

The contract included the 2.5KS-18000 solid booster, fins, nose cone, and all the other components needed to make a complete launch vehicle. Although the motor was a slightly modified Nike Ajax, it was now defined as a 45AL-2600, and with a new AJ10 series number. The same propellants were used, and the in-line, integral oxidizer, fuel and air pressurizing tanks constituted the main vehicle structure. In 1950, pressurization was changed to helium.

Initially the 2600 lbf thrust regeneratively cooled motor suffered a number of burnouts in the converging section of the nozzle. It used a spiral flow, fuel cooled configuration, with the fins that directed the flow being welded to the outside of the chamber wall and machined for a close fit with the inside of the cylindrical outer case and a smooth filler block in the nozzle area. A very simple change solved the problem permanently. It seemed likely that the chamber might be undergoing elongation and distortion from the thermal and pressure loads, and thus the filler block would lose contact with the tops of the fins. This allowed axial bypassing (and reduced velocity) of the coolant flow that might be causing the hot spots. The fix was to move the fins from the OD of the nozzle to the ID of the filler block, and to cut the block into two sections that were spring loaded in the fore and aft direction. This resulted in maintaining contact with both the converging and diverging portions of the nozzle wall, and no bypassing. It worked like a charm on all subsequent Aerobees and the B-47 motors.

In 1955 the 4000 lbf thrust model was introduced as the AJ10-24, and later as the AJ11-21. Chemical pressurization was developed for both the 2600 and 4000 lbf models, but Helium was generally preferred. This thrust chamber assembly was used in all subsequent 150, 150A and 170 vehicles. In the 1952-53 time period a larger vehicle with greater propellant capacity and increased thrust and nozzle expansion ratio motor was developed, and was known as the Aerobee 300. The 4000 lbf unit with a nozzle expansion ratio of only 4.6 actually produced. 4100 lbf thrust at sea level, and 4728 lbf at altitude. The 300 series (using the AJ60-92 motor) with the 10 to 1 nozzle produced a vacuum thrust of 5074 lbf. During 1960-61 the Aerobee 350 was developed, and this used a cluster of four 150 motors with a Nike solid rocket booster: Other variations included the Aerobee-Hi, the 200, and the 350A. Customers included the Army, Navy, Air Force, NASA, and a variety of other government agencies, as well as foreign users, and 1025 complete vehicles were produced.

Sounding rockets were crucial to our early understanding of the upper atmosphere, and near space environment. They also provided invaluable information on the lower atmosphere and surface environment, oceans, winds, weather, and many phenomenon of interest to the military. Their third major area of use was the early examination of outer space, the sun, planets and other astral bodies. A large part of this understanding was obtained using sounding rockets, in most cases launched by Aerojet. In fact, Aerojet sounding rockets made up 51% of all U. S. sounding rocket launches (184) and reached the highest altitude (290 km) in the period before satellites, if the captured V-2s are excluded.

The Aerobee was launched from a tower, approximately 100 ft high. The tower was slightly canted in the up range direction to give the vehicle a measure of direction within the Range. The first tower was designed by the architect-engineer Division (Aetron), and built at White Sands Proving Grounds. Chan Ross participated heavily in the detail design of the vehicle with Bob Young. Some novel design features were developed for the high pressure fuel and oxidizer tanks. Significant was the submerged arc welding of a special cold-rolled stainless steel (19-9DL) to withstand over 100,000 psi tensile stress across the welded section. Also the use of machined ring forgings to form the knuckle radii and skirt attachment section was considered a first. These features allowed the entire vehicle to be smaller in size than would have been possible otherwise. Bob Young, Chan Ross, and Thorpe Walker, the Project Engineer, spent many days at White Sands during the early firings.

The Aerobee Program produced a fascinating folklore of its own, which Aerojet veterans still like to recall. For instance: in the early flight tests there was considerable trouble with exactly where the vehicle was going to impact when it landed. Many of the stories concern this problem. After the vehicle reached its zenith and started back towards Earth, the aerodynamics of the fins would give it a nose down attitude. If there was any wind at all, the unit would take a slight heading into the wind, the angle depending on the wind velocity. Thus, if one were to calculate an impact point, it required a rather precise knowledge of the ballistic wind situation. This is something that could only be estimated, as it was changeable. On this one occasion at White Sands, the wind direction changed soon after launch and was blowing rather severely from the south. The tracking equipment could not predict impact changes and, as a consequence, the destruct system was not activated. The Aerobee headed for Mexico, about fifty miles to the south. It landed a few miles outside the city limits of Juarez, killing a lone cow in a field. It was an international incident requiring an apology by the State Department.

Aerobee pioneered the use of high altitude photography to study meteorological phenomena including cloud patterns. From this work the concept of weather satellites and some of the sensors were derived. The first maps of the earth's atmosphere, showing variations of temperatures and pressures with altitude and variations of composition, density and turbulence between the many layers, were from sounding rocket data; much of that was from the Aerobee. Aerobee was the first U. S. space vehicle to carry mammals 2200 mph into space (1954) and return them safely --- monkeys (Patricia and Mike) and mice (Mildred and Albert). The mice became attractions at the National Zoo and Mike lived nine more years. In the mid 1970s Aerobees were built to be recovered by parachute. They were then refurbished and ready to be turned around to fly again. This enabled the development in the early 1990s of the Aquarius reusable light cargo booster.

 ————-

Atlas began with a US Army Air Corps request for proposal in October 1945 for long-range missile designs. By 10 January 1946, Consolidated-Volte's engineers, under the leadership of Belgian-born Karel Bossart, submitted their proposals for two 6,000-nautical mile missiles: one subsonic, winged, and jet powered; the other supersonic, ballistic, and rocket powered. New technologies proposed for the ballistic missile included extremely low structural weight through use of steel monocoque single-wall construction tanks, kept rigid by internal tank pressure; gimbaled rocket engines; a detachable warhead section; and nearly single-stage to orbit performance through the stage-and-a-half' approach of jettisoning the booster engines during the ascent.

On 19 April Convair received a contract for $1,893,000 to fabricate and test ten MX-774 Roc missiles to verify Bossart's innovative ballistic missile concepts. Captive testing of the MX-774 research rockets began in San Diego in 1947. In June, Consolidated Volte was notified that it had lost the cruise missile competition; Northrop and Martin received contracts for development of their subsonic jet-powered cruise missile designs. Defense cutbacks forced the Air Force to terminate the MX-774 contract in July 1947, only three months before the first scheduled flight. The remaining contract funds allowed three MX-774 missiles to be test-launched at White Sands Proving Ground in July-December 1947. Further work at Convair was reduced to low-level design activity using company funds.

The outbreak of the Korean war and the beginning of the cold war loosened the federal purse strings. Convair received a new contract (MX-1593) in September 1951 to begin design of a ballistic missile incorporating the design features validated by the MX-774. In 1953 the now-Convair Division of General Dynamics presented a plan to the Air Force for an accelerated program.

A major propulsion problem in the early 1950's was that liquid rocket motor ignition reliability was less than 50 percent. This led to the stage-and-a-half concept, with all engines ignited prior to lift-off and the booster engines jettisoned during flight. This allowed confirmation that all engines were functioning correctly before releasing the missile for flight.

A full go-ahead for the Atlas design was ordered in January 1955 as Weapon System WS107A-l. At Convair the project was known the Model 7 (in Russia, Sergei Korolev was working on the competing R-7 ICBM - evidently both sides wanted to use the lucky number). In September 1955, faced with intelligence reports of Russian progress on their ICBM, the Atlas received the highest national development priority. The project became one of the largest and most complex production, testing, and construction programs ever undertaken. The first propulsion system and component tests were conducted in June 1956; the first captive and flight-test missiles were completed later the same year.

Chapter Text

The Atlas was the first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) deployed by the USA. Its descendents are still in use today as civilian and military space launch vehicles.

The Atlas development can be traced back to the days immediately after World War II, when captured German rocket and missile technology supported many new missile research studies. In April 1946, Consolidated-Volte (later Convair) began project MX-774 to study long-range ballistic missiles. The studies led to a test rocket, designated RTV-A-2 Roc, which was to pioneer several new design techniques which would later be used in the Atlas. The Roc featured a gimballed rocket nozzle to steer the vehicle by thrust-vectoring instead of weight- and drag-increasing control fins, and had a separable nose cone for the payload. The most radical feature of the RTV-A-2 was its internal pressure stabilized flight structure. The missile's skin was very thin, and was inflated by internal pressure like a balloon. This significantly reduced the empty weight of the vehicle. However, it also made the missile rather fragile, because a single hole in the skin would lead to the collapse of the whole structure, just like a limp balloon. Because limited funding allowed only to pursue the most promising missile projects, and long-range ballistic missiles were deemed to be too far in the future, MX-774 was cancelled in June 1947. However, Convair was allowed to complete three Roc vehicles, and the first of these flew in July 1948. All three flights were only partially successful but helped a lot to validate the new design concepts.

After the cancellation of MX-774, Convair continued low-key internal studies on ballistic missiles, developing the idea of the "one and one half" stage rocket. In this type of design, both booster and sustainer engine(s) would ignite at lift-off, and the boosters would be dropped later in the flight. This circumvented the difficulty of having to ignite the sustainer at high altitude, which was then considered a potential problem. When military funding sharply increased after outbreak of the Korean War, Convair was awarded a contract for the long-range ballistic missile project MX-1593 in January 1951. Later in 1951, the USAF decided to assign aircraft-like designations to its guided missiles, and the designation B-65 was assigned to the MX-1593 missile (named Atlas by this time).

In 1953 Convair had completed the initial design studies. The Atlas was to be a huge 90 ft long, 12 ft wide rocket, with five engines producting 600000+ lb of total thrust. The size was deemed necessary to launch the expected very heavy (65 ton) thermonuclear warhead to intercontinental range. Because of the limited accuracy of then available intercontinental guidance systems, a megaton-class thermonuclear warhead was necessary for the Atlas to be effective against hardened targets. A ten-year development program was approved, with an initial operational deployment planned for 1963. To minimize risk, it was decided to develop a single-engine test vehicle first, designated X-11, followed by a three-engine X-12 test vehicle and an XB-65 five-engine strategic missile prototype.

In 1954, the H-bomb tests in the Pacific showed that the warhead for the Atlas could be made significantly smaller and lighter than expected. Therefore, the five-engine XB-65 design was cancelled and replaced by a much smaller three-engine design. The booster engines were North American (Rocketdyne) LR89, and the sustainer engine was a Rocketdyne LR105 enigne, both fueled with RP-1 (kerosene) and liquid oxygen. Two small Rocketdyne LR101 vernier engines were used for fine-tuning thrust and directional control. The whole Atlas propulsion system was known as MA-2. In 1955, in the light of discovering Russian ICBM activities, the Atlas development was accelerated, and it was approved to flight test preliminary prototype models which lacked some feartures of the planned production missile. The XB-65A Atlas A had only booster engines, and a dummy warhead. In August 1955, the USAF dropped all aircraft-like designations for guided missiles, and the Atlas became the SM-65.

———-

Personnel of NACA Langley and Ames Aeronautical Laboratories were engaged in research on aerodynamic characteristics of reentry configurations. Knowledge acquired from these efforts along with those of industry and the military services was used in Project Mercury, proved the ablation theory for the Army's Jupiter missile development program, and was used in the Air Force intercontinental ballistic missile nose cone reentry program.

As the result of a contract signed in January 1955,the three-stage, solid-propellant X-17 was built to test experimental nose cones and to gather data on reentry phenomena. The RTV was primarily intended to facilitate the investigation of heat transfer at high mach and Reynolds numbers. The USAF X-17 flight test program at Cape Canaveral studied reentry problems by simulating reentry velocities and conditions with a three-stage solid-fuel Lockheed X-17. A total of 26 X-17 flights were conducted until March 1957.

——-

Spaceflight was also fast becoming an influence in popular culture during the 1950s.

Man in Space was an episode of the American television series Disneyland which originally aired on March 9, 1955. It was directed by Disney animator Ward Kimball. This Disneyland episode was narrated partly by Kimball and also by such scientists Willy Ley,Heinz Haber,and Wernher von Braun, as well as Dick Tufeld of Lost in Space fame.

The show talks briefly about the lighthearted history of rockets and is followed by discussions of satellites, a practical look (through humorous animation) at what humans in space will have to face in a rocket (both physically and psychologically, such as momentum, weightlessness, radiation, even space sickness) and the first manned space mission. The sequel,Man and the Moon,aired on Christmas Eve 1955. It was also directed and partially narrated by Kimball. 

It begins with a humorous look with a man's fascination with the Moon through animation. This segment features characteristics of the Moon depicted from William Shakespeare and children's nursery rhymes to lunar superstitions and scientific research. Then Kimball comes on with some information on the Moon, supplemented by graphics. Kimball then introduces Dr. Wernher von Braun, who discusses plans for a trip around the Moon. Dr. Wernher von Braun was employed as a technical consultant on this film by Walt Disney, and on a number of other Disney films. He had a great knowledge of rockets, as he had helped to develop the V-2 rocket while working for Nazi Germany.

Finally, a live action simulation from inside and outside the manned Lunar Reconnaissance Ship RM-1 dramatizes what such an expedition might be like, including an almost-disastrous hit by a very small meteor. Towards the end, this film presents what seems to be a bit of 'sci-fi'; as the RM-1, crossing the Moon's night side, approaches the night/day terminator, high radiation is suddenly detected, and a flare fired over the area reveals what looks like a rectangular double wall, or the ruins thereof, extending out from a crater; strangely, none of the crew remark on it, and the unusual radiation isn’t mentioned again. This episode later reaired in 1959 under a new title: Tomorrow the Moon.

The final episode in this trilogy,Mars and Beyond,aired on December 16,1957. It was directed by Kimball and narrated by Paul Frees. 

The film begins with an introduction by Walt Disney, who provides a brief overview of the episode. The overview starts with an animated presentation about mankind seeking to understand the world in which he lives, first noticing patterns in the stars, and developing certain beliefs regarding the celestial bodies. Theories from scientists and philosophers are discussed, including Ptolemy's inaccurate, but formerly-accepted geocentrism-related theories, as well as those of Copernicus's accurate and, now, confirmed heliocentric model. Life on other planets is considered, soon focusing on Mars. Ideas from science-fiction authors H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs are brought to life with more colorful animation, and, as done before, science fiction comics of the time are parodied. This segment also features Kimball's comic tone and a cameo appearance by Donald Duck.

After these scenes, the program adopts a serious tone as it profiles each of the planets in the Solar System, explaining what would happen if a human were to live on each of them. The program claims that, whereas most of the planets are either too cold or too hot for life as we know it, life on Mars could almost be normal. This importance becomes the main focus of the rest of the film. Dr. E.C. Slipher then discusses the possibility of life currently on Mars,before more animation speculates at what the conditions on Mars might be like in the future.

The program wraps up with what a trip to Mars would entail for a space crew and its vessels. Contributor/spacecraft designer Ernst Stuhlinger presents his design and details regarding a unique umbrella-shaped Mars Ship: The top portion would be a revolving outer quarters ring providing artificial gravity for the crew of 20 under 'parasol' coolant tubes. At the other end, a sodium-potassium reactor would provide power to the midsection electric/ion drive. Attached upright would be a chemically-fueled winged tail-lander. The mission shown involves six Mars ships with top speeds up to 100,000 miles per hour take a 400-day spiral course to Mars. There, a crew would spend 412 days on the surface before returning to Earth. The film envisions what some of the life on Mars might be like, including bizarre flora and fauna that inhabit the Martian world.

Chapter Text

From Life magazine, May 5,1956:

An American Family, part 14:the Blossoms

By Alice Cooper, with photography by Fred Hurley

Oxnard is one of the most scenic towns in Southern California. With its twin community of Ventura it forms an interesting summer destination that will appeal to almost every kind of tourist. There are beaches,stores,and restaurants of many types.

One of the families impacted by Oxnard’s prosperity is the Blossom family. Clifford,Penelope,Cheryl,and Jason Blossom live at 32 Orchard Road,just outside of town. Their house is an attractive two story with grey trim built in the Colonial style so popular around here. There is a garden out front with orange trees,something I’d heard about but never seen before,and hydrangeas of all kinds.

Inside,the house is a mix of old and new. The ceilings are built in post and beam style with curved edges,and a new color TV set enjoys pride of placement in the family room. Throw pillows adorn a segmented yellow couch,and the family dog,Jack,gets his own pillow in the new sunroom. 

Clifford Blossom’s study is filled with old drawings and photos from his North American days. “I like to keep them here to refer to”, says Blossom,37. “They remind me of the good old days”.

Adjoining the study is a combined dining room and kitchen with a new range,a refrigerator capable of storing 90 food items at once,and a rosewood table. The windows here look out on the new garage,which houses the 1952 model Chevrolet Chevron 3 that the Blossoms drive.

Chapter Text

The origins of HARP can be found in the later half of the 1950's when several related gun propulsion projects were conducted in Canada and the USA. The two notable centers of research at the time were the Canadian Armaments and Research Development Establishment (CARDE), Aerophysics Wing, under Dr. Gerry Bull and the US Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) in Aberdeen Maryland under Dr. Charles Murphy.

At CARDE Bull worked on many aspects of aerodynamics and ballistics for both missile and gun propulsion systems. When no major government-authorized projects were in progress, Bull conducted many small projects related to ballistics and particularly high velocity guns. Although much of Bull's work revolved around military development he also worked on several different types of gun propulsion systems and on development of essential components (such as gun-launchable radio transmitters and electronics). It is interesting to note that at the time the US Army had posted several officers at CARDE not only to co-ordinate efforts with the Canadians, but also to keep a close watch on the unique work that Bull was doing there. Ironically Bull soon learned that although it was next to impossible to get money from his cash-strapped superiors for quick experiments, the US officers had their own budget and would fund most any worthwhile endeavor.

It was at CARDE that Bull developed his gun-launched satellite concept. He also gained an international reputation for his brilliant ballistics work. In the process made many friends within the US military establishment that would serve him well in the coming years.

Concurrently the US Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory was also working on various gun propulsion systems. Of particular note were their efforts to develop a small gun-launchable high altitude atmospheric probe. In the 1950's there was a substantial need for an inexpensive alternative to rockets for gathering information on the upper regions of the atmosphere that the new jet planes were approaching.

Early BRL experiments with dart-shaped vehicles capable of ejecting radar reflective chaff at high altitudes proved successful. This led to the development of the BRL 5-inch gun system capable of lofting a 26 lb. Sub-caliber gun probe to an altitude of 50 miles. This gun system was used extensively during HARP (300 flights) for atmospheric research and was the foundation for all future HARP gun systems. Bull and Murphy found that they shared many professional and personal traits and became fast friends.

It was also during this time that Gerry Bull's political problems began. Mostly due to childhood insecurities, Bull had difficulty separating criticism of his professional work from personal attacks. He also had little patience for the ponderous bureaucracy above him, which he saw at best as wasteful and incompetent. This belief stemmed from the slow rate at which research proposals were handled by the bureaucracy and the inefficient manner in which they were finally implemented. Bull was both vocal and tactless in his criticism of his immediate superiors and the other government departments that he dealt with. He won few friends by calling many officials 'cocktail scientists', along with other, less polite, names. The animosity this generated would haunt Bull for years to come. To Bull's credit his opinion was shared by many others including Murphy who was 'amazed' at the 'incompetence' he found at CARDE at the time.

By the early 1960's both the professional and the scientific elements for a project such as HARP were in place. All that was needed was a catalyst to get things started.

1961

In early 1961, after a decade at CARDE, Gerald Bull resigned his position in frustration. It did not take long for word to spread that Bull was now a freelance consultant. Many employment offers, particularly from the USA, came his way. But Bull, now with a wife and children, did not want to leave Canada. Over the past decade he had developed strong family and community ties and he was reluctant to leave the country. He was also convinced that Canada had the capability of becoming a great spacefaring nation and that his supergun concept would be the means.

Early in the year Bull was approached by Donald Mordell, the Dean of Engineering at McGill University. As well as being a notable engineer in his own right, Mordell shared Bull's dream of a satellite gun. He wanted to join with Bull to make the dream a reality. On June 5, 1961, at the age of 34, Gerald Bull became the youngest professor ever appointed by McGill University. This provided Bull with employment and gun research opportunities while the details of the supergun project were worked out . The HARP odyssey had begun.

Over the summer of 1961 Bull and Mordell drew up the plans for the HARP project and Mordell began to seek funding. The HARP plan was immediately turned down by Bull's opponents at the Canadian Defence Research Board. In August Mordell approached the Canadian Department of Defence Production (CDDP) for funding.

Convinced the spin-offs from the HARP project would more then pay for their investment, the CDDP made a verbal promise for a grant of $500,000 with the understanding that it would take at least six months to work through the red tape. Eager to begin at once, Mordell and Bull approached McGill University's board of governors for a $200,000 advance to develop a gun range and set up initial operations. Based on the CDDP's assurances, and the pair's contagious enthusiasm, McGill agreed to the loan. The understanding was that they would be paid back in a few months when the government funding came in. All the pair needed now was launch site.

Initially it was assumed that the HARP launch sites would be conveniently located in the wilds of northern Quebec near McGill, but Donald Mordell had another idea. The ultimate goal of the HARP project was the development of a satellite launcher. Therefore a site close to the equator, to take advantage of the extra velocity imparted on a satellite launcher by the earth's rotation, would be far better. At the time McGill University was supporting two research stations on the island of Barbados. Donald Mordell had the notion that the island would make an excellent location for the high altitude flight range.

In the early1960's Barbados was still a relatively impoverished nation. They were more then happy to host a project with the potential of HARP. At 13 degrees north of the equator, Barbados was an excellent site for satellite launches. It also allowed for thousands of miles of downrange area over the Atlantic Ocean for the safe impact of projectiles.

In October of 1961 Gerald Bull travelled down to Baltimore, Maryland, to visit his old friend Charles Murphy, then head of the U.S. Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL). Murphy, like Bull, was an old artilleryman. A project with the potential of HARP was a soft sell. Murphy was so eager to join, in fact, that within days he had located and acquired for the project the largest artillery piece in the American arsenal - a 16-inch battleship gun complete with a land mount and surplus powder charges. BLR also contributed a heavy-duty crane to move the gun and a $750,000-dollar radar tracking system. It was promised that all of these items would be delivered as soon as a launch site was finalized.

The US Army's generous support was a much-needed boost for the HARP project. But their support was more then purely scientific. At the time the US Army was in a political battle with the US Air Force over control of the new domain of space. After all, an Army rocket launched the first US satellite after the rockets of other services had failed. The US Army was determined to capitalize on its successes. HARP was seen as a means of maintaining a hand in space defense research while publicly declaring that they were only contributing to a major research project that was studying long-range artillery ballistics. In the end the US Army would loose out to the Air Force for control of space operations and this ongoing political conflict would later prove a grave hindrance to the development of the Martlet 4 satellite launcher.

Everything looking rosy and the early development of the HARP facilities was proceeding smoothly. However Bull's political enemies conspired to defeat HARP before it started. It began when the Department of Defence Production in Ottawa denied the $500,000 grant that they had verbally promised in the spring. The official reason given was that McGill was not an 'industrial concern'. Had a private corporation applied, the grant would have been given. Memos and innuendo began to fly around Ottawa claiming, among other things, that HARP would 'not open up any new possibilities whatsoever' or that it was no more then a publicity stunt. Even though it was admitted that the theories were sound, it was claimed that HARP would never work in practice.

1962

In March of 1962 Mordell and Bull held a press conference officially announcing the HARP project. The presentation included models of Bull's Martlets, named for the bird on the McGill University crest. The media was suitably impressed. The HARP project was not as nearly advanced as the press was led to believe. However the press conference had been held not just to introduce HARP to the world but also to force a continuing commitment by McGill's upper echelons.

With the media's attention focused on it, and the support of the US Army, the HARP project developed a momentum of its own. McGill University found they had no easy way out of the $200,000 advanced loan. To belay criticism of the projects funding, McGill University announced that HARP would not be financed by the university itself but by 'contracts from governments and institutions desiring to utilize this unique research facility'. In practice this simply meant the US Army.

In April HARP began the process of installing the big 16-inch gun on the island Barbados. A gun pit was dug into the island's coral base. A concrete emplacement was pored so that the barrel could be elevated to vertical. By May the gun pit was ready and the big 16-inch gun was on its way to its new Caribbean home. As a further example of the US Army's enthusiasm for the HARP project, they conducted the largest peacetime, over-the-beach-landing operation in history. The 16-inch gun barrels and equipment were placed on flat bed rail cars and then loaded onto the tank landing ship the USS John D Page.

The rough coastline at the range site did not allow the gun barrels to be landed adjacent to the range site. The Page had to land the barrels about 7 kilometers down the beach. From there they were transported to the gun site by laying a temporary railway track and tractoring the rail cars along. With only 450 meters of track available, sections of track were pulled up as soon as the loads had passed and relayed in front. Once at the site the gun mountings and yoke were installed on the concrete emplacement and the barrel was maneuvered into place. Installing the first barrel was a long and tiring process with workman and scientist alike pulling and straining to man oeuvre the 40-ton gun barrel into its final position.

By the end of the summer of 1962 the gun was in place and the other facilities were nearing completion. Workshops, storage buildings, propellant magazines, telemetry and radar installations, and a multitude of other facilities were constructed. The Barbados launch site was beginning to take the form of a modern space launch complex.

With the big 16-inch gun in position, and the launch site facilities in place, the real work of the HARP program was set to begin.

1963

In January the HARP team was back at Barbados and ready for their first test flights. An initial test series 12 launches was scheduled. It was hoped to break the current gun-launched altitude record of 70 km, set two years earlier by BRL. As with many start-up operations this first test series was plagued by equipment problems. These included a leaking recoil mechanism, which delayed the first flight by some six hours.

On the twentieth of January 1963 the big gun roared for the first time as it fired its first test shot into the clear blue sky. This was the first time in history that a gun of this caliber had been fired at an angle of near vertical. From a cloud of flames and smoke a 315 kg test slug was hurtled into the air. With a launch velocity of 1000 m-s and a flight time of about 58 seconds the wooden slug rose to an altitude of 3000 meters before coming down a kilometer off shore.

On 21 January the first Martlet 1 was launched. It flew for 145 seconds and achieved an altitude of 26 km. On 23 January a second test slug was flown. On 1 February a second Martlet 1 reached an altitude of 27 km. This was the first flight of a Martlet with a radio transmitter beacon that allowed the vehicle to be tracked throughout the flight. With these four successful flights the first test series ended.

The next series of test flights was conducted in early April using the new Martlet 2. The Martlet 2 vehicles performed well and upper atmospheric research with the 16-inch gun began. By the end of June a new world's gun-launched altitude record of 92 km had been set with a Martlet 2 by the big 16-inch Barbados gun.

1963 also saw the development of the first gun-launched rockets. The Martlet 3A program began in the spring of 1963. Test firings commenced in September with launches proceeding to the end of the year. (For further details see the entries on the Martlet 3A and Martlet 3B vehicles.)

Impressed by HARP initial results the US Army agreed to fund the project for $250,000 a year.

By the end of the year some 20 Martlet 2 vehicles had been flown with altitudes of 80 km being regularly achieved. A great deal of atmospheric information was obtained. Of greater value was the information that was obtained on the internal ballistics of the 16-inch gun and the flight performance of the Martlet 2, Martlet 3A and 3B vehicles.

1964

1964 opened with more Martlet 2 flights. Early in the program it became policy to conduct a launch series at the beginning of each year. This served several purposes. Primarily, it allowed multiple data sets to be obtained over a fixed site at a fixed time of the year. This made it possible to compare the progressive weather conditions over many years. It was also not lost on the HARP staff that Barbados was somewhat more pleasant in the month of January then up north in Canada.

The Martlet 2 quickly become the workhorse of the program and proved itself by carrying many diverse payloads. The Martlet 2's could be launched for a cost of about $3000 each at intervals of less then an hour. Over the length of the HARP program some 200 Martlet 2's would be launched, making it as one of the most successful sub-orbital vehicles ever developed.

Impressed by the results of the HARP program, the US Army soon agreed to increase their annual finding from $250,000 to $1,500,000 per year. The Canadian government was still not funding HARP in any significant manner, but at least McGill was assured that their initial start-up loan was repaid.

By March of 1964 the Canadian government had come to terms with the US Army. Joint funding of $3,000,000 per year was agreed upon. It was decided that the US Army's payments were to go through the Canadian government, which formally contracted McGill University to administer the program.

But HARP's financing worries were far from over. McGill University was forced to once again fund HARP until the administrative concerns were addressed and the Canadian funding was available. Almost immediately HARP's opponents in Ottawa set to work to sabotage the operation again. The funding for the fiscal period of July 1964 to June 1965 was greatly delayed. The University advance the project some $500,000 to continue operations. The Canadian government did not release the projects funds, including the US Army's share, for some 10 months into the fiscal year. This was to be a pattern of bureaucratic sabotage that would plague the program to its end.

A major factor that was to shape the future operations of HARP was that the US Army was loosing its battle to dominate space operations. As a result they were soon forbidden to conduct launches above 100 km. This resulted in restrictions in the HARP funding formula. Subsequently all funding for HARP's orbital program had to come from the Canadian portion of the funding only.

Funding concerns slowed many of HARP's research and development programs. Even though they proceeded as smoothly as events permitted, many aspects of the project, including the orbital program, suffered unnecessarily. Much of the HARP research at this time was focused on fundamental research and development. Even though constrained, much was learned about the interactions of the HARP gun systems and their vehicles.

One of the most significant events of the year was the opening of the Highwater test range. It was recognized early in the program that it would be advantageous to have a second launch site near McGill University where basic research could be conducted. Ideas could be then tested swiftly without the need to travel all the way to Barbados. A suitable site was found near the Canadian-US border, which just happened to be owned by Bull's extended family.

The Highwater test range quickly became as important to HARP as the Barbados launch site and a second 16-inch gun system was installed. The Highwater gun was used for horizontal test flights only and could not be elevated higher then 10 degrees. The 16-inch horizontal gun range was some 1000 m long. It allowed new vehicles and systems to be tested under gun loads and in free flight while being monitored by a myriad of instruments. This range was also used for testing smaller gun systems and launch vehicles.

The Highwater test site also had the distinction of being the only inland high altitude flight range in Canada. It was not long after the Highwater site opened that high altitude test flights with the 5-inch BRL guns began. These flights carried payloads to altitudes of over 70 km and focused on measuring upper atmospheric conditions.

The workshops of the Highwater range became the project's primary construction facility. Experimental components and vehicles could be produced and tested at Highwater in short order. It is notable that the inconstancy of the HARP program's funding required a level of improvisation rarely seen in a world-class space program. Much of the credit for the project's technical achievements was due to the ingenuity and expertise of HARP's engineers and craftsmen.

1964 also saw the first attempts to improve the overall performance of the 16-inch gun system. The primary mechanical method selected to improve the performance of the 16-inch gun system was to lengthen the barrel. A few years earlier BRL had lengthened a standard military gun barrel by welding a second section of barrel to the muzzle of the first. Tests of this 5-inch gun demonstrated a higher muzzle velocity for a given vehicle. This was due to the simple fact that the longer barrel allowed the propellant gasses to push on the projectile for a longer time period of time, resulting in a higher velocity at muzzle exit. This resulted in a corresponding increase in the maximum altitude a given vehicle could achieve. This exact same concept was to be applied to the 16-inch gun on Barbados.

The first attempt at extending the 16-inch gun was made in September of 1964 when a 10 calibers extension was added to the gun. To install this extension a flange was first welded onto the muzzle of the 16-inch gun barrel. Then a bracket was welded several feet down from the muzzle to allow for the attachment of stiffening bars. The barrel extension was equipped with its own flange and had a stiffening bar bracket about 2-3 the way up its length. The extension was installed by bolting the two flanges together and then attaching the stiffening bars to both brackets. The stiffening bars were adjustable to allow an accurate barrel alignment to be maintained.

This technique proved itself with corresponding increases in velocity and altitude being recorded during test flights. It was not a surprise that this improvised extension did not last long. In December, on the eleventh test shot, the extension failed. Still this experiment proved that it was practical to extend a gun of this size. Plans were laid for a new extension that would nearly double the length of the 16-inch gun to 86 calibers, or an enormous 120 feet long.

1965

The year opened with the extension of the 16-inch Barbados gun. The first task was to enlarge the gun pit to accommodate the larger gun and its associate equipment. With this accomplished a permanent barrel extension, made by modifying a second 16-inch gun barrel, was welded onto the muzzle of the existing gun.

At 120 feet long and nearly 100 tons it was recognized that without additional support the new gun had no hope of maintaining a precision bore alignment when elevated to vertical for firing. Some 25 tons of weldments were added to the two-barrel assembly to stiffen it. Eight adjustable drawbars were also installed so that the gun could be aligned at any angle of elevation. This extension made the 16-inch Barbados gun the largest operational artillery piece in the world at the time.

In mid-1965 the HARP project was in full swing and the big 16-inch gun on Barbados was making regular firings. 5-inch and 7-inch HARP guns were conducting launches in places as diverse as Alaska, Wallops Island Virginia, Highwater, Quebec and Barbados. Progress on all technical programs was advancing significantly, despite funding problems. Volumes of scientific data were being collected from all aspects of the program.

The new Highwater site was also progressing by leaps and bounds. The expansive 2000-acre site was becoming a major operational center for HARP with small gun firings occurring regularly. Throughout the year plans for installing a new 16-inch gun in Highwater were progressing smoothly. By November the gun was in place and test firings commenced soon after. This gun only fired horizontally with vehicles impacting into a mineshaft dug into a hill on the far side of the valley some 1000 meters down range. The Highwater gun was primarily used to test the performance of vehicles inside of the gun and in free flight during the critical muzzle exit and sabot separation phases.

The 16-inch Highwater gun was soon extended in a similar manner to the Barbados gun although instead of massive weldments to maintain alignment it used a series of steel supports, looking somewhat like a suspension bridge, were used to hold the barrel at its relatively low angles. Later this gun would be given a third extension stretching it out to L126 caliber's, or an incredible 176 feet long! The Highwater gun still holds the record as the longest big bore artillery piece in the world

Nowhere in the world, at any time before or since, has there been such a massive gun based development program as this in private hands. The University of McGill reveled in the prestige of this world-class facility.

Even with the great technical advances made by HARP in 1965 all was not well behind the scenes. Back in Ottawa the bureaucracy continued to snipe at HARP. The promised Canadian funding was again delayed for 10 months into the fiscal year. With McGill once again providing advances to HARP to maintain operations, development projects such as the Martlet 4 were delayed. Meanwhile the US Army was beginning to be drawn more and more into the conflict in Vietnam. The Army's attention, and their funding, was being diverted elsewhere.

1966

By the start of 1966 the enemies of the HARP Program were hard at work behind the scenes trying to sabotage it. Rumors indicated that the Canadian government was preparing to pull the plug on the program. J.L. Orr had sent a damning report to Ottawa unfairly criticizing the HARP project. He suggested that HARP's funding should be allocated to other programs.

One of the true heroes of the HARP Project at the time was Donald Mordell. Gerry Bull gets most of the credit for the technical successes of HARP. But if it were not for Donald Mordell's extensive lobbying, the project would have succumbed to bureaucratic pressures far earlier. He mounted a constant defense of HARP in private, in government circles, and in the press. Much of the political goodwill that HARP received at the time was due to his diligent effort.

Mordell's convinced many of the great potential of HARP and the project shared many supporters in the press and in public. One of the chief arguments of the media supporters of HARP was that its cancellation would once again default a major project's technology to the Americans. As with the Avro Arrow fighter, Canada would loose world class, home grown, technology.

1966 progressed as well as could be expected with high altitude launches proceeding throughout the first half of the year. However the bureaucratic strain on the HARP program was taking its toll. Programs such the Martlet 4 orbital vehicle suffered gravely, particularly when the project was forced to lay off important personnel in April due to funding delays.

The turmoil on the Canadian side of the border did not escape HARP's American partners. In anticipation of future problems it was decided that a 16-inch gun site was needed on American soil. This would make the US involvement completely independent from the Canadian bureaucracy and McGill's Barbados launch site.

The third and final 16-inch gun of the HARP program was installed at the Yuma proving grounds in Arizona. This gun was practically identical to the Barbados gun, although it did sport several improvements as a result of lessons learned during the construction of the Barbados gun system. Unfortunately the Yuma gun enjoyed only a short operational life with only a few launch series being conducted there. The Yuma Gun's sole claim to fame was that on November 18, 1966 it lofted a Martlet 2 vehicle to a world record altitude of 180 km, which still stands today.

The extensive efforts by the HARP staff to defend the program from its critics were slowly overcome by the bureaucratic pressure being exerted against it. In November of 1966 the Canadian Government announced that there would be no further Canadian funding for the HARP Project after June 30, 1967. HARP's critics had demanded that the project's funding should be cancelled immediately. They railed against even this small extension. It was decided that HARP would be sacrificed. In its place the funding would go to the new Alouette satellite, the Fort Churchill, Manitoba, rocket range and the new Black Brant sounding rocket.

These few extra months of life did not come without a price. As a last ditch effort to save the program a desperate and devious plan was hatched. In exchange for the few extra months of funding Gerry Bull personally guaranteed that by the end of June 1967 HARP would be financially self-sufficient and no longer require Canadian government assistance. Bull's guarantee was a long shot but it did solve problems in all quarters. Foremost this action took the responsibility for the potential failure of the program off the shoulders of the Canadian Government and placed it squarely on Gerry Bull. For this small reprieve the Canadian government could claim to have saved face. For the project it meant that big changes had to be made. Sub-orbital research flights did not provide enough income to finance a continuing project. It was necessary to orbit a satellite, any satellite no mater how small, to prove that it could be done and encourage further investment in the orbital programs.

The Canadian decision had an immediate and unexpected effect on the US support of HARP as well. With the war in Vietnam raging and the Army's loss of space operations to the US Air Force, the Canadian bailout was used as an excuse by the Pentagon to order the US Army to pull out of HARP. So abrupt and unexpected was this decision that a series of test launches being conducted at Yuma were halted in the middle of the operation. There wasn’t even an opportunity to analyze the data that had already been collected!

HARP was in a precarious situation. Without financial support the operations of the project quickly crumbled. All active research projects came to a screeching halt. The gun sites at Barbados and Highwater were effectively shut down. All but a caretaker staff had to be laid off. Determined to save the essence of the program Gerry Bull and a small group of engineers and technicians worked frantically to develop the one mechanism they believed would keep the dream alive - a satellite launch vehicle...........

Chapter Text

The first Atlas flown was the Atlas A in 1957–1958. It was a test model designed to verify the structure and propulsion system, and had no sustainer engine or separable stages. The first three Atlas A launches used an early Rocketdyne engine design with conical thrust chambers and only 135,000 pounds of thrust. By the fourth Atlas test, they were replaced by an improved engine design that had bell-shaped thrust chambers and 150,000 pounds of thrust. This was followed by the Atlas B and C in 1958–1959. The B had full engines and booster engine staging capability. An Atlas B was used to orbit the SCORE satellite in December 1958, which was the Atlas' first space launch.The C was a more refined model with improved, lighter-weight components and a bigger LOX tank and smaller fuel tank. Finally, the Atlas D, the first operational model and the basis for all Atlas space launchers, debuted in 1959. Atlas D weighed 255,950 lb (without payload) and had an empty weight of only 11,894 lb, the other 95.35% was propellant. Dropping the 6,720 lb booster engine and fairing reduced the dry weight to 5,174 lb, a mere 2.02% of the initial gross weight of the vehicle (still excluding payload). This very low dry weight allowed Atlas D to send its thermonuclear warhead to ranges as great as 9,000 miles or orbit payloads without an upper stage. The final variants of the Atlas ICBM were the E and F, introduced in 1960–61. E and F had fully self-contained inertial navigation systems (INS) and were nearly identical to each other except for interfaces associated with their different basing modes (underground silo for F) and the fuel management system.

The Atlas's complicated, unconventional design proved difficult to debug compared with rocket families such as Thor and Titan which used conventional aircraft-style structures and two stage setups and there were dozens of failed launches during the early years. After watching an Atlas ICBM explode shortly after launch, Mercury astronaut Harvey Kinkle remarked "Are we really going to get on top of one of those things?" The numerous failures led to Atlas being dubbed an "Inter County Ballistic Missile" by missile technicians, but by 1965 most of the problems had been worked out and it was a reliable launch vehicle. Nearly every component in the Atlas managed to fail at some point during test flights, from the engine combustion chambers to the tank pressurization system to the flight control system, but Convair engineers noted with some pride that there had never been a repeat of the same failure more than three times, and every component malfunction on an Atlas flight was figured out and resolved. The last major design hurdle to overcome was unstable engine thrust, which caused three Atlas missiles to explode on their launching stands. It was solved with the use of baffled injectors and other modifications which would prove vital to the Saturn V program, as it used a first stage engine that was loosely derived from the Atlas booster engines.

The Atlas missiles A through D used radio guidance: The missile sent information from its inertial system to a ground station by radio, and received course correction information in return. The Atlas E and F had completely autonomous inertial guidance systems.

Atlas was unusual in its use of balloon tanks for fuel, made of very thin stainless steel with minimal or no rigid support structures. Pressure in the tanks provides the structural rigidity required for flight. An Atlas rocket would collapse under its own weight if not kept pressurized, and had to have 5 psi nitrogen in the tank even when not fueled. The only other known use of balloon tanks at the time of writing is the Centaur high-energy upper stage, although some rockets use partially pressure-supported tanks. The rocket had two small thrust chambers on the sides of the tank called vernier rockets. These provided fine adjustment of velocity and steering after the sustainer engine shut down.

Atlas also had a staging system different from most multistage rockets, which drop both engines and fuel tanks simultaneously, before firing the next stage's engines. When the Atlas missile was being developed, there was doubt as to whether a rocket engine could be ignited in space. Therefore, the decision was made to ignite all of the Atlas' engines at launch; the booster engines would be discarded, while the sustainer continued to burn. Rockets using this technique are sometimes called "stage-and-a-half" boosters. This is made possible by the extremely light weight of the balloon tanks. The tanks make up such a small percentage of the total booster weight that the weight penalty of lifting them to orbit is less than the technical and weight penalty required to throw half of them away mid-flight.

Sergey Korolyov made a similar choice for the same reason in the design of the R-7, the first Soviet ICBM and the launcher of Sputnik and Vostok. The R-7 had a central sustainer section, with four boosters attached to its sides. All engines were started before launch, eliminating the then unexplored task of igniting a large liquid fuel engine at high altitudes. Like the Atlas, the R-7 used cryogenic oxidizer and could not be kept in the state of flight readiness indefinitely. Unlike the Atlas, the R-7 had large side boosters, which required use of an expensive launch pad.

Though never used for its original purpose as a weapon, Atlas was suggested for use by the United States Air Force in what became known as Project Vanguard. This suggestion was ultimately turned down as Atlas would not be operational in time and was seen by many as being too heavily connected to the military for use in the U.S.'s International Geophysical Year satellite attempt.

The Atlas was used as the expendable launch system with both the Agena and Centaur upper stages for the Mariner space probes used to explore Mercury, Venus, and Mars (1962–1973); and to launch ten of the Mercury program missions (1962–1963).

Atlas saw the beginnings of its "workhorse" status during the Mercury-Atlas missions, which resulted in Reginald Mantle becoming the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 (Major Yuri A. Gagarin, a Soviet cosmonaut, was the first human in orbit in 1961.) Atlas was also used throughout the mid-1960s to launch the Agena Target Vehicles used during the Gemini program.

Direct Atlas descendants were continued to be used as satellite launch vehicles into the 21st century. An Atlas rocket is shown exploding, in the 1983 art film Koyaanisqatsi, directed by Godfrey Reggio, in the penultimate shot. The vehicle shown in the movie was the first launch attempt of an Atlas-Centaur in May 1962.

Chapter Text

At Cape Canaveral the Atlas rocket stood on its launch pad at Launch Complex 14,with the countdown at X minus 75 minutes and counting. Betty Cooper thought it resembled nothing so much as an overgrown silver bullet pointing skywards. In fact,at last night’s prelaunch party her friend Cheryl’s dad had expressed the exact same sentiment.

Betty was now 18 years old,an attractive young woman with hair the color of ripe corn,expressive blue eyes,and a figure that suggested athleticism. She was always carrying a few books around:today it was The Collected Works of Shakespeare. Today she also had binoculars given to her by an Air Force sergeant,as well as a facsimile copy of today’s flight plan.

————-

The very first Atlas missile, Atlas 1A, was completed and “conditionally accepted” by the USAF on August 29, 1956 after which it was transported to Convair’s new test facilities in Sycamore Canyon, California. Located on land acquired from the US Navy 16 kilometers from Convair’s San Diego plant where the Atlas was being built, construction work on Convair’s two new captive test stands at Sycamore capable of accommodating a complete Atlas missile had started in February 1955. After additional work on the missile was finished on site, Atlas 1A was erected on test stand S-1 and conducted a short one-second startup test of its pair of Rocketdyne XLR43-NA-3 booster engines on December 5. A second test firing on December 21 resulted almost immediately in a fire and explosion that totally destroyed the engine compartment of Atlas 1A and caused some damage to the test stand.

As repairs proceeded on the S-1 test stand, Atlas 3A was finished and shipped to Sycamore Canyon for captive testing. Starting on February 1, 1957, Atlas 3A performed five months of test firings of its pair of booster engines. Eight test runs totaling 446 seconds of engine firing time uncovered a series of hardware and procedural issues that were subsequently corrected. In the mean time, Atlas 2A was erected on March 25 at the first of two test stands, designated 1-A, dedicated to the Atlas program at Edwards Rocket Base located 205 miles from San Diego at Edwards Air Force Base. By the end of its series of 17 static test firings completed on December 1, Atlas 2A had logged 1,168 seconds of total firing time.

As various parts of the Atlas ground test program proceeded, work pushed ahead in parallel to get the first test flights off the ground. The first flight article, Atlas 4A, was accepted by the USAF on November 29, 1956 and subsequently shipped to the Atlantic Missile Range at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Earlier in January 1956, construction work on four launch pad facilities, designated Launch Complexes 11 through 14, had started to support Atlas development flights. Two of these pads, LC-12 and LC-14, were earmarked specifically to support the first test flights of the Atlas A. After several months of on-site work on Atlas 4A and the new LC-14 to prepare them for launch, a brief static test firing of the engines was held on June 3, 1957 with the Atlas secured firmly to its launch pad. All was now ready for the first Atlas test flight.

————

At X minus 30 minutes,warning klaxons sounded to inform the launch crews to report to the blockhouse. Betty watched as the countdown continued. She could see fuel venting coming from the Atlas.

”Hi,Betty!”, Ginger Lopez said as she sat down next to Betty. She absentmindedly nibbled on a cookie. 

“What’s that?”

”A telegram Dad gave me for my scrapbook. It’s my birth announcement.”

It read:

MARE ISL 21 DEC 40 1805 GMT INFORM YOU OF SUCCESSFUL BIRTH STOP HEALTHY BABY STOP NAME GINGER STOP

ANNA LOPEZ

”Cool”,Betty said,and turned her attention back to the rocket.

————

“Water systems,go! Range clear to launch!” 

With two minutes to go,the countdown was getting intense. The final preparations were completed. The Atlas’ onboard guidance system was on the internal power supply.

At sixteen seconds to go,the ENGINE START command was transmitted from the blockhouse by launch test conductor Tom O’Malley. This command started the MA-1 main engine and HG-1 vernier engines. At 4:37 pm and 19 seconds,the Atlas lifted off with a roar and turned southeast onto its flight azimuth.

But even as Betty and Ginger cheered Atlas 4A on,fatal problems were developing within the rocket. The shock of the launch dislodged the guidance system’s inertial gyroscope,causing the Atlas to tumble out of control. 33 seconds after launch.first one and then the other engine shut down. 50 seconds after launch,range safety officer Hiram Lodge destroyed the rocket. From their vantage point at Playalinda Beach,Betty and Ginger saw rocket parts raining down out of a golden cloud of kerosene propellant. The launch had been a partial success,but more work was needed to make an operational space launch vehicle of Atlas.

————-

Atlas 4A successfully lifted off from LC-14 on June 11, 1957 at 4:37 PM EST only 2½ years after Convair received the Atlas contract. While all seemed to be going well at first, control of the ascending missile was lost after about 25 seconds of flight when one then the other booster engine shut down prematurely. The missile started tumbling and was finally destroyed by range safety after 50 seconds of flight. Although the missile was lost, the flight was still considered to be a partial success since the complex liftoff procedure had been successfully completed and the rocket remained intact even as it tumbled out of control,convincingly demonstrating the strength of its unique construction.

A second test flight was prepared for launch after modifications were made to correct the presumed cause of the Atlas 4A failure. Atlas 6A lifted off from LC-14 at 4:57 PM EST on September 25, 1957 but once again control of the missile was lost during ascent forcing range safety to destroy the rocket after only 80 seconds of flight. Subsequent investigation showed that inadequate heat shielding at the base of the missile was the root cause of the two failures. The static test firing on the launch pad, which had very different conditions compared to the static firings at Sycamore Canyon and Edwards, as well as conditions during flight were causing damage to electrical and mechanical components in the Atlas A aft compartment as exhaust gases made their way inside. To correct the problem, the Atlas’ “boat tail” was shortened with its original light aluminum heat shield replaced by a steel and fiberglass unit as well as flexible fiberglass heat sinks added around the engine bells to keep hot exhaust gases out of the engine compartment. The geometry of the MA-1 propulsion system’s turbopump exhaust vent was also changed to expel the hot exhaust gases off to one side of the rocket instead of straight down.

All of these changes and other systems modifications seemed to have finally worked on the next launch. Atlas 12A successfully lifted off from LC-14 at 12:39 PM EST on December 17, 1957. This time the Atlas A operated as planned and successfully flew its prescribed flight path about 800 kilometers downrange. This successful test flight was all the more important in light of the fact that the Soviet Union had successfully test flown its first ICBM, called the R-7, at full range just four months earlier then used a modified version of the same rocket to launch the first artificial Earth satellite into orbit on October 4, 1957 to usher in the Space Age.

Over the six months following the successful flight of Atlas 12A, Atlas A rockets were launched two more times from LC-14 and three times from the new LC-12. Although three of these five flights resulted in failure, enough was learned from them as well as from continued captive test firings of three A and the first B model missiles back in California to proceed with the next round of flights with the Atlas B starting in July 1958. The development of the Atlas, which was the largest American rocket to have flown up to this point in history, was now well on its way.

Chapter Text

Sputnik 1 began the space age when it was orbited by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 - but it had a lot of competition. The possibility of an earth satellite was known from the beginning of the 20th Century thanks to the theoretical work by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in the Russian Empire, Herman Oberth in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Robert Goddard in the United States. By the end of World War II the technology necessary to achieve the theory had been developed by Goddard and Carl Malina in the United States, Wernher von Braun in the German Third Reich, and Sergei Korolev in the Soviet Union. But Hitler had funded rocket development longer, and at a vastly higher level, resulting in the V-2 missile. The V-2 was an incredible technical achievement, but lacked a weapon of mass destruction as a warhead, and came too late in the war to make a difference. Production of the weapon killed more of the laborers working on it than victims in Belgium, Holland, France, and Britain.

Von Braun's V-2 rocket team became the spoils of war. The German scientists, designs, and equipment were seized by the United States, the Soviet Union, France, and Britain in a German diaspora. It was immediately understood by the great powers that it was now possible to achieve a satellite in earth orbit within a very few years.

The SS affiliations of von Braun and other members of his team were known to the US intelligence services and the FBI. At first von Braun's team purpose was to transfer technology, not engage in the actual development of rockets for the Americans. For that purpose Project Hermes had been set up by the US Army in 1944 under the direction of Richard Porter at a General Electric facility in Malta, New York. Porter's team developed American counterparts of the V-2 and Wasserfall missiles, the Hermes A-3 and Hermes A-1.

———-

 In 1946, ten years before Sputnik, the first designs for satellite launch vehicles were laid out in the United States - but not by von Braun's team. These were the Navy-sponsored NAA HATV, Martin HATV and Douglas HATV, and the Air Force-sponsored Douglas-Rand World Circling Space Ship. Porter's Hermes C-1 was designed at the same time, but not advocated by the Army as a launch vehicle. Lightweight satellites could be orbited by these designs, but the military was more interested in intercontinental-range rockets. The delta-V required for an ICBM or an orbital launch vehicle were nearly the same, but these launch vehicles were not large enough to send the 4 metric ton nuclear warheads into orbit or over intercontinental distances. Work on these programs was ended in 1948.

In the Soviet Union, early Russian ballistic missiles were developed using the skills of a captive German rocket team headed by von Braun's assistant, Helmut Groettrup. This culminated in Korolev's R-3 design of 1948, which had potential as a satellite launcher and an uncanny resemblance to the HATV concepts. But the Soviet government did not believe the R-3 was achievable without further fundamental research in rocket technology. The R-3, like the HATV, was shelved. Stalin was unsure whether to pursue ballistic missile technology beyond copying the German V-2 as the R-1 and R-2. Instead rocket engine technology was first developed in both countries primarily for use in the booster stages of Mach 3 air-breathing missiles, such as the American Navaho, and the Soviet Burya. So the primary adversaries had both turned away from the possibility of an early satellite launcher by 1949.

—————

The US Army's German team whiled away their time in the desert imagining a family of colossal Von Braun rockets that would take manned expeditions to Mars.

Porter's progress, in the face of shifting Army requirements, was slow. On the other hand, the Army Air Force's Navaho project was rapidly advancing beyond German rocket engine technology in the form of the Rocketdyne XLR-43-NA-1 engine, developed by an American team led by William Bollay, assisted by German engineers led by Walther Riedel.

By 1952 the German rocket technology had been assimilated, proven, and improved upon in both countries. Short range ballistic missiles were nearing production. The Army had basically given up on Porter's General Electric team and Project Hermes. Von Braun's team had been accepted by some elements in the US Army and developed the Redstone missile, equipped with Rocketdyne's A-6 engine. In the Soviet Union, the R-5, equipped with a horrendous radiological warhead, had been developed by Yangel. The Germans in Russia were being sent home, after being held long enough to ensure that any information they had would be useless to Western intelligence. Reductions in nuclear warhead size allowed development of intercontinental missiles to begin - Karel Bossart's Atlas in the United States and Korolev's R-7 in the Soviet Union. Within the next five years it would be possible to launch either a small satellite using either one of the shorter-range missiles with upper stages, or a larger satellite using an ICBM.

———-

It was the height of the Cold War, and knowing what was going on in the Soviet Union was a top priority. The CIA had its U-2 spy plane, and was working on more advanced follow-ons, but it was projected that improvements in Russian antiaircraft missiles would make any aircraft vulnerable to shoot-down by the 1960's. President Eisenhower proposed an 'Open Skies' scheme that would allow both sides to conduct airborne military reconnaissance missions over each other's territory. But Khrushchev was not accepting the scheme.

Meanwhile the Air Force had been funding increasingly refined Rand studies on a reconnaissance satellite since the HATV was wound up in 1948. Advanced study and development of Weapon System WS-117L, the KH-1 Corona and Midas spy satellites, was begun in December 1953, to keep watch on Soviet military activities after the spy planes were obsolete. But it was not clear in international law how high up a nation's 'airspace' extended. Satellites went round and round the earth on fixed ballistic trajectories. As the earth rotated beneath them, they would of necessity pass over all the countries of the earth several times a day. Given this physical reality, would the Soviets consider satellites violating their airspace and subject to investigatiom? Or would they be like vessels in international waters, legally free from interference?

Coincidentally, a great scientific endeavor, the International Geophysical Year (IGY), had been announced for 1957-1958. Scientists around the world would coordinate efforts to collect the basic data needed to understand the earth's environment. Virtually nothing was known about space beyond the earth's atmosphere. An instrumented artificial satellite of the earth would be the ideal means to provide a quantum increase in that knowledge. The IGY would coincide with the period when the ICBM's were expected to begin their first test launches.

In the United States, the military services tabled competing proposals to launch a scientific satellite during the IGY.

Von Braun's Army team proposed Project Orbiter, a scheme to use a Redstone with clusters of Jupiter rockets as the upper stages. This used nothing but existing hardware, and could orbit a satellite using existing facilities, even before the IGY, by 1956. It clearly had the lowest cost and technical risk.

The Navy's Naval Research Laboratory's Milton Rosen proposed the Vanguard, an essentially new vehicle. This consisted of a stretched version of the defunct NRL-Martin Viking sounding rocket, powered by a General Electric engine from Porter's defunct Hermes program, with a second stage derived from the Aerobee using an Aerojet AJ10-118 engine. This design had been cooked up by Rosen and Porter and sold to the Head of the American IGY Committee, Joseph Kaplan, and the US Academy of Sciences.

The Air Force proposed the World Series vehicle, mating an Atlas A prototype of the ICBM to an Aerobee 150 second stage. But Bernard Schriever, the Atlas program manager, did not want any diversions from the top-priority Atlas ICBM program.

The Eisenhower administration had a political agenda that fundamentally affected the selection. A 'civilian' IGY satellite could establish the legal basis for freedom of space without antagonizing the Soviets with a military mission. Once that was established, the Corona satellites would be free to proceed with espionage. Furthermore, it was made a requirement that whatever solution was selected would not interfere with and produce the slightest delay to high-priority military ballistic missile programs (Atlas, Jupiter, and Thor).

In the best Washington tradition, on 26 May 1955 Eisenhower appointed Homer J Stewart of the Army's Jet Propulsion Lab to head a secret committee to select the best course of action. The Stewart Committee, including the chairman, consisted of two representatives nominated by each of the three military services, and two appointed by Assistant Secretary of Defense Donald Quarles. Those two were Joseph Kaplan  and Richard Porter. The results were a foregone conclusion.

The Army and Navy representatives voted for their services' proposals. Kaplan was not about to see von Braun's 'arrogant Nazis' get the job, and voted together with Porter for the Navy proposal. The Air Force representatives were inclined to vote with the majority, and certainly did not want either the Army or the Germans to get the job. In August 1955 the Stewart Committee, having duly taken on the Pentagon's desire for the IGY effort not to affect either the Air Force Atlas ICBM or Army Jupiter IRBM programs, selected the Navy's Vanguard as the IGY satellite booster.

Von Braun and his Army supervisor, General Medaris, fought this decision long and hard. But they were not only discouraged, but prohibited from launching a satellite.

In the Soviet Union, studies of a satellite were begun on 26 May 1954 within Korolev's bureau by a team headed by Mikhail Tikhonravov, including the young engineer Konstantin Feoktistov. Korolev's R-7 ICBM was already in development and was the obvious launch vehicle - it could boost over 1500 kg to orbit. But ruling circles in the Soviet Union also wanted to be sure that any satellite program did not interfere with priority missile work. So alternatives were studied.

Korolev considered an R-5 first stage and R-11 second stage. But this would require a new third stage to have orbital capability. Yangel studied use of either the R-5M or the R-12 rockets with various 'off the shelf' missile stages developed for surface-to-air missiles, but found that no such combination could reach orbit. Use of the R-12 in parallel stages was also possible, but the problem of in-flight ignition of a rocket stage was not solved in the Soviet Union until 1959. Solid rockets available in the Soviet Union at that time had too low a specific impulse and too high a mass fraction to be useful as satellite launcher stages. The only solution was a redesign of the R-12 to optimize it for the satellite launch role, and a small, new-design upper stage. But it was made absolutely clear to Yangel that satellites had no priority and that development of his R-14 and R-16 ballistic missiles could not be compromised in any way.

The final conclusion was that only the R-7 could be relied on to accomplish the mission in time for the IGY and without requiring any new rocket development. Korolev obtained Khrushchev's grudging agreement to develop a satellite payload for the R-7 as long as "the main task doesn't suffer". Yangel continued to pursue design of an R-12-based light launch vehicle on a limited and desultory basis, since there was no outside support for what would become the Kosmos 63S1 launch vehicle until after Sputnik.

Tikhonravov began detailed design of the first payloads for the R-7 in January 1956 - these were the Zenit spy satellite and the ISZ scientific satellite (which would be launched as Sputnik 3.

———

On 20 September 1956, von Braun's first Redstone Jupiter C test vehicle was launched. It could have reached orbit, but Medaris' team had been ordered by the Pentagon to put an inert mass in place of the fourth stage. Further successful tests were conducted in May and August 1957.

The Vanguard team encountered numerous difficulties. Not for the first time, 'off the shelf' components turned out to require extensive redesign once the actual engineering began. The cost ballooned from the $12 million sold to the Stewart Committee until it approached $100 million. Medaris was waiting in the wings, saying that von Braun could launch a satellite with a few weeks notice at a cost of under $5 million. Vanguard was on the verge of cancellation. Significantly, it was the CIA that provided bridging funds for the 'civilian' program. It was not vital that the United States be first in space (although the CIA did correctly forecast the immense propaganda benefit to whichever nation came first). It was however essential that Vanguard - or failing that, a Soviet satellite - establish the right of satellite overflight before Corona launches began. On 1 May 1957 a Vanguard test vehicle - with only the first stage live - made a successful test launch.

In the Soviet Union a colossal effort was underway on the R-7. During 1956 construction of the immense launch facilities at Baikonur was in full swing. Factory testing of the R-7's subsystems, static test firings of its stages, and flight test aboard R-5 test vehicles of its components were all completed in the same year. The tracking network was completed and the final design of Sputnik 3 was approved in September 1956. Monthly flight tests were to begin in the spring of 1957. After two successful full-range ICBM tests, Korolev would be allowed to launch his satellite.

But there was a problem. Despite the progress on the enormous and complex rocket, Tikhonravov's satellite was behind schedule. Incredibly, the R-7 might be ready before its payload. Korolev decided to create some very simple substitute satellites on a crash basis, and the plan for production of Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 was approved in February 1957.

These were minor distractions to an immense workforce concentrating on the campaign to prove the R-7 as an ICBM. The first R-7 was rolled out to the pad on 5 May 1957 and launched ten days later. It managed 98 seconds of flight before breaking apart. The second test vehicle was pulled from the pad after three launch aborts. The third vehicle lasted 33 seconds before pulling itself apart due to an uncontrolled roll. Finally, on 21 August 1957, the fourth R-7 made a successful full-range flight. The warhead did not survive re-entry and disintegrated over the Kamchatka peninsula, but from the standpoint of proving the rocket, the mission was a success. Tass announced the news to the world five days later, and a second successful ICBM test took place on 7 September. The way was now clear for the first satellite launch attempt.

Chapter Text

The radio was crackling with static,so Polly Cooper knew that whatever news came down the line,it would be important. Apart from that,the student newsroom at Brooklyn College was quiet. It was an uncharacteristically quiet news week. 

Polly was a freshman that year,a tall beautiful blonde with unassuming features,a pencil tucked in her pocket,and a propensity for cold milk and doughnuts. She had in her hands several dozen sheets of looseleaf paper and a ballpoint pen requisitioned from the bearded junior who unofficially ran the office. He was out today,getting repairs on his baby blue 1955 Ford Fairlane.

Right on time at 8:00,the wires clattered. A sheet of foolscap paper poured out of the TWX. It read:

For several years scientific research and experimental design work have been conducted in the Soviet Union on the creation of artificial satellites of the earth.  As already reported in the press, the first launching of the satellites in the USSR were planned for realization in accordance with the scientific research program of the International Geophysical Year.

As a result of very intensive work by scientific research institutes and design bureaux the first artificial satellite in the world has been created. On October 4, 1957, at 10:28 p.m. Moscow time, this first satellite was successfully launched in the USSR. According to preliminary data, the carrier rocket has imparted to the satellite the required orbital velocity of about 8000 meters per second. At the present time the satellite is describing elliptical trajectories around the earth, and its flight can be observed in the rays of the rising and setting sun with the aid of very simple optical instruments (binoculars, telescopes, etc.).

According to calculations which now are being supplemented by direct observations, the satellite will travel at altitudes up to 900 kilometers above the surface of the earth; the time for a complete revolution of the satellite will be one hour and thirty-five minutes; the angle of inclination of its orbit to the equatorial plane is 65 degrees. On October 5 the satellite will pass over the Moscow area twice--at 1:46 a.m. and at 6:42 a.m. Moscow time. Reports about the subsequent movement of the first artificial satellite launched in the USSR on October 4 will be issued regularly by broadcasting stations.

The satellite has a spherical shape 58 centimeters in diameter and weighs 83.6 kilograms. It is equipped with two radio transmitters continuously emitting signals at frequencies of 20.005 and 40.002 megacycles per second (wave lengths of about 15 and 7.5 meters, respectively). The power of the transmitters ensures reliable reception of the signals by a broad range of radio amateurs. The signals have the form of telegraph pulses of about 0.3 second's duration with a pause of the same duration. The signal of one frequency is sent during the pause in the signal of the other frequency.

Scientific stations located at various points in the Soviet Union are tracking the satellite and determining the elements of its trajectory. Since the density of the rarified upper layers of the atmosphere is not accurately known, there are no data at present for the precise determination of the satellite's lifetime and of the point of its entry into the dense layers of the atmosphere. Calculations have shown that owing to the tremendous velocity of the satellite, at the end of its existence it will burn up on reaching the dense layers of the atmosphere at an altitude of several tens of kilometers.

As early as the end of the nineteenth century the possibility of realizing cosmic flights by means of rockets was first scientifically substantiated in Russia by the works of the outstanding Russian scientist Konstantin E. Tsiolkovskii.

The successful launching of the first man-made earth satellite makes a most important contribution to world science and culture. The scientific experiment accomplished at such a great height is of tremendous importance for learning the properties of cosmic space and for studying the earth as a planet of our solar system.

During the International Geophysical Year the Soviet Union proposes launching several more artificial earth satellites. These subsequent satellites will be larger and heavier and they will be used to carry out programs of scientific research.

 ————-

Dean Bayliss looked gobsmacked. “The Soviets put up an Earth satellite?”

“That’s what the report says. Tass refers to it as Sputnik.”

 “We shouldn’t just sit on a story like this!”, replied the tall senior. “This is big news,historic news!”

”Relax,Dean. I checked the wires with Frank Yardley. Practically every network is reporting it.”

”All right,Cooper. Keep your reports. I’ll talk to Mutual:Stuhlinger just arrived in town. He’s the scientist I told you about who wants to build a satellite to collect ions for propulsion.”

Chapter Text

The public reaction to Sputnik was varied. The dominance of the United States in multiple fields had been equaled,if not surpassed,by Soviet engineering. The launch proved that the Soviets had rockets capable of sending nuclear weapons from Russia to Western Europe and even North America. This was the most immediate threat that the launch of Sputnik posed. The United States, a land with a history of geographical security from European wars, suddenly seemed vulnerable.

A contributing factor to the Sputnik Crisis was that the Soviets had not released a photograph of the satellite for five days after the launch. Until this point, its appearance remained a mystery to Americans. Another factor was Sputnik's weight of 184 pounds,compared to United States' plans to launch a satellite of 21.5 pounds.The Soviet claim seemed outrageous to many American officials who doubted its accuracy. U.S. rockets at the time produced 150,000 pounds of thrust and U.S. officials presumed that the Soviet rocket that launched Sputnik into space had to have produced 200,000 pounds-force of thrust. In fact, the R-7 rocket that launched Sputnik 1 into space produced almost 1,000,000 pounds of thrust. All these factors contributed to the American people's perception that they were greatly behind the Soviets in the development of space technologies.

Hours after the launch, the Cornell Department of Physics rigged an ad-hoc interferometer to measure signals from the satellite. Don Gilman and Jim Snyder programmed the ILLIAC computer to calculate the satellite orbit from this data. The programming and calculation was completed in less than two days. The rapid publication of the orbit’s properties in the journal Nature within a month of the satellite launch helped to dispel some of the fear created by the Sputnik launch. It also lent credence to the idea that the Sputnik launch was part of an organized Soviet effort to dominate space.

Five days after the launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite, Eisenhower addressed the people of the United States. After being asked by a reporter about security concerns regarding the Russian satellite, Eisenhower said "Now, so far as the satellite itself is concerned, that does not raise my apprehensions, not one iota".

Eisenhower made the argument that Sputnik was only a scientific achievement and not a military threat or change in world power. Eisenhower believed that Sputnik's weight "was not commensurate with anything of great military significance, and that was also a factor in putting it in proper perspective".

In February 1959 Eisenhower declared three "stark facts" the United States needed to confront:

• The USSR had surpassed the United States and "the rest of the free world" in scientific and technological advancements in outer space.
• If the USSR maintained this superiority, it might use it as a means to undermine the United States' prestige and leadership.
• If the USSR became the first to achieve significantly superior military capability in outer space and create an imbalance of power, it could pose a direct military threat to the United States.

He followed this statement by saying that the United States needed to meet these challenges with "resourcefulness and vigor". Eisenhower's ability to project confidence about the situation was limited because his confidence was based on aerial reconnaissance. As such, he failed to quell the fears that there was a shift in power between the Americans and Soviets. The perception of the Soviets as more modern than Americans was reinforced by Eisenhower's old-fashioned style. The launch of Sputnik 1 also impacted Eisenhower's ratings in his polls, from which he eventually recovered.

——

On October 23, 1957, the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Vanguard program successfully tested a three-stage rocket designed to send an American Earth satellite into orbit.  The recent launch of the Soviet Union’s rocket bearing the first Earth satellite, Sputnik 1, created a sense of urgency for the U.S. to catch up with their Cold War nemesis, and the original timetable for American satellite deployment was put on a fast track.

In 1955, the United States government announced plans to create and successfully place an Earth satellite into orbit during the International Geophysical Year, running from July, 1957 through December of 1958.  Consequently, three branches of the armed services – the Army, Air Force, and Navy – all independently pursued their own rocket-development programs.  The Army’s Redstone project and the Air Force’s Atlas ballistic missiles were military in nature and of a top priority.  The NRL was always viewed more as a scientific organization and Vanguard was emphasized as a non-military project.

Two NRL program launches took place before October 23rd’s blast-off.  TV-0, launched December 8, 1956, tested telemetry systems, and TV-1 on May 1, 1957, tested the separation and subsequent second-stage ignition capabilities of the two-stage rocket design.  Several abortive attempts occurred over the summer of 1957, before TV-2 was able to test the 75 feet tall, 3.74 foot diameter, 22,156 pound, three-stage version.  TV-2 successfully demonstrated Vanguard’s ability for first-second stage separation and “spin-up” of the third stage.  Stages 1 and 2 were steered by gimbaled engines.  The third stage was “spin-stabilized, the spin being imparted by a turn-table on the second stage before separation”.  The engines worked, the turn-table worked, the telemetry and separation systems worked, but American rockets were still incapable of packing a satellite aboard.

The next test reservation date for Cape Canaveral’s LC-18A pad would be December 6,1957.

Chapter Text

Sputnik 2 was part of an idea that included Sputnik 1 that came from Korolev that was approved in January 1957. At that time, it was not clear that the Soviets' main satellite plan (which would eventually become Sputnik 3) would be able to get to space because of the ongoing issues with the R-7 ICBM, which would be needed to launch a satellite of that size. “Korolev proposed substituting two 'simple satellites' for the IGY satellite”. The choice to launch these two instead of waiting for the more advanced Sputnik 3 to be finished was largely motivated by the desire to launch a satellite to orbit before the US.

Sputnik 2's launch vehicle had several modifications for the mission. These included modifying the launch trajectory to utilize propellant more efficiently and removing some flight control components to reduce weight. In addition, the core stage would be burned to propellant depletion instead of cutting off at a preset time. The telemetry system at engine cutoff would be switched from monitoring the booster's parameters to those of the capsule. It was also designed to only transmit data for ten minutes at a time every 90 minutes, so as to prevent battery power from being used up sending data while the spacecraft was out of range of Soviet tracking stations. The interstage section between the booster and capsule was highly polished and equipped with thermal blankets so as to reflect off sunlight and keep the latter cool, also several deployable reflectors were mounted on the core stage. A braking nozzle was added to the core stage to prevent it from tumbling in orbit; this would work by venting excess helium gas from the propellant tank pressurization system. Several RD-107 engines were test-fired, with the best-performing units being selected for use on Sputnik 2's booster. The launch vehicle arrived at Baikonur on October 22, along with various parts of the capsule. On November 1, the booster was erected on LC-1.

Ten dogs were considered for the mission, with the final selection being narrowed down to three, Laika being the flight animal, Albina the backup, and Muhka, used to test equipment.

Liftoff took place at 5:58 AM Moscow time on November 3. Booster performance was nominal and the command to terminate core stage thrust was issued at T+297 seconds, just as onboard sensors detected LOX depletion. The booster and capsule entered a 140 miles by 1,038 miles orbit at a 65 degree inclination.

During the first two orbits, it proved difficult to reliably track Sputnik 2's flight path, but ground controllers were able to intercept theodolite data from an American tracking station in Quito,Ecuador. Data showed that Laika's heart rate and breathing spiked rapidly during ascent, but she otherwise reached orbit largely unscathed.

The three days that Sputnik 2 spent on orbit were largely spent doing various biological tests on Laika. She adjusted to orbit,although imperfectly,and ate and drank at preselected times from food and drink canisters in her cabin. Late on the first day,the spacecraft was separated from its booster. The booster remains in an orbit of around 680 by 925 miles,the oldest man-made satellite still circling around Earth. It is expected to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere sometime in the 24th century.

On November 7,it came time to return Laika to Earth. Her cabin separated from the rest of Sputnik 2 (which reentered the atmosphere in July 1963) and was deorbited over Angola. The reentry seemed to occur normally and the capsule landed near Zhinvali in the Georgian SSR at 12:41 PM Moscow time. 

At first,the post-landing status of Laika was confused.

Chapter Text

A young man might go into military flight training believing that he was entering some sort of technical school in which he was simply going to acquire a certain set of skills. Instead, he found himself all at once enclosed in a fraternity. And in this fraternity, even though it was military, men were not rated by their outward rank as ensigns, lieutenants, commanders, or whatever. But here the world was divided into those who had it and those who did not. This quality, this it, was never named, however, nor was it talked about in any way.

As to just what this ineffable quality was... well, it obviously involved bravery. But it was not bravery in the simple sense of being willing to risk your life. The idea seemed to be that any fool could do that, if that was all that was required, just as any fool could throw away his life in the process. No, the idea here (in the all-enclosing fraternity) seemed to be that a man should have the ability to go up in a hurtling piece of machinery and put his hide on the line and then have the moxie, the reflexes, the experience, the coolness, to pull it back in the last yawning moment—and then to go up again the next day, and the next day, and every next day, even if the series should prove infinite—and, ultimately, in its best expression, do so in a cause that means something to thousands, to a people, a nation, to humanity itself. And day by day,Forsythe Pendleton Jones III found himself agreeing with this conception of humanity.

There was,of course, a seemingly infinite series of tests. A career in flying was like climbing one of those ancient Babylonian pyramids made up of a dizzy progression of steps and ledges, a ziggurat, a pyramid extraordinarily high and steep; and the idea was to prove at every foot of the way up that pyramid that you were one of the elected and anointed ones who had the right stuff and could move higher and higher and even—ultimately, God willing, one day —that you might be able to join that special few at the very top, that elite who had the capacity to bring tears to men's eyes, the very Brotherhood of the Right Stuff itself. Perhaps because it could not be talked about, the subject began to take on superstitious and even mystical outlines. A man either had it or he didn't! There was no such thing as having most of it. Moreover, it could blow at any seam. One day a man would be ascending the pyramid at a terrific clip, and the next—bingo!—he would reach his own limits in the most unexpected way.

Jones was not terribly impressed with Sputnik. The thing was so fun small. The idea of an artificial earth satellite was not novel to anyone who had been involved in the rocket program at Edwards. By now, ten years after Chuck Yeager had first flown a rocket plane faster than Mach 1, rocket development had reached the point where the idea of unmanned satellites such as Sputnik 1 was taken for granted. Two years ago, in 1955, the government had published a detailed description of the rockets that would be used to launch a small satellite in late 1957 or early 1958 as part of the United States' contribution to the International Geophysical Year. Engineers for NACA and the Air Force and several aircraft companies were already designing manned spacecraft as the logical extension of the X series. The preliminary design section of North American Aviation had working drawings and most of the specifications for a fifteen-ton ship called the X-15B, a winged craft that would be launched by three enormous rockets, each with 415,000 pounds of thrust, whereupon the ship's two pilots would take over with the X-15B's own 75,000- pound engine, make three or more orbits of the earth, reenter the atmosphere, and land on a dry lake bed at Edwards like any other pilot in the X series. This was no mere dream. North American was already manufacturing a ship almost as ambitious: namely the X-15. Scott Crossfield was in training to fly it. The X-15 was designed to achieve an altitude of 280,000 feet, just above fifty miles, which was generally regarded as the boundary where all trace of atmosphere ended and "space" began. And at Edwards you had men like Crossfield, Reggie Mantle, and Joe Walker, who had already flown rockets many times.

Chapter Text

On December 4,1957,Michael Lopez prepared for the launch of the first American satellite. The Vanguard TV-3 satellite was an approximately 1.5-kg aluminum sphere 16.3 cm in diameter. A cylinder lined with heat shields mounted inside the sphere held the instrument payload. It contained a set of mercury-batteries, a 10-mW, 108-MHz telemetry transmitter powered by the batteries, and a 5-mW, 108.03-MHz Minitrack beacon transmitter, which was powered by six square solar cells mounted on the body of the satellite. Six 30-cm long, 0.8-cm diameter spring-actuated aluminum alloy aerials protruded from the sphere. On actuation, the aerial axes were mutually perpendicular in lines that passed through the center of the sphere. The transmitters were primarily for engineering and tracking data, but were also to determine the total electron content between the satellite and ground stations. Vanguard also carried two thermistors which could measur the interior temperature in order to track the effectiveness of the thermal protection. A cylindrical separation device was designed to keep the sphere attached to the third stage prior to deployment. At deployment a strap holding the satellite in place would be released and three leaf springs would separate the satellite from the cylinder and third stage at a relative velocity of about 0.3 m/s.

Vanguard was the designation used for both the launch vehicle and the satellite. The first stage of the three-stage Vanguard Test vehicle was powered by a GE X-405 28,000 pound thrust liquid rocket engine, propelled by 7200 kg of kerosene (RP-1) and liquid oxygen, with helium pressurant. It also held 152 kg of hydrogen peroxide. It was finless, 44 feet tall,45 inches in diameter, and had a launch mass of approximately 8090 kg.

The second stage was a 19 foot high, 31.5 inch diameter Aerojet-General AJ-10 liquid engine burning 3350 lbs of Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) and White Inhibited Fuming Nitric Acid (WIFNA) with a helium pressurant tank. It produced a thrust of 7340 lbs and had a launch mass of approximately 1990 kg. This stage contained the complete guidance and control system.

A solid-propellant rocket with 2350 lbs of thrust (for 30 seconds burn time) was developed by the Grand Central Rocket Co. to satisfy third-stage requirements. The stage was 1.5 meters high, 0.8 meters in diameter, and had a launch mass of 194 kg. The steel casing for the third stage had a hemispherical forward dome with a shaft at the center to support the satellite and an aft dome fairing into a steel exit nozzle.

The total height of the vehicle with the satellite fairing was about 21.9 meters (72 feet). The payload capacity was 11.3 kg to a 565 km high Earth orbit. A nominal launch would have the first stage firing for 144 seconds, bringing the rocket to an altitude of 58 km,followed by the second stage burn of 120 seconds to 480 km,whereupon the third stage would bring the satellite to orbit.

But today wasn’t the day it was to fly. Two hours before launch,the high-altitude winds were registering 50 mph. This mandated a launch scrub because the Vanguard rocket couldn’t handle a heavy wind speed. However,the Army’s Jupiter-C,Juno,and Atlas rockets could handle up to 75,90,and 110 mph respectively. Had this launch attempt been on one of those rockets then it likely would’ve succeeded.

Chapter Text

Two days later another launch attempt was being prepared. It may be prudent to give here the steps of the Vanguard countdown.

The countdown began at X minus 3 hours when the Navy launch control team arrived at the blockhouse. The satellite’s onboard battery and radio were checked out and verified in operating condition. Then the same process occurred for the onboard battery and radio in the Vanguard rocket’s stages.

The satellite’s flight plan called for its operational life to last around 30 days,and for it to spend at least 25 years in Earth orbit. In fact,the first Vanguard satellite to launch,the following March,is still in orbit today.

——-

Wednesday night's cancellation of the initial attempt to launch TV-3 was followed by an announcement that the field crew would start another countdown late Thursday afternoon with liftoff scheduled for 8 a.m., Friday, 6 December. Speaking at a business meeting in Florida on Thursday, George S. Trimble, Jr., a Martin Company vice president, flatly asserted that the first complete Vanguard vehicle would not succeed in placing its payload in orbit. He based his prediction on "the prevailing mathematics of trial and error." According to these calculations three failures for every seven tries were normal in "this kind of testing experiment." At a news conference in Chicago on the same day the chairman of the IGY committee, Joseph Kaplan, was only a little more optimistic. Cautioning reporters about "risk of failure in tomorrow's shot," he assured them that before the end of the International Geophysical Year on 31 December 1958, the United States "will have a full-fledged earth satellite in orbit." These last-minute efforts to prepare the American people for the worst are of interest in view of the events of the next twenty-four hours. ³³

The second countdown began shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday, approximately on schedule, Shortly thereafter a long hold became necessary because of delays encountered in verifying the operations of the vehicle controls system. Subsequent holds were of short duration and of no significance. By 10:30 Friday morning the countdown had reached T-60 minutes, the beginning of the final and critical phase of the procedure. At this point the big gantry crane began its slow withdrawal, leaving the vehicle standing alone on its flight-launch structure. A weather check, ten minutes later, showed winds of 16 mph at pad level with gusts up to 22 mph. For later Vanguard flight tests, the Martin Company would design a retracting launch stand that permitted the vehicle to lift off in surface winds up to 35 mph; but on 6 December 1957 the original stationary stand was in use and Martin studies had fixed the allowable ground wind for liftoff at only 17 mph. In higher winds the engine nozzle, as it rose from the clearance hole in the platform of the stationary stand, might crash against the surrounding piping. At T-50 minutes, in short, weather conditions were touch-and-go, but otherwise all looked well. At T-45 minutes the electronics telemetering crew in the backroom of the blockhouse began receiving "all clear" signals from the stations of the radio tracking network. Photographers in the employ of Pan American Airlines, responsible for range servicing and general engineering, were busily immortalizing the occasion, snapping pictures of equipment and individuals. At T-30 minutes fierce blasts from the bullfiddle warning horn on the launch pad sent people scurrying from the area. Some retreated to their assigned posts in the blockhouse, others made off in their cars to safely distant points. At T-25 minutes the heavy blockhouse doors clanged shut. The air of tension generated by the busy occupants of the building edged upwards from high in the direction of unbearable. At T-19 minutes the blockhouse lights went out, the "No Smoking" sign blinked on. A report that surface winds were now "fifteen knots" brought a shrug from Dan Mazur. The figure was high, but the trend was downward. Indications were that by liftoff, the wind velocities would be acceptable. At T-5 minutes, propulsion-expert Kurt Stehling detected a "quaver" in the voice of his assistant, Bill Escher, who was counting off the minutes over the public address system. Five minutes later Escher changed the count to seconds. At T-45 seconds, the so-called "umbilical cords" that supply the rocket right up to liftoff began dropping away. At T-1 second test conductor Gray gave the command to fire and Paul Karpiscak, a young Martin engineer, flipped the toggle switch on his oblique instrument panel. In the crowded blockhouse control room all eyes were on the big windows overlooking the pad. Sparks at the base of the rocket signaled that the pyrotechnic igniter inside the first stage had kindled the beginning of the oxygen and kerosene fumes. With a howl the engine started, brilliant white flames swiftly filling the nozzle and building up below it as the vehicle lifted off. The time was 11:44.559 a.m. Two seconds later, a scream escaped someone in the blockhouse control room: "Look out! Oh God, no!" To Kurt Stehling, his gaze on the spectacle outside, it seemed "as if the gates of Hell had opened up." With a series of rumbles audible for miles around, the vehicle, having risen about four feet into the air, suddenly sank. Falling against the firing structure, fuel tanks rupturing as it did so, the rocket toppled to the ground on the northeast or ocean side of the structure in a roaring, rolling, ball-shaped volcano of flame. In the control room someone shouted "Duck!" Nearly everybody did. Then the firecontrol technician pulled the water deluge lever, loosing thousands of gallons of water onto the steaming wreckage outside, and everybody straightened up. The next voice to be heard in the room was that of Mazur, issuing orders: "O.K., clean up; let's get the next rocket ready." Already the stunned crew had taken in a startling fact. As TV-3 crashed into its bed of flame, the payload in its nosecone had leaped clear, landing apart from the rocket. The satellite's transmitters were still beeping, but the little sphere itself would turn out to be too damaged for reuse. It rests today in a file cabinet of the NASA Historical Archives, a battered reminder that "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/ Gang aft a-gley." At the Vanguard assembly building, four and a half miles northwest of the blockhouse, Paul Walsh was on the phone to Hagen. The open hangar doors gave him a view of the launching pad. At T-O, he passed on the news: "Zero, fire, first ignition." His next statement was a single word: "Explosion!" At the Washington end of the line, project director Hagen was equally succinct. "Nuts!" be said

All components of the first stage of the Vanguard vehicle had functioned in a "superior" fashion during the successful launching of TV-2 in October. What had gone wrong with those same components during the flight firing of TV-3? Did the fault lie in the first-stage engine, the X-405 liquid-propellant engine developed by GLM's subcontractor, General Electric? Or did it lie in the other major component of the stage, the tankage built by GLM itself? During TV-3's two seconds of life after liftoff, its onboard telemetry worked. Consequently the General Electric and GLM investigators had on hand a collection of telemetered data concerning the behavior of the rocket that Walsh described as "worth its weight in gold." They also had ground instrumentation records and a series of photographic films of the disaster. Technicians of the two companies studied these, and came up with different answers. The Martin people traced what they called an "improper engine start" directly to a low fuel tank pressure which was responsible for a low fuel injector pressure prior to the start of the turbopump operation. The low injector pressure allowed some of the burning contents of the thrust chamber to enter the fuel system through the injector head. According to this version of the accident, fire started in the fuel injector before liftoff, resulting in destruction of the injector and complete loss of thrust immediately after liftoff. The General Electric investigators dissented. They traced the immediate cause of the explosion to a loose connection in a fuel line above the engine. Their reading of the telemetered and photographic data was that there was no "improper start." On the contrary, the engine had come to full thrust, only to lose thrust when a little leaked fuel on top of a helium vent valve blew down on the engine.

In a remote sense the General Electric investigators held the Martin work crew at fault. They claimed that members of the crew had used the fuel lines as "ladders" while working on the vehicle; hence the loose connection. At a conference attended by representatives of the companies and NRL, Milton Rosen, the project technical director, cut short what gave signs of becoming a heated argument. Conceding unofficially that the cause appeared to be "indeterminate," Rosen said the Project managers would accept GLM's findings. Although GE continued to hold to its position, its spokesmen appreciated the wisdom of Rosen's decision under the circumstances. In the aftermath of the TV-3 catastrophe, the time pressures on Project Vanguard were too severe to permit the luxury of a protracted family quarrel. In accordance with a specification change negotiated with Martin, GE increased the minimum allowable fuel tank pressure head of its engine thirty percent, and provided for manual override of the regulator to assure that this condition could be met. Time would confirm the practicality of this procedure. In fourteen subsequent flight and static firings of the first stage, the engine as altered started without incident