Orders of 
 Magnitude 
 

AHistory of the NACA 
 

and NASA, 1915·1990 
 

NASA SP-4406 
 

Orders of 
 Magnitude 
 

AHistory of the NACA 

and NASA, 1915 1990 

by Roger E. Bilstein 

The NASA History Series 

NI/\SI\ National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

Office of Management 

Scientific and Technical I nformation Division 

Washington, DC 1989 

CONTENTS 
 

Page 

Foreword ........................................................ vii 
 

Preface ............................... ..... ............ . .......... ix 
 

NACA Origins (I915~1930) ................ . .... . ...................... I 
 

New Facilities, New Designs (I930~1945) .............................. 15 
 

Going Supersonic (I945~1958) ................................ .... ... 31 
 

On the Fringes of Space (l958~1964) ....... ......... ................ . 49 
 

Tortoise Becomes Hare (I964~1969) .................................. 73 
 

Aerospace Dividends ( 1969 1973) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 
 

On the Eve of Shuttle (1973 1980) ................................... 107 
 

Aerospace Flights ( 1980 1986) . ............ ....... .................. 123 
 

New Directions (since 1986) . . ...... . ............................... 137 
 

Summary ........................................................ 149 
 

Bibliographic Essay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 151 
 

Index ........................................................... 157 
 
NASA maintains an internal history program for two principal reasons: (1) Sponsorship of 

research in NASA-related history is one way in which NASA responds to the provision ofthe 

National Aeronailtics and Space Act of 1958 that requires NASA to "provide for the widest 

p{acticable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the 

results thereof." (2) Thoughtful study of NASA history can help agency managers accomplish the missions assigned to the agency. Understanding NASA's past aids in understanding its present situation and illuminates possible future directions. The opinions and 

conclusions set forth in this book are those of the author; no official of the agency 

necessarily endorses those opinions or conclusions. 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 

Bilstein, Roger E. 

Orders of magnitude. 

(NASA SP ; 44(6) (The NASA history series) 
 

Rev. ed. of: Orders of magnitude / by Frank W. Anderson, Jr. 
 

Bibliography: p. 151 
 

Includes index. 
 

1. United States. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics-History. 2. United 

States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration-History. I. Anderson, Frank Walter. 

Orders of magnitude. II. Title. III. Series. IV. Series: NASA history series. 

TL521.312.B56 1989 353.0087'8 89-9302 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 

Washington, D~ 20402 
FOREWORD 
 

This is the third edition of Orders of Magnitude, a concise history of the National 

Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and its successor agency, the 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). At a time when Amer~ 

ican pride has been restored by the return of the Space Shuttle to flight. this 

edition reminds us of our first departures from the surface of the Earth and 

commemorates the 75th anniversary of the creation of the NACA-our first 

national institution for the advance of powered human flight. In less than half a 

century America progressed from the sandy hills of Kitty Hawk along the Atlantic 

Ocean into the vast "new ocean" of space. The pace of technological change 

necessary for such voyages has been so rapid, especially in the last quarter 

century, that it is easy'to forget the extent to which aeronautical research and 

development-whether in propulsion, structures, materials, or control systemshave provided the fundamental basis for efficient and reliable civil and military 

flight capabilities. Thus it is fitting that this edition of NASA's Orders of Magnitude 

not only updates the historical record, but restores aeronautics to its due place in 

the history of the agency and of mankind's most fascinating and continuing 

voyage. 

Perspective comes with the passage of time. Events since the last edition of 

Orders of Magnitude (1980) suggest that this nation's ability to sustain the enthusi~ 

asm and the commitment of public resources necessary for a vigorous national 

space program can, like the phases of our nearest celestial neighbor, wax and 

wane. The Apollo Saturn vehicle that carried the first humans to the Moon was 

lofted not only by a remarkable mobilization of engineering research and know~ 

how, but by the political will of a nation startled by the Soviet Union's display of 

space technology with Sputnik 1. launched 4 October 1957. Universities and 

industry joined their considerable talents with NASA's to carry out the Apollo 

program's epoch making exploratory missions in a truly national effort. 

But responsiveness to changing national concerns is a hallmark of democratic 

vii 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

government and the United States' preoccupations shifted to more earthbound 

concerns even before the Apollo program was completed. Public concerns such as 

energy resources, the environment, "guns and butter," and fiscal restraint grew as 

a maturing aerospace technology broadened NASA's mission as well as its 

rationale. Developed as a more economical approach to routine space travel than 

"throwaway" boosters, the Space Transportation System with its reusable Shuttle 

orbiter was only one of NASA's post Apollo programs that reflected the new 

political climate of the 1970s and early 1980s. 

As we approach the 1990s, however, my sense is that the nation's interest in 

space exploration and exploitation, following a roller coaster of public interest 

(apathy, competing priorities, a brief moment in the sun with the pride of 

recovery) is on the brink of a period of such excitement, discovery, and wonder as 

to make the Apollo period pale in comparison. The scheduled voyages to Venus 

and Jupiter, the launch of the Great Observatories like the Hubble Space Tele~ 

scope, the establishment of a permanent human presence in space with the space 

station Freedom, the development of a takeoff to orbit aircraft (the National 

Aerospace Plane), and the beginnings of engineering solutions to the tech~ 

nological requirements for expanding a human presence further into the solar 

system portend an era in which America, and indeed the world, will be bombarded 

with knowledge about the universe through which we pass so fleetingly. That 

knowledge, garnered in the finest traditions of intellectual endeavor that have 

characterized the history of the NACA and NASA. will foster a new vitality that will 

raise to new heights the cyclical pattern of public support for a strong national 

civil aeronautics and space program. While most of us are caught up in the 

changing events of each passing day, history-as this new edition of Orders of 

Magnitude: A History of the NACA and NASA. 1915 1990 attests-reminds us of the 

continuities amid change and of our debt to those who have brought us the 

capability to write the next chapter in the history of humans out of Earth's bounds. 

H. Hollister Cantus 

Associate Administrator for External Relations 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

February 1987 November 1988 

viII 
PREFACE 
 

In 1965, Eugene M. Emme, historian for the National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration (NASA), wrote a brief survey of the agency entitled Historical Sketch 

of NASA (EP 29). It served its purpose as a succinct overview useful for Federal 

personnel, new NASA employees, and inquiries from the general publ ic. Because 

people were so curious about the nascent space program, the text emphasized 

astronautics. By 1976, a revision was in order, undertaken by Frank W. Anderson, 

Jr.,publications manager of the NASA History Office. With a different title, Orders of 

Magnitude: A Histor~ of NACA and NASA, 1915 1980 (SP 4403), the new version gave 

more attention to NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for 

Aeronautics (NACA), although astronautics was still accorded the lion's share of 

the text. After a second printing, Anderson prepared a revised version, published 

in 1980, which carried the NASA story up to the threshold of Space Shuttle 

launches. Anderson retired from NASA in 1980. 

As NASA approached the 75th anniversary of its NACA origins in 1915, a further 

updating of Orders of Magnitude seemed in order. In addition to its original 

audience, the book had been useful as a quick reference and as ancillary reading 

in variotls history courses; Anderson's graceful, lucid style appealed to many 

readers, including myself. The opportunity to prepare a revised survey was an 

honor for me. 

Anderson's original discussions of astronautics have remained essentially 

intact; these are represented in the concluding section ("Enter Astronautics") in 

chapter 3 and by chapters 4, 5,6, and 7 in this latest version. In recognition of the 

NACA's acknowledged contributions to aeronautical progress, I wrote the first 

three chapters, carrying the story up to the origins of NASA in 1958. Although 

chapters 4 through 7 are basically unchanged, I have included a more detailed 

summary of aeronautics in each of them to.underscore the continuing evolution 

of aeronautical research during the era of Apollo. I also wrote chapters 8 and 9, 

bringing developments in aeronautics and astronautics up to the present. In 

Ix 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

addition, many of the photos have been replaced, a short bibliographical essay 

was added, and the index has been revamped. As in the past. Orders of Magnitude 

was not intended as a defi nitive or interpretive study of the NACA and NASA. Even 

so, two recurrent themes can be discerned. One is the continuing relationship 

between NACNNASA and the military services; another is the ongoing interac~ 

tion with the European aerospace community. 

I am grateful to many people who have cooperated in preparing the manuscript: 

Sylvia Fries, the NASA historian and Lee D. Saegesser. NASA archivist; and W. 

David Compton, a valued colleague, :ead and commented on the entire man~ 

uscript. Lee Saegesser also saved me from various errors of fact and turned up 

essential illustrations. At the History Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center 

(JSC), I wish to thankAsha Vashi. Joey Pellarin, and Janet Kovacevich for supplying 

answers to many questions and for indefatigable good humor. Don Hess, who 

oversees the }SC History Office, facilitated access to }SC and its historical 

archives. At every NASA center, photo archivists and personnel in the Public 

Affairs offices provided necessary illustrations and information. Helen Heyder 

conscientiously typed different drafts ofthe entire manuscript. My family-Linda, 

Alex, and Paula-once again cheerfully endured the clutter of notes and books 

throughout our house. 

In the process of defining the coverage and topics in this survey, I have been 

able to establish my own agenda, so that any shortcomings and errors are mine 

alone. 

Roger E. Bilstein 

Houston, Texas 

1989 

x 
Chapter 1 
 

NACA ORIGINS (1915.. 1930) 
 

In 1915, Congressional legislation created an Advisory Committee for Aero~ 

nautics. The prefix "National" soon became customary, was officially adopted, 

and the familiar acronym NACA emerged as a widely recognized term among the 

aeronautics community in America. 

The genesis of what came to be known as the National Advisory Committee for 

Aeronautics (NACA) occurred at a time of accelerating cultural and technological 

change. Only the year before, Robert Goddard began experiments in rocketry and 

the Panama Canal opened. Amidst the gathering whirlwind of the First World War, 

social change and technological transformation persisted. During 1915, the 

NACA's first year, Albert Einstein postulated his general theory of relativity and 

Margaret Sanger was jailed as the author of Family Limitation, the first popular book 

on birth control. Frederick Winslow Taylor, father of "Scientific Management," 

died, while disciples like Henry Ford were applying his ideas in the process of 

achieving prodigies of production. Ford produced his one millionth automobile 

the same year. In 1915, Alexander Graham Bell made the first transcontinental call, 

from New York to San Francisco, with his trusted colleague, Dr. Thomas A. Watson, 

on the other end of the line. Motion pictures began to reshape American enter~ 

tainment habits, and New Orleans jazz began to make its indelible imprint on 

American music. At Sheepshead Bay, New York, a new speed record for auto~ 

mobiles was set, at 102.6 MPH, a figure that many fliers of the era would have been 

happy to match. 

American flying not only lagged behind automotive progress, but also lagged 

behind European aviation. This was particularly galling to many aviation enthusi~ 

asts in the United States, the home of the Wright brothers. True, Orville and 

Wilbur Wright benefited from the work of European pioneers like Otto Lilienthal 

in Germany and Percy Pilcher in Great Britain. In America, the Wrights had 

corresponded with the well known engineer and aviation enthusiast, Octave 

Chanute, and they had knowledge of the work of Samuel P. Langley, aviation 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

pioneer and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. But the Wrights made the 

first powered, controlled flight in an airplane on 17 December 1903, on a lonely 

stretch of beach near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Ironically, this feat was widely 

ignored or misinterpreted by the American press for many years, until 1908, when 

Orville made trial flights for the War Department and Wilbur's flights overseas 

enthralled Europe. Impressed by the Wrights, the Europeans nonetheless had 

already begun a rapid development of aviation, and their growing record of 

achievements underscored the lack of organized research in the United States. 

Sentiment for some sort of center of aeronautical research had been building 

for several years. At the inaugural meeting of the American Aeronautical Society, 

in 1911. some of its members discussed a national laboratory with federal 

patronage. The Smithsonian Institution seemed a likely prospect, based on its 

prestige and the legacy of Samuel Pierpont Langley's dusty equipment. resting 

where it had been abandoned in his lab behind the Smithsonian "castle" on the 

. Mall. But the American Aeronautical Society's dreams were frustrated by con~ 

tinued in fighting among other organizations which were beginning to see avia~ 

tion as a promising research frontier, including universities like the Massachu~ 

setts Institute of Technology, as well as government agencies like the U.S. Navy 

and the National Bureau of Standards. 

The difficulties of defining a research facility were compounded by the 

Pre World War I aviation technology. Military personnel struggle with aWright biplane during trials at 

Fort Myer, Virginia, in 1908. 

2 
NACA ORIGINS (19\5-\930) 

ambivalent attitude of the American public toward the airplane. While some saw 

it as a mechanical triumph with a significant future, others saw it as a mechanical 

fad, and a dangerous one at that. If anything, the antics of the "birdmen" and 

"aviatrixes" of the era tended to underscore the foolhardiness of aviation and 

airplanes. Fliers might set a record one month and fatally crash the next. Calbraith 

P. Rodgers managed to make the first flight from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast in 

1911 (19 crashes, innumerable stops, and 49 days), but died in a crash just four 

months later. Harriet Quimby, the attractive and chic American aviatrix (she flew 

wearing a specially designed, plum colored satin tunic), was the first woman to fly 

across the English Channel in 1912. Returning to America, she died in a crash off 

the Boston coast within three months. 

There were fatalities in Europe as well, but the Europeans also took a different 

view of aviation as a technological phenomenon. Governments, as well as indus~ 

trial firms, tended to be more supportive of what might be called "applied 

research." As early as 1909, the internationally known British physicist, Lord 

Rayleigh, was appointed head of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics; in 

Germany, Ludwig Prandtl and others were beginning the sort of investigations 

that soon made the University of Gottingen a center of theoretical aerodynamics. 

Additional programs were soon under way in France and elsewhere on the 

continent. Similar progress in the United States was still slow in coming. Aware of 

European activity, Charles D. Walcott, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 

was able to find funds to dispatch two Americans on a fact finding tour overseas. 

Dr. Albert F. Zahm taught physics and experimented in aeronautics at Catholic 

University in Washington, D.C.; Dr. Jerome C. Hunsaker, a graduate of the Mas~ 

sachusetts Institute of Technology, was developing a curriculum in aeronautical 

engineering at the institute. Their report, issued in 1914, emphasized the galling 

disparity between European progress and American inertia. The visit also estab~ 

lished European contacts that later proved valuable to the NACA. 

The outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 helped serve as a catalyst forthe creation 

of an American agency. The use of German dirigibles for long range bombing of 

British cities and the rapid evolution of airplanes for reconnaissance and for 

pursuit underscored the shortcomings of American aviation. Against this back~ 

ground, Charles D. Walcott pushed for legislative action to provide for aero~ 

nautical research allowing the United States to match progress overseas. Walcott 

received support from Progressive leaders in the country, who viewed government 

agencies for research as consistent with Progressive ideals such as scientific 

inquiry and technological progress. By the spring of 1915, the drive for an aero~ 

nautical research organization finally succeeded. 

The enabling legislation for the NACA slipped through almost unnoticed as a 

rider attached to the Naval Appropriation Bill, on 3 March 1915.lt was a traditional 

example of American political compromise. 

As before, the move had been prompted by the Smithsonian. The legislation 

did not call for a national laboratory, since President Wilson apparently felt that 

such a move, taken during wartime conditions in Europe, might compromise 

America's formal commitment to strict nonintervention and neutrality. Although 

3 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

supported by the Smithsonian, the proposal emphasized a collective responsibility through a committee that would coordinate work already under way. The 

committee was an unpaid panel of 12 people, including two members from the 

War Department, two from the Navy Department, one each from the Smithsonian, 

the Weather Bureau, and the Bureau of Standards, and five more members 

acquainted with aeronautics. Despite concerns about appearing neutral, the 

proposal was tacked on as a rider to the naval appropriation bill as a ploy to clear 

the way for quick endorsement. 

For fiscal 1915, the fledgling organization received a budget of $5000, an annual 

appropriation that remained constant for the next five years. This was not much 

even by standards of that time, but it must be remembered that this was an 

advisory committee only, "to supervise and direct the scientific study of the 

problems of flight, with a view to their practical solutions." Once the NACA 

isolated a problem, its study and solution was generally done by a government 

agency or university laboratory, often on an ad hoc basis within limited funding. 

The main committee of 12 members met semiannually in Washington; an Executive Committee of seven members, characteristically chosen from the main 

committee living in the Washington area, supervised the NACA's activities and 

kept track of aeronautical problems to be considered for action. It was a clubby 

arrangement, but it seemed to work. 

In a wartime environment, the NACA was soon busy. It evaluated aeronautical 

queries from the Army and conducted experiments at the Navy yard; the Bureau of 

Standards ran engine tests; Stanford University ran propeller tests. But the 

NACA's role as mediator in the rancorous and complex dispute between Glenn 

Curtiss and the Wright-Martin Company represented its greatest wartime success. 

The controversy involved the technique for lateral control of aircraft in flight. Once 

settled, the resultant cross-licensing agreement consolidated patent rights and 

cleared the way for volume production of aircraft during the war as well as during 

the postwar era. 

The authors of the NACA's charter had written it to leave open the possibility of 

an independent laboratory. Although several facilities for military research continued to function, the NACA pointed out in its first Annual Report for 1915 that civil 

aviation research would be in order when the Great War ended. And so, even 

before the war's conclusion, plans were afoot to acquire a laboratory. The best 

option seemed to be collaboration in the development of a new U.S. Army airfield, 

across the river from Norfolk, Virginia. The I'Dilitary facility was named after 

Samuel Pierpont Langley, former secretary of the Smithsonian; the NACA facility 

was named the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, soon shortened to the 

familiar, cryptic "Langley." 

Construction of the airfield got underway in 1917, hampered by the confusion 

following America's declaration of war on Germany and by the wet weather and 

marshy terrain of the Virginia tidewater region. One of the workers was an aspiring 

young writer named Thomas Wolfe. In his autobiograhical novel, Look Homeward 

Angel (1929), Wolfe's main character found a job at Langley as a horse-mounted 

construction supervisor paid $80 per month. He directed gangs striving to create a 

4 
NACA ORIGINS (1915-1930) 

level airfield, pushing the earth "and filling interminably, ceaselessly, like the 

weary and fruitless labor of a nightmare, the marshy earth craters, which drank 

their shovelled toil without end." 

But eventually it did end; formal dedication took place on 11 June 1920. 

Although the Army, under wartime pressures, had already relocated its own 

research center to McCook Field, near Dayton, Ohio, Langley Field remained a 

large base, and military influence remained strong. The inaugural ceremonies 

included various aerial exhibitions and a fly over of a large formation of planes led 

by the dashing Brigadier General William "Billy" Mitchell. Visitors found that the 

NACA's corner of Langley Field was comparatively modest: an atmospheric wind 

tunnel, a dynamometer lab, an administration building, and a small warehouse. 

There was a staff of 11 people-plenty of room to grow. 

The Postwar Era 

The management of the NACA and Langley, with a small staff for so many years, 

remained personal. straightforward, and more or less informal. In Washington, a 

full time executive secretary was named: John F. Victory, the NACA's first 

employee, hired in 1915. George W. Lewis, hired in 1919, became director of 

research, but remained in Washington, where he could palaver with politicians 

and joust with other bureaucrats. He spent long productive hours in the corridors 

of the Army Navy Club and the Cosmos Club. Meanwhile, the close knit staff down 

at Langley operated on a more democratic basis. In the lunchroom, junior staff, 

senior staff, and technicians dined together. where a free exchange of views 

continued over coffee and dessert. For years, Langley managed to attract the 

brightest young aeronautical engineers in the country, because they knew that 

their training would continue to expand by close and comradely contact with 

many senior NACA engineers on the cutting edge of research . 

Engineers came to Langley from all overthe country. Early employees often had 

degrees in civil or mechanical engineering, since so few universities offered a 

degree in aeronautical engineering alone. By the end of the 1920s, this had begun 

to change. From a handful of prewar courses dealing with aeronautical engineer~ 

ing, universities like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology evolved a plan of 

professional course work leading to both undergraduate and graduate degrees in 

the subject. The Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics 

provided money for similar programs at several other schools. In 1929, a survey by 

an aviation magazine reported that 1400 aeroengineering students were enrolled 

in more than a dozen schools across the United States. The California Institute of 

Technology became a major beneficiary of the Guggenheim Fund's foresight. 

Although America possessed the facilities to train engineers and the NACA 

offered superb facilities for practical research, the country lacked a nerve center 

for advanced studies in theoretical aerodynamics. Germany led the world in this 

respect until the Guggenheim Fund lured the brillant young scientist Theodore 

von Karman to the United States. Von Karman accepted a Caltech offer in 1929 and 

occupied his new post the following year. Within the decade, not only did 

Caltech's research projects enrich the field of aerodynamiC theory, its graduates 

5 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

began to dominate the discipline in colleges and universities across the nation. 

The Guggenheim Fund's largesse was a tremendous stimulus to aeronautical 

engineering and research, as it was to the dozens of other aeronautical projects 

that it supported. Between 1926 and 1930, this personal philanthropy disbursed $3 

million for a variety of fundamental research and experimental programs, including flight safety and instrument flying, that profoundly influenced the growth of 

American aviation. 

Although the Langley organization became more formalized over time, there 

was maximum opportunity for individual initiative. The agency followed a regular 

procedure for instituting a "Research Authorization," but promiSing ideas could 

be pursued without formal approval. The NACA hierarchy in Washington and at 

Langley accepted this sort of "bootlegged" work as long as it was not too exotic, 

because it was often as productive as formal programs and kept the Langley staff 

moving out in front of the conventional frontier. The system also worked because 

the Langley staff remained small: about 100 in 1925. Creativity had its place, but 

outlandish projects were qUickly spotted. 

The sources for formal "Research Authorizations" were many and varied, often 

retlected by the catholic makeup of the NACA's main committee, drawing as it did 

from both military services, other government agencies, universities, and individuals from the aviation community. Ideas also came from Lewis's forays into 

Washington corridors of influence as well as from sources overseas. Edward 

limgley Laboratory's first wind tunnel, finished in 1920. 

6 
NACA ORIGINS ( 1915-1930) 

Pearson Warner, serving as Langley's chief physicist, was packed off to Europe in 

1920 to get a sense of postwar trends among major overseas countries; later the 

NACA set up a permanent observation post in Paris, where John J. Ide kept an eye 

on European activities up to World War II. 

But research depended on facilities. At Langley, NACA technicians turned their 

attention to a new wind tunnel. It was not large, designed to have a test section of 

about five feet in diameter, but it could be configured to produce speeds of 120 

MPH in the test section, making it one of the best facilities in the world. Still, there 

were inherent drawbacks. With no firsthand experience, NACA planners built a 

conventional, open circuit tunnel based on a design proven at the British National 

Physical Laboratory. At the University of Gottingen in Germany the famous 

physicist Ludwig Prandtl and his staff had already built a closed circuit, returnflow tunnel in 1908. Among other things, the closed circuit design required less 

power, boasted a more uniform airflow, and permitted pressurization as well as 

humidity control. 

The NACA engineers at Langley knew how to scale up data from the small 

models tested in their sea level, open circuit tunnels, but they soon realized that 

their estimates were often wide of the mark. For significant research, the NACA 

experimenters needed facilities like the tunnels in Gottingen. They also needed 

someone with experience in the design and operation of these more exotic 

tunnels. Both requirements were met in the person of Max Munk . . 

Munk had been one of Prandtl's brightest lights at Gottingen. During World War 

I, many of Munk's experiments in Germany were instantaneously tagged as 

military secrets (though they usually appeared in England, completely translated, 

within days of his completing them). After the war, Prandtl contacted his prewar 

acquaintance, Jerome Hunsaker, with the news that Munk wanted to settle in 

America. For Munk to enter the United States in 1920, President Woodrow Wilson 

had to sign two special orders: one to get him into America so soon after the war, 

and one permitting him to hold a government job. In the spring of 1921, construction of a pressurized, or variable density tunnel, began at Langley. The goal 

was to keep using models in the tunnel, but conduct the tests in a sealed, airtight 

chamber where the air would be compressed "to the same extent as the model 

being tested." In other words, if a one-twentieth scale model was being tested in 

the variable density tunnel, then researchers would increase the density of air in 

the tunnels to a level of 20 atmospheres. Results could be expressed in a 

numerical scale known as the Reynolds number. The tunnel began operations in 

1922 and proved highly successful in the theory of airfoils. As one Langley 

historian wrote, "Langley's VDT (variable density tunnel) had established itself as 

the primary source for aerodynamic data at high Reynolds numbers in the United 

States, if not in the world." Munk's tenure at the NACA was a stormy one. He was 

brill iant, erratic, and an autocrat. After many confrontations with various 

bureaucrats and Langley engineers, Munk resigned from the NACA in 1929. But his 

style of imaginative research and sophisticated wind tunnel experimentation was 

a significant legacy to the young agency. 

The variable density tunnel, using scale models, represented only one avenue 

7 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

A NACA team conducts research using the variable density tunnel in 1929. 

of aeronautical investigation. In paralleL the NACA ran a program of full scale 

flight tests that also yielded early dividends. In the process, the NACA helped 

establish a body of requisite gUidel ines and procedures for flight testing. One 

problem involved instrumentation-proper equipment for acquiring accurate 

data on full scale aircraft during actual flight that could correlate with data 

obtained in wind tunnels. In one early project, wind tunnel data for a model of the 

Curtiss IN-4 "Jenny" was compared to information derived from an instrumented 

Jenny put through a series of flight tests to investigate lift and drag. By comparing 

data, the reliability of wind tunnel information could be judged more rigorously. 

The tests of the 100 MPH IN-4 represented the start of carefully planned and 

instrumented experimental flights that became a hallmark of the NACA and NASA 

from subsonic through supersonic flight. The early IN-4 flights also uncovered 

another aspect of flight testing to be addressed-the need for specially trained 

test pilots. Langley also pioneered in the concept of training fliers as test pilotengineers. 

By 1922, several different kinds of aircraft were under test at Langley. Three 

workhorse planes were Curtiss IN-4H Jennies, used for a series of takeoff and 

landing and performance measurements that represented an important new set 

of design parameters. Military investigations also began during these early years, 

when the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics came to the NACA for a comparative study 

of airplanes in terms of stability, controllability, and maneuverability. Along with a 

Vought VE-7 from the Navy, Langley pilots obtained a Thomas-Morse MB-3 from 

8 
NACA ORIGINS (1915-1930) 

the Army, and two foreign models : a British SE-5A (one of the Royal Air Force's 

principal fighters of World War I) and a German Fokker D-VII (the main source of 

references to the "Fokker scourge" during the war) . Evaluating front-line aircraft 

from foreign as well as American air forces inaugurated a practice that persisted 

through the NASA era as well. Other investigations during the mid-1920s involved 

further work for the Navy, to ascertain accurate data on stall, takeoff, and landing 

speeds of a specific aircraft. The Army turned up with a similar request for studies 

of these and other qualities for most of the aircraft in the Air Service inventory at 

that time. 

The progressive experience in flight test work, including a variety of instrumentation required to register the data, contributed to studies of pressure distribution along wing surfaces, a major effort during the 1920s. Beginning with 

measurements during steady flight, test pi lots and instrumentation experts 

devised techniques to study pressure distribution during accelerated flight and in 

maneuvers, accumulating invaluable design data where none had existed before. 

Steady improvement in instrumentation permitted pressure distribution surveys 

to be wound up in one day, rather than making a prolonged series of flights lasting 

as long as two months. By 1925, Langley had 19 aircraft dedicated to a variety of 

test operations. Ground testing had expanded to include a new engine research 

laboratory in which engineers had begun work on supercharging of engines for 

high altitude bombers, as well as a means of boosting power for interceptors in 

order to give them a high rate of climb-the sort of investigative work that paid 

dividends later in World War II. 

The Tunnels Pay Off 

In the meantime, the variable density tunnel began to pay further dividends in 

the form of airfoil research. During the late 1920s and into the 1930s, the NACA 

developed a series of thoroughly tested airfoils and devised a numerical designation for each airfoil-a four digit number that represented the airfoil section's 

critical geometric properties. By 1929, Langley had developed this system to the 

point where the numbering system was complemented by an airfoil cross-section, 

and the complete catalog of 78 airfoils appeared in the NACA's annual report for 

1933. Engineers could quickly see the peculiarities of each airfoil shape, and the 

numerical designator ("NACA 2415," for instance) specified camber lines, maximum thickness, and special nose features. These figures and shapes transmitted 

the sort of information to engineers that allowed them to select specific airfoils 

for desired performance characteristics of specific aircraft. 

During the late 1920s, the NACA also announced a major innovation that 

resulted in the agency's first Robert J. Collier Trophy, presented annually by the 

National Aeronautic Association for the year's most outstanding contribution to 

American aviation. In 1929, the Collier trophy went to the NACA for the design of a 

low-drag cowling. 

Most American planes of the postwar decade mounted air-cooled radial 

engines, with the cylinders exposed to the air stream to maximize cooling. But the 

exposed cylinders also caused high drag. Because of this, the U.S. Army had 

9 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

adopted several aircraft with liquid-cooled engines, in which the cylinders were 

arranged in a line parallel to the crankshaft. This reduced the frontal area of the 

aircraft and also allowed an aerodynamically contoured covering, or nacelle, over 

the nose of the plane. But the liqUid-cooled designs carried weight penalties in 

terms of the myriad cooling chambers around the cylinders, gallons of coolant, 

pumps, and radiator. The U.S. Navy decided not to use such a design because the 

added maintenance requirements cut into the limited space aboard aircraft 

carriers. Moreover, the jarring contact of airplanes with carrier decks created all 

sorts of cracked joints and leaks in liquid-cooled engines. Air-cooled radial 

engines simplified this issue, although their inherent drag meant reduced performance. In 1926, the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics approached the NACA to see if a 

circular cowling could be devised in such a way as to reduce the drag of exposed 

cylinders without creating too much of a cooling problem. 

While significant work on cowled radial engines proceeded elsewhere, particularly in Great Britain, investigations at Langley soon provided a breakthrough. 

American aerodynamicists at this time had the advantage of a new propeller 

research tunnel completed at Langley in 1927. With a diameter of 20 feet, it was 

possible to run tests on a full-sized airplane. Following hundreds of tests, a NACA 

technical note by Fred E. Weick in November 1928 announced convincing results. 

At the same time, Langley acquired a Curtiss HawkAT-5A biplane fighter from the 

Air Service and fitted a cowling around its blunt radial engine. The results were 

exhilarating. With little additional weight, the Hawk's speed jumped from 118 to 

137 MPH, an increase of 16 percent. The virtues of the NACA cowling received 

A Sperry Messenger mounted for testing in Langley's propeller research tunnel in 1927. 

10 
NACAORIGINS (1915-1930) 

The NACA cowling, as ntted on a Curtiss Hawk, a standard U.S. Army combat plane. 

public acclaim the next year, when Frank Hawks, a highly publicized stunt flier and 

air racer, added the NACA cowling to a Lockheed Air Express monoplane and 

racked up a new Los Angeles/New York nonstop record of 18 hours and 13 minutes. 

The cowling had raised the plane's speed from 157 to 177 MPH. After the flight, 

Lockheed Aircraft sent a telegram to the NACA commjttee: "Record impossible 

without new cowling. All credit due NACA for painstaking and accurate research." 

By using the cowling, the NACA estimated savings to the industry of over 85 

million-more than all the money appropriated for NACA from its inception 

through 1928. 

After 15 years, the sophistication of the NACA's research had dramatically 

changed. And so had the sophistication of aviation. After a fitful start in 1918, the 

U.S. government's airmail service had forged day-and-night transcontinental 

routes across America by 1924. The service saved as much as two days in 

delivering coast-to-coast mail, accelerating the tempo of a business civilization 

and saving millions of dollars. In 1925, the government began to contract for 

service with privately owned companies, a change that marked the beginning of 

the airline industry. By the end of the decade, the private companies were 

beginning to fly passengers as well as mail, and Pan American Airways had 

launched international services between Florida and Cuba, as well as between 

Texas and Central America. Following the Air Commerce Act of 1926, lighted 

airways were improved, radio communications progressed, and guidelines were 

established for pilot proficiency as well as aircraft design and construction. By the 

time Charles Lindbergh made his solo flight from New York to Paris in 1927, an 

aeronautical infrastructure was already in place. 'The "Lindbergh Boom" that 

followed his striking achievement could not have been sustained without the 

important progress of the previous years. 

The NACA helped spur much of this development through its refinement of 

wing design and investigations of various aerodynamic phenomena. The agency 

also benefited from overall aviation progress during this era, sharing the 

t1 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

increased aviation budgets represented by funds for civil programs under the Air 

Commerce Act and for the expansion of U.S. Army and u.s. Navy aviation. The 

Army Air Service was granted more autonomy in 1926, when it became the Air 

Corps. During the 1920s, the Army's air arm began to develop a doctrine, standardize its training, and pursue advanced research, often in cooperation with the 

NACA. In the development of equipment, the Air Service undertook projects for 

modern fighters and strategic bombers to come. The U.S. Navy experienced 

similar organizational changes and began the construction and operational 

evaluation of aircraft carriers, like the Langley, Lexington, and Saratoga . 

Collectively, the progress of civil ian aviation, military aviation, and aeronautical 

research set the stage for the aeronautical revolution that began in the 1930s.The 

design characteristics of the 1920s-fabric covered biplanes with radial enginesgave way to truly sophisticated airplanes of the 1930s with streamlined shapes, 

metal construction, retractable landing gear, and high performance. The national 

economy may have sagged during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but the 

aviation industry reached new levels of excellence. 

Early Rocketry 

There were some areas of flight technology, such as rocketry, in which the NACA 

did not become involved. Nevertheless, when the NACA was transformed into 

NASA in 1958, the new space agency could reach back into some forty years of 

American and European writing and research on rocketry and the possibil ities of 

space flight. During the 1920s, the subject of space flight more often seemed to be 

the province of cranks and science fiction writers spinning wildly improbable 

tales. But visionary researchers in the United States, as well as Great Britain, 

Germany, Russia, and elsewhere were taking the first hesitant steps toward actual 

space travel. In America, Robert Hutchings Goddard is remembered as one of the 

foremost pioneers. 

After completing a doctorate in physics at Clark University in 1911, Goddard 

joined its faculty. During his physics lectures, he sometimes startled students by 

outlining various ways of reaching the Moon. Despite the students' skepticism, 

Goddard was basing his projections on the very real advances in metallurgy, 

thermodynamics, navigational theory, and control techniques. Twentieth century 

technology had begun to make rocketry and space flight feasible. Goddard 

fabricated a series of test rockets, and in 1920 wrote a classic monograph, A Method 

of Attaining Extreme Altitudes, published by the Smithsonian. In it. he described how 

a small rocket could soar from the Earth to the Moon, and detonate a payload of 

flash powder on impact, so that observers using large telescopes on Earth could 

verify the rocket's arrival on the lunar surface. Caustic news stories about rocketry 

and lunacy caused Goddard, a shy individual, to shun publicity during the 

remainder of his life. 

Goddard continued to experiment with liqUid propellant rockets, igniting them 

in a field on his Aunt Effie's farm, where their piercing screeches disturbed the 

neighbor's livestock. Eventually, on 16 March 1926, one of Goddard's devices lifted 

off to make the first successful flight of a liquid propellant rocket. At the time, it 

12 
NACA ORIGINS (1915-1930) 

Robert H. Goddard, with the ffrst successful liquid-fuel chemical rocket, launched 16 March 1926. 

was hardly an earth-shaking demonstration-a flight of 2.5 seconds that carried 

the rocket to an altitude of 41 feet. A small. but significant step towards future 

progress. Continued work caught the attention of Charles Lindbergh, who persuaded the Guggenheim Fund to support Goddard's research . By the 1930s, 

Goddard set up shop at a desert site near Roswell, New Mexico, where he and a 

small group of assistants developed liquid propellant rockets of increasing size 

and complexity. Unfortunately, Goddard's reticence meant that he labored in 

isolation, and other experimental groups knew little of his activities. "His own 

13 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

penchant for secrecy set him apart from the mainstream," wrote historian Frank 

Winter. "As a result, Goddard's monumental advances in liquid-fuel technology 

were largely unknown until as late as 1936 when his second Smithsonian report, 

Liquid Propel/ant Rocket Development appeared." In the meantime, researchers in 

Germany began work that eventually had an impact on the American space 

program. 

Rocket enthusiasts in Germany took inspiration from the same science fiction 

(Jules Verne and others) that had motivated Goddard and took advantage of 

advances in metallurgy and chemistry. They also took another important step, 

establishing an organization that facilitated the exchange of information and 

accelerated the rate of experimentation. In 1927, the Verein fur Raumschiffart 

(VfR) was founded by Hermann Oberth and others. A year later, the VfR collaborated with producers of a science fiction film on space travel. Tfte Girl in tfte Moon. 

The script included the now-famous countdown sequence before ignition and liftoff. For publicity, the VfR hoped to build and launch a small rocket. The rocket 

project fizzled, but among the design team was an eager 18-year-old student 

named Wernher von Braun, whose enthusiasm for space flight never waned. 

In Russia, Konstantin TSiolkovsky left a legacy of significant writing in the field 

of rocketry. Although Tsiolkovsky did not construct any working rockets, his 

numerous essays and books ' helped point the way to practical and successful 

space travel. Tsiolkovsky spent most of his life as an unknown mathematics 

teacher in the Russian provinces, where he made some pioneering studies in 

liquid chemical rocket concepts and recommended liqUid oxygen and liquid 

hydrogen as the optimum propellants. In the 1920s, TSiolkovsky analyzed and 

mathematically formulated the technique of staging vehicles to reach escape 

velocities from Earth. Rocket societies were organized as early as 1924 in the 

Soviet Union, but the barriers of distance and politics limited interchange 

between these groups and their western counterparts. In 1931, the Group for the 

Study of Reaction Motion, known by its Russian acronym of GIRD, became 

organized, with primary research centers in Moscow and Leningrad. The activity 

by GIRD resulted in the Soviet Union's first liqUid-fuel rocket launch in 1933. 

Although GIRD stimulated considerable activity in the Soviet Union, including 

conferences, periodicals, and hardware development, military influences became 

increasingly dominant. The devastating purges of the 1930s seem to have decimated the astronautical leadership in the Soviet Union, so that the rapid recovery 

of Soviet activity in the postwar era was ail the more remarkable. 

In many ways, astronautics became professionalized, much as aeronautics. The 

term "astronautics" also became more commonplace. The designation grew out 

of a dinner meeting in Paris in 1927. A Belgian science fiction author, 1. J. Rosny, 

came up with the word, which was then popularized by the French writer and 

experimenter, Robert Esnault-Pelterie, whose best-known book, L'Astronautique, 

appeared in 1930. With a body of literature, evolving technology, active professionals, and an identity, astronautics-like aeronautics-was poised for rapid 

growth. 

14 
Chapter 2 

NEW FACILITIES, NEW DESIGNS 

(1930 1945) 

To many NACA engineers. the agency's first fifteen years represented remark~ 

able aeronautical progress. The next fifteen years. from 1930 to 1945. seemed even 

more remarkable. as streamlined aircraft became commonplace. World War II 

spawned an impressive variety of modern combat planes. and rocketry became an 

awesome force in twentieth century warfare. 

The propeller research tunnel at Langley continued to yield significant information that resulted in equally significant design refinements in the new generation 

of airplanes. One of the most obvious had to do with fixed landing gear. As a 

means to increase speed. retractable landing gear was not unknown. since this 

approach had been tried on various airplanes before and after World War I. But 

retractable gear required additional equipment for raising and lowering and 

appeared to lack the ruggedness arid reliability of conventional. fixed gear. On the 

ather hand. fixed gear was thought to be a rnajor drag factor. although nobody had 

accurately assessed the aerodynamic liability. NACA engineers set up a series of 

tests using the propeller research tunnel to get an accurate measure of the fixed 

gear's drag on a Sperry Messenger. The results were astonishing. Fixed gear was 

estimated to create nearly 40 percent of the total drag acting on the plane. This 

eye opening news. a dramatic demonstration of the performance penalty incurred 

by fixed gear. prompted rapid development of retractable gear for a wide variety of 

airplanes. The NACA's tests played a large role in the evolution of modern. 

:etractable~geared aircraft. 

There were further projects that pointed the way to sleeker airplanes emerging 

by the end of the 1930s. Trimotored airliners. like the Fokkers. Fords. and Boeings. 

had become standard equipment in America and elsewhere during the late 1920s. 

They could not easily be redesigned to mount retractable gear. but the trio of big. 

blunt radial engines that powered them could be shrouded with the new NACA 

cowling to give them much improved performance. Engineers at Langley took a 

Fokker trimotor powered by three Wright 5 Whirlwind engines and fitted it with 

15 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

cowlings. Confident expectations of sudden enhancement of performance were 

dashed and engineers were baffled. They began to wonder if the installation of 

engines had something to do with it. So as not to encumber the wing, the original 

designers had placed the engines on struts beneath the wing (or, in the case of biplanes like the Boeing 80, between the wings). After getting the big Fokker set up 

in the propeller research tunnel. Langley engineers ran a series of tests that 

conclusively changed the looks of multi-engine transports to come. They discovered that the best position for the engines was neither above or below the 

wing, but mounted as part of its structure-situated ahead of the wing, with the 

engine nacelle faired into the wing's leading edge. 

This was the sort of information that also contributed to the evolution of the 

modern airliners of the decade. Conventional wisdom in the past had dictated 

that wings should be mounted high on the fuselage, permitting engines to be 

slung underneath with clearance for the propeller arc. This meant complex struts 

(creating drag) and led to the use of awkward, long-legged fixed gear (creating 

even more drag). By mounting engines in the wing's leading edge, the wing could 

be positioned on the lower part of the fuselage, which meant that the landing gear 

was now short-legged and less awkward-in fact, retractable. Influenced by NACA 

research, low-winged monoplanes with retractable gear soon replaced the highwinged design for airliners and many other aircraft. 

The propeller research tunnel at Langley had obviously been a profitable 

facility, although it had limitations for thorough testing of full-sized aircraft. In 

1931. when the full scale tunnel was officially dedicated, Langley engineers used it 

to launch a new round of evaluations which, while sometimes less dramatic than 

cowlings, unquestionably added new dimensions to the science of aerodynamics. 

Its impressive statistics marked the beginning of test facilities of heroic proportions. 

Nonetheless, the full scale tunnel did not overshadow other Langley test 

facilities. There were those who felt that the shortcomings of the variable density 

tunnel. with its acknowledged drawbacks in turbulence, would soon be eclipsed 

by the huge full scale tunnel. With partisans on both sides, friction between 

personnel from the variable density tunnel and the full scale tunnel became 

legendary. In time, both established a relevant niche in the scheme of things. 

Meanwhile, the variable density tunnel played a key role in many projects, and its 

personnel made a singular contribution to the theory of the laminar flow wing. 

While the variable density tunnel could test many more varieties of aircraft 

designs, which could be built as scale models, the turbulence issue continued to 

dog research findings. In the process of studying this issue, researchers took a 

closer look at flow phenomena, especially the "boundary layer," where so many 

problems seemed to crop up. The boundary layer was known to be a thin structure 

of air only a few thousandths of an inch from the contour of the airfoil. Within it, air 

particles changed from a smooth laminar flow from the leading edge to a more 

turbulent state towards the trailing edge. In the process, drag increased. After 

observing tests in a smoke tunnel and evaluating other data, aerodynamicists 

concluded that the prime culprits in disrupting laminar flow were traceable to the 

16 
NEW FACILITIES, NEW DESIGNS (1939-1945) 

A Vought 03U set up for tests using the full scale wind tunnel at Langley, completed in 1931. 

wing's surface (rivet heads and other rough areas) and to pressure distribution 

over the wing's surface. 

Eastman Jacobs, head of the variable density tunnel section, came up with 

various formulas to allow for the tunnel 's turbulence in evaluating models and 

pushed for a larger, improved tunnel. He also championed a systematic experimental approach in airfoil development. 

Jacobs was often challenged by a Norwegian emigre, Theodor Theodorsen, of 

the Physical Research Division. Theodorsen, steeped in mathematical res.earch, 

was a strong proponent of airfoil investigation by theoretical study. His opposition to Jacobs's proposal for an improved variable density tunnel and his insistence that, instead, Langley personnel needed more mathematical skills and 

theoretical concepts, sharpened the debate between experimentalists and theorists within the NACA. Jacobs, in fact. kept abreast of current theories, and he 

eventually fashioned a theoretical approach, backed up by his trademark experimental style that led to advanced laminar flow airfoils. 

While the NACA deserves credit for its eventual breakthrough in laminar flow 

wings, the resolution of the issue illustrates a fascinating degree of universality in 

aeronautical research . The NACA-born in response to European progress in 

aeronautics-benefited through the employment of Europeans like Munk and 

Theodorsen, and profited from a continuous interaction with the European 

community. 

17 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

In 1935, Jacobs went to Rome as the NACA representative to the Fifth Volta 

Congress on High Speed Aeronautics. During the trip, he visited several Euro~ 

pean research facilities, comparing equipment and discussing the newest the~ 

oretical concepts. The United States, he concluded, held a leading position, but 

he asserted that "we certainly cannot keep it long if we rest on our laurels." On his 

way home, Jacobs stopped off at Cambridge University in Great Britain for long 

visits with colleagues who were investigating the pecularities of high speed flow, 

including statistical theories of turbulence. These informal exchanges proved to 

be highly influential on Jacobs' approach to the theory of laminar flow by focusing 

on the issue of pressure distribution over the airfoil. Working out the details of the 

idea took three years and engaged the energies of many individuals, including 

several on Theodorsen's staff, even though he remained skeptical. 

Once the theory appeared sound, Jacobs had a wind tunnel model of the wing 

rushed through the Langley shop and tested it in a new icing tunnel that could be 

used for some low turbulence testing. The new airfoil showed a fifty percent 

decrease in drag. Jacobs was elated, not only because the project incorporated 

complex theoretical analysis, but also because the subsequent empirical tests 

justified a new variable density tunnel. 

In application, the laminar flow airfoil was used during World War II in the 

design of the wings for the North American 51 Mustang, as well as some other 

aircraft. Operationally, the wing did not enhance performance as dramatically as 

tunnel tests suggested. For the best performance, manufacturing tolerances had 

to be perfect and maintenance of wing surfaces needed to be thorough. The rush 

of mass production during the war and the tasks of meticulous maintenance in 

The NACA's laminar ffow airfoil was first used on the North American XP 51 Mustang. 

18 
NEW FACILITIES, NEW DESIGNS 0939-1945) 

combat zones never met the standards of NACA laboratories. Still. the work on the 

laminar flow wing pOinted the way to a new family of successful high-speed 

airfoils. These and other NACA wing sections became the patterns for aircraft 

around the world. 

NACA reports began to emerge from an impressive variety of tunnels that went 

into operation during the 1930s. The refrigerated wind tunnel. declared operational in 1928, became a major tool for the study of ice formation on wings and 

propellers. In flight. icing represented a menace to be prevented at all costs. 

Langley's research in the refrigerated tunnel contributed to successful deicing 

equipment that not only enabled airliners to keep better schedules in the 1930s 

but also enabled World War II combat planes to survive many encounters with bad 

weather. Another facility at Langley, a free-spin wind tunnel. yielded vital information on the spin characteristics of many aircraft, improving their maneuverability 

while avoiding deadly spin tendencies. A hydrodynamics test tank solved many 

riddles for designers of seaplanes and amphibians, by towing hull models to 

simulated takeoff speeds. 

The NACA also took a bold look ahead to much higher airplane speeds to come. 

In the mid-1930s, when speeds of 200 MPH were quite respectable, the agency 

proposed a "full-speed" tunnel. providing the means for tests at a simulated 500 

MPH. With an 8 foot diameter, the tunnel allowed tests of comparatively large 

models, as well as some full scale components. Completed early in 1936, the 

eight-foot tunnel played a major role in high-speed aerodynamic research, laying 

the foundations for later work in high subsonic speeds as well as the baffling 

transonic region. 

As the research capabilities of the NACA expanded, so did the persistent, 

nagging problems that followed the introduction of successive generations of 

aircraft. For the NACA, one of the most unusual apparitions to appear in the 1930s 

was the autogyro. First developed by a Spaniard, Juan de la Cierva, in the 1920s, 

the autogyro was thought to have great promise in the immediate future. At first 

glance, it looked like a helicopter, with a huge multi-bladed rotor situated above 

the fuselage. Unlike the helicoper, the autogyro had stubby wings and used a 

nose-mounted engine with a conventional propeller for forward momentum. In 

moving ahead, the main rotor turned, so that its long thin airfoil blades provided 

lift, with some assistance from the shortened wings. The autogyro could not take 

off or land vertically, nor could it hover, but its abbreviated landing and takeoff 

runs were dramatic, and proponents claimed that the aircraft minimized dangerous stalls. Some writers of the era envisioned the autogyro as a replacement 

for the family sedan. Accordingly, the NACA bought a Pitcairn PCA-2 autogyro 

(designed and manufactured in Pennsylvania by Harold Pitcairn) and began tests 

in 1931. These trials did not contribute to a permanent niche in American life for 

the autogyro, but Langley was launched into continuing work on rotary-wing 

aircraft. In fact, some of the maneuverability tests and other investigations on the 

autogyro led to testing criteria used into the 1980s. 

Flight research like that involving the autogyro marked this activity as an 

increasingly valued component of Langley's procedures. Accomplished on an ad 

19 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Expanded ffight test operations included evaluation of the Pitcairn autogyro. 

hoc basis most of the time, flight testing became more formalized in 1932, when a 

flight test laboratory appeared at Langley. With separate space allocated for staff, 

shop work, and an aircraft hangar, the new laboratory made its own contributions 

to aviation progress during the 1930s. 

Among the various airplanes that passed through Langley were two of the most 

advanced airliners of the era : the Boeing 247 and the Douglas DC-I. which led to 

the classic DC-3. The Boeing and Douglas designs incorporated the latest aviation 

technology that had evolved since the end of World War I. With the Ford Tri-Motor 

of the 1920s, wooden frame and fabric covering had given way to all-metal 

construction. Unl ike the Ford, the Boeing and Douglas transports were lowwinged planes with retractable landing gear, and their more powerful twin 

engines were cowled and mounted into the leading edge of the wings. At 170-180 

MPH, they were conSiderably faster than any of their counterparts, and attention 

to details like soundproofing and other passenger comforts made them far more 

popular with travelers. Later versions of the Douglas transport, like the DC-3, 

added refinements like wing flaps and variable pitch propellers that made it even 

more effective in takeoffs and landings, as well as cruising at optimum efficiency 

at higher altitudes. But it was not clear what would happen if one of the two 

engines on the new transports failed. At the request of Douglas Aircraft. Langley 

evaluated problems of handling and control of a twin-engine transport with one 

engine out. These tests, conducted just six months before the DC-3 made its 

maiden flight. provided the sort of procedures to allow pilots to stay aloft until an 

emergency landing could be made. 

The design revolution leading to all-metal monoplane transports had a similar 

impact on military aircraft. During 1935, Boeing began flight tests of its huge, fourengined Model 299, the prototype forthe B- 17 Flying Fortress of the Second World 

20 
NEW FACILITIES, NEW DESIGNS (1939-1945) 

The NACA carried out single-engine performance tests on the Douglas DC-3, as well as studies for stall 

characteristics and the effects of icing. 

War. The big airplane's performance exceeded expectations, due in no small part 

to design features pioneered by the NACA. The Boeing Company sent a letter of 

appreciation to the NACA for specific conributions to design of the plane's flaps, 

airfOil. and engine cowlings. The letter concluded, "it appears your organization 

can claim a considerable share in the success of this particular design. And we 

hope that you will continue to send us your 'hot dope' from time to time. We lean 

rather heavily on the Committee for help in improving our work." 

The ability of the NACA to carry out the sort of investigations that proved useful 

was often the result of continuing contacts with the aviation community. One of 

the most interesting formats for such ideas was the annual aircraft engineering 

conference, which began in 1926. Attendees included the movers and shakers 

from the armed services, the aviation press, government agencies, airlines, and 

manufacturers. These were busy people, and the NACA gave them a carefully 

orchestrated two-day visit to Langley, with plenty of time for conversation. 

Over 300 people made each annual trip, an invitation only opportunity during 

the 1930s. The NACA's executive secretary, John Victory, became the principal 

organizer of the event, which had almost sybaritic overtones in a depression era. 

After gathering in Washington, the group boarded a chartered steamer for a 

stately cruise down the Chesapeake Bay to Hampton, Virginia. Once ashore, the 

travelers partook of a generous Southern breakfast at a local resort hoteL then 

headed for Langley in an impressive motorcade that numbered over 50 cars. The 

program included reviews of current projects, followed by smaller group tours, lab 

demonstrations, and technical sessions throughout the day. Conference participants motored back to the hotel for cocktails on the veranda, an elaborate 

banquet, and an overnight return cruise to Washington. Public relations played an 

21 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

obvious role in such outings. b,ut the conferences represented a useful avenue for 

maintaining contact. for keeping a finger on the pulse of the aviation community. 

and for keeping the aviation community abreast of the NACA's latest research and 

facilities. 

Although the NACA personnel may not have enjoyed luxurious perquisites on a 

daily basis. the agency continued to be a magnet for many young aeronautical 

engineers. Langley's impressive facilities in particular were a powerful lure. in 

addition to the opportunity to work closely with well known people at the cutting 

edge of flight. Through the 1930s. Langley managed to maintain a degree of 

informality that provided a unique environment for newly hired personnel. John 

Becker. who reported for duty in 1936. remembered the crowded lunchroom where 

he found himself rubbing shoulders with the authors of NACA papers he had just 

been studying at college. "These daily lunchroom contacts provided not only an 

intimate view of a fascinating variety of live career models." he wrote. "but also an 

unsurpassed source of stimulation. adVice. ideas. and amusement." The tables in 

the lunchroom had white marble tops. By the end of the lunch hour. the table tops 

were invariably covered by sketches. equations. and other miscellany. erased by 

hand or by a napkin and drawn over again. Becker lamented the loss of this "great 

unintentional aid to communication" when Langley's growing staff required a 

larger. modern cafeteria with unusable table surfaces. 

Much of this growth-and the end of an era for Langley and the NACAoccurred during the wartime period. In 1938. the total Langley staff came to 426. 

Just seven years later. in 1945. Langley numbered 3000 personnel. 

Military Research 

The prewar research at Langley had a catholic fallout, in that the center's 

activities were applicable to both civil and military aircraft. The commercial 

aircraft and fighting planes of the first one and half decades following World 

War I were very similar in terms of airspeed. wing loading. and general perfor~ 

mance. For example. Langley's work on the cowling for radial engines had the 

encouragement of both civil and military personnel. and the NACA cowling 

eventually appeared on a remarkable variety of light planes. airliners. bombers. 

and fighter aircraft. Many other NACA projects on icing. propellers. and so on were 

equally useful to civil and military designs. 

About the mid 1930s the phenomenon of mutual benefits began to change. 

Commercial airline operators put a premium on safety and operational efficiency. 

While such factors were not shunned by military designers. the qualities of speed. 

maneuverability. and operations to very high altitudes meant that NACA research 

increasingly proceeded along two separate paths. By 1939. the Annual Manufacturers Conference was phased out and replaced by an "inspection." planned 

solely for representatives of the armed services and delegates from firms having 

military contracts. 

For most of the time after the mid-1930s benchmark. military R&D took the lead 

in the NACA. and its fallout was incorporated into civilian airplanes. Moreover. 

there are indications that the u.s. Navy often fared better than the u.s. Army in 

22 
NEW FACILITIES, NEW DESIGNS (1939·1945) 

reaping benefits from Langley's extensive R&D talents. This situation may have 

stemmed from Langley's early days, when there was some friction about civilian 

NACA facilities located at the Army's Langley Field. Old hands at the NACA felt 

that certain Army people wanted to shift the NACA's work to McCook Field in Ohio 

and to conduct all of its operations under an Army umbrella. Under the circumstances, the Navy appeared to have smoother relations with the NACA. At the 

same time, the Navy had reason to rely heavily on the NACA's expertise. During 

the 1920s and 1930s, the service developed its first aircraft carriers. Concurrently, a 

rather special breed of aircraft had to be developed to fit the demanding requirements of carrier operations. Landings on carriers were bone-jarring events 

repeated many times (a carrier landing was wryly described as a "controlled 

crash") ; takeoffs were confined to the limited length of a carrier's flight deck. In the 

process of beefing up structures, improving wing lift, keeping aircraft weight 

down, enhancing stability and control, and studying other problems, naval aviation and the NACA grew up together. Between 1920 and 1935, the Navy submitted 

twice as many research requests as the Army. 

There were still some instances in which civilian needs benefited military 

programs. In 1935, Edward P. Warner. Langley's original chief phYSicist, was 

working as a consultant for the Douglas Aircraft Company. Warner had the job of 

determining stability and control characteristics of the DC-4 four-engined transport. Accepted practice of the day usually meant informal discussions between 

pilots and engineers as the latter tried to design a plane having the often elusive 

virtues of "good flying qualities." At Warner's request the NACA began a special 

project to investigate flying qualities desired by pilots so that numeric guidelines 

could be written into design specifications. At Langley, researchers used a specially instrumented Stinson Reliant to develop usable criteria. Measurable control inputs from the test pilot were correlated with the plane's design 

characteristics to develop a numeric formula that could be applied to other 

aircraft. Further tests on 12 different planes gave a comprehensive set of figures for 

both large and small aircraft. As military programs gained urgency in the late 

1930s, the formulas for flying qualities were increasingly used in the design of new 

combat planes. 

The growing international threat found the American aviation industry in far 

better shape than was the case on the eve of World War II. In terms of civil aviation, 

the United States had established an enviable record of progress. Commercial 

airliners like the DC-3 had set a world standard and, in fact, were widely used by 

many foreign airlines on international routes. Airline operations had reached new 

levels of maturity, not only in terms of marketing and advertising to attract a 

growing clientele, but also in a myriad variety of supporting activities. These 

included maintenance and overhaul procedures, radio communication, weather 

forecasting, and long-distance flying. Many of these skills proved valuable to the 

military after the outbreak of war. Pan American World Airways (Pan Am), which 

had pioneered long distance American routes throughout the Caribbean, Pacific, 

and Atlantic shared its skills and personnel to help the Air Transport Command 

evolve a remarkable global network during the war years . Pan Am rei ied on a series 

23 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

of impressive flying boats designed and built by Sikorsky, Martin, and Boeing 

during the 1930s. Although the military airlift services depended more on landplanes like the DC-3 (military version known as the C-47) and DC-4 (or C-54). many 

of the imaginative design concepts of the flying boats pointed the way to the 

multi-engined airliners that replaced them. 

There were even benefits for the light plane industry. Despite the depression, 

personal and business flying became firmly entrenched in the American aviation 

scene. Manufacturers offered a surprising array of designs, from the economical 

two-place Piper Cub J-3 to the swift 4-5 place business planes produced by 

Stinson and Cessna. At the top of the scale the Beech 0-18, a twin-engine 

speedster, offered the era's ultimate in corporate transportation. When war came, 

these and other manufacturers were ready to turn out the dozens of primary 

trainers (larger planes for navigational and bombing instruction) and various 

components that made up the other equipment in the U.S. armed forces. 

The Air Force itself was beginning to receive the sort of combat planes that 

enabled it to meet aggressive fliers in the skies over Europe and the Far East. 

Prewar fighters like the Curtiss P-40 soon gave way to the Lockheed P-38, Republic 

P-47, and North American P-51. A new family of medium bombers and heavy 

bombers included the redoubtable B-17 Flying Fortress, derived from the Boeing 

299. Aboard the U.S. Navy's big new aircraft carriers, biplanes had given way to 

powerful monoplanes like the Grumman Wildcat. followed by the Hellcat and 

Vought Corsair. There were also new dive bombers and long-legged patrol planes 

like the Catalina amphibian. Directly or indirectly, the majority of these aircraft 

profited from the NACA's productivity during the 1930s as well as during the war. 

The War Years 

Even though Langley and the NACA had contributed heavily to the progress of 

American aviation, there were still some in Congress who had never heard of 

them. Before World War 11. a series of committee reports brought a dramatic 

change. During the late 1930s, John Jay Ide, who manned NACA's listening post in 

Europe, reported unusually strong commitments to aeronautical research in Italy 

and Germany, where no less than five research centers were under development. 

Germany's largest. located near Berlin, had a reported 2000 personnel at work, 

compared to Langley's 350 people. Although the Fascist powers were developing 

civil aircraft, it became apparent that military research absorbed the lion's share 

of work at the new centers. Under the circumstances, the NACA formed stronger 

alliances with military services in the United States for expansion of its own 

facilities. 

In 1936, the agency put together a special committee on the relationship of 

NACA to National Defense in time of war, chaired by the Chief of the Army Air 

Corps, Major General Oscar Westover. Its report, released two years later, called 

for expanded facilities in the form of a new laboratory-an action underscored by 

Charles Lindbergh, who had just returned from an European tour warning that 

Germany clearly surpassed America in military aviation. A follow-up committee, 

chaired by Rear Admiral Arthur Cook, chief of the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics, 

24 
NEW FACILITIES. NEW DESIGNS 11939-19451 

recommended that the new facility should be located on the West Coast. where it 

could work closely with the growing aircraft industry in California and Wash~ 

ington. Following congressional debate. the NACA received money for expanded 

facilities at Langley (pacifying the Virginia Congressman who ran the House 

Appropriations Committee) along with a new laboratory at Moffett Field. south of 

San Francisco. The official authorization came in August 1939; only a few weeks 

later. German planes. tanks. and troops invaded Poland. World War II had begun. 

The outbreak of war in Europe. coupled with additional warnings from the 

NACA committees and from Lindbergh about American preparedness. triggered 

support for a third research center. British, French. and German military planes 

were reportedly faster and more able in combat than their American counterparts. 

Part of the reason. according to experts. was the European emphasis on liquid~ 

cooled engines that yielded benefits in speed and high altitude operations. In the 

United States. the country's large size had led to the development of air cooled 

engines that were more suited to longer ranges and fuel efficiency. Moreover. 

according to Lindbergh. the NACA's earlier agreement to leave engine develop~ 

ment to the manufacturers left the country with inadequate national research 

facilities for aircraft engines. Congress quickly responded. and an "Aircraft Engine 

Research Laboratory" was set up near the municipal airport in Cleveland. Ohio. 

This third new facility in the midwest gave the NACA a geographical balance. and 

the location also put it in a region that already had significant ties to the power~ 

plant industry. 

The site at Moffett field became Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in 1940, in honor 

of Dr. Joseph Ames, charter member of the NACA and its long time chairman. The 

"Cleveland laboratory" remained just that until 1948. when it was renamed the 

Drag reduction studies on the Brewster XF2A-J Buffalo inffuenced many later military fighters. 

25 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory, in memory of its veteran director of research, 

George Lewis. Key personnel for both new laboratories came from Langley, and 

the two junior labs tended to defer to Langley for some time. By 1945, after several 

years of managing their own wartime projects, the Ames and Cleveland laborato~ 

ries felt less like adolescents and more like peers of Langley. The NACA. like NASA 

after it, became a family of labs, but with strong individual rivalries. 

In the meantime, requirements of national security took priority. One signifi~ 

cant project undertaken on the eve of World War II demonstrated the sort of work 

at Langley that had a major influence on aircraft design for years afterward. During 

1938, the Navy became frustrated with the performance of a new fighter. the XF2A 

Brewster Buffalo. After the navy flew a plane to Langley, technicians set it up in the 

full scale tunnel for drag tests. It took only five days to uncover a series of small 

but negative aspects in the plane's design. 

To the casual eye, the 250 MPH fighter with retractable gear appeared aero~ 

dynamically "clean." But the wind tunnel evaluations pinpointed many specific 

design aspects that created drag. The exhaust ports, gunsight, guns, and landing 

gear all protruded into the slipstream during flight; the accumulated drag effects 

hampered the plane's performance. By revamping these and other areas, the 

NACA reported a 10 percent increase in speed. Such a performance improvement, 

without raising engine power or reducing fuel efficiency, immediately caught the 

attention of other designers. Within the next two years, no fewer than 18 military 

prototypes went through the "c1ean~up" treatment given to the XF2A. Even 

though the Brewster Buffalo failed to win an outstanding combat record, others 

did, including the Grumman XF4F Wildcat, the Republic XP 47 Thunderbolt, and 

the Chance Vought XF4N Corsair. The enhanced performance of these planes 

often represented the margin between victory and defeat in air combat. Moreover, 

specialists in the analysis of engine cooling and duct design later set the 

guidelines for inducing air into a postwar generation of jet engines. 

The pace of war created personnel problems, especially when selective service 

began to claim qualified males after 1938. In the early years of the war. NACA 

personnel officers did considerable traveling each month to get deferments for 

employees working on national defense projects. Nonetheless, the NACA some~ 

times lost more employees than it was able to recruit. The issue was not resolved 

until early in 1944, when all eligible Langley employees were inducted into the Air 

Corps Enlisted Reserves, then put on inactive status under the exclusive manage~ 

ment of NACA. The NACA draftees were given honorable discharges after Japan's 

surrender in 1945. The issue of the draft was not a threat to women, who made up 

about one third of the entire staff by the end of the war. Although most of the 

female employees held traditional jobs as secretaries, increasing numbers held 

technical positions in the laboratories. Some did drafting and technical illustrat~ 

ing; some did strain gauge measurements; others made up entire computing 

groups who worked through reams of figures pouring out of the various wind 

tunnels. A few held engineering posts. If women at Langley did not advance as 

rapidly in civil service as their male counterparts, most of the female employees 

26 
NEW FACILITIES. NEW DESIGNS (1939-1945) 

More women ;oined the NACA during World War II; technicians prepared wind tunnel models, like this 

ffying boast wing, for realistic tests. 

later recalled that their treatment at the NACA was better than average when 

compared to other contemporary employers. 

Over the course of the war years; the NACA's relationship with industry went 

through a fundamental change. Since its inception. the agency refused to have an 

industry representative sit on the main committee. fearing that industry influence 

would make the NACA into a "consulting service." But the need to respond to 

industry goals in the emergency atmosphere of war led to a change in policy. The 

shift came in 1939. when George Mead became vice-chairman of the NACA and 

chairman of the Power Plants Committee. Mead had recently retired as a vicepresident of the United Aircraft Corporation, and his position in the NACA. 

considering his high level corporate connections. represented a new trend. During 

the war, dozens of corporate representatives descended on Langley to observe 

and actually assist in testing. In the process, they forged additional direct links 

between the NACA and aeronautical industries. 

Much of the wartime work involved refinement of manufacturers' designs. 

ranging from fighters through bombers like the B-29. Aircraft as large as the B-29 

design were not tested as full sized planes, but considerable data was generated 

from models. During 1942. the B-29 design was thoroughly investigated in Lan27 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Early in the war, extensive analysis of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning solved problems in high-speed dives. 

gley's 8-foot high-speed tunnel. and Boeing engineers heaped praise on Langley 

technicians for their cooperation and the high quality of the data generated by the 

tests. 

Despite the success of American warplanes, two of the major aeronautical 

trends of the era nearly escaped the NACA's attention. The agency endured much 

criticism in the postwar era for its apparent lapse in the development of jet 

propulsion and in the area of high-speed research leading to swept wings. 

America's rapid postwar progress in these fields suggest that there may have been 

a lapse of sorts, although not as total as many critics believed. 

Rocketry 

There was nothing in the original NACA charter that charged it with research in 

rocketry. Some of the NACA's personnel had a personal interest in rocketry, but 

most early developments in this field came from sophisticated amateur associations like the American Interplanetary Society. During World War II, governments 

suddenly became more interested in rocketry as a powerful new weapon. 

The existence of organized groups like the VfR in Germany signaled the increasing fascination with modern rocketry in the 1930s, and there was frequent 

exchange of information among the VfR and other groups, like the British Interplanetary Society (1933) and the American Interplanetary Society (1930). Even 

Goddard occasionally had correspondence in the American Interplanetary 

28 
NEW FACILITIES, NEW DESIGNS (1939-1945) 

Society's Bulletin, but he remained aloof from other American researchers, cautious about his results, and concerned about patent infringements. Because of 

Goddard's reticence, in contrast to the more visible personalities in the VfR, and 

because of the publicity given the German V-2 of the Second World War, the work 

of British, American, and other groups during the 1930s has been overshadowed. 

Theirwork, if not as spectacular as the V-2 project, nevertheless contributed to the 

growth of rocket technology in the prewar era and to the successful use of a variety 

of Allied rocket weapons in the Second World War. Although groups like the 

American Interplanetary Society (wh ich became the the American Rocket Society 

in 1934) succeeded in building and launching several small chemical rockets, 

much of their significance lay in their role as the source of a growing number of 

technical papers on rocket technologies. 

But rocket development was complex and expensive. The cost and the difficulties of planning and organization meant that, sooner or later, the major work in 

rocket development would have to occur under the aegis of permanent government agencies and government-funded research bodies. In America, significant 

team research began in 1936 at the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, or GALCIT. In 1939, this group received the first federal 

funding for rocket research, achieving special success in rockets to assist aircraft 

takeoff. The project was known as JATO, for jet-assisted takeoff, since the word 

"rocket" still carried negative overtones in many bureaucratic circles . JATO 

research led to substantial progress in a variety of rocket techniques, including 

both liquid and solid propellants. Work in solid propellants proved especially 

fortuitous for the United States; during the Second World War, American armed 

forces made wide use of the bazooka (an antitank rocket) as well as barrage 

rockets (launched from ground batteries or from ships) and high velocity air-tosurface missiles. 

The most striking rocket advance, however, came from Germany. In the early 

1930s the VfR attracted the attention of the German army, since armament 

restrictions introduced by the Treaty of Versailles had left the door open to rocket 

development. A military team began rocket research as a variation of long-range 

artillery. One of the chief assistants was a 22-year-old enthusiast from the VFR, 

Wernher von Braun, who joined the organization in October 1932. By December, 

the army rocket group had static-fired a liquid propellant rocket engine at the 

army's proving grounds near Kummersdorf, south of Berlin. During the next year it 

became evident that the test and research facilities at Kummersdorfwould not be 

adequate for the scale of the hardware under development. A new location, 

shared jointly by the German army and air force, was developed at Peenemuende, 

a coastal area on the Baltic Sea. Starting with 80 researchers in 1936, there were 

nearly 5000 personnel at work by the time of the first launch of the awesome, longrange V-2 in 1942. Later in the war, with production in full swing, the work force 

swelled to about 18,000. 

Having completed his doctorate in 1934 (on rocket combustion), von Braun 

became the leader of a formidable research and development team in rocket 

technology at Peenemuende. Like so many of his cohorts in original VfR projects, 

29 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

von Braun still harbored an intense interest in rocket development for manned 

space travel. Early in the 2 development agenda, he began looking at the rocket 

in terms of its promise for space research as well as its military role, but found it 

prudent to adhere rigidly to the latter. Paradoxically, German success in the 

wartime 2 program became a crucial legacy for postwar American space efforts. 

30 
Chapter 3 
 

GOING SUPERSONIC (1945 1958) 
 

On I October 1942, the Bell XP 59A. America's first jet plane, took to the air over 

a remote area of the California desert. There were no official NACA representa~ 

tives present. The NACA. in fact, did not even know the aircraft existed, and the 

engine was based entirely on a top secret British design. After the war. the failure 

of the United States to develop jet engines, swept wing aircraft, and supersonic 

designs was generally blamed on the NACA. Critics argued that the NACA. as 

America's premier aeronautical establishment (one which presumably led the 

world in successful aviation technology) had somehow allowed leadership to slip 

to the British and the Germans during the late 1930s and during World War II. 

In retrospect. the NACA record seems mixed. There were some areas, such as 

gas turbine technology, in which the United States clearly lagged, although NACA 

researchers had begun to investigate jet propulsion concepts . There were other 

areas, such as swept wing designs and supersonic aircraft, in which the NACA had 

made important forward steps. Unfortunately, the lack of advanced propulsion 

systems, such as jet engines, made such investigations academic exercises. The 

NACA's forward steps undeniably trailed the rapid strides made in Europe. 

Jet Propulsion 

During the 1930s, aircraft speeds of 300 350 MPH represented the norm and 

designers were already thinking about planes able to fly at 400 450 MPH. At such 

speeds, the prospect of gas turbine propulsion became compelling. With a piston 

engine, the efficiency of the propeller began to fall off at high speeds, and the 

propeller itself represented a significant drag factor. The problem was to obtain 

sufficient research and development funds for what seemed to be unusually 

exotic gas turbine power plants. 

In England, RAF officer Frank Whittle doggedly pursued research on gas tur~ 

bines through the 1930s, eventually acquiring some funding through a private 

investment banking firm after the British Air Ministry turned him down. Strong 

31 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

government support finally materialized on the eve of World War II. and the 

single engine Gloster experimental jet fighter flew in the spring of 1941. English 

designers leaned more toward the centrifugal flow jet engine, a comparatively 

uncomplicated gas turbine design, and a pair of these power plants equipped the 

Gloster Meteor of 1944. Although Meteors entered RAF squadrons before the end 

of the war and shot down German v~ 1 flying bombs, the only jet fighter to fly in air~ 

to air combat came from Germany-the Me 262. Hans von Ohain, a researcher in 

applied physics and aerodynamics at the University of Gottingen, had 

unknowingly followed a course of investigation that paralleled Whittle's work and 

took out a German patent on a centrifugal engine in 1934. Research on gas turbine 

engines evolved from several other sources shortly thereafter. and the German Air 

Ministry, using funds from Hitler's rearmament program, earmarked more money 

for this research. Although a centrifugal type powered the world's first gas turbine 

aircraft flight by the He 178 in 1939, the axial flow jet, more efficient and capable of 

greater thrust, was used in the Me 262 fighters that entered service in the autumn 

of 1944. 

In America, the idea of jet propulsion had surfaced as early as 1923, when an 

engineer at the Bureau of Standards wrote a paper on the subject, which was 

published by the NACA. The paper came to a negative conclusion: fuel consump~ 

tion would be excessive; compressor machinery would be too heavy; high tem~ 

peratures and high pressures were major barriers. These were assumptions that 

subsequent studies and preliminary investigations seemed to substantiate into 

the 1930s. By the late 1930s, the Langley staff became interested in the idea of a 

form of jet propulsion to augment power for military planes for takeoff and during 

combat. In 1940, Eastman Jacobs and a small staff came up with a jet propulsion 

test bed they called the "Jeep." This was a ducted fan system, using a piston 

engine power plant to combine the engine's heat and exhaust with added fuel 

injection for brief periods of added thrust, much like an afterburner. A test rig was 

in operation during the spring of 1942. By the summer, however, the Jeep had 

grown into something else-a research aircraft for transonic flight. With Eastman 

Jacobs again, a small team made design studies of a jet plane having the ducted 

fan system completely closed within the fuselage, similar to the Italian Caproni~ 

Campini plane that flew in 1942. Although work on the Jeep and the jet plane 

design continued into 1943, these projects had already been overtaken by Euro~ 

pean developments. 

During a tour to Britain in April 1941. General H. H. "Hap" Arnold, Chief of the 

U.S. Army Air Forces, was dumbfounded to learn about a British turbojet plane, 

the Gloster E28/39. The aircraft had already entered its final test phase and, in fact, 

made its first flight the following month. Fearing a German invasion, the British 

were willing to share the turbojet technology with America. That September, an 

Air Force Major, with a set of drawings manacled to his wrist, flew from London to 

Massachusetts, where General Electric went to work on an American copy of 

Whittle's turbojet. An engine, along with Whittle himself, followed. Development 

of the engine and design of the Bell XP 59 was so cloaked in secrecy that the NACA 

learned nothing about them until the summer of 1943. Moreover, design of the 

32 
GOING SUPERSONIC (1945-1958) 

Lockheed XP-80, America's first operational jet fighter, was already under way. 

General Arnold may have lost confidence in the NACA's potential for advanced 

research when he stumbled onto the British turbojet plane. It may be that British 

and American security requirements were so strict that the risks of sharing 

information with the civilian agency, where the risk of leaks was magnified, 

justified Arnold's decision to exclude the NACA. The answers were not clear. In 

any case, the significance of turbojet propulsion and rising speeds magnified the 

challenges of transonic aerodynamics. This was an area where the NACA had been 

at work for some years, though not without influence from overseas. 

Shaping New Wings 

As information on advanced aerodynamics began to trickle out of defeated 

Germany, American engineers were impressed. Photographs of some of the 

startling German aircraft, like the bat-like Me-163 rocket powered interceptor and 

the improbable Junkers JU-287 jet bomber, with its forward swept wings, 

prompted critics to ask why American designs appeared to lag behind the 

Germans. It seemed to be the story of the turbojet again. The vaunted NACA had 

let advanced American flight research fall precariously behind during the war. 

True, the effect of wartime German research made an impact on postwar American 

The North American F-86 Sabre featured swept wing and tail surfaces. The plane shown here was ~tted 

with special instrumentation for transonic ffight research conducted by the Ames Laboratory. 

33 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

development of swept wings, leading to high performance jet bombers like the 

Boeing B-47 and the North American F-86 jet fighter. It is also the case that 

American engineers, including NACA personnel, had already made independent 

progress along the same design path when the German hardware and drawings 

were turned up at the end of World War II. 

Like several other chapters in the story of high speed flight, the story began in 

Europe, where an international conference on high speed flight-the Volta Congress-met in Rome during October 1935. Among the participants was Adolf 

Busemann, a young German engineer from Lubeck. As a youngster, he had 

watched innumerable ships navigating Lubeck's harbor, each vessel moving 

within the V-shaped wake trailing back from the bow. As an aeronautical engineer, 

this image was a factor that led him to consider designing an airplane with swept 

wings. At supersonic speeds, the wings would function effectively inside the shock 

waves stretching back from the nose of an airplane at supersonic speeds. In the 

paper Busemann presented at the Rome conference, he analyzed this phenomenon and predicted that his "arrow wing" would have less drag than straight 

wings exposed to the shock waves. 

There was polite discussion of Busemann's paper, but little else, since propeller-driven aircraft of the 1930s lacked the performance to merit serious consideration of such a radical design. Within a decade, the evolution of the turbojet 

dramatically changed the picture. In 1942, designers for the Messerschmitt firm, 

builders of the remarkable Me-262 jet fighter, realized the potential of swept wing 

aircraft and studied Busemann's paper more intently. Following promising wind 

tunnel tests, Messerschmitt had a swept wing research plane under development, 

but the war ended before the plane was finished. 

In the United States, progress toward swept wing design proceeded independently of the Germans, although admittedly behind them. The American chapter 

of the swept wing story originated with Michael Gluhareff, a graduate of the 

Imperial Military Engineering College in Russia during World War I. He fled the 

Russian revolution and gained aeronautical engineering experience in Scandinavia. Gluhareff arrived in the United States in 1924 and joined the company of 

another Russian compatriot, Igor Sikorsky. By 1935, he was chief of design for 

Sikorsky Aircraft and eventually became a major figure in developing the first 

practical helicopter. In the meantime, Gluhareff became fascinated by the possibilities of low-aspect ratio tailless aircraft and built a series of flying models in 

the late 1930s. In a memo to Sikorsky in 1941, he described a possible pursuitinterceptor having a delta-shaped wing swept back at an angle of 56 degrees. The 

reason, he wrote, was to achieve "a considerable delay in the action ( onset) of the 

compressibility effect. The general shape and form of the aircraft is, therefore, 

outstandingly adaptable for extremely high speeds." 

Eventually, a wind tunnel model was built; initial tests were encouraging. But 

the Army declined to follow up due to several other unconventional projects 

already under way. Fortunately, a business associate of Gluhareff kept the concept 

alive by using the Dart design, as it was called, as the basis for an air-to-ground 

glide bomb in 1944. This time, the Army was intrigued and asked the NACA to 

34 
GOING SUPERSONIC (1945·1958) 

evaluate the project. Thus, a balsa model of the Dart, along with some data, 

wound up on the desk of Robert T. Jones, a Langley aerodynamicist. 

Jones was a bit of a maverick. A college dropout, he signed on as a mechanic for 

a barnstorming outfit known as the Marie Meyer Flying Circus. Jones became a 

self-taught aerodynamicist who couldn't find a job during the 1930s depression. 

He moved to Washington, D.C., and worked as an elevator operator in the Capitol. 

There he met a congressman who paid Jones to tutor him in physics and 

mathematics. Impressed by Jones's abilities, the legislator got him into a Works 

Projects Administration program that led to a job at Langley in 1934. With his 

innate intelligence and impressive intuitive abilities, Jones quickly moved ahead 

in the NACA hierarchy. 

Studying Gluhareff's model, Jones soon realized that the lift and drag figures for 

the Dart were based on outmoded calculations for wings of high-aspect ratio. 

Using more recent theory for low-aspect ratio shapes, backed by some theoretical 

work done by Max Munk, Jones suddenly had a breakthrough. Within the shock 

cone created at supersonic speeds, he realized that the Dart's swept wing would 

remain free of shock waves at given speeds. The flow of air around the wings 

remained subsonic; compressibility effects would occur at higher Mach numbers 

than previously thought (Mach I equals the speed of sound; the designation is 

named after the Austrian physicist, Ernst Mach). 

The concept of wings with subsonic sweep came to Jones in January 1945, and 

he eagerly discussed it with Air Force and NACA colleagues during the next few 

weeks. Finally, he was confident enough to make a formal statement to the NACA 

chieftains. On 5 March 1945, he wrote to the NACA's director of research, George 

W. Lewis. "I have recently made a theoretical analysis which indicates that a Vshaped wing traveling point foremost would be less affected by compressibility

than other planforms," he explained. "In fact, if the angle of the V is kept small

relative to the mach angle, the lift and center of pressure remain the same at

speeds both above and below the speed of sound."

So much for theory. Only testing would provide the data to make or break 

Jones's theory. Langley personnel went to work, fabricating two small models to 

see what would happen. Technicians mounted the first model on the wing of a 

P-51 Mustang. The plane's pilot took off and climbed to a safe altitude before

nosing over into a high-speed dive towards the ground. In this attitude, the

accelerated flow of air over the Mustang's wing was supersonic, and the instrumented model on the plane's wing began to generate useful data. For wind tunnel

tests, the second model was truly a diminutive article, crafted of sheet steel by

Jones and two other engineers. Langley's supersonic tunnel had a 9-inch throat,

so the model had a 1.5-inch wingspan, in the shape of a delta. The promising test

results, issued II May 1945, were released before Allied investigators in Europe

had the opportunity to interview German aerodynamicists on delta shapes and

swept wing developments.

Jones was already at work on variations of the delta, including his own version 

of the swept wing configuration. Late in June 1945, he published a summary of this 

work as NACA Technical Note Number 1033. Jones suggested that the proposed 

35 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

supersonic plane under development should have swept wings, but designers 

opted for a more conservative approach. Other design staffs were fascinated by 

the promise of swept wings especially after the appearance of the German aerodynamicists in America. 

The Germans arrived courtesy of "Operation Paperclip," a high-level government plan to scoop up leading German scientists and engineers during the 

closing months of World War II. Adolf Busemann eventually wound up at NACA's 

Langley laboratory, and scores of others joined Air Force, Army, and contractor 

staffs throughout the United States. Information from the research done by 

Robert Jones had begun to filter through the country's aeronautical community 

before the Germans arrived. Their presence, buttressed by the obvious progress 

represented by advanced German aircraft produced by 1945, bestowed the 

imprimatur of proof to swept wing configurations. At Boeing, designers at work on 

a new jet bomber tore up sketches for a conventional plane with straight wings 

and built the B-47 instead. With its long, swept wings. the B-47 launched Boeing 

into a remarkably successful family of swept wing bombers and jet airliners. At 

North American, a conventional jet fighter with straight wings, the XP-46, went 

through a dramatic metamorphosis, eventually taking to the air as the famed F-86 

Sabre. a swept wing fighter that racked up an enviable combat record during the 

Korean conflict in the 1950s. 

Nonetheless, America had been demonstrably lagging in jets and swept wing 

aircraft in 1945, and the NACA was the target of criticism from postwar Congressional and Air Force committees. It may have been that the NACA was not as bold 

as it might have been or that the agency was so caught up in immediate wartime 

improvements that crucial areas of basic research received short shrift. There were 

administrative changes to respond to these issues. In any case, as historian Alex 

Roland noted in his study of the NACA, Model Research (1985), its shortcomings 

"should not be allowed to mask its real significant contributions to American 

aerial victory in World War II." Moreover, the NACA's postwar achievements in 

supersonic research and rapid transition into astronautics reflected a new vigor 

and momentum. 

The Sonic Barrier 

During World War II, the increasing speeds of fighter aircraft began to create 

new problems. The Lockheed P-38 Lightning, for example. could exceed 500 MPH 

in a dive. In 1941, a Lockheed test pilot died when shock waves from the plane's 

wings (where the air flow over the wings reached 700 MPH) created turbulence 

that tore away the horizontal stabilizer, sending the plane into a fatal plunge. 

From wind tunnel tests, researchers knew something about the shock waves 

occurring at Mach l, the speed of sound. The phenomenon was obviously 

attended by danger. Pilots and aerodynamicists alike muttered about the threatening dimensions of what came to be called the sound barrier. 

Researchers faced a dilemma. In wind tunnels, with models exposed to nearsonic velocities. shock waves began bouncing from the tunnel walls, the "choking" 

phenomenon, resulting in questionable data. In the meantime, high speed com36 
GOING SUPERSONIC (1945-1958) 

bat maneuvers brought additional reports of control loss due to turbulence and, 

in several cases, crashes involving planes whose tails had wrenched loose in a 

dive. Since data from wind tunnels remained unreliable, researchers proposed a 

new breed of research plane to probe the sound barrier. Two of the leaders were 

Ezra Kotcher. a civilian on the Air Force payroll, and John Stack, on the NACA staff 

at Langley. 

By 1944, John Stack and his NACA research team proposed a jet powered 

aircraft, a conservative, safe approach to high speed flight tests. Kotcher's group 

wanted a rocket engine which was more dangerous, with explosive fuels aboard, 

but more likely to achieve the high velocity to reach the speed of sound. The Air 

Force had the funds, so Stack and his colleagues agreed. The next problem 

involved design and construction of the rocket plane. 

Eventually, the contract went to Bell Aircraft Corporation in Buffalo, New York. 

The company had a reputation for unusual designs, including the first American 

jet, the XP-59A Airacomet. The designer was Robert J. Woods, who had worked 

with John Stack at Langley in the 1920s before he joined Bell Aircraft. Woods had 

close contacts with the NACA as well as the Air Force. During a casual visit to 

Kotcher's office at Wright Field, Woods agreed to design a research plane capable 

of reaching 800 MPH at an altitude of 35,000 feet. Woods then called his boss, 

Lawrence Bell, to break the news. "What have you done?" Bell lamented, only half 

in jest. 

The Bell design team worked closely with the Air Force and the NACA. This was 

the first time that the Langley staff had been involved in the initial design and 

construction of a complex research plane. Even with the Air Force bearing the cost 

and sharing the research load, this sort of collaboration marked a significant 

departure in NACA procedures. For the most part. design issues were amicably 

resolved, although some questions caused heated exchanges. The wing design 

was one such controversy. 

There was general agreement that the wings would be thinner than normal in 

order to delay the formation of shock waves. In conventional designs, this was 

expressed as a numerical figure (usually between 12 to 15) which was the ratio of 

the wing's thickness to its chord. One group of NACA researchers advocated a 10 

percent wing for the new plane, while others argued for an 8 percent thickness in 

order to forestall the effect of shock waves even more. One of Langley's resident 

experts on wing design finally made a thorough analysis of the issue and advised 

the 8 percent thickness as the most promising to achieve supersonic speed. As the 

design of the plane progressed, Bell's engineers came up with a plane that 

measured only 31 feet long with a wingspan of just 28 feet. Stresses on the 

remarkably short wing were estimated at twice the levels for high performance 

fighters of the day. Fortunately, Bell's designers realized that thickening the 

aluminum skin of the wings would result in a robust structure. Consequently, the 

skin thickness at the wing root measured .5 inch compared to .IO-inch thick wing 

skin on a conventional fighter. 

Research at Langley influenced other aspects of the design. Realizing that 

turbulence from the wing might create control problems around the tail, John 

37 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Stack advised Bell to place the horizontal stabilizer on the fin. above the turbulent 

flow. He also recommended a stabilizer that was thinner than the wing, ensuring 

that shock waves would not form on the wing and tail at the same time. thereby 

improving the pilot's control over the accelerating aircraft. In making these 

decisions, the design team recognized that not much was known about the flight 

speeds for which the plane was intended. On the other hand, there was some 

interesting aerodynamic information available on the .50 caliber bullet, so the 

fuselage shape was keyed to ballistics data from this unlikely source. The cockpit 

was installed under a canopy that matched the rounded contours of the fuselage, 

since a conventional design atop the fuselage created too much drag. 

The engine was one of the few really exotic aspects of the supersonic plane. Jet 

engines under development fell far short of the required thrust to reach Mach I, 

forcing designers to consider rocket engines. a radical new technology for that 

time. The original engine candidate came from a small Northrop design for a 

flying wing. The propellants. red fuming nitric acid and aniline. ignited spontaneously when mixed. Curious about this volatile combination. some Bell engineers obtained some samples. put the stuff in a pair of bottles taped together. 

found some isolated rocks qutside the plant, and tossed the bottles into them. 

They were aghast at the fier.ce eruption that followed. Considering the consequences to the plane and its pilot in case of a landing accident or a fuel leak, a 

different propulsion system seemed imperative. They settled on a rocket engine 

supplied by an outfit aptly named Reaction Motors. Incorporated. The engine 

burned a mixture of alcohol and distilled water along with liquid oxygen to 

produce a thrust of 1500 pounds from each of four thrust chambers. Due to limited 

propellant capacity of the research plane, the design team decided to use a 

Boeing B-29 Superfortress to carry it to about 25,000 feet. After dropping from the 

B-29 bomb bay, the pilot would ignite the rocket engine for a high-speed dash;

with all its fuel consumed, the plane would have to glide earthward and make a

dead-stick landing. By this time. the plane was designated the XS-I, for Experimental Sonic I, soon shortened to X-1 by those associated with it.

Early in 1946, flight trials began. The rocket engine was not ready, so the test 

crew moved into temporary quarters at Pinecastle Field, near Orlando, Florida. 

The X-1. painted a bright orange for high visibility, was carried aloft for a series of 

drop tests. By autumn, the X-1 was transferred to a remote air base in California's 

Mojave Desert-Muroc Army Air Field, familiarly known as Muroc, 1 after a small 

settlement on the edge of Rogers Dry Lake. This was the Air Force flight test 

center. an area of 300 square miles of desolation in the California desert northwest of Los Angeles. Originating as an Air Force bombing and gunnery range, 

Muroc was a suitably remote location; the concrete-hard lake bed was highly 

1The original Langley contingent was called the NACA Muroc Flight Test Unit, later the High-Speed

Flight Station. When Muroc Field's name was officially changed to Edwards Air Force Base in 1950, 

NACA and government personnel alike adopted the term "Edwards" in colloquial use. 

38 
GOING SUPERSONIC (1945-1958) 

suited for experimental testing. Test aircraft not infrequently made emergency 

:Iandings, and the barren miles of Rogers Dry Lake allowed these unscheduled 

approaches from almost any direction. This austere, almost surrealistic desert 

setting made an appropriate environment for a growing roster of exotic planes 

based there in the postwar years. 

The X-I arrived under a cloud of gloom from overseas. The British had also been 

developing a plane to pierce the sound barrier, the de Havilland D.H. 108 Swallow, 

a swept wing, jet propelled, tailless airplane. Geoffrey, a son of the firm's founder, 

died during a high-speed test of the sleek aircraft in September 1946. The barrier 

was deadly. 

Through the end of 1946 and into the autumn of 1947, one test flight after 

another took the X-I to higher speeds, past Mach .85, the region where statistics 

on subsonic flight more or less faded away. On the one hand, the X-I test crew felt 

increasing confidence that their plane could successfully make the historic run. 

On the other hand, NACA engineers like Walt Williams grudgingly admitted "a 

very lonely feeling as we began to run out of data." 

The Air Force and the NACA put considerable trust in the piloting skills of 

Captain Charles "Chuck" Yeager, a World War II fighter ace. During the test 

sequences, he learned to keep his exuberance under control and to acquire a 

thorough knowledge of the X-l's quirks. On the morning of 14 October 1947, the 

day of the supersonic dash, Yeager's aggressive spirit helped him overcome the 

discomfort of two broken ribs, legacy of a horseback accident a few days earlier. A 

close friend helped the wincing Yeager into the cramped cockpit. then slipped him 

a length of broom handle so that he could secure the safety latch with his left 

hand, since the broken ribs on his right side made it too painful to use his right 

hand. The latch secure, Yeager reported he was ready to go. At 20,000 feet above 

the desert, the X-I dropped away from the B-29. 

Yeager fired up the four rocket chambers and shot upwards to 42,000 feet. 

Leveling off, he shut down two of the chambers while making a final check of the 

plane's readiness. Already flying at high speed, Yeager fired a third chamber and 

watched the instruments jump as buffeting occurred. Then the flight smoothed 

0ut; needles danced ahead as the X-I went supersonic. Far below, test personnel 

heard a loud sonic boom slap across the desert. The large data gap mentioned by 

Walt Williams had just been filled in. 

Ongoing Tests 

A need for high-speed wind tunnel tests still existed. In the 7 x lO-foot tunnel at 

Langley, technicians built a hump in the test section; as the air stream accelerated 

over the hump, models could be tested at Mach 1.2 before the "choking" phenomenon occurred. A research program came up with the idea of absorbing the 

shock waves by means of longitudinal openings, or slots, in the test section. The 

slotted-throat tunnel became a milestone in wind tunnel evolution, permitting a 

full spectrum of transonic flow studies. In another high-speed test program, 

Langley used rocket-propelled models, launching them from a new test facility at 

Wallops Island, north of Langley on the Virginia coast. This became the Pilotless 

39 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Aircraft Research Division (PARD), established in the autumn of 1945. During the 

next few years, PARD used rocket boosters to make high speed tests on a variety 

of models representing new planes under development. These included most of 

the subsonic and supersonic aircraft flown by the armed services during the 

decades after World War II. In the 1960s, PARD facilities supported the Mercury, 

Gemini. and Apollo programs as well. 

As full sized aircraft took to the air, new problems inevitably cropped up. 

Researchers soon real ized that a sharp increase in drag occurred in the transonic 

region. Slow acceleration through this phase of flight consumed precious fuel and 

also created control problems. At Langley, Richard T. Whitcomb became immer~ 

sed in the problem of transonic drag. In the course of his analysis, Whitcomb 

developed a hunch that the section of an airplane where the fuselage joined the 

wing was a key to the issue. After listening to some comments by Adolph 

Busemann on airflow characteristics in the transonic regime, Whitcomb hit upon 

the answer to the drag problem-the concept of the area rule. 

Essentially, the area rule postulated that the cross section of an airplane 

should remain reasonably constant from nose to tail. minimizing disturbance of 

the air flow and drag. But the juncture of the wing root to the fuselage of a typical 

plane represented a sudden increase in the cross sectional area, creating the drag 

that produced the problems encountered in transonic flight. Whitcomb's solution 

This group portrait displays typical high-speed research aircraft that made headlines at Muroc Flight 

Center in the 1950s. The Bell X-IA (lower left) had much the same configuration as the earlier 1. 

Joining the ~ IA were (clockwise): the Douglas 558-1 Skystreak; Convair XF92 A, Bell 5 with 

variable sweepback wings, Douglas D-558~1I Skyrocket; Northop X-4; and (center) the Douglas 3. 

40 
GOING SUPERSONIC (1945-1958) 

was to compensate for this added wing area by reducing the area of the fuselage. 

The result was the "wasp-waisted" look, often called the "Coke bottle" fuselage. 

Almost immediately, it proved its value. A new fighter, Convair's XF-102, was 

designed as a supersonic combat plane but repeatedly frustrated the efforts of 

test pilots and aerodynamicists to achieve its design speed. Rebuilt with an area 

rule fuselage, the XF-102 sped through the transonic region like a champion ; the 

Coke bottle fuselage became a feature on many high performance aircraft of the 

era : the F-106 Delta Dart (successor to the F-102), Grumman F-ll, the Convair B-58 

Hustler bomber, and others. 

A succession of X-aircraft, designed primarily for flight experiments, populated 

the skies above Muroc in a continuous cycle of research and development (R&D). 

Two more X-I aircraft were ordered by the Air Force, followed by the X-lA and the 

X-lB, which investigated thermal problems at high speeds. The Navy used the 

Muroc flight test area forthe subsonic jet-powered Douglas Skystreak, accumulating air-load measurements unobtainable in early postwar wind tunnels. The 

Skystreak was followed by the Douglas Skyrocket, a swept wing research jet (later 

equipped with a rocket engine that would surpass twice the speed of sound for the 

first time in 1953). The Douglas X-3, which fell short of expectation for further flight 

research in the Mach 2 range, nevertheless yielded important design insights on 

the phenomenon of inertial coupling (solving a control problem for the North 

This photo taken from below the Grumman F-II Navy fighter illustrates the way in which the area-ruled 

fuselage was adapted to production aircraft. 

41 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

American 100 Super Sabre), the structural use of titanium (incorporated in the 

15 and other subsequent supersonic fighter designs). and data applied in the 

design of the Lockheed 104 Starfighter. The NACA kept involved throughout 

these programs. In a number of ways, the X aircraft contributed substantially to 

the solution of a variety of high-speed flight conundrums and enhanced the 

design of future jet airliners, establishing a record of consistent progress aside 

from the speed records that so fascinated the public. 

Although much of the NACA's work in this era had to do with military aviation, a 

good number of aerodynamic lessons were applicable to nonmilitary research 

planes and to civil aircraft. In the late 1950s, the Air Force began developing the 

North American XB 70, an unusually complex bomber capable of sustained 

supersonic flight over long distances. As a high-altitude strategic bomber, the 

70 was eventually displaced by ballistic missiles and a tactical shift to the idea 

of low-altitude strikes to avoid enemy radars and anti aircraft rockets. The Air 

Force and the NACA continued to fly the plane for research . Despite the loss of 

one of the two prototypes in a tragic mid air collision involving a chase plane, the 

remaining XB 70 generated considerable data on long-range, high altitude super~ 

sonic operations. This data was useful in designing new generations of jet 

transports operating in the transonic region, as well as advanced military aircraft. 

Helicopters, introduced into limited combat service at the end of World War 11. 

entered both military and civilian service in the postwar era. The value of helicop~ 

ters in medical evacuation was demonstrated time and again in Korea, and a 

variety of helicopter operations proliferated in the late 1950s. The NACA flighttested new designs to help define handling qualities. Using wind tunnel experience, researchers also developed a series of special helicopter airfoil sections, 

and a rotor test tower aided research in many other areas. 

As usual. NACA researchers also pursued a multifacted R&D program touching 

many other aspects of flight. In one project, the NACA installed velocity-gravityaltitude recorders in aircraft flown in all parts of the world. The object was to 

acquire information about atmospheric turbulence and gusts so that designers 

could make allowances for such perturbations. At Langley, a Landing Loads Track 

Facility went into operation, using a hydraulically propelled unit that subjected 

landing gear to the stresses of repeated landings in a variety of conditions. 

Another test facility studied techniques in designing pressurized fuselage structures to avoid failures. In the mid-1950s, a rash of such failures in the world's first 

operational jet airliner, the British-built de Havilland Comet. dramatized the 

rationale for this kind of testing. 

All of this postwar aeronautical activity received respectful and enthusiastic 

attention from press and public. Although the phenomenon of flight continued to 

enjoy extensive press coverage, events in the late 1950s suddenly caused aviation 

to share the limelight with space flight. 

Enter Astronautics 

Among the legacies of World War II was a glittering array of new technologies 

spawned by the massive mil itary effort. Atomic energy, radar, antibiotics, radio 

42 
GOING SUPERSONIC (1945-1958) 

telemetry, the computer, the large rocket, and the jet engine seemed destined to 

shape the world's destiny in the next three decades and heavily influence the rest 

of the century. The world's political order had been drastically altered by the war. 

Much of Europe and Asia were in ashes. Old empires had crumbled; national 

economies were tottering perilously. On opposite sides of the world stood the 

United States and the Soviet Union, newly made into superpowers. It soon 

became apparent that they would test each other's mettle many times before a 

balance of power stabilized. And each nation moved quickly to exploit the new 

technologies. 

The atomic bomb was the most obvious and most immediately threatening 

technological change from World War II. Both superpowers sought the best 

strategic systems that could deliver the bomb across the intercontinental distances that separated them. fet-powered bombers were an obvious extension of 

the wartime B-17 and B-29, and both nations began putting them into service. The 

intercontinental rocket held great theoretical promise, but seemed much further 

down the technological road. Atomic bombs were bulky and heavy; a rocket to lift 

such a payload would be enormous in size and expense. The Soviet Union 

doggedly went ahead with attempts to build such rockets. The American military 

temporarily settled upon jet aircraft and smaller research and battlefield rockets. 

The Army imported Wernher von Braun and the German engineers who had 

created the wartime V-2 rockets and set them to overseeing the refurbishing and 

launching of V-2s at White Sands, New Mexico. The von Braun team was later 

transferred to Redstone Arsenal. Huntsville, Alabama, where it formed the core of 

the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA). With its contractor the Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory (JPL), the Army developed a series of battlefield missiles known as 

Corporal. Sergeant, and Redstone. The Navy designed and built the Viking 

research rockets. The freshly independent Air Force started a family of cruise 

missiles, from the jet Bomarc and Matador battlefield missiles to Snark and the 

ambitious rocket-propelled Navaho, which were intended as intercontinental 

weapons. 

By 1951 progress on a thermonuclear bomb of smaller dimensions revived 

interest in the long-range ballistic missile. Two months before President Truman 

announced that the United States would develop the thermonuclear bomb, the 

Air Force contracted with Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation (later Convair) 

to resume study, and then to develop, the Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile, 

a project that had been dormant for four years. During the next four years three 

intermediate range missiles; the Army's fupiter, the Navy's Polaris, and the Air 

Force's Thor; and a second generation ICBM, the Air Force's Titan, had been added 

to the list of American rocket projects. All were accorded top national priority. 

Fiscal 1953 saw the Department of Defense (000) for the first time spend more 

than $1 million on missile research, development. and procurement. Fiscal 1957 

saw the amount go over the $ 1 billion mark. 

By the mid-1950s NACA had modern research facilities that had cost a total of 

$300 million, and a staff totaling 7200. Against the background of the "Cold War" 

between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. and the national priority given to military 

43 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

rocketry, the NACA's sophisticated facilities inevitably became involved. With 

each passing year it was enlarging its missile research in proportion to the old 

mission of aerodynamic research. Major NACA contributions to the military 

missile programs came in 1955 1957. Materials research led by Robert R. Gilruth at 

Langley confirmed ablation as a means of controlling the intense heat generated 

by warheads and other bodies reentering the Earth's atmosphere; H. Julian Allen 

at Ames demonstrated the blunt body shape as the most effective design for 

reentering bodies; and Alfred J. Eggers at Ames did significant work on the 

mechanics of ballistic reentry. 

The mid 1950s saw America's infant space program burgeoning with promise 

and projects. As part of the u.s. participation in the forthcoming International 

Geophysical Year (lGY). it was proposed to launch a small satellite into orbit 

around the Earth. After a spirited design competition between the National 

Academy of Sciences Navy proposal (Vanguard) and the ABMA JPL candidate 

(Explorer). the Navy design was chosen in September 1955 as not interfering with 

the high priority military missile programs, since it would use a new booster 

based on the Viking research rocket, and having a better tracking system and more 

scientific growth potential. By 1957Vanguard was readying its first test vehicles for 

firing. The U.S.S.R. had also announced it would have an IGY satellite; the space 

race was extending beyond boosters and payloads to issues of national prestige. 

On the military front, space activity was almost bewildering. The missiles were 

moving toward the critical f1ight~test phase. Satellite ideas were proliferating, 

though mostly on a sub rosa planning basis; after Sputnik these would become 

Tiros, weather satellite; Transit, navigation satellite; Pioneer lunar probes; Dis~ 

coverer research satellites; Samos, reconnaissance satellite; Midas, missile early~ 

warning satellite. Payload size and weight were constant problems in all these 

concepts, with the limited thrust of the early rocket engines. Here the rapid 

advances in solid state electronics came to the rescue by reducing volume and 

weight; with new techniques such as printed circuitry and transistors, the design 

engineers could achieve new levels of miniaturization of equipment. Even so, 

heavier payloads were obviously in the offing; more powerful engines had to be 

developed. So design was begun for several larger engines, topped by the monster 

1 engine, intended to produce eight times the power of the engines that lifted 

the Atlas, Thor, and Jupiter missiles. 

All this activity, however, was still on the drawing board, work bench, or test 

stand on 4 October 1957, when the "beep, beep" signal from Sputnik 1was heard 

around the world. The Soviet Union had orbited the world's first man made 

satellite. 

The American public's response was swift and widespread. It seemed equally 

compounded of alarm and chagrin. American certainty that the nation was always 

number one in technology had been rudely shattered. Not only had the Russians 

been first, but Sputnik 1 weighed an impressive 183 pounds against Vanguard's 

intended start at 3 pounds and working up to 22 pounds in later sateIlites. In a 

cold war environment, the contrast suggested undefined but ominous military 

implications. 

44 
GOING SUPERSONIC (1945-1958) 

Fuel for such apprehensions added up rapidly. Less than a month after Sputnik 1 

the Russians launched Sputnik 2, weighing a hefty 1100 pounds and carrying a dog 

as passenger. President Eisenhower. trying to dampen the growing concern, 

assured the public of our as yet undemonstrated progress and denied there was 

any military threat in the Soviet space achievements. As a counter, the White 

House announced the impending launch in December of the first Vanguard test 

Aball of ffre and ffying debris mark the explosive failure of the ffrst American attempt to launch a satellite on Vanguard, 6 December 1957. 

45 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

vehicle capable of orbit and belatedly authorized von Braun's Army research team 

in Huntsville to try to launch their Explorer Jupiter combination. But pressures for 

dramatic action gathered rapidly. The media ballyhooed the carefully qualified 

announcement on Vanguard into great expectations of America's vindication. On 

25 November Lyndon B. Johnson, Senate majority leader, chaired the first meet~ 

ing of the Preparedness Investigation Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Ser~ 

A moment of triumph with the announcement that Explorer I has become the ffrst American satellite w 

orbit the Earth. Here a duplicate Explorer is held aloft by (left W right) William H. Pickering of JPL. 

James A. van Allen of the State University of Iowa. and Wernher von Braun of the ABMA. 

46 
GOING SUPERSONIC (1945-1958) 

vices Committee. The hearings would review the whole spectrum of American 

defense and space programs. 

Still the toboggan careened downhill. On 6 December 1957, the much touted 

Vanguard test vehicle rose about 3 feet from the launch platform, shuddered, and 

collapsed in flames. Its tiny pound payload broke away and lay at the edge of the 

inferno, beeping impotently. 

Clouds of gloom deepened into the new year. Then, finally, a small rift. On 31 

January 1958, an American satellite at last went into orbit. Not Vanguard but the 

ABMA JPL Explorer had redeemed American honor. True, the payload weighed 

only 2 pounds against the 1100 of Sputnik 2. But there was a scientific first; an 

experiment aboard the satellite reported mysterious saturation of its radiation 

counters at 594 miles altitude. Professor James A. van Allen, the scientist who had 

built the experiment, thought this suggested the existence of a dense belt of 

radiation around the Earth at that altitude. American confidence perked up again 

on 17 March when Vanguard I joined Explorer I in orbit. 

Meanwhile, in these same tense months, both consensus and competition had 

been forming on the political front; consensus that an augmented national space 

program was essential; competition as to who would run such a program, in what 

form, with what priorities. The 000, with its component military services, was an 

obvious front runner; the Atomic Energy Commission, already working with 

nuclear warheads and nuclear propulsion, had some congressional support, 

particularly in the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy; and there was NACA. 

NACA had devoted more and more of its facilities, budget, and expertise to 

missile research in the mid~ and late 1950s. Under the skillful leadership of James 

H. Doolittle, chairman, and Hugh L. Dryden, director, the strong NACA research 

team had come up with a solid, long term, scientifically based proposal for a 

blend of aeronautic and space research. Its concept for manned spaceflight. for 

example, envisioned a ballistic spacecraft with a blunt reentry shape, backed by a 

world encircling tracking system, and equipped with dual automatic and manual 

controls that would enable the astronaut gradually to take over more and more of 

the flying of his spacecraft. Also NACA offered reassuring experience of long, close 

working relationships with the military services in solving their research prob~ 

lems, while at the same time translating the research into civil applications. But 

NACA's greatest political asset was its peaceful. research oriented image. Presi~ 

dent Eisenhower and Senator Johnson and others in Congress were united in 

wanting above all to avoid projecting cold war tensions into the new arena of 

outer space. 

By March 1958 the consensus in Washington had jelled. The administration 

position (largely credited to James R. Killian in the new post of preSident's special 

assistant for science and technology). the findings of Johnson's Senate subcom~ 

mittee, and the NACA proposal converged. America needed a national space 

program. The military component would of course be under 000. But a civil 

component. lodged in a new agency, technologically and SCientifically based, 

would pick up certain of the existing space projects and forge an expanded 

program of space exploration in close concert with the military. All these concepts 

47 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

fed into draft legislation. On 2 April 1958, the administration bill for establishing a 

national aeronautics and space agency was submitted to Congress; both houses 

had already established select space committees; debate ensued; a number of 

refinements were introduced; and on 29 July 1958 President Eisenhower signed 

into law P.L. 85 568, the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958. 

The act establ ished a broad charter for civilian aeronautical and space research 

with unique requirements for dissemination of information, absorbed the existing 

NACA into the new organization as its nucleus, and empowered broad transfers 

from other government programs. The National Aeronautics and Space Admin~ 

istration came into being on 1 October 1958. 

All this made for a very busy spring and summer for the people in the small 

NACA Headquarters in Washington. Once the general outlines of the new organi~ 

zation were clear, both a space program and a new organization had to be charted. 

In April. Dryden brought Abe Silverstein, assistant director of the Lewis Labora~ 

tory, to Washington to head the program planning. Ira Abbott. NACA assistant 

director for aerodynamic research, headed a committee to plan the new organiza~ 

tion. In August President Eisenhower nominated T. Keith Glennan, president of 

Case Institute of Technology and former commissioner of the Atomic Energy 

Commission, to be the first administrator of the new organization, NASA. and 

Dryden to be deputy administrator. Quickly confirmed by the Senate, they were 

sworn in on 19 August. Glennan reviewed the planning efforts and approved most. 

Talks with the Advanced Research Projects Agency identified the military space 

programs that were space science oriented and were obvious transfers to the new 

agency. Plans were formulated for building a new center for space science 

research, satellite development, flight operations, and tracking. A site was 

chosen, nearly 500 acres of the Department of Agriculture's research center in 

Beltsville, Maryland. The Robert H. Goddard Space Flight Center (named for 

America's rocket pioneer) was dedicated in March 1961. 

48 
Chapter 4 

ON THE FRINGES OF SPACE (1958-1964) 

On 1 October 1958, the 170 people in Headquarters gathered in the courtyard of 

their building, the Dolley Madison House, to hear Glennan proclaim the end of 

the 43 year old NACA and the beginning of NASA. The 8000 people, three labora~ 

tories (now renamed research centers) and two stations, with a total facilities 

value of $300 million and an annual budget of $100 million were transferred intact 

to NASA. On the same day, by executive order the President transferred to NASA: 

Project Vanguard and its 150 person staff and remaining budget from the Naval 

Research Laboratory; lunar probes from the Army; lunar probes and rocket engine 

programs, including the 1, from the Air Force; and a total of over $100 million of 

unexpended funds. NASA immediately delegated operational control of these 

projects back to the DoD agencies while it put its own house in order. 

There followed an intense two year period of organization, build up, fill in, 

planning, and general catch up. Only one week after NASA was formed, Glennan 

gave the go ahead to Project Mercury, America's first manned spaceflight pro~ 

gram. The Space Task Group, headed by Robert R. Gilruth, was established at 

Langley to get the job done. The new programs brought into the organization were 

slowly integrated into the NACA nucleus. Many space minded specialists were 

drawn into NASA. attracted by the exciting new vistas. Long range planning was 

accelerated; the first NASA lO~year plan was presented to Congress in February 

1960. It called for an expanding program on a broad front: manned flight (first 

orbital. then circumlunar); scientific satellites to measure radiation and other 

features of the near space environment; lunar probes to measure the lunar space 

environment and to photograph the Moon; planetary probes to measure and to 

photograph Mars and Venus; weather satellities to improve our knowledge of 

Earth's broad weather patterns; continued aeronautical research ; and develop~ 

ment of larger launch vehicles for lifting heavier payloads. The cost of the program 

was expected to vary between $1 billion and $1.5 billion per year over the lO year 

period. 

49 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Towards Hypersonic FUght 

As NASA labored to get itself organized in the new field of astronautics, its 

traditional work in aeronautics experienced notable success. When the NACA set 

up the Muroc Flight Test Unit in 1948, Walter C. Williams began a decade of 

administration that saw many dramatic changes in the shapes and speeds of 

aircraft. The Muroc site won independence from Langley when it became the 

High Speed Flight Station in 1954. Williams always argued for even more indepen~ 

dence in the form of laboratory status, which would not only boost morale but 

also give the station greater prestige and autonomy. When NASA was created and 

the existing NACA labs were renamed as centers, old Muroc hands witnessed 

another change in names, becoming the NASA Flight Research Center (FRC) in 

1959. Williams had to savor the change in names from a distance, since he already 

had been posted back to Langley as operations director for Project Mercury. But 

he could take pleasure at FRC's rapid growth and fame during the early 1960s, due 

largely to the test program for the ~ 15, a remarkably productive aircraft. After 

winning major headlines at the start of its flight tests, the 15's success became 

eclipsed by NASA's space program. This was ironic, since the 15 contributed 

heavily to research in spaceflight as well as to high-speed aircraft research . 

The X-15 series were thoroughbreds, capable of speeds up to Mach 6.72 (4534 

MPH) at altitudes up to 354,200 feet (67 miles). There was a familiar European 

thread in the design's genesis. In the late 1930s and during World War 11 , German 

scientists Eugen Sanger and Irene Bredt developed studies for a rocket plane that 

could be boosted to an Earth orbit and then glide back to land. The idea reshaped 

American thinking about hypersonic vehicles. "Professor Sanger's pioneering 

studies of long range rocket propelled aircraft had a strong influence on the 

thinking which led to initiation of the X-15 program," NACA researcher John 

Becker wrote. "Until the Sanger and Bredt paper became available to us after the 

war we had thought of hypersonic flight only as a domain for missiles ...." A series 

of subsequent studies in America "provided the background from which the 15 

proposal emerged." 

Momentum for such a plane gathered in 1951, when Robert Woods, the X-I 

veteran from Bell Aircraft. proposed a Mach 5 research plane. Woods argued his 

case in the prestigious NACA Committee on Aerodynamics, of which he was a 

member. The NACA Committee took no formal action, but independent projects 

got underway at Ames, Langley, and FRC (Edwards) . By 1954, the NACA accepted 

the hypersonic aircraft proposal as a major commitment. By autumn of that year, 

the NACA realized it lacked funds to support the idea and joined forces wth the Air 

Force and Navy; a Memorandum of Understanding gave the NACA technical 

control of the effort, including flight testing and test reports. There was an 

undertone of military necessity in the Memorandum, which declared that "accomplishment of this project is a matter of national urgency." The specifications and 

configurations circulated among potential bidders followed a pattern originally 

developed by a Langley team led by John Becker. "The proposals that we got back 

looked pretty much like the one we had put in," he recalled. The NACA had 

50 
ON THE FRINGES OF SPACE (1958- 19641 

The 15 streaks across the western United States on a test run.Capable of ffying at 6.7 times the speed 

of sound at altitudes over 350,000 feet, the X-J5 helped advance many aeronautical and space ffight 

systems. 

certainly come a long way from testing aircraft designed and built by others. The 

earlier ~ 1 was something of a transition, involving Bell and NACA engineers. 

Although the NACA in essence bootstrapped Air Force and Navy funds for the 

15, it was very much a NACA idea and deSign from start to finish. In many ways, 

the 15 program represented a shift to the research, development. and management functions that characterized the NASA organization soon to come. 

In the fall of 1955, North American emerged as the winning contractor. Aside 

from building the plane, the NACA and armed services soon realized that they had 

also had to develop other elements of a new system to support flight tests of the 

exotic 15. The program called for fabrication of three research planes and a 

powerful new rocket engine to power them. The engine, a Thiokol XLR 99 , had to 

be "man rated" for repeated flights in the piloted rocket plane. For pilot training 

and familiarization, it was necessary to design and build a motion simulator and 

associated analog computer equipment. Before making a 10- to 12-minute mission in the 15,. pilots eventually spent 8 to 10 hours practicing each moment of 

the test flight. Due to the extreme altitudes planned for X-15 missions, technicians 

needed to develop a unique, full-pressure flight suit. Finally, planners had to lay 

out a special aerodynamic test range to monitor the X- 15 as the plane streaked 

back to Edwards Air Force Base for its landing. 

51 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

The test range, officially labeled the High Altitude Continuous Tracking Radar 

Range, became known as the "High Range." The increased speeds of research 

planes meant that customary air to ground communications at the test field were 

outmoded. The High Range stretched 485 miles from Wendover Air Force Base in 

Utah to Edwards in California. A trio of tracking stations along the route were built 

and equipped with advanced radar and telemetry, recording equipment, and 

consoles for monitoring the x~ 15. All the tracking stations passed real time data 

to each other as the x~ 15 sped down the High Range. With its experience in the 

acquisition of in flight data, NACA expertise in setting up the High Range was 

invaluable. Following the 15 program, the High Range continued to be a 

continuing asset to flight testing of succeeding generations of aircraft. 

The first 15 arrived in the autumn of 1958, although powered flight tests did 

not start until September of 1959. In contrast to the secrecy surrounding the 59 

and the L the 15 program was a high visibility media event. In the wake of 

Sputnik, anything that seemed to redeem America's tarnished prestige in the 

"space race" automatically occupied center stage. Journalists flocked to Edwards 

for photos and interviews; Hollywood cranked out a hackneyed film about terse, 

steely eyed test pilots and the rocket powered ships they flew. When the Mercury, 

Gemini, and Apollo programs began, the journalists migrated to hotter headlines 

in Florida. The 15, meanwhile, moved into the most productive phase of its 

program, contributing to astronautics as well as aeronautics. 

Between 1959 and 1968, the trio of 15 aircraft completed 199 test flights. The 

fallout was far reaching in numerous crucial areas, such as hypersonic aero~ 

dynamics and in structures. During a test series to investigate high temperature 

phenomena in hypersonic flight, temperatures on the skin soared to 13000 F, so 

that large sections of the aircraft glowed a cherry red color. The 15's survival 

encouraged extensive use of comparatively exotic alloys, like titanium and 

[nconel~X, leading to machining and production techniques that became stan~ 

dard in the aerospace industry. Although the cockpit was pressurized, the chance 

of accidental loss of pressurization in the near space environment where the 15 

flew prompted development of the first practical full pressure suit for pilot 

protection in space. The 15 was the first to use reaction controls for attitude 

control in space; reentry techniques and related technology also contributed to 

the space program, and even earth sciences experiments were carried out by the 

15 in some of its flights. 

The high speed, high altitude 15, I.ike the 1, might be remembered as the 

epitome of an era, although the NACNNASA research activities, as usual, con~ 

tinued along many paths. For example, in the course of studies for supersonic 

cruise aircraft, two different trends of study began to emerge: a multimission 

combat plane operating at both high and low speeds, and configurations for a 

supersonic transport. 

The multimission plane idea took shape as a combat aircraft capable of 

sustained high speeds at high altitudes, as well as high speeds "down on the 

deck." This meant swept wings, which also decreased controllability and combat 

load at takeoff-unless the wings could be pivoted forward during takeoff and 

52 
ON THE FRINGES OF SPACE (1958-1964) 

The Grumman F-14 Tigercat, with wings swept back for high-speed ffight, was a legacy of variable 

geometry studies (photo courtesy of Grumman Aerospace Corporation). 

landing and swept back during flight. Test articles from wartime German experiments again pointed the way, and the Bell X-5 provided additional data during the 

early 1950s. The British also had a variable-sweep concept plane called the 

Swallow, which underwent extensive testing at Langley. The NASA contribution in 

this development included variable in-flight sweeping of the wings and the 

decision to locate the pivot points outboard on the wings rather than pivot the 

wings on the centerline, solving a serious instability problem. All of this eventually led to the TFX program, which became the F-ili. It was a long and 

controversial program but the success of the variable geometry wing on the F-lll 

and the Navy's Grumman F-14 Tigercat owed much to NASA experimental work. 

The process of refining Mach 2 aircraft like these also led to profitable studies 

involving air inlets, exhaust nozzles, and overall drag reduction-factors that the 

aerospace industry applied to the new stable of Mach 2 combat planes of the 

following decades. 

In addition to the dramatic high-speed military planes scrutinized by NASA. 

there was a slower plane with a truly unique ability: it could take off and land 

vertically. A considerable degree of effort went into a series of aircraft with a tiltwing layout, like the Boeing Vertol 76. Langley built and tested a scale free-flight 

model. which was followed by a full-sized aircraft with a gas-turbine propulsion 

system driving a pair of oversized propellers. Concurrently, a variety of different 

configurations went through a test program in small wind tunnels while very large 

models were tested in the big 40 x 80-foot tunnel at Ames. One result of this 

combined activity was a tri-service transport experimental program for the Army, 

53 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Air Force, and Navy. Known as the XC 142A, a one ninth scale model went through 

remote control flight tests in Langley's full scale tunnel. There were additional 

tests carried out with full sized experimental configurations built by Bell and by 

Ryan; flight testing continued into the 1980s. 

The work in high speed combat planes paralleled growing interest in a super~ 

sonic transport. In 1959, a delegation from Langley briefed E. R. Quesada, head of 

the FAA, on the technical feasibility of a supersonic transport (SST) . The NASA 

group advocated a variable geometry wing and an advanced, fan jet propulsion 

system. The briefing, later published as NASA Technical Note 423, "The Super~ 

sonic Transport-A Technical Summary," analyzed structures, noise, runways and 

braking, traffic control, and other issues related to SST operations on a regular 

basis. An SST, the report concluded, was entirely feasible. The FAA concurred, and 

within a year, a joint program with NASA had allocated contracts for engineering 

component development. Eventually, the availability of advanced Air Force air~ 

craft provided the opportunity to conduct flight experiments as well. The idea of 

commercial airliners flashing around the globe at supersonic speeds received 

press attention, but the biggest headlines went to even more sensational devel~ 

opments in space, where human beings were preparing for inaugural voyages. 

The New Space Program 

To conduct its space program, NASA obviously needed capabilities it did not 

have. To that end Glennan sought to acquire the successful Army team that had 

launched America's first satellite, the ABMA at Huntsville, Alabama, and its 

contractor, the JPL in Pasadena, California. The Army balked at losing the Hunt~ 

sville group, claiming it was indispensable to the Army's military rocket program. 

Glennan for the time being had to compromise: ABMA would work on NASA 

programs as requested. The Army grudgingly gave up JPL. On 3 December 1958, an 

executive order transferred, effective 31 December, the government owned plant 

of JPL and the Army contract with the California Institute of Technology, under 

which JPL was staffed and operated. Glennan renewed his bid for ABMA in 1959; 

protracted Army resistance was finally overcome and on 15 March 1960 ABMA's 

4000 person Development Operations Division, headed by Wernher von Braun, 

was transferred to NASA along with the big Saturn booster project. 

As the lO~year plan took shape and the capability grew, there were many other 

gaps to be filled. NASA was going to be markedly different from NACA in two 

important ways. First, it was going to be operational as well as do research. So, it 

would not only design and build launch vehicles and satellites but it w6uld launch 

them, operate them, track them, acquire data from them, and interpret the data. 

Second, it wou Id do the greater part of its work by contract rather than in house as 

NACA had done. The first of these required tracking sites in many countries 

around the world, as well as construction of facilities: antennae, telemetry equip~ 

ment, computers, radio and landline communications networks, and so on. The 

second required the development of a larger and more sophisticated contracting 

operation than NACA had needed. In the first years, NASA leaned heavily on the 

DoD procurement system. 

54 
ON THE FRINGES OF SPACE (1958-1964) 

The problem of launch vehicles occupied much attention in these first years. A 

family of existing and future launch vehicles had to be structured for the kinds of 

missions and spacecraft enumerated in the plan. In addition to the existing 

Redstone, Thor, and Atlas vehicles, NASA would develop: 

• 	 Scout. a low budget solid propellant booster that could put small payloads 

in orbit; 

• 	 Centaur, a liquid hydrogen fueled upper stage, transferred from 000, that 

promised higher thrust and bigger payloads for lunar and planetary mis~ 

sions; 

• 	 Saturn, which was expected to be flying in 1963 (with the proper upper stages 

it would put upwards of 46,000 pounds in Earth orbit); 

• 	 Nova, several times the size of Saturn, to be started later in the decade for the 

more ambitious manned lunar flights anticipated in the 1970s. 

In addition, work could continue with the Atomic Energy Commission on the 

difficult but enormously promising nuclear propelled upper stage, Nerva, and on 

the SNAP family of long life electric power producers. 

As much as larger boosters were needed, an even more immediate problem was 

how to improve the reliability of existing boosters. By December 1959 the United 

States had attempted 37 satellite launches; less than one third attained orbit. 

Electrical components, valves, turbopumps, welds, materials, structures-virtually everything that went into the intricate mechanism called a booster-had to 

be redesigned or strengthened or improved to withstand the stresses of launch. A 

NASA TRACKING AND DATA ACQUISITION NETWORK 

The worldwide satellite tracking network, 1975. 

55 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

new order of perfection in manufacturing and assembly had to be instilled in 

workers and managers. Rigorous, repeated testing had to verify each component, 

then subassembly, then total vehicle. That bugaboo of the engineering profession, constant fiddling and changing in search of perfection, had to be constrained in the interest of reliability. And since the existing vehicles were 000 

products, NASA had to persuade 000 to enforce these rigorous standards on its 

contractors. 

That was only one of the areas in which close coordination between NASA and 

000 was essential and effective. In manned spaceflight, for example, there were 

essentially four approaches to putting man into space: 

• 	 the research airplane-the Air Force and NASA were already well into this 

program, leading to the X-I5; 

• 	 the ballistic vehicle-NASA's Project Mercury embodied this approach, with 

Air Force launch vehicles and 000 support throughout; 

• 	 the boost-glider-the Air Force had inaugurated the Dyna-Soar project (later 

renamed the X-20) in November 1957. A manned glider would be boosted 

into shallow Earth orbit, bounce in and out of the top of the atmosphere for 

part or all of a revolution of the planet, and land like an airplane. In May 1958 

NACA had agreed to help with the technical side of the project. NASA 

continued that support; 

• 	 the lifting body-a bathtub-like shape proposed by Alfred J. Eggers of Ames 

Laboratory which, as a reentry shape, would be midway between an airplane 

configuration and the ballistic shape, developing moderate lift during reentry and landing like an airplane. This approach would be deferred for a few 

years before being explored by the Air Force and NASA. 

In the communications satellites area 000 had its Courier program, a lowaltitude, militarily-secure communications satellite; it also had Advent, intended 

to be put into equatorial synchronous orbit by the Atlas Centaur booster to 

provide global communications forthe military. NASA had a passive communications satellite, Echo, a 98-meter inflatable sphere from which to bounce radar 

signals as a limited communications relay and, over a period of time and with 

accurate tracking, to plot the variations in air density at the top of the atmosphere 

by following the vagaries of its orbit. It had been agreed that NASA would leave 

active communications satellites (those that picked up, amplified, and rebroadcast radio signals from one point on Earth to another) to 000. But this did not 

answer for long. By 1960 the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) 

was asking NASA to launch its low-leveL active communications satellite, Telstar. 

NASA also had another proposal for medium-altitude (roughly II, I25-mile orbit) 

communications satellites. 

The AT&T proposal raised a fundamental problem: would industry develop 

communications satellites entirely with its own money or would the government 

fund such research? NASA sought and received presidential approval to go both 

ways-to provide reimbursable launches to industry and to do its own communications satellite research. First there was Relay, the medium-altitude repeater 

satellite. Beyond lay the imaginative proposal from Hughes Aircraft Company for 

56 
ON THE FRINGES OF SPACE (1958-1964) 

Syncom, a synchronous-orbit satellite that would fly at 21, 753-mile altitude, 

where distance, gravity, and velocity combined to place a satellite permanently 

over the same spot on Earth. By virtue of the lofty orbit. three of these satellites 

could cover the entire planet and require only a handful of ground stations. 

By the time of the presidential election of 1960 the worst pangs of reorganization, redefinition, and planning were over. Programs were meshing with each 

other; contracting for large projects was becoming routine; the initial absorption 

of DoD programs had been completed; and a viable organization was in business. 

There were operational bright spots as well . True, launch vehicles were still 

fickle and unpredictable; 7 out of 17 launches failed in 1959. But finally in August 

1959, NASA launched its first satellite that functioned in all respects (Explorer 6). 

Pioneer 5, launched on II March 1960 and intended to explore interplanetary space 

between Earth and Venus, communicated out to a new distance record, 22 million 

miles. The first of the prototype weather satellites, Tiros I, launched on I April 1960, 

produced 22,500 photos of Earth's weather. Echo 1, the first passive communications satellite, was launched 12 August 1960, inflated in orbit, and provided a 

passive target for bouncing long-range communications from one point on Earth 

to another. Perhaps as important. millions of people saw the moving pinpoint of 

light in the night sky and were awed by the experience. 

In late 1960 politics bemused the space program. Although not a direct campaign issue in the presidential campaign, the space program found little reassurance of its priority as an expensive new item in the federal budget. After John F. 

Kennedy was narrowly elected, the uncertainty deepened. Jerome B. Wiesner. the 

President-elect's science adviser, chaired a committee which produced a report 

both critical of the space program's progress to date and skeptical of its future. 

Who would be the new administrator? What, if any, priority would the fledgling 

space program have in a new, on-record hostile administration? 

Then, once again, challenge and response. On 12 April 1961. Soviet Cosmonaut 

Yuri Gagarin rode Vostok I into a 187 x 108 mile orbit of the Earth. After one orbit he 

reentered the atmosphere and landed safely. A human had flown in space. 

Gagarin joined that elite pantheon of individuals who were the first to do the 

undoable-Wright brothers, Lindbergh, now Gagarin. There was faint consolation 

on 6 May 1961, when Mercury essayed its first manned spaceflight. Astronaut Alan 

B. Shepard, Jr., rode a Redstone booster in his Freedom 7 Mercury spacecraft for a 

15-minute suborbital flight and was picked out of the water some 300 miles 

downrange. Success, yes ; a good beginning, yes. But Gagarin had flown around 

the Earth, some 24,800 miles against Shepard's 300. His Vostok weighed 10,428 

pounds in orbit, contrasting with Mercury's 2,100 pounds in suborbit. Gagarin had 

had about 89 minutes in weightlessness, the mysterious zero-gravity condition 

that had supplanted the sound barrier as the great unknown. Shepard experienced 5 minutes of weightlessness. By any unit of measure, clearly the United 

States was still behind, especially in the indispensable prerequisite of rocket 

power. As the new President had said, gloomily: "We are behind .. .the news will be 

worse before it is better, and it will be some time before we catch up." The public 

reaCtion was less emphatic than after Sputnik 1 but congressional concern was 

57 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

NASA's seven original astronauts were all experienced test pilots. Posed in front of aConvair F-I06, they 

are (left to right): Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil Grissom, Walter Schirra, Nan 

Shepard, and Donald Slayton. 

strong. Robert C. Seamans, Jr., NASA's associate administrator and general manager. was hard put to restrain Congress from forcing more money on NASA than 

could be effectively used. 

President Kennedy was especially concerned. His inaugural address in January 

had rung with an eloquent promise of bold new initiatives that would "get this 

country moving again." The succeeding three months had been distinguished by 

crushing setbacks--the Bay of Pigs invasion fiasco and the Gagarin flight. As one 

of several searches for new initiatives, the President asked his Vice President, 

Lyndon B. Johnson, to head a study of what would be required in the space 

program to convincingly surpass the Soviets. Johnson, the only senior White 

House figure in the new administration with prior commitment to the space 

program, found strong support waiting in the wings. James E. Webb, new administrator of NASA. had an established reputation as an aggressive manager of large 

enterprises, both in industry and the Truman administration as director of the 

Bureau of the Budget and undersecretary of state. Backed by the seasoned 

technical judgment of Dryden, his deputy, and Seamans, his general manager, 

Webb moved vigorously to accelerate and expand the central elements of the 

NASA lO-year plan. 

The largest single concept in that plan had been manned circumlunar flight. 

Now the question became: could this country rally quickly enough to beat the 

58 
ON THE FRINGES OF SPACE (1958-1964) 

Soviets to that circumlunar goal? The considered technical estimate was "not for 

sure." But if we went one large step further and escalated the commitment to 

manned lunar landing and return, it became a new ball game. Both nations would 

have to design and construct a whole new family of boosters and spacecraft; this 

would be an equalizer in terms of challenge to both nations and the experts were 

confident that the depth and competence of the American government industry~ 

university team would prove superior. In this judgment they found a strong ally in 

the new secretary of defense, Robert S. McNamara. 

But Webb and his advisers were not content with a one shot objective. The goaL 

they said, was a major space advance on a broad front-manned spaceflight, yes, 

but also boosters, communications satellites, meteorological satellites, and plan~ 

etary exploration. 

This was the combined proposal presented to the Vice President and approved 

and transmitted by him to the President. It was the best new initiative the 

President had seen. So it was that on 25 May 1961 the President stood before a 

joint session of Congress and proposed a historic national goal: 

Now it is time to take longer strides-time for a great new American 

enterprise-time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space 

achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth 

.... I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goaL 

before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him 

safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more 

impressive to mankind, or more important for the long range exploration of 

space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. 

The President correctly assessed the national mood. Editorial support was 

widespread. Congressional debate was perfunctory, given the size of the commit~ 

ment. The decision to land an American on the Moon was endorsed virtually 

without dissent. 

The Lunar Commitment 

NASA was exhilarated but awed. Dryden had returned from a White House 

meeting to tell his staff that "this man" (Webb) had sold the President on landing 

a man on the Moon. Gilruth, immersed in what seemed to be big enough 

problems in the relatively modest Project Mercury, was temporarily aghast. But 

the die was cast. The nation had accepted the challenge to its largest tech~ 

nological enterprise, dwarfing even the wartime Manhattan Project for developing 

the atomic bomb and the postwar crash development of strategic missiles. 

The blank check was there; the way to use it was far from clear. Since 1958, 

studies had been underway on a circumlunar manned flight. Since 1959, George 

M. Low, head of the manned spaceflight office in Headquarters, had ramrodded a 

series of progressively more detailed studies on the requirements for a manned 

landing on the Moon. Those studies had established a broad confidence that no 

major technological or scientific breakthroughs were needed to get a man to the 

Moon or even to land and return him. But there were some operational unknowns; 

the blank check caused them suddenly to loom larger. The assumption had been 

59 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

that one simply built a big enough booster, flew directly to the Moon, landed a 

large vehicle, and returned some part of it directly to Earth. But there were wide 

scientific disagreements as to the nature of the lunar surface. Was it solid 

"ground," strong enough to support such a load? Or was it many feet of dust. in 

which a spacecraft would disappear without a trace? Or was it something in 

between? There were operational problems: could the crew and ground control 

possibly handle the enormous peak of work that would bunch together in the 

landing phase of a direct ascent mission? The alternative seemed to be that one 

boosted pieces of a lunar vehicle into Earth orbit, assembled and refueled them 

there, and took off for a direct landing on the Moon. This too was fraught with 

hazards: could payloads rendezvous in Earth orbit? Could men assemble complex 

equipment in the demanding environment of space? Could such operations as 

refueling with volatile fuels-hazardous enough on Earth-be safely performed in 

space? 

Some points were clear. The very massiveness of the effort would make this 

program different in kind from anything NASA had attempted. New organizational 

modes were essential; no one center could handle this program. A much stronger 

Headquarters team would be needed, coordinating the efforts of several centers 

and riding herd on an enormous mobilization of American industry and university 

effort. 

Also, there were long lead time problems that needed to be worked on irrespec~ 

tive of later decisions. One of these was three years under way-a big engine. 

Work on the 1.5 million pound thrust I engine would be accelerated. Another 

was a navigation system; accurate vectoring of a spacecraft from Earth to a precise 

point on a rapidly moving Moon 230,000 miles away was a formidable problem in 

celestial mechanics. Therefore, the first large Apollo contract was let to the 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology and its Instrumentation Laboratory, 

headed by C. Stark Draper. to begin study of this inscrutable problem and to 

develop the requisite navigational system. 

The basic spacecraft could be delineated-the one in which a crew would 

depart the Earth, travel to the Moon, and return. It should have a baggage car, a 

jettisonable service module housing its propulsion, expendable oxygen, and 

other equipment. The Space Task Group was hard at work on these with its left 

hand, while its main effort on Mercury went forward. That left hand had to be 

strengthened. 

A whole new logistics system was needed; from factory to launch, everything 

had outstripped normal sizes and normal transportation. There would have to be 

new factories, mammoth test stands, huge launch complexes. Railroads and 

highways could not handle the larger components. Ship transportation seemed 

the only answer. A massive facility design and site location program had to begin 

even before the final configuration of the vehicle was decided. Limited in the 

facilities and construction area, NASA decided to call on the tested resource of 

the Army Corps of Engineers. It proved to be one of the wiser decisions in this 

hectic period. 

As planning went forward in 1961 and 1962, order gradually emerged. A new 

60 
ON THE FRINGES OF SPACE (I958-1964} 

concept for how to get to the Moon painfully surfaced: lunar-orbit rendezvous. A 

small group at Langley, headed by John C. Houbolt, had studied the trade-offs of 

direct ascent, Earth-orbit rendezvous, and other possibilities. They had been 

increasingly struck with the vehicle and fuel economics of this mission profile: 

after stabilizing in Earth orbit, a set of spacecraft went to orbit around the Moon, 

and, leaving the mother spacecraft in lunar orbit, dispatched a smaller craft to 

land on the lunar surface, reconnoiter. and rejoin the mother craft in lunar orbit 

for the return to Earth. Over a period of two years they refined their complex 

mathematics and argued their case. As time became critical for definition of the 

launch vehicle, they argued their case before one NASA audience after another. 

Finally Houbolt. in a bold move, went outside of "channels" and got the personal 

attention of Seamans. This was a decision of such importance to the total 

program that imposed decision was not enough; the major elements of NASA had 

to be won over and concur in the final technical judgment. Dismissed at first as 

risky and very literally "far out," lunar orbit rendezvous gradually won adherents. 

In July 1962 D. Brainerd Holmes, NASA director of manned spaceflight, briefed the 

House space committee on lunar orbit rendezvous, the chosen method of going 

to the Moon. 

Once made, this decision permitted rapid definition of the Apollo spacecraft 

combination. Launch vehicle configuration had been arrived at seven months 

earlier. The objective would be to put a payload of nearly 300,000 pounds in Earth 

orbit and 100,000 pounds in orbit around the Moon. To do this required a threestage vehicle, the first stage employing the F-l engine in a cluster of five, to 

provide 7.5 million pounds of thrust at launch. The second stage would cluster five 

of a new 225,000-pound-thrust liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen engine (the J-2). 

The third stage, powered by a single 1-2 engine, would boost the Apollo three-man 

spacecraft out of Earth orbit and into the lunar gravitational field. At that point the 

residual three-spacecraft combination would take over: a command module 

housing the astronauts, a service module providing propulsion for maneuvers, 

and a two-man lunar module for landing on the Moon. The engine on the service 

module would ignite to slow the spacecraft enough to be captured into lunar 

orbit; the fragile lunar module would leave the mother craft and descend to land 

its two passengers on the Moon. After lunar reconnaissance, the astronauts would 

blast off in the top half of the lunar module to rejoin the mother craft in lunar 

orbit. and the service module would fire up for return to Earth. 

A smaller launch vehicle, which would later be dubbed the Saturn IB, would be 

built first and used to test the Apollo spacecraft in Earth orbit. Even this partial 

fulfillment of the Apollo mission would require a first stage with 1.5 million 

pounds of thrust and a high-energy liqUid oxygen-liquid hydrogen second stage. 

The grand design was now complete. But in the articulating of it. vast gaps in 

experience and technology were revealed. At three critical points the master plan 

depended on successful rendezvous and docking of spacecraft. Although theoretically feasible, it had never been done and was not within the scope of Project 

Mercury. How could practical experience be gained with rendezvous and docking 

short of an intricate, hideously expensive, and possibly disastrous series of 

61 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Launches of the Saturn I (pictured) and the similar Saturn IB increased NASA's conffdence in engines, 

boosters, and spacecraft, praparing the way for eventual manned missions of the Apollo program. 

experiments with Apollo hardware? Men would, hopefully, land and walk upon the 

Moon. But could men and their equipment function in space outside the artificial 

and confining environment of their spacecraft? Other systems and other ques~ 

tions could be engineered to solution on Earth, but the ultimate questions here 

could only be answered in space. We had bitten off more than we could chew. 

Clearly something was needed between the first steps of Mercury and the grand 

design of Apollo. The gap was too great to jump when men's lives were at stake. 

62 
ON THE FRINGES OF SPACE (1958-1964) 

Mercury, Atlas, and Apollo crew capsules all splashed down into the Pacific, to he retrieved hy helicopter. 

The Sikorsky UH-34D lost its struggle with Grissom's capsule, which sank a~er the astronaut seramhIed 

out. 

Even Mercury sometimes seemed a very big mouthful to chew. But slowly. 

stubborn problem after stubborn problem yielded. The second suborbital flight. 

Liberty Bell 7. was launched on 21 July 1961; its 16-minute flight went well. though on 

landing the hatch blew off prematurely and the spacecraft sank just after Astronaut Virgil 1. Grissom was hoisted to safety in a rescue helicopter. In September 

the unmanned Mercury-Atlas combination was orbited successfully and landed 

where it was supposed to. east of Bermuda. On 29 November the final test flight 

took chimpanzee Enos on a two-orbit ride and landed him in good health. The 

system was qualified for manned orbital flight. And on 20 February 1962. Astronaut John H. Glenn. Jr.. became the first American to orbit the Earth in space. 

FriendShip 7 circled the Earth three times; Glenn flew parts of the last two orbits 

manually because of trouble with his autopilot. 

The United States took its astronaut heroes to its heart with an enthusiasm that 

bewildered them and startled NASA. Their mail was enormous; hundreds of 

requests for personal appearances poured in. Glenn had a rainy parade in 

Washington and addressed a joint session of Congress. On 1 March four million 

people in New York showered confetti and ticker tape on him and fellow astronauts Shepard and Grissom. Nor was the event unnoticed by the competition. 

President Kennedy announced the day after the Glenn flight that Soviet Premier 

Nikita Khrushchev had congratulated the nation on its achievement and had 

63 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

suggested the two nations "could work together in the exploration of space." The 

results of this exchange were a series of talks between Dryden of NASA and 

Anatoliy A. Blagonravov of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. By the end of the year 

they had agreed to exchanges of meteorological and magnetic field data and 

some communications experiments. 

A big year for the young American space program, 1962. Two more Mercury 

flights, Carpenter for three orbits, then Schirra for six. The powerful Saturn I 

booster made two test flights, both successful. The first active communications 

satellite, Telstar I. was launched for AT&T by NASA; later NASA's own Relay 

communications satellite was orbited; and the first international satellite, Bri~ 

tain's Ariel I. was launched by NASA to take scientific measurements of the 

ionosphere. Mariner 2 became the first satellite to fly by another planet; on 14 

December it passed within 21.380 miles of Venus and scanned the surface of that 

c1oud~shrouded body, measuring its temperatures. Then it continued into orbit 

about the Sun, eventually setting a new communications distance record of 55.4 

million miles. The fifth and sixth Tiros meteorological satellites were placed in 

orbit and continued to report the world's weather. So successful had Tiros been 

that the R&D program had quickly become semioperational. The Weather Bureau 

was regularly integrating Tiros data into its operational forecasting and was busy 

planning a full scale weather satellite system which it would operate. The hard 

work on booster reliability began to pay off-18 successes to 9 failures or partial 

successes. 

Not that all was sweetness and light. The Ranger, designed to photograph the 

Moon while falling to impact the lunar surface, was in deep trouble. A high~ 

technology program at the edge of the state of the art, Ranger closed the year with 

five straight failures and another would come in 1963. JPL, the NASA agent; 

Hughes Aircraft Co., the contractor; and NASA Headquarters came under heavy 

pressure from Congress. Studies were made; a reorganization realigned JPL and 

contractor to firm commitment to the project; NASA dropped the science experi~ 

ments; and the last three Ranger flights were spectacularly successful. providing 

c1ose~in lunar photography that excelled the best telescopic detail of the Moon 

from Earth by 2000 times and dispelled many of the scare theories about the lunar 

surface. 

As the dimensions of Apollo began to dawn on Congress and the scientific 

community, there were rumbles : Apollo would preempt too much of the scientific 

manpower of the nation; Apollo was an "other worldly" stunt, directed at the 

Moon instead of at pressing problems on Earth. Administrator Webb met both of 

these caveats with positive programs. 

In acknowledgment of the drain on scientific manpower, Webb won White 

House support for a broad program by NASA to augment the scientific manpower 

pool. Thousands of fellowships were offered for graduate study in space related 

disciplines, intended to replace or at least supplement the kinds of talent 

engulfed by the space program. Complementing the fellowships was an even 

more innovative program, government financed buildings and facilities on uni~ 

64 
ON THE FRINGES OF SPACE (1958- 1964) 

versity campuses for the new kinds of interdisciplinary training that the space 

program required. 

From a modest beginning in 1962, by the end of the program in 1970 NASA had 

footed the bill for the graduate education of 5000 scientists and engineers at a 

cost of over $100 million, had spent some $32 million in construction of new 

laboratory facilities on 32 university campuses, and had given multidisciplinary 

grants to some 50 universities that totaled more than $50 million. The program 

marked a new direction in the government's recognition of its responsibility for 

impact of its program on the civilian economy and a new dimension of coopera~ 

tion between the university and the government. In part as a result of these new 

capabilities in the universities, NASA contracts and grants for research by univer~ 

sities rose from $21 million in 1962 to $101 million in 1968. The NASA university 

program proved very effective: on the political side it reduced tensions between 

NASA and the scientific engineering community; on the score of national tech~ 

nology capability it enlarged and focused a large segment of the research capabil~ 

ities of the universities. 

To refute the other charge-that Apollo would serve only its own ends and not 

the broader needs of the nation's economy-Webb created the NASA technology 

utilization program in 1962. Its basic purpose was to identify and hold up to the 

light the many items of space technology that could be or had been adapted for 

uses in the civilian economy. By 1973 some 30,000 such uses had been identified 

and new ones were rolling in at the rate of 2000 a year. 

But the program went beyond that. A concerted effort was made in every NASA 

center not only to identify possible transfers of space technology but to use NASA 

technical people and contractors to explore and even perform prototype research 

on promiSing applications. NASA publications described all these potential 

applications to researchers and industry; seven regional dissemination centers 

were established to work directly with industry on technical problems in the 

adaption of space technology; in 1973 some 2000 companies received direct help 

and another 57,000 queries were answered. New products ranged from quieter 

aircraft engines to microminiaturized and solid state electronics that revolution~ 

ized TV sets, radios, and small electronic calculators. NASA's computer software 

programs enabled a wide range of manufacturers to test the life history of new 

systems; they could predict problems that could develop, how the systems would 

perform, how long they would last, and so on. Many other facets of the space 

program were important to the quality and sustenance of life for citizens of the 

United States and the world: 

Communications. Within a decade the communications satellite proved to be a 

reliable, flexible, cost effective addition to long range communications. The Com~ 

munications Satellite Corporation (Comsat) became a solid financial success, 

with 114,000 stockholders. As manager of the International Telecommunications 

Satellite Consortium (lntelsat), it shared access to the global satellite system with 

82 other nations who had become members of the consortium. Its array of 

sophisticated Intelsat communications satellites bracketed the world from syn~ 

65 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

chronous orbit. Before these satellites existed, the total capability for transo~ 

ceanic telephone calls had been 500 circuits; in 1973 the Intelsat satellites alone 

offered more than 4000 transoceanic circuits. Real time TV coverage of events 

anywhere in the world-whether Olympics, wars, or coronations-had become 

commonplace in the world's living rooms. Satellite data transmission enabled 

industries to control far~f1ung production and inventories, airlines to have 

instantaneous coast to coast reservation systems, large banks to have nation~ 

wide data networks. This was only the beginning of the communications revolu~ 

tion . The next generation of communications satellite, Intelsat 5, started 

operations in 1976 with five times the capacity of its predecessor (Intelsat 4) and a 

life expectancy of to years in orbit. In 1976 the Maritime Administration embarked 

on a global ship control system operated by means of satellites. Experiments 

with Applications Technology Satellites (ATS) would continue to refine the Iife~ 

saving biomedical communication network which links medical personnel and 

medical centers across the nation. Especially valuable to isolated and rural areas, 

the network would afford them real time access to expert diagnosis and prescrip~ 

tion of treatment. 

Weather forecasting. Like its brother the communications satellite, the weather 

satellite had in less than a decade become an established friend of people around 

the world. Potentially disastrous hurricanes such as Camille in August 1969 and 

Agnes in June 1972 were spotted, tracked, and measured by the operational 

weather satellite network of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra~ 

tion. The real time knowledge of the storm's position, intensity, and track made 

possible accurate early warning and emergency evacuation that saved hundreds 

of lives and millions of dollars in property damage. Near global rainfall maps were 

being produced by 1973 from data acquired by NASA's Nimbus 5. Not only did the 

heat release information contained in such data markedly improve long range 

weather forecasting, but the data were of immediate value in agriculture, flood 

control. and similar tasks. Ice movement charts for the Arctic and Antarctic 

regions were extending shipping schedules in these areas by several months a 

year. 

Medicine. NASA's experience in microminiaturized electronics and in protect~ 

ing and monitoring the health of astronauts during spaceflight generated hun~ 

dreds of medical devices and techniques that could save lives and improve health 

care. Multidisciplinary teams of space technicians and medical researchers were 

successful in developing long duration heart pacers, for instance. Implanted in 

the patient's body but rechargeable from outside, the tiny pacer would regulate 

the heartbeat for decades without replacement, whereas the previous model 

required surgical replacement every two years. Space derived automatic patient 

monitoring systems were being used in more and more hospitals. Tiny sensors on 

the patient's body would trigger an alarm when there was a significant change in 

temperature, heartbeat, blood pressure, or even in the oxygen carbon dioxide 

levels in the blood-a signal of the onset of shock. For researchers living inside 

space simulators for long periods of time, the Ames Research Center developed 

an aspirin sized transmitter pill. In general medical practice, the transmitter pill 

66 
ON THE FRINGES OF SPACE (1958-1964) 

Laminar now clean room and special clothing used at st. Luke's Hospital, Denver, in 1972 to lower risk of 

infection in hip ioint replacements and other surgical procedures. Both the room and the clothing were 

based on space program experience and were developed under NASA contract by the Martin-Marietta 

Corporation. 

was swallowed by the patient; as it moved through the digestive system it radioed 

to the doctor diagnostic measurements of any of several kinds of deep body 

conditions such as temperature, stomach acid level. etc. 

Energy. The nation's stepped-up program of energy research that began in 

1973 found NASA with broad experience and an existing program of research in 

devices that collect. store, transmit, and apply solar, nuclear, and chemical energy 

for production of mechanical and electrical power. Solar cells had produced the 

electric power for several generations of spacecraft; when arrays of them were 

experimentally mounted on houses they supplied as much as three-quarters of 

the energy needed to heat and cool the house. But solar cells were too expensive 

to be competitive with other systems; work was continuing on improving their 

efficiency and on new manufacturing techniques that would cut their cost in half. 

A long-standing problem with the efficient use of electrical energy has been the 

inability to store significant amounts of it for future use. NASA had done much 

work on developing more compact. higher storage capacity, longer-life batteries. 

Nickel-cadmium batteries developed for the space program were already in 

general use; they could be recharged in 6 to 20 minutes instead of the 16 to 24 

hours required for conventional batteries. Silver-zinc batteries used in spacecraft 

67 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

were too expensive for commercial use, but their unique separator material could 

double the capacity of conventional nickel zinc batteries. An extensive trial of this 

adaptation was begun with the fleet of Postal Service electric trucks. Batteries 

with 5 to 20 times the storage capacity of conventional mass-produced auto~ 

mobile batteries could have a wide range of uses: low pollution automobile 

propulsion; storage of excess electrical power generated during low demand 

hours and released at times of peak demand; emergencies; and other uses. Fuel 

cells had been developed by NASA to provide the longer duration Gemini and 

Apollo flights with electrical power; on Earth they could be used either for energy 

storage or energy conversion. One of the ingredients used in fuel cells was 

hydrogen; in this application hydrogen was broken down and combined with 

oxygen in a complex chemical process that produced water and electrical energy. 

But hydrogen is also a superb high performance, low-pollutant fuel whose source 

is inexhaustible. liquid hydrogen had propelled men to and from the Moon. With 

its years of work with hydrogen as a rocket fuel. NASA had more experience than 

anyone else in the production, transportation, storage, pumping, and use of 

hydrogen. One possible use of hydrogen was a compact, clean energy that could 

be transported into large urban areas. Many kinds of Earth based power plants 

could burn hydrogen, alone or in various combinations, to produce energy with 

low pollution side effects. 

Apollo Impact. The creation of NASA's university and technology transfer pro~ 

grams in the early 1960s could be considered a side effect of Apollo. There were 

others. All lunar reconnaissance programs had been impacted by Apollo. The 

latter part of Ranger had been reoriented; Surveyor, the first lunar softlander, was 

reconfigured to support Apollo. If Surveyor worked, it would provide on the lunarsurface photography plus televised digging in the surface ofthe Moon for a better 

sense of soil composition. The remaining problem for Apollo was the need for 

detailed mapping photography of the Moon. So by the end of 1963 a third program 

was initiated-Lunar Orbiter, a state-of the art mapping satellite that would go 

into orbit around the Moon and photograph potential landing zones for Apollo. 

The vexing questions of rendezvous and extravehicular activity still had to be 

answered. So on 3 January 1962 NASA announced a new manned spaceflight 

project. Gemini. Using the basic configuration of the Mercury capsule enlarged to 

hold a two man crew, Gemini was to fit between Mercury and Apollo and provide 

early answers to assist the design workon Apollo. The launch vehicle would be the 

Titan II missile being developed by the Air Force. More powerful than Atlas and 

Titan I. it would have the thrust to put the larger spacecraft into Earth orbit. For a 

target vehicle with which Gemini could rendezvous, NASA chose the Air Force's 

Agena ; launched by an Atlas, the second stage Agena had a restartable engine 

that enabled it to have both passive and active roles. Gemini would be managed 

by the same Space Task Group that was operating Mercury; the project director 

would be James A. Chamberlin, an early advocate of an enlarged Mercury capsule. 

Gemini began as a Mark II Mercury, a "quick and dirty" program. The only major 

engineering change aside from scale up was to modularize the various electrical 

and control assemblies and place them outside the inner shell of the spacecraft to 

68 
ON THE FRINGES OF SPACE (1958-1964) 

simplify maintenance. But perhaps not an engineer alive could have left it at that. 

After all. Gemini was supposed to bridge to Apollo. Here was a chance to try out 

ideas. If they worked. they would be available for Apollo. There was the paraglider. 

for example. that Francis Rogallo had been experimenting with at Langley. If that 

worked. Gemini could forget parachutes and water landings with half the Navy out 

there; with a paraglider Gemini could land routinely on land. The spacecraft 

should be designed to have more aerodynamic lift than Mercury. so the pilot 

could have more landing controL fuel cells (instead of batteries) with enough 

electric power to support longer duration flights; and fighter plane type ejection 

seats for crew abort. to supersede the launch escape rocket that perched on top of 

Mercury. 

All these innovations were cranked into the program. and contracts and sub~ 

contracts were let for their design and fabrication. Soon the monthly bills for 

Gemini were running far beyond what had been budgeted. In every area. it 

seemed. there were costly problems. The paraglider and ejection seats would not 

stabilize in flight; the fuel cell leaked; Titan II had longitudinal oscillations-the 

dreaded "pogo" effect-too severe for manned flights; Agena had reconfiguration 

problems. Cost overruns had become severe by late 1962; by March 1963 they were 

critical. The original program cost of $350 million had zoomed to over $ 1 billion­

$200 million higher than the figures Associate Administrator Seamans had used 

in Congress a few days before! Charles W. Mathews. the new program manager. 

cracked down. Flight schedules were stretched out; the paraglider gradually slid 

out of the program. By early 1964 most of the engineering problems were respond~ 

ing to treatment. 

With the Mercury program and the spacecraft design role in Apollo. and now 

Gemini. it was clear that the Space Task Group needed a home of its own and 

some growing room. On 19 September 1961. Administrator Webb announced that 

a new Manned Spacecraft Center would be built on the outskirts of Houston. It 

would house the enlarged Space Task GrouP. now upgraded to a center. and 

would have operational control of all manned missions as well as be the 

developer of manned spacecraft. Water access to the Gulf of Mexico was provided 

by the ship channel to Galveston. 

Water access played a role in all site selections for new Apollo facilities. The big 

Michoud Ordnance Plant outside New Orleans. where the lO~meter~diameter 

Saturn V first stage would be fabricated. was on the Mississippi River; the 

Mississippi Test Facility. with its huge test stands for static firing tests of the 

booster stages. was just off the Gulf of Mexico. in Pearl River County. Mississippi. 

All this effort would come together at the launch site at Cape Canaveral. Florida. 

where NASA had a small Launch Operations Center. headed by Kurt H. Debus. 

NASA had been a tenant there. usingAir Force launch facilities and tracking range. 

Now Apollo loomed. Apollo would require physical facilities much too large to fit 

on the crowded Cape. For safety's sake there would have to be large buffer zones of 

land around the launch pads; if a catastrophic accident occurred. where all stages 

of the huge launch vehicle exploded at once. the force of the detonation would 

approach that of a small atomic bomb. So NASA sought and received congres~ 

69 
Kennedy Space Center as it appeared in the mid-1960s. The 350-foot tall Saturn V launch vehicle has 

emerged from the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building aboard its crawler and begun its stately 

processional to the launch complex three miles away . 

sional approval to purchase over 111,000 acres of Merritt Island, just northwest of 

the Air Force facilities. Lying between the Banana River and the Atlantic, populated mostly by orange growers, Merritt Island had the requisite water access and 

safety factors. 

Planners struggled through 1961 with a wide range of concepts and possibilities 

for the best launch system for Apollo, hampered by having only a gross knowledge 

of how the vehicle would be configured, what the missions would involve, and 

how frequent the launches would be. Finally on 21 July 1962 NASA announced its 

choice: the Advanced Saturn (later Saturn V) launch vehicle would be transported 

to the new Launch Operations Center on Merritt Island stage by stage; the stages 

would be erected and checked out in an an enormous vehicle assembly building; 

the vehicle would be transported to one of the four launch pads several miles 

away by a huge tractor crawler. This system was a major departure from previous 

practice at the Cape; launch vehicles had usually been erected on the launch pad 

and checked out there. Under the new concept the vehicle would be on the launch 

pad for a much shorter time, allowing for a higher launch rate and better 

protection against weather and salt spray. As with the other new Apollo facilities, 

the Corps of Engineers would supervise the vast construction project. 

The simultaneous building of facilities and hardware was going to take a great 

deal of money and a great many skilled people. The NASA budget, $966.7 million 

70 
ON THE FRINGES OF SPACE (1958-1964) 

in fiscal 1961. was $1.825 billi0n in 1962. It hit $3.674 billion the next year and by 

1964 was $5.1 billion. It would remain near that level for three more years. In 

personnel. NASA grew in those same years from 17.471 to 35,860. Of course this 

was small potatoes compared to the mushrooming contractor and university 

force where 90 percent of NASA's money was spent. When the Apollo production 

line peaked in 1967, more than 400,000 people were working on some aspect of 

Apollo. 

Indeed, as the large bills began to come in, there was some wincing in the 

political system. President Kennedy wondered briefly if the goal was worth the 

cost; in 1963 Congress had its first real adversary debate on Apollo.Administrator 

Webb had to point out again and again that this was not a one shot trip to the 

Moon but the bUilding of a national space capability that would have many uses. 

He also needled congressmen with the fact that the Soviets were still ahead; in 

1963 they were orbiting two man spacecraft, flying a 129 mile orbit tandem 

mission, and orbiting an unmanned prototype of a new spacecraft. Support 

rallied. The Senate rejected an amendment that would have cut the fiscal 1964 

space budget by $500 million. The speech that President Kennedy was driving 

through Dallas to deliver on that fateful 22 November 1963 would have defended 

the expenditures of the space program : 

This effort is expensive-but it pays its own way, for freedom and for 

America .... There is no longer any doubt about the strength and skill of 

American science, American industry, American education and the Amer~ 

ican free enterprise system. In short, our national space effort represents a 

great gain in, and a great resource of, our national strength. 

As 1963 drew to a close, NASA could feel that it was on top of its job. The master 

plan for Apollo was drawn; the organization and the key people were in place. 

Mercury had ended with L. Gordon Cooper's 22 orbit flight. far beyond the design 

limits of the spacecraft. For those Americans old enough to have thrilled to 

Lindbergh's historic transatlantic flight 36 years earlier, it was awesome that in 

only 50 minutes more flight time, Cooper had flown 593,500 miles to Lindbergh's 

3107. Of 13 NASA launches during the year, II were successful. In addition to 

improved performance from the established launch vehicles, Saturn I had another 

successful test flight, as did the troublesome Centaur. The S(Jncom 2 communica~ 

tions satellite achieved synchronous orbit and from that lofty perch transmitted 

voice and teletype communications between North America, South America, and 

Africa. The Explorer 18 scientific satellite sailed out in a long elliptical orbit to 

measure radiation most of the way to the Moon. 

71 

Chapter 5 
 

TORTOISE BECOMES HARE (1964-1969) 
 

As 1964 dawned, the worst of Gemini's troubles were behind. The spacecraft for 

the first flight was already at the Kennedy Space Center (Launch Operations 

Center, renamed in November 1963 by President Lyndon B. Johnson) being 

minutely checked out for the flight. Too minutely, too time consumingly. Not until 

8 April did Gemini I lift off unmanned into an orbit which confirmed the launch 

vehicle spacecraft combination in the rigors of launch. The excessive checkout 

time of Gemini I generated a new procedure. Beginning with the next spacecraft. a 

contingent from the launch crew would workat the factory (McDonnell Douglas in 

St. Louis) to check out the spacecraft there. When it arrived at the Cape, it would 

be ready to be mated with its Titan II, have the pyrotechnics installed, and be 

launched. Only in this way could one hope to achieve the three month launch 

cycle planned for Gemini. 

The new system delayed the arrival of the second Gemini spacecraft at the 

Cape. There the curse set in. Once on the pad the spacecraft was struck by 

lightning, threatened by not one but two hurricanes, and forced to undergo check 

after check. And when launch day finally came in December, the engines ignited 

and then shut down. More rework. Finally on 19 January 1965, Gemini 2 rose from 

the launch pad on the tail of almost colorless flame from Titan II's hypergolic pro~ 

pellants, and in a 19 minute flight confirmed the readiness of a fully equipped 

Gemini spacecraft and the integrity of the heatshield during reentry. Gemini was 

man rated. 

The final test flight, a manned, three orbit qualification flight. was conducted 

on 23 March without incident. Now the diversified flight program could continue. 

One program objective was to orbit men in space for at least the week that it 

would take an Apollo flight to go to the Moon, land, and return. Gemini 4 (3 7 June) 

stayed aloft four days; Gemini 5 (21 29 August) doubled that time and surpassed 

the Soviet long duration record; Gemini 7 (4~ 18 December) provided the clincher 

with 14 days (330 hours, 35 minutes). Of more lasting importance than the 

73 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

durability of the equipment was the encouraging medical news that no harmful 

effects were found from several weeks exposure to weightlessness. There were 

temporary effects, of course: heartbeat slowed down, blood tended to pool in the 

legs, the bones lost calcium, and other conditions appeared, but things seemed to 

stabilize after a few days in weightlessness and to return to normal after a few days 

back on Earth. So far there seemed to be no physiological time limit for humans 

living in space. 

A crucial question for Apollo was whether the three rendezvous and docking 

maneuvers planned for every lunar flight were feasible. Gemini 3 made the tenta~ 

tive beginning by testing the new thruster rockets with short burst firings that 

changed the height and shape of orbit, and one maneuver that for the first time 

shifted the plane of the flight path of a spacecraft. Gemini 4 tried to rejoin its 

discarded second stage booster but faulty techniques burned up too much 

maneuvering fuel and the pursuit had to be abandoned-a valuable lesson; back 

to the computers for better techniques! Gemini 5 tested out the techniques and 

verified the performance of the rendezvous radar and rendezvous display in the 

cockpit. 

Then came what is still referred to by NASA control room people with pride but 

also with slight shudders as "Gemini 76." The original mission plan called for a 

target Agena stage to be placed in orbit and for Gemini to launch in pursuit of it. 

But the Agena fell short of orbit and splashed into the Atlantic. The Gemini 

spacecraft suddenly had no mission. Round~the~c1ock debate and recomputation 

produced a seemingly bizarre solution, which within three days of the Agena 

failure was approved by Administrator Webb and President Johnson: remove the 

Gemini 6 spacecraft launch vehicle combination intact from the launch pad and 

store it carefully to preserve the integrity of checkout; erect Gemini 7 on the launch 

pad, check it out and launch it; bring Gemini 6 out and launch it to rendezvous with 

the long duration Gemini 7. It happened. Gemini 7 was launched 4 December 1965; 

Gemini 6 was back on the pad for launch by 12 December. On launch day the 

engines ignited, burned for four seconds, and shut off automatically when a 

trouble light lit up. On top of the fueled booster Astronaut Walter M. Schirra, Jr., 

sat with his hand on the lanyard of the ejection seat while the control checked out 

the condition of the fueled booster. But the potential bomb did not explode. On 15 

December Gemini 6 lifted off to join its sister ship in orbit. On his fourth orbit 

Schirra caught up to Gemini 7 and maneuvered to within 33 feet; in subsequent 

maneuvers he moved to within six inches. Rendezvous was feasible; was docking? 

On 16 March 1966, Gemini 8 on its third orbit docked with its Agena target. 

Docking too was feasible, though in this case not for long. Less than half an hour 

after docking for an intended full night in the docked position, the two spacecraft 

unaccountably began to spin, faster and faster. Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong could 

not stabilize the joined spacecraft, so he fired his Gemini thrusters to undock and 

maneuver away from the Agena. Still he could not control his single spacecraft 

with the thrusters; lives seemed in jeopardy. Finally he fired the reentry rockets, 

which did the job. By then ground control had figured out that one thruster had 

stuck in the firing position. Armstrong made an emergency landing off Okinawa. 

74 
TORTOISE BECOMES HARE (1964-1969) 

Despite hardware problems, docking had been established as feasible. 

Rendezvous was new and difficult, so experimentation continued. Gemini 9 (3 6 

June 1966) tried three kinds of rendezvous maneuvers with a special target stage 

as its passive partner, but docking was not possible because the shroud covering 

the target's docking mechanism had not separated. Th~ shroud did not prevent 

simulation of an Apollo lunar orbit rendezvous. Gemini 10 (18 21 July 1966) did dock 

with its Agena target and used the powerful Agena engine to soar to a height of 

474 miles, the highest in space man had ventured. It rendezvoused with the 

derelict Agena left in orbit by Gemini 8 four months earlier, using only optical 

methods and thereby demonstrating the feasibility of rendezvous with passive 

satellites for purpose of repairing them. On the next flight Gemini 11 caught up with 

its target in its first orbit, demonstrating the possibility of quick rendezvous if 

necessary for rescue or other reasons. Each astronaut practiced docking twice. 

Using Agena propulsion, they rocketed out to 850 miles above the Earth, another 

record. The final Gemini flight, Gemini 12 (11 November 1966). rendezvoused with 

its target Agena on the third orbit and kept station with it. 

Would astronauts be able to perform useful work outside their spacecraft when 

in orbit or on the Moon? This was the question extravehicular activity (EVA) was 

designed to answer. The answers proved to be various and more difficult than had 

been envisioned. 

The view from Gemini II's window of the Agena rocket with which the Gemini crew is practicing 

rendezvous and tethered station keeping. 

75 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

America's first space walk. Astronaut Edward H. White II fired short bursts with his hand-held 

maneuvering gun to move around in the zero gravity of space before returning to the Gemini 4 spacecra~. 

Gemini 4 began EVA when Edward H. White II floated outside his spacecraft for 

23 minutes. Protected by his spacesuit and attached to Gemini by a 26-foot 

umbilical cord, White used a hand-held maneuvering unit to move about. took 

photographs, and in general had such an exhilarating experience that he had to be 

ordered back into the spacecraft. Because he had no specific work tasks to 

perform, his EVA seemed deceptively easy. 

That illusion was rudely shattered by the experience of Gemini 9, when Eugene 

A. Cernan spent 2 hours in EVA; he had tasks to perform in several areas on the 

spacecraft. His major assignment was to go behind the spacecraft into the adapter 

area, put on the 165-pound astronaut maneuvering unit-a more powerful individual flight propulsion system the Air Force had built-and try it out. The effort to 

get the unit harnessed to his back was so intense that excessive perspiration 

within his spacesuit overtaxed the system and fogged his visor. The experiment 

was abandoned and he was ordered back into the spacecraft. 

Much more pleasant was the experience of Michael Collins on Gemini 10. He 

76 
TORTOISE BECOMES HARE (1964-1969) 

tried two kinds of EVA: the first time he stood in the open hatch for 45 minutes and 

made visual observations and took pictures; the second time he went out on a 33~ 

foot long tether, maneuvering for 55 minutes with the hand~held maneuvering 

unit and even propelled himself over to the station~keeping Agena and removed a 

micrometeoroid~impact experiment which had been in space for four months. But 

reality raised its ugly head again during Gemini 11 when Richard F. Gordon, Jr., was 

assigned a full schedule of work tasks along the spacecraft but had to terminate 

after 33 minutes because of fatigue. He had battled himself to exhaustion trying to 

control his bodily movements and fight against the opposite torque that any 

simple motion set in train. It was Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion in pure form. 

NASA had learned its lesson. When Gemini 12 went up, many additional body 

restraints and hand~ and footholds had been added. Astronauts had trained for 

the strange floating sensation by doing the same assignments in water tanks on 

Earth. Results were gratifying; in a 2~hour ~minute tethered EVA (aside from two 

standup EVAs) Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., successfully performed 19 separate tasks. Total 

EVA on this flight added up to 5 hours 28 minutes. 

On the last seven flights, Gemini experimented with the aerodynamic lift of the 

spacecraft to ensure pinpoint landings on Earth's surface; with the dispersions 

possible when Apollo came in from 230,000 miles away, tired astronauts would 

need this. The inertial guidance system provided inputs to the computer, which 

solved the guidance equations. On flights 10 the reentry was controlled by the 

crew. On the last two flights the data were fed into the automatic system. Results 

were promising. The average navigational accuracy of the seven flights was within 

2 miles of the aiming point, much better than previous flights. 

Gemini was primarily a technological learning experience. So it is not surpris~ 

ing that of the 52 experiments in the program, more than half (27) were tech~ 

nological. exploring the limits of the equipment. But there were also 17 scientific 

experiments and 8 medical ones. An important one was the 1400 color pho~ 

tographs taken of Earth from various altitudes. This provided the investigators the 

first large corpus of color photographs from which to learn more about the planet 

on which we live. 

Probably the most valuable management payoff from Gemini was the opera~ 

tiona I one: how to live and maneuver in space; next was how to handle a variety of 

situations in space by exploiting the versatility and depth of the vast NASA~ 

contractor team that stood by during flights. Finally there were valuable fiscal 

lessons: an advanced technology program had a "best path" between too slow 

and too fast. Deviation on either side, as had occurred in the early days of Gemini. 

could cost appalling amounts of money. But once on track, even economies were 

possible. Once Gemini flights were on track, for example, associate administrator 

for Manned Space Flight George E. Mueller (successor to Holmes) had won 

agreement from his principal contractors to cut the three month period between 

launches to two months. This was primarily to get Gemini out of the way before 

Apollo launches started, but it paid off finanCially, too; where total program costs 

for Gemini were estimated in 1964 to be $1.35 billion, the actual cost closed out at 

$1.29 billion. 

77 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

This, then, was Gemini, a versatile, flexible spacecraft system that wound up 

exploring many more nooks and crannies of spaceflight than its originators ever 

foresaw-which is as it should be. Major lessons were transmitted to Apollo; 

rendezvous, yes; docking, yes; EVA, yes; manned flights up to two weeks in 

duration, yes. Equally important, there was now a big experience factor for the 

astronauts and for the people on the ground, in the control room, around the 

tracking· network, in industry. The system had proved itself in the pit; it had 

evolved a total team that had solved real time problems in space with men's lives 

at stake. This was no mean legacy to Apollo. 

Some of the technological payoff had come too late. With the increasing 

sophistication of Gemini and the consequent slippage of both financial and 

engineering schedules, the Apollo designers and engineers sometimes had to 

invent their own wheel. But the state of the art had been advanced: thrusters, fuel 

cells, environmental control systems, space navigation, spacesuits, and other 

equipment. In the development stage of Apollo the bank of knowledge from 

Gemini paid off in hundreds of subtle ways. The bridge had been built. 

Boosters and Spacecraft for Apollo 

Throughout Gemini's operational period, Apollo was slogging along toward 

completed stages and completed spacecraft. Saturn I, the booster almost over~ 

taken by events, finished its lO~flight program in 1964 and 1965 with six launches 

featuring a liquid hydrogen second stage. Not only was it proved out; the clus~ 

tered engine concept was demonstrated and an early form of Apollo guidance 

was tested. The last four flights were considered operational; one (18 September 

1964) tested a bOilerplate Apollo spacecraft. The last three carried Pegasus 

meteoroid detection satellites into orbit. The last two Saturn I boosters were 

fabricated entirely by industry, making a transition from the Army arsenal in

house concept that had previously characterized the Marshall Space Flight Cen~ 

ter. Ten launches, ten successes. 

Meanwhile the larger brother, the Saturn IB, was being born. Its first stage was 

to generate 1.6 million pounds of thrust, from eight of the 1 engines that had 

powered Atlas ,and Saturn I, but uprated to 200,000 pounds each. The second 

stage was to feature the new 2 liqUid hydrogen engine, generating 200,000 

pounds of thrust. It was a crucial element of the forthcoming Saturn V vehicle, 

since in a five engine cluster it would power the second stage and a single 2 

would power the third stage. 

Saturn IB was the first launch vehicle to be affected by a new concept, "all~up/l 

testing. Associate Administrator Mueller, pressed by budgetary constraints and 

relying on his industry experience in the Air Force's Minuteman ballistic missile 

program, pressed NASA to abandon its stage by stage testing. With intensive 

ground testing of components, he argued, NASA could with reasonable con~ 

fidence test the entire stack of stages in flight from the beginning, at great savings 

to budget and schedule. Marshall engineers had built their splendid success 

record by being conservative; they vigorously opposed the new concept. But 

eventually Mueller triumphed. On 26 February 1966, the complete Saturn IB flew 

78 
TORTOISE BECOMES HARE (1964-1969) 

with the Apollo command and service module in suborbital flight; the payload 

was recovered in good condition. On 5 July the IB second stage, the instrument 

unit-which would house the electronic and guidance brains of the Saturn Vand the nose cone were propelled into orbit. The total payload was 62,000 pounds, 

the heaviest the U.S. had yet orbited. On 26 August a suborbital launch qualified 

the Apollo command module for manned flight; the attached service module fired 

its engine four times; and an accelerated reentry trajectory tested the Apollo 

heatshield at the 25,OOO~MPH velocity of a spacecraft returning from lunar dis~ 

tance. 

The largest brother, Saturn V, was still being pieced together. Developed by 

three different contractors, the three stages of Saturn V had individual histories 

and problems. The first stage, although the largest. had a long lead time and was 

on schedule. The third stage, though enlarged and sophisticated from the version 

flown on Saturn IB, had a previous history. It was the second stage that was the 

newest beast-five 2 engines burning liquid hydrogen. It became the pacing 

item of the Saturn V and would remain so almost until the first launch. 

Of the three spacecraft, the lunar module was, early and late, the problem child. 

For one thing, it was begun late-a whole year late. For another, it differed 

radically from previous spacecraft. There were two discrete spacecraft within the 

As manned space launches hecame more frequent, logistics hecame a major prohlem. Oversized cargoes 

like the Apollo instrument unit segment, as well as command modules and upper stages were carried hy 

the Super Guppy, a dramatically modified Boeing Stratoliner. 

79 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

lunar module; one would descend to the lunar surface from lunar orbit; the other 

would separate from the descent stage and leap off the lunar surface into lunar 

orbit and rendezvous with the command module. The engine for each stage would 

have to work perfectly for that one time it fired. Both had teething troubles. The 

descent engine was particularly troublesome, to the point that a second contract 

was let for a backup engine of different design. Weight was a never ending 

problem with the lunar module. Each small change in a system, each substitution 

of one material for another, had to be considered as much in terms of pounds 

added or saved as in any gain in system efficiency. By the end of 1966, the Saturn 

IB and the block 1 Apollo command and service module were considered man

rated. 

On 27 January 1967, AS 204, to be the first manned spaceflight, was on the 

launch pad at Cape Kennedy, moving through preflight tests. Astronauts Virgil I. 

Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee were suited up in the command 

module, moving through the countdown toward a simulated launch. At ~ 

minus 10 minutes tragedy struck without warning. As Major General Samuel C. 

Phillips, Apollo program director, described it the next day: "The facts briefly are: 

at 6:31 p.m. (EST) the observers heard a report which originated from one of the 

crewmen that there was a fire aboard the spacecraft ...." Ground crew members 

saw a flash fire break through the spacecraft shell and envelop the spacecraft in 

smoke, Phillips said. Rescue attempts failed. It took a tortuous five minutes to get 

the hatch open from the outside. Long before that the three astronauts were dead 

from asphyxiation. It was the first fatal accident in the American spaceflight 

program . 

Shock swept across the nation and the world. In the White House, President 

Johnson had just presided over the Signing of an international space law treaty 

when Administrator Webb phoned with the crushing news. Webb said the next 

day: "We've always known that something like this would happen sooner or 

later....who would have thought the first tragedy would be on the ground?" 

Who, indeed? What had happened? How had it happened? Could it happen 

again? Was someone at fault? If so, who? There were many questions, few 

answers. The day following the fire, Deputy Administrator Seamans appointed an 

eight member review board to investigate the accident. As chairman he chose 

Floyd L. Thompson, the veteran director of the Langley Research Center. For 

months the board probed the evidence, heard witnesses, studied documentation. 

On 10 April. Webb, Seamans, Mueller, and Thompson briefed the House space 

committee on the findings: the fire had apparently been started by an electrical 

short circuit which ignited the oxygen rich atmosphere and fed on combustible 

materials in the spacecraft. The precise wire at fault could probably never be 

determined. Like most accidents it should not have happened. There had been 

errors in design, faults in testing procedures. But the basic spacecraft design was 

sound. A thorough review of spacecraft design, wiring, combustible materials, test 

procedures, and a dozen more items was underway. Congress was not satisfied. 

Hearings in both houses continued, gradually eroding Webb's support on Capitol 

Hill. 

80 
TORTOISE BECOMES HARE (1964-19691 

The block I spacecraft would not be used for any manned flights. The hatch on 

the block II spacecraft would be redesigned for quick opening. The hundreds of 

miles of wiring in the spacecraft were checked for fire proofing, protecting against 

damage, and other problems. An intensive materials research program devised 

substitute materials for combustible ones. ·In effect, the block II spacecraft was 

completely redesigned and rebuilt. Thecost: 18 months delay in the manned flight 

schedule and at least $50 million. The gain: a sounder, safer spacecraft. 

Well before men flew in Apollo spacecraft the question had been raised as to 

what, if anything, NASA proposed to do with men in space after Apollo was over. 

With the long lead times and heavy costs inherent in manned space programs, 

advance planning was essential. President Johnson proposed the question to 

Webb in a letter on 30 January 1964. NASA's first look answer surfaced in congres~ 

sional hearings on the fiscal 1965 budget. Funds were requested for study con~ 

tracts that would investigate a variety of ideas for doing new things in space with 

the expensively acquired Apollo hardware. Possjbilities: long duration Earth~ 

orbital operations, lunar surface exploration operating out of an unmanned 

Apollo lunar module landed on the Moon, long duration lunar orbital missions to 

survey and map the Moon, Earth orbital operations leading to space stations. 

Through 1965 and 1966 the studies intensified and options were fleshed out. 

The Woods Hole conference in the summer of 1965 brought together a broad 

spectrum of the American science community and identified some 150 scientific 

experiments that were candidates for such missions. By 1966 there was a sense of 

urgency in NASA planning; the Apollo production line was peaking and would 

begin to decline in a year or two. Unless firm requirements for additional 

boosters, spacecraft, and other systems could be delineated and funded soon, the 

production lines would shut down and the hard won Apollo skills dispersed. In 

the fiscal 1967 congressional hearings, NASA presented further details and fixed 

the next fiscal year as the latest that hardware commitments could be deferred if 

the Apollo production line was to be used. 

NASA went into the fiscal 1968 budget cycle with a fairly ambitious Apollo 

Applications proposal. It asked for an appropriation of $626 million as the down 

payment on six Saturn IBs, six Saturn Vs, and eight Apollo spacecraft per year. The 

Bureau of the Budget approved a budget request of $454 million. This cut the 

program by one third . Congress appropriated only $253 million, so by mid 1968 

the plan was down to only two additional Saturn 1 Bs and one orbital workshop, 

with it and its Apollo telescope mount being deferred to 1971 . 

Spacecraft for Space Science 

Manned spaceflight, with its overwhelming priority, had had both direct and 

indirect impact on the NASA space science program. From 1958 to 1963, scientific 

satellites had made impressive discoveries: the van Allen radiation belts, Earth's 

magnetosphere, the existence of the solar wind. Much of the space science effort 

in the next four years had been directed toward finding more detailed data on 

these extensive phenomena. The radiation belts were found to be indeed plural, 

8] 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

with definite, if shifting, altitudes. The magnetosphere was found to have an 

elongated tail reaching out beyond the Moon and through which the Moon 

periodically passes. The solar wind was shown to vary greatly in intensity with 

solar activity. 

All of these were momentous discoveries about our nearby space environment. 

The first wave of discoveries said one thing to NASA: if you put up bigger, more 

sophisticated, more versatile satellites than those of the first generation, you will 

find many other unsuspected phenomena that might help unravel the history of 

the solar system, the universe, and the cosmic mystery of how it all works. So a 

second generation of spacecraft was planned and developed; they were called 

observatory class-five to ten times as heavy as early satellites, built around a 

standard bus instrumented for a specific scientific discipline, but designed to 

support up to 20 discrete experimental instruments that could be varied from one 

flight to the next-solar observatories, astronomical observatories, geophysical 

observatories. As these complex spacecraft were developed and launched in the 

mid 1960s, the first results were on the whole disappointing. The promise was 

confirmed by fleeting results, but their very complexity inflicted them with short 

lifetimes and electrical failures. There were solid expectations that these could be 

worked out for subsequent launches. But by the late 1960s the impingement of 

manned spaceflight budgets on space science budgets reduced or eliminated 

many of these promising starts. Smaller satellites, such as the Pioneer series, 

survived and made valuable observations, measuring the solar wind, solar plasma 

tongues, and the interplanetary magnetic field. 

Lunar programs faired somewhat better but did not come away unscathed. The 

lunar missions were now in support of Apollo, so they were allowed to run their 

course. Surveyor softlanded six out of its seven spacecraft on the Moon from 1966 

through 1968. Its television cameras gave Earthlings their first limited previews of 

ghostly lunar landscaspes seen from the surface level. Its instruments showed 

that lunar soil was the consistency of wet sand, firm enough to support lunar 

landings by the lunar module. Lunar Orbiter put mapping cameras in orbit around 

the Moon in all of its five missions, photographed over 90 percent of the lunar 

surface, including the invisible back side, and surveyed potential Apollo landing 

sites. 

Planetary programs suffered heavy cuts. The Mariner series was cut back, but its 

two flights provided exciting new glimpses into the history of the solar system. 

Mariner 4 flew past Mars on 14 July 1965 and gave us our first close up view of 

Earth's fabled neighbor. At first glance the view was disappointing. Mars was 

battered by meteor impacts almost as much as the Moon. While there were no 

magnetic fields or radiation belts, there was a thin atmosphere. Mariner 5 flew past 

Venus on 19 October 1967; this second pass at mysterious Venus found no 

magnetic field but an ionosphere that deflected the solar wind. The atmosphere 

was dense and very hot; temperatures were recorded as high as 700 K, with 80 

percent of the atmosphere being carbon dioxide. But the immediate future of 

more sophisticated planetary exploration seemed bleak. The ambitious Voyager 

program was curtailed in 1966 and finally dropped in 1968; it envisioned large 

82 
TORTOISE BECOMES HARE (1964-1969) 

planetary spacecraft launched on Saturn V which would deploy Mars entry capsules weighing up to 7000 pounds. 

The applications satellites had been a crowning achievement for NASA in the 

early 1960s. The NASA policy of bringing a satellite system along through the 

research and development stages to flight demonstration of the system and then 

turning it over to someone else to convert into an operational system received its 

acid test in 1962. With the demonstration of Syncom performance, the commercial 

potential of communications satellites became obvious and immediate. NASA's 

R&D role seemed over, but how should the valuable potential be transferred to 

private ownership without favoritism? The Kennedy administration's answer was 

the Communications Satellite Corporation, a unique government-industry-international combination. The board of directors would be made up of six named by 

the communications industry, six by public stockholders, and three named by the 

President of the United States. The corporation would be empowered to invite 

other nations to share the investment, the services, and the profii:s. This precedent-setting proposal stirred strong political emotions, especially in the Senate. 

A 20-day debate ensued, including a filibuster, the time-honored last resort in 

cases of deeply divisive issues, before the administration proposal was approved. 

On 31 August 1962, President Kennedy signed the bill into law. ComSatCorp, as it 

came to be called, set up in business. On 6 April 1965, its first satellite, Early Bird I 

was launched into synchronous orbit by NASA on a reimbursable basis. By the 

end of 1968, there was an Intel sat network of five communications satellites in 

synchronous orbits, some 20 of an expected 40 ground stations in operation, and 

48 member nations participating. The Soviets had mounted a competitive system 

of Molniya satellites with first launch in 1965. They too had sought international 

partnership, but only France outside of the Iron Curtain countries signed up. By 

1968 they had launched 10 Molniya satellites into their standard elliptical orbit. 

On the American side, the question of government-sponsored research on communications satellites was not completely solved by the creation of ComSatCorp. 

Congress continued to worry over the thorny question of whether the government 

should carry on advanced research on communications satellites versus the 

prospect that a government-sponsored monopoly would profit from the results. 

Weather satellites were simpler in the sense that the relationship was confined 

to two government agencies. The highly successful Tiros was seized on by the 

Weather Bureau as the model for its operational satellite series. NASA had high 

hopes for its follow-on Nimbus satellite, bigger, with more instruments measuring more parameters. The Weather Bureau, however, felt that unless NASA could 

guarantee a long operational I ifetime for Nimbus, it was too expensive for routine 

use. So NASA continued Nimbus as a test bed for advanced sensors that could 

provide better measurements of the vertical structure of the atmosphere and 

global collection of weather data. 

Navigational satellites, one of the early bright possibilities of space, continued 

to be intractable. But there was a new entry, the Earth resources satellite. 

Impressed by the Tiros photographs and even more by the Gemini photographs, 

the Department of Interior suggested an Earth resources satellite program in 

83 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

1966. Early NASA investigation envisioned a small, low altitude satellite in Sun~ 

synchronous orbit. What could be effectively measured with existing sensors, to 

what degree, with what frequency, in what priority? These questions involved an 

increasing number of government agencies. Then there Was the complex question 

of what trade off was best between aircraft borne sensors and satellite borne 

ones. It was a new kind of program for NASA, involving many more government 

agencies and many more political sensitivities than the uncluttered researches in 

space. 

Aspects of Flight Research 

The advanced research activities of NASA also became more subtle and difficult 

to track. An interlocking network of basic and applied research, advanced research 

was designed to feed new ideas and options into the planning process. The most 

visible portion was flight research, which sometimes supported work in the space 

program. 

Although ballistic reentry from space had become familiar by the 1960s, there 

was a group of engineers who argued in favor of "lifting" reentry. The idea was to 

build a spacecraft with aerodynamic characteristics so that a crew could fly back 

through the Earth's atmosphere and land at an airfield. The 20A Dyna Soar 

proposed by the Air Force was one such example. 

But the Dyna Soar never flew, a victim of budget constraints and new tech~ 

nology. The NACA became involved in a smaller series of lifting body aircraft that 

helped pave the way for the Space Shuttle design. At Ames, a series of exploratory 

studies during the 1950s culminated in a design known as the M2, a modified half~ 

cone (it was flat on the top) and a rounded nose to reduce heating. NASA 

engineers at Edwards kept up with much of the theoretical ideas percolating out 

of Ames, and Robert Reed became fascinated by the M2, by now called the 

"Cadillac" for the two small fins emerging at the blunt tail. He built a successful 

flying model, which led to authorization for a manned glider. 

In many ways, the local authorization was more typical of the early NACA, since 

Headquarters did not know about it-nor did Langley, for that matter. But it 

seemed promising and it could be done cheaply. One aircraft company later 

estimated it would have cost at least $150,000 to build the M2, but the Edwards 

crew did it for less than $50,000. A nearby sailplane company built the laminated 

wooden shell (Reed was also an avid sailplane pilot); a considerable amount of 

other fabrication work was done by NASA personnel who were practiced hob~ 

byists in the art of homebuilt aircraft. The landing gear was scrounged from a 

Cessna 150. By 1963, the M2~Fl, as it was now called, had been completed. 

Initial flight tests required a ground vehicle to tow the M2 F1 above the dry lake 

bed, but none of NASA's trucks or vans was fast enough for the task. The Edwards 

team had to shop around for a hopped up Pontiac convertible, further modified 

by a custom car shop in Long Beach to include rollbars, radio equipment, and 

special seats for observers. Results from the ground tow tests were good, so the 

next step involved aerial tow tests behind a 47 . By the time these flights 

concluded in 1964, the lifting body concept, despite its oddball history, seemed to 

84 
TORTOISE BECOMES HARE (1964-1969) 

Three li~ing body configurations grouped on the dry lake bed at Flight Research Center. Le~ to right: 

the X-24, M-2. and HL-IO. 

be worth pursuing. NASA Headquarters and congressional people were both 

impressed. News reporters loved the lifting-body saga, and there was keen 

interest in the more advanced lifting-body designs already under consideration. 

The M2-F1 showed the way, but far more work was needed, involving high-speed 

descent and landing approach tests. By this time, the Air Force was interested, 

and a joint lifting-body program was formalized in 1965. Generally speaking, 

NASA, through the Flight Research Center at Edwards, held responsibility for 

design, contracting, and instrumentation, while the Air Force supplied the launch 

aircraft for drop tests, assorted support aircraft. medical personnel. and the rocket 

power plant to be used in the advanced designs. 

Northrop became the prime contractor for the aluminum "Heavyweights" 

sponsored by NASA. The M2-F2 was a similar, but refjned version of the M2-F1; 

Northrop also delivered the HJ..,-lO, which had a very short, angled delta wing and a 

different fuselage shape. There was progress as well as disappOintment; a landing 

accident destroyed the M2-F2 and cost the pilot the sight of one eye. The plane 

was rebuilt as the M2-F3 with an additional vertical fjn. The HL-lO,with a flat 

bottom and rounded top fuselage became the most successful. capable of Mach 

1.86 speeds and altitudes of 90,000 feet. At a time when arguments over a 

"deadstick" shuttle reentry became hottest. some crucial HL-lO landing tests 

convinced planners that a shuttle without special landing engines could successfully complete reentry, approach, and landing. A fjnal confjrmation came 

during tests of the Martin X-24A (based on an Air Force project), whose shape was 

similar to a laundry iron. By the time that the X-24A test flights ended (1969-71), 

designers had complete confjdence in the ability of the space shuttle to land on a 

85 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

The North American XB-70 yielded valuable data on ffjght characteristics of large, supersonic aircra~. 

This photo of a test ffjght shows shock waves and vortices forming on the fuselage and wings. 

conventional runway at the end of a space mission. The lifting-body tests made an 

important contribution. 

In other projects, explicit aeronautical research continued. At the Flight 

Research Center, another exotic plane captured the attention of flight aficionados-the Rockwell XB-70 Valkyrie, a Mach 3 high-altitude bomber. The Air 

Force began plans for the XB-70 in 1955, but by the time of its rollout ceremonies 

in 1964, plans for a fleet of such large bombers had given way to reliance on 

advanced ICBMs with more powerful warheads. In the meantime, the Kennedy 

administration had endorsed studies for a supersonic transport (SST) for airline 

use, and the configuration of the XB-70 made it an excellent candidate for flight 

tests in support of the SST program. 

The XB-70 Valkyrie took to the air for the first time in the autumn of 1964. With a 

fuselage length of 189 feet and a large delta wing measuring 105 feet from tip to tip, 

its size, operating characteristics, and construction features made it an excellent 

SST prototype. The Air Force and NASA began a cooperative test program with the 

XB-70 in the spring of 1966, the first airline-sized aircraft in the world able to make 

sustained, long-range supersonic flights. The flight requirements for a Mach 3 

airliner similar to the XB-70 were far more complicated than those for a Mach 2 

aircraft, such as the Anglo-French Concorde SST. A Mach 3 airliner's structure 

required more exotic alloys, such as titanium, because the conventional aluminum airframe of a plane like the Concorde could not survive the aerodynamic 

86 
TORTOISE BECOMES HARE (1964-1969) 

heating at greater speeds. Integrating a Mach 3 aircraft into the existing airway 

traffic system became a special problem, because it made turns that required 

hundreds of miles to complete. Working with the XB-70 uncovered a number of 

operational and maintenance problems. 

Despite the loss of one XB-70 in a mid-air collision, killing two test pilots, the 

NASA test program generated invaluable data on sustained supersonic flight. On 

one hand, XB-70 tests conclusively demonstrated that shock waves from SST 

airliners would prohibit supersonic routes over the continental United States. 

These tests helped fuel the opposition to the American SST program. On the other 

hand, the knowledge accumulated about handing qualities and structural dynamics represented basic data for use in future supersonic military aircraft and in 

high-speed airliners. But the test program was too expensive to sustain indefinitely. Early in 1969, the XB-70 Valkyrie made its last flight, to the Air Force 

Museum in Dayton, Ohio. 

When the political question arose as to whether the United States should enter 

the international competition for a supersonic commercial transport aircraft-a 

sweepstakes already begun by Great Britain and France jointly with their Concorde and by the Soviet Union with its TU-144-NASA already had a solid data 

base to contribute. It also had the laboratories and the contracting base to 

manage the program. But wise counsel from Deputy Administrator Dryden led to 

NASA's retreat into a supportive R&D role; he argued that with Apollo underway, 

NASA could not politically sponsor another high-technology, enormously expensive program during the same budget years without one of them being sacrificed 

to the other or killing each other off in competition for funds. The subsequent 

history of the SST program, including its eventual demise, was eloquent testimonial to the wisdom of his judgment. His death in December 1965 was a loss to 

the nation's aerospace program. 

Other research efforts paid big dividends within the space program. Lewis 

Research Center had become involved in the use of liquid hydrogen as a rocket 

fuel in 1955. Although liquid hydrogen offered very attractive increases in thrust 

per pound as compared to previous fuels, hydrogen had a bad reputation left over 

from dirigible days and the Hindenburg disaster. But by 1957 Lewis was successfully and routinely firing a 20,OOO-pound-thrust engine using liquid hydrogen 

as fuel. It was these tests that gave NASA the confidence in 1959 to decide that the 

upper stages of the lunar rocket should be fueled with liquid hydrogen. Without 

this additional rocket power, it might have been impossible (or at least much 

more expensive) to put men on the Moon. 

Long-range prospects of manned planetary exploration depended heavily on 

more efficient thrust per pound of fuel propulsion. To this end NASA had 

continued the long-range program inherited from the Air Force to develop a 

nuclear-propelled upper stage for a rocket. Engineering down to a compact 

package the enormous weight, size, and shielding of the kind of reactor used in 

nuclear electric power plants was a severe challenge. The inevitable intensification of radiation density and temperatures defeated existing materials that would 

contain and transmit the heat to an engine. Time after time over the years, test 

87 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

firings of promising configurations had to be stopped prematurely when radiation 

corrosion took its toll. Finally in December 1967 the NRX A6 reactor ran for one 

hour at full power, twice the time achieved before. Improvements in reactor fuel 

elements cut radiation control in half. The SNAP program of radioisotope ther~ 

moelectric generators also progressed. The SNAP 27 was the long life power 

source for the Apollo science experiments to be left on the lunar surface. 

Apollo to the Moon 

Although the tragic fire of January 1967 delayed plans for manned spaceflight in 

Apollo hardware for approximately 18 months, the versatility of the system came 

to the rescue. The burden of checking out the major components of the system 

was qUickly shifted to unmanned flights while a quick opening hatch was 

designed and tested, combustibles were sought out and replaced, and the wiring 

design was completely reworked. After a nine month delay, flight tests resumed. 

On 9 November 1967, Apollo 4 became the first unmanned launch of the awesome 

Saturn V. A 160 foot high stack of three stage launch vehicle and spacecraft, 

weighing 2824 tons, slowly lifted off Launch Complex 39, propelled by a first stage 

thrust of 7.5 million pounds. A record 278,000 pounds of payload and upper stage 

were put into Earth orbit. Later the third stage fired to simulate lunar trajectory, 

lifting the spacecraft combination to over 10,000 miles. With the third stage 

discarded, the service module fired its engine to raise the apogee to 1l.000 miles, 

then burned again to propel the spacecraft toward Earth reentry at the 25,000 

MPH return speed from the Moon. All systems performed well; the third stage 

could restart in the vacuum of space; the automated Launch Complex 39 func~ 

tioned beautifully. The once controversial concept of "all up" testing had been 

vindicated. 

Next came the unmanned flight test of the laggard lunar module. On 22 January 

1968, a Saturn IB launched a 32,000 pound lunar module into Earth orbit. It 

separated, and tested its ascent and descent engines. The lunar module passed 

its first flight test. 

Now to man rate the huge Saturn V. Apollo 6, on 4 April 1968, put the launch 

vehicle through its paces-the stages, the gUidance system, the electrical sys~ 

tems. Four of five test objectives were met; Saturn Vwas man rated. The scene was 

set for the first manned spaceflight in Apollo since the tragic fire. Apollo 7 would 

test the crew and command module for the 10 days in space that would later be 

needed to fly to the Moon, land, and return. 

But beyond Apollo 7, the schedule was in real difficulty. It was the summer of 

1968; only a year and a halfremained of the decade within which this nation had 

committed itself to land astronauts on the Moon. Somehow the flight schedule 

ought to be accelerated. Gemini's answer had been to launch missions closer 

together, but the size and complexity of Apollo hardware severely limited that 

option. The only other possibility was to get more done on each flight. For a time, 

however. it seemed that the next flight, Apollo 8, would accomplish even less than 

had been planned. it had been scheduled as the first manned test of the lunar 

module in Earth orbit, but the lunar module had a lengthy test and fix roadblock 

88 
TORTOISE BECOMES HARE (1964-1969) 

ahead of it and could not be ready before the end of the year, and perhaps not 

then. So a repeat of Apollo 7 was considered, another test of the command module 

in Earth orbit without the tardy lunar module but this time on the giant Saturn V. 

Eight years earlier that would have been considered a big bite; now, was it big 

enough, given Apollo's gargantuan task? 

In Houston, George Low didn't think it was. After all, he reasoned, even this 

test~f1ight hardware was built to go to the Moon; why not use it that way? The 

advantages of early experience at lunar distances would be enormous. On 9 

August he broached the idea to Gilruth, who was enthusiastic. Within days the 

senior managers of the program had been polled and had checked for problems 

that might inhibit a circumlunar flight. All problems proved to be fixable, assum~ 

ing the Apollo 7 went well. The trick then became to build enough flexibility into the 

Apollo 8 mission so that it could go either way, Earth orbital or lunar orbital. 

Apollo 7 was launched on 11 October 1968. A Saturn IS put three astronauts into 

Earth orbit, where they stayed for 11 days, testing particularly the command 

module environmental system, fuel cells, communications. All came through with 

flying colors. On 12 November, NASA announched that Apollo 8 had been reconfig~ 

ured to focus on lunar orbit. It was a bold jump. 

On 21 December a Saturn V lifted the manned Apollo 8 off Launch Complex 39 at 

the Cape. The familiar phases were repeated: Earth orbit, circularizing the orbit, 

all as rehearsed. But then the Saturn third stage fired again and added the speed 

necessary for the spacecraft to escape Earth's gravity on a trajectory to the Moon. 

As Apollo 8 came around the backside of the Moon a~er going into lunar orbit, the crew was greeted 

with this haunting view of the Earth rising above the desolate lunar horizon. 

89 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

All the rehearsed or simulated steps went well. On 23 December the three-man 

crew became the first human beings to pass out of Earth's gravitational control 

and into that of another body in the solar system. No longer were humans 

shackled to the near environs of Earth. The TV camera looked back at a small, 

round, rapidly receding ball, warmly laced with a mix of blue oceans, brown 

continents, and white clouds that was startling against the blackness of space. 

On Christmas Eve Apollo 8 disappeared behind the Moon and out of radio 

communication with Earth. Not only were the astronauts the first humans to see 

the mysterious back side of the Moon; while there they had to fire the service 

module engine to reduce their speed enough to be captured into lunar orbitirrevocably, unless the engine would restart later and boost them back toward 

Earth. 

Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong took this photograph of Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., deploying the passive seismic 

experiments at Tranquility Base, while ungainly lunar module crouches in the background. 

90 
TORTOISE BECOMES HARE (1964-1969) 

Another engine burn regularized their lunar orbit at 70 miles above the surface. 

Television shared the breathtaking bird's eye view of the battered lunar landscape 

with hundreds of millions on Earth. The crew members read the creation story 

from Genesis and wished viewers a Merry Christmas. On Christmas Day they fired 

the service module engine once again, acquired the 3280 feet per second addi~ 

tiona I speed needed to escape lunar gravity, and triumphantly headed back to 

Earth. They had at close range verified the lunar landing sites as feasible and 

proved out the hardware and communications at lunar distance, except forthe all~ 

important last link, the lunar module. 

That last link, the lunar module, was stili of major concern to NASA. Two more 

flights were expended to confirm its readiness for lunar landing. The Apollo 9 flight 

(3~ 13 March 1969) was the first manned test of the lunar module. The big Saturn V 

boosted the spacecraft combination into Earth orbit. The lunar flight drill was 

carefully rehearsed; the command and service modules separated from the third 

stage of the Saturn V, turned around, and docked with the lunar module. The lunar 

module fired up and moved away to 113 miles; then the spacecraft rendezvoused 

and docked. 

Afinal test-was anything different at lunar distance? On 18 May 1969, Apollo 10 

took off on a Saturn V to find out. The entire lunar landing combination blasted 

out to lunar distance. Once in lunar orbit, the crew separated the lunar module 

from the command module, descended to within 9 miles of the surface, fired the 

ascent system, and docked with the command module. Now all systems were 

"go." 

On 16 July 1969, Apollo II lifted off for the ultimate mission of Apollo. Saturn V 

performed beautifully. The spacecraft combination got off to the Moon. Once in 

lunar orbit, the crew checked out their precarious second home, the lunar module. 

On 20 July the lunar module separated and descended to the lunar surface. At 4: 18 

P.M. (EST) came the word from Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong: "Houston-Tran~ 

quility Base here-The Eagle has landed." After checkout, Armstrong set foot on 

the lunar surface: "one small step for a man-one giant leap for mankind." The 

eight year national commitment had been fulfilled; humans were on the Moon. 

Armstrong set up the TV camera and watched his fellow astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, 

Jr., join him on the lunar surface, as Michael Collins circled the Moon in the 

Columbia command module overhead. More than one fifth of the Earth's popula~ 

tion watched ghostly TV pictures of two space suited men plodding around 

gingerly in an unlikely world of gray surface, boulders, and rounded hills in the 

background. The astronauts implanted the U.S. flag, deployed the scientific 

experiments to be left on the Moon, collected their rock samples, and clambered 

back into the lunar module. The next day they blasted off in the ascent module 

and rendezvoused with the command module. 

The astronauts returned to an ecstatic reception. For a brief moment, people's 

day to day divisions had been suspended; the world watched and took joint pride 

in this achievement in exploration. Astronauts and their families made a tri~ 

umphant world tour which restated world pride in this new plateau of humanity's 

conquest of the cosmos. 

91 

Chapter 6 
 

AEROSPACE DIVIDENDS (1969 1973) 

The worldwide euphoria over mankind's greatest voyage of exploration did not 

rescue the NASA budget. At its moment of greatest triumph, the space program 

was being drastically cut back from the $5 billion budgets that had characterized 

the mid-1960s. Part of the reduction was expected; the peak of Apollo production 

line expenses was past. But the depth of the cut stemmed from emotional 

changes in the political climate, mostly centering on the unpopular Vietnam 

war-its sapping expenses in lives and money, the debilitating protests at home. 

As Congress read the pUblic pulse, the cosmos could wait; the Soviet threat had 

for the moment been put to rest; the new political reality lay in domestic 

problems. NASA's fiscal 1970 budget was reduced to $3.7 billion. Something had 

to give. The basic Apollo mission was continued, but the last three flights had to 

be deleted. Space science projections were hit hard. The ambitious $2 billion 

Voyager program for planetary exploration dwindled into oblivion; it would later 

resurface as the much more modest Viking. The new Electronics Research Center 

in Cambridge, Massachusetts. under construction since 1964. was transferred to 

the Department of Transportation intact-a $40 million facility taking with it 399 

of 745 skilled employees. 

Space Probes and Earth Satellites 

But the bought and paid for projects continued to earn dividends. An Orbiting 

Astronomical Observatory (OAO 2) was launched 7 December 1968. It was the 

heaviest and most complex automated spacecraft yet in the space science program. It took the first ultraviolet photographs of the stars. The results were 

portentous: first hard evidence of the existence of "black holes" in space. Mariner 6 

and Mariner 7. launched in early 1969. journeyed to Mars. flew past as close as 1900 

miles, took 198 high-quality TV photos of the planet, 2000 ultraviolet spectra, and 

400 infrared spectra of the atmosphere and surface. 

Other programs continued with prepaid momentum. The fifth and sixth Orbit93 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

OAO 2, the orbiting astronomical observatory, was the largest, heaviest, and most complex scientific 

spacecraft NASA had developed. With its solar panels deployed, as shown here, OAO 2 was 21 feet wide, 

weighed 4400 pounds, and carried II ultraviolet telescopes into space. 

ing Solar Observatories (OSO) were launched in 1969, as was the sixth Orbiting 

Geophysical Observatory. In 1970 Uhuru was launched and scanned 95 percent of 

the celestial sphere for sources of rays . It discovered three new pulsars in 

addition to the one previously identified. In 1971 Mariner 9 was launched; on 10 

November, the first American spacecraft went into orbit around another planet. 

The early months in orbit were discouraging; a gigantic dust storm covered most 

of the martian surface for two months. But the dust gradually cleared; pho~ 

tographs in 1972 showed startling detail. Mapping 85 percent of the martian 

surface, Mariner 9 photographs depicted higher mountains and deeper valleys 

than any on Earth. The rocky martian moons, Deimos and Phobos, were also 

photographed. OSO 7, launched on 29 September 1971, was the first satellite to 

catch on film the beginning of a solar flare and the consequent streamers of hot 

gases that extended out 10.6 million kilometers; it would also discover "polar ice 

caps" on the sun (dark areas thought to be several million degrees cooler than the 

normal surface temperatures). With the confirmation of black holes, the enig~ 

matic collapsed star remnants so dense in mass and gravity that even light cannot 

escape, and the previous discoveries of quasars and pulsars, these findings added 

up to the most exciting decade in modern astronomy. 

Planetary exploration opened further vistas of other worlds. Pioneer 10, launched 

2 March 1972, left the vicinity of Earth at the highest velocity ever achieved by a 

94 
AEROSPACE DNIDENDS (1969-1973) 

Jupiter, as photographed by Pioneer 10 from 1.5 million miles out. The large black oval to the left is the 

famous Great Red Spot, an enormous storm that has raged for at least hundreds of years. The small spot 

to the right is the shadow of Jupiter's moon 10. 

spacecraft (32,000 MPH) and took off on an epic voyage to the hugh, misty planet 

Jupiter. Giant of the solar system, swathed with clouds, encircled by a cluster of 

moons, Jupiter was an inescapable target if one hoped to understand the com~ 

position of the solar system . Out from the Sun, out from Earth, Pioneer 10 ventured 

for a year and a half, through the unexplored asteroid belt and far beyond. After a 

992 million kilometer journey, on 3 December 1973 the tiny spacecraft flew past 

Jupiter. It survived the fierce magnetic field and sent back photographs of the huge 

planet and several of its moons, measured temperatures and radiation and the 

magnetic field. Steadily sailing past Jupiter and away from the Sun, in 1987 Pioneer 

10 would cross the orbit of Pluto, becoming the first man made object to travel out 

of our solar system and into the limitless reaches of interstellar space. 

Pioneer lO's partner, Pioneer II, took off on 5 April 1973 to follow the same outward 

path. On 3 December 1974 it passed Jupiter at the perilously close distance of 

26,000 miles-as opposed to 80,000 for Pioneer lO--and returned data. The com~ 

95 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

posite picture from the reports of the two spacecraft depicted an enormous ball of 

hydrogen, with no fixed surface, emitting much more radiation than it received 

from the Sun, shrouded with a turbulent atmosphere in which massive storms 

such as the Great Red Spot (25,000 miles in length) had raged for at least the 400 

years since Galileo first trained a telescope at Jupiter. Pioneer II swung around the 

planet and, taking advantage of Jupiter's gravitational field, accelerated outward 

at 66,000 MPH toward the distant planet Saturn, where in 1979 it would observe at 

close range this lightest of the planets (it could float on water). its mysterious 

rings, and its 3000 mile diameter moon Titan. 

Going in the other direction, Mariner 10 left Earth on 3 November 1973, headed 

inward toward the Sun. In February 1974 it passed Venus, gathering information 

that confirmed the inhospitable character of that planet. Then using Venus's 

gravitational force as propulsion, it charged on toward the innermost planet, 

Mercury. On 29 March 1974, Mariner 10 flew past Mercury, providing man a 5000 

times closer look at this desolate, crater pocked, sun seared planet than had been 

possible from Earth. Using the gravitational field of its host planet to alter course, 

Mariner 10 flew out in a large elliptical orbit, circled back by Mercury a second time 

on 21 September 1974, and a third time on 16 March 1975.The cumulative evidence 

pictured a planet essentially unchanged since its creation some 4.5 billion years 

ago, except for heavy bombardment by meteors, with an iron core similar to 

Earth's, a thin atmosphere composed mostly of helium, and a weak magnetic 

field . 

Fascinating as the information about our fellow voyagers in the solar system 

was and as important as the long range scientific consequences might be, Con~ 

gress and many government agencies were much more intrigued with the tangi~ 

ble, immediate return, Earth-oriented program that began operations in 1972.On 

23 July ERTS 1 (Earth Resources Technology Satellite) was launched into polar 

orbit. From that orbit it would cover three-quarters of the Earth's land surface 

every 18 days, at the same time of day (and therefore with the same sun angle for 

photography). affording virtually global real time information on developing 

events such as crop inventory and health, water storage, air and water pollution, 

forest fires and diseases, and recent urban population changes. In addition it 

depicted the broad area (and therefore undetectable by ground surveyor aircraft 

reconnaissance) geologic patterns and coastal and oceanic movements. ERTS 1 

also interrogated hundreds of ground sensors monitoring air and water pollution, 

water temperature and currents, snow depth, etc., and relayed information to 

central collection centers in near real time. The response was instantaneous and 

widespread. Foreign governments, states, local governments, universities, and a 

broad range of industrial concerns quickly became involved in both the explora~ 

tion of techniques to exploit these newwide area information sources and in realtime use of the data for pressing governmental and industrial needs. Some 300 

national and international research teams pored over the imagery. For the first 

time accurate estimates were possible of the total planting and growth status of 

wheat, barley, corn, and rice crops at various times during the growing season; 

real-time maps versus ones based on data that would have been collected over a 

96 
AEROSPACE DIVIDENDS (1969-1973/ 

period of years; timber cutting patterns; accurate prediction of snow runoff for 

water management; accurate, real-time flood damage reports. Mid-term data 

included indications that the encroachments of the Sahara Desert in Africa could 

be reversed by controlled grazing on the sparse vegetation in the fringe areas; 

longer range returns suggested promise in monitoring strip mining and subsequent reclamation, and in identification of previously unknown extensions of 

Earth faults and fractures important to detection of potential earthquake zones 

and of associated mineral deposits. 

Like the experimental communications satellites of the early 1960s, the ERTS 

found an immediate clientele of governmental and commercial customers clamoring for a continuing inflow of data. The pressure made itself felt in Congress; on 

Landsat 4 spacecraft photograph of New York City area in 1983. Images from the satellite were 

combined at Goddard Space Flight Center. The island of Manhattan is near the center at the conffuence 

of the Hudson and East rivers. 

97 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

22 January 1975, Landsat 2 (formerly ERTS 2) was orbited ahead of schedule to 

ensure continution of the data that ERTS 1 (renamed Landsat 1) had provided for 

two and a half years, and a third satellite was programmed for launch in 1977. This 

would give confidence to experimental users of the new system that they could 

securely plan for continued information from the satellite system. 

The Earth resources program had another important meaning. It was a visible 

sign that the nature and objectives of the space program were undergoing a quiet 

but dramatic shift. Where the Moon had been the big target during the 1960s and 

large and expensive programs had been the name of the game, it became 

increasingly clear to NASA management as the decade ended that the political 

climate would no longer support that kind of a space program. The key question 

now was, "What will this project contribute to solving everyday problems of the 

person in the street?" One by one the 1960s type daydreams of big, away from~ 

Earth projects were reluctantly put aside: a manned lunar base, a manned landing 

on Mars, an unmanned "grand tour" of several of the planets. When the Space 

Shuttle finally won approval. it was because of its heavy dedication to studies of 

our Earth and its convincing economies in operation. 

Another sign of the times was that NASA was increasingly becoming a service 

agency. In 1970 NASA for the first time launched more satellites for others 

(ComSatCorp, NOAA, 000, foreign governments) than for itself. Five years before 

only 2 of 24 launches had been for others. Clearly this trend would continue for 

some years. 

Twilight for Apollo 

Meanwhile Apollo was running its impressive course. Apollo 12 (14 24 November 

1969) repeated the Apollo 11 adventure at another site on the Moon, the Ocean of 

Storms. One attraction of that site was that Surveyor 3 had been squatting there for 

two and a half years. A pinpoint landing put the lunar module within 600 feet of 

the Surveyor spacecraft. In addition to deploying scientific instruments and 

collecting rock samples from the immediate surroundings, Astronauts Conrad 

and Bean cut off pieces from Surveyor 3, including the TV camera, for return to 

Earth and analysiS after 30 months of exposure to the lunar environment. 

Apollo 13 was launched 11 April 1970, to continue lunar exploration. But 56 hours 

into the flight, well on the way to the Moon, there was a "thump" in the service 

module behind the astronauts. An oxygen tank had ruptured. Pressure dropped 

alarmingly. What was the total damage? Had other systems been affected? How 

crippled was the spacecraft combination? The backup analysis system on Earth 

sprung into action. Using the meager data available, crews at contractor plants all 

over the country simulated, calculated, and reported. The verdict: Apollo 13 was 

seriously, perhaps mortally, wounded. There was not air or water or electricity to 

sustain three men on the shortest possible return path to Earth. But, ground 

crews and astronauts asked simultaneously, what about the lunar module, a self~ 

contained spacecraft unaffected by the disaster? The lunar landing was out of the 

question anyway; the lifesaving question was how to get three men around the 

Moon and back to Earth before their Iife supporting consumables ran out. Could 

98 
AEROSPACE DIVIDENDS (1969-19731 

the lunar module substitute for the command module, supplying propulsion and 

oxygen and water for an austere return trip? The simulations said yes.Apolio 13 was 

reprogrammed to loop around the Moon and set an emergency course for Earth 

return. The descent engine for the lunar module responded nobly; off they went 

back to Earth. It was a near thing-powered down to the point of minimum 

heating and communication, limiting activity to the least possible to save oxygen. 

Again the flexibility and depth of the system came to the rescue; when reentry was 

safely within the limited capabilities of the crippled Apollo, the "lifeboat" lunar 

module was jettisoned along with the wounded service module. Apollo 13 reentered safely. 

The next flight was delayed while the causes and fixes for the near-tragedy on 

Apollo 13 were sorted out. On 31 January 1971, Apollo 14 lifted off, the beginning of 

the scientific exploration of the Moon. The major new system was a transporter, a 

cart on which to load equipment and bring back rock samples. A major target of 

the Apollo 14 mission to Fra Mauro was to climb the walls of the Cone Crater; the 

attempt was halted as time ran out and the astronauts had trouble pinpointing 

the location. 

Apollo 15 astronaut David R. Scott was photographed by the lunar rover, which was parked at the edge 

of the deep lunar trench, Hadley Rille. 

99 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Apollo 15 introduced the Moon car, the lunar rover. With this electric-powered, 

four-wheel drive vehicle developed at Marshall at a cost of $60 million, the 

astronauts roamed beyond the narrow confines of their landing site and explored 

the area. Astronauts on this flight covered 17 miles of lunar surface, visited a 

number of craters in the Hadley-Apennines area, and photographed the ghostly 

ravine Hadley Rille. Thanks to the lowered exertion level because of the lunar 

rover, exploration time was doubled. 

The remaining Apollo missions now had all the equipment planned for lunar 

exploration. Apollo 16 landed in the Descartes area in April 1972, stayed 71 hours, 

provided photos and measurements of lunar properties. Apollo 17, launched 7 

December 1972, ended the Apollo program with the most productive scientific 

mission of the lunar exploration program. The site, Taurus-Littrow, had been 

selected on the basis of previous flights. Objectives were to seek out both oldest 

and youngest rocks to fill in the geologic history of the Moon. For the first time a 

trained geologist, Harrison H. Schmitt, was on a crew, adding his professional 

observations. EVA time was over 22 hours and the lunar rover traveled some 22 

miles. 

Apollo was ended. From beginning to end, it had lasted l1 Y2 years, cost $23.5 

billion, landed 12 men on the Moon, and produced an unassessable amount of 

evidence and knowledge. Technologically it had produced hardware systems 

several orders of magnitude more capable than their predecessors. In various 

combinations, the components of this technology could be used for a wider 

variety of explorations than the nation could possibly afford. The luxury of choice 

was, which of a half-dozen possible missions? 

Scientific answers were going to be returned over several decades. The Lunar 

Receiving Laboratory had been constructed in Houston to be the "archive" of the 

840 pounds of physical lunar samples that had been returned from various parts 

of the Moon by six lunar-landing crews. Scientists in this country and 54 foreign 

countries were analyzing the samples with an impressive variety of instruments 

and the expertise of many scientific disciplines. Gross results had already established that the Moon was a separate entity from Earth, formed at the same time as 

Earth some 4.5 billion years ago; that it had its own volcanic history; that with no 

protective atmosphere it had been bombarded for eons by meteors from outer 

space, which had plowed up the surface lava flows from the lunar interior. 

Refinement of data wou.ld go on for decades. 

Apollo had proved many other things: the ability of a diversified system of 

government. industry, and universities to mobilize behind a common national 

purpose and produce on schedule an immense and diverse system directed to a 

common purpose. It not only argued that society could do many things in space, 

whether extended lunar exploration from permanent lunar bases or manned 

excursions to Mars, but argued that solutions to many of humanity's major 

problems on Earth-pollution, food supply, and natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes could be ameliorated or controlled by the combination of 

space technology and the large-scale management techniques applied to it. 

Next in manned spaceflight came Skylab. Trimmed back to one orbital work100 
AEROSPACE DIVIDENDS (1969-1973) 

Mission accomplished, the Skylah orhital sails serenely ahove cloud-covered Earth in this photo taken hy 

the last crew as they leave to return to Earth . The mission-saving emergency shroud shows clearly 

against the dark surface of the vehicle. 

shop and three astronaut fights, Skylab had had a hectic financial and planning 

career, the converse of Apollo. The revised plan called for an S-IVB stage of the 

Saturn V to be outfitted as two-story orbiting laboratory, one floor being living 

quarters and the other working room. The major objective of Skylab was to 

determine whether humans could physically withstand extended stays in space 

and continue to do useful work. Medical data from the Gemini and Apollo flights 

had not completely answered the question. Since there would be far more room in 

the 89 foot long orbital workshop than in any previous spacecraft. William C. 

Schneider, Skylab program director, devised a more extensive experiment schedule than all previous spaceflights combined. Most ambitious in terms of hardware 

was the Apollo telescope mount; five major experiments would cover the entire 

range of solar physics and make it the most powerful astronomical observatory 

ever put in orbit. The other major areas of experimentation were Earth resources 

observations and medical experiments involving the three-man crew. There were 

important subcategories of experiments : the electric furnace, for example, would 

explore possibilities of using the weightless environment to perform industrial 

processes that were impossible or less effective on I-g Earth, such as forming 

perfectly round ball bearings or growing larger crystals, much in demand in the 

electronics industry. 

101 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

On 14 May 1973 a giant Saturn V lifted off from Kennedy Space Center to place 

the unmanned 165,000 pound orbital workshop in Earth orbit. Within minutes 

after launch, disquieting news filtered through the telemetry reports from the 

Saturn V. The large, delicate meteoroid shield on the outside of the workshop had 

apparently been torn off by the vibrations of launch. In tearing off it had caused 

serious damage to the two wings of solar cells that were to supply most of the 

electric power to the workshop; one of them had sheared off, the other was 

snagged in the folded position. Once the workshop was in orbit, the news 

worsened. The loss of the big shade exposed the metal skin of the workshop to the 

hot sunshine; internal temperatures soared to 325 K. This heat not only threatened its habitation by astronauts, but if prolonged might fog sensitive film and 

generate poisonous gases. 

The launch of the first crew was twice postponed, while the far-flung ground 

support team worked around the clock for 10 frantic days, trying to improvise fixes 

that would salvage the $2.6 billion program. With only partial knowledge of the 

precise degree and nature of the damage, engineers had to work out fixes that met 

the known problems, yet were versatile enough to cope with unknown ones. There 

were two major efforts: first, to devise a deployable shade that the astronauts 

could spread over the metal surface of the workshop; the other was to devise a 

versatile tool kit of cutters and snippers to release the solar wing from whatever 

prevented it from unfolding. 

On 25 May 1973, an Apollo command and service module combination was 

lifted into orbit by a Saturn lB. Apollo docked with the workshop on the 25th. The 

crew entered it the next day and deployed a makeshift parasol through the solar 

airlock. The effect was immediate; internal temperature began to drop. On 7 June 

Astronauts Conrad and Kerwin clambered outside the workshop and after a tense 

struggle succeeded in cutting the metal straps that ensnared the remaining solar 

wing; it slowly deployed and electrical power poured into the storage batteries. 

Human ingenuity and courage had made the workshop operational again. 

The remaining Skylab missions were almost anticlimactic after the dramatic 

rescue of the workshop. With only minor problems, the missions ticked off their 

complicated schedules of experiments. In spite of the initial diversion, the first 

crew obtained 80 percent of the solar data planned; 12 of 15 Earth resources runs 

were completed; and all of the 16 medical experiments went as planned. Its 28-day 

mission completed, the crew undocked and returned to Earth. 

The second crew was launched on 28 July 1973, completed almost 60 days in 

orbit, and exceeded by one-third the solar observations and Earth resources runs 

planned. All the medical experiments were performed. The third crew (launched 

16 November 1973) completed an 84-day flight with all experiments performed, as 

well as the additional observations of the surprise cosmic visitor, comet 

Kohoutek. 

The vast mass of astronomical and Earth resources data from the Skylab 

program would take years to analyze. A more immediate result was apparent in 

the medical data and the industrial experiments. With the corrective exercises 

available on Skylab, there seemed to beno physiological barrier to the length of 

102 
AEROSPACE DIVIDENDS (1969-1973) 

time humans could survive and function in space. Biological functions did indeed 

stabilize after several weeks in zero g. The industrial experiments gave strong 

evidence that the melting and solidification process was promisingly differently 

in weightlessness; single crystals grew five times as large as those producible on 

Earth. Some high cost industrial processes apparently had new potential in 

space. 

As the empty Skylab continued to circle the Earth, its orbit began to decay, 

threatening an uncontrolled reentry. NASA regained some control over the rogue 

Skylab in the spring of 1979, and managed to steer it to reentry over the Indian 

Ocean. Still, chunks of the Skylab made a fiery plunge into remote areas of 

Australia, a reminder of the potential dangers of civilization's own debris from 

space. 

Transonic and Hypersonic Flight Research 

Although questions about an SST aircraft persisted, NASA and its principal 

contractor, Boeing, kept working on the design throughout the 1960s. By 1971, 

production plans were under way when the program came to a halt. Critics 

remained adamant about the costs of the SST and its ability to operate econom~ 

ically. Flight tests of the big XB 70 Valkyrie had done little to quell the issue of 

sonic booms, and there were worrisome questions about adverse environmental 

effects at high altitudes. Congress finally voted against funds for construction of 

an SST for flight testing. 

The British and French proceeded with a smaller SST, the jointly developed 

Concorde, which began flight tests in 1969 and entered service in 1976. A Soviet 

SST, the Tupolev TU 144 , also begain internal schedules in 1976, but was with~ 

drawn from service two years later. Meanwhile, NASA and American aerospace 

companies cooperated in a research effort known as the Supersonic Cruise 

Aircraft Research Program. Beginning in 1973, this activity involved analysis of 

propulsion systems and advanced airframes. Continuing into the 1980s, the 

ongoing SST studies made considerable progress in quieter, cleaner engines as 

well as much improved passenger capacity and operational efficiencies. If the 

opportunity for second generation SST airliners materialized later, NASA and the 

aerospace industry intended to lead the way with an American design. 

While investigation of the supersonic regime continued, a major breakthrough 

at the transonic level occurred-the supercritical wing. The transonic regime had 

beguiled aerodynamicists for years. At transonic speeds, both subsonic and 

supersonic flow patterns encased an aircraft. As the flow patterns went super~ 

sonic, shock waves flitted across the wings, resulting in a sharp rise in drag. With 

most commercial jet airliners operating in the transonic range, coping with this 

drag factor could bring major improvements in cruise performance and yield 

substantial benefits in operating costs. 

During the 1960s, Richard Whitcomb committed himself to a program intended 

to resolve the transonic problem. For several years, Whitcomb intensely analyzed 

what came to be called the "supercritical" Mach number-the point where the 

airflow over the wing went supersonic, with a resultant decline in drag. Analysis 

103 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

and wind tunnel tests led to a wing with a flattened top surface (to reduce its 

tendency to generate shock waves) and a downward curve at the trailing edge (to 

help restore lift lost from the flattened top) . But wind tunnel tests were one thing. 

Real planes in the air were often something else. The next step meant thorough 

flight testing of a plane equipped with the unusual wing. 

Fortunately, NASA came up with an available plane that lent itself to com~ 

paratively easy modification: the Vought F-8A Crusader. The structure of the 

plane's shoulder mounted wing made it easy to remove and replace with the 

supercritical design. Moreover, the 8A was built with landing gear that retracted 

into the fuselage, leaving the experimental wing with no outstanding production 

encumbrances. The Navy had spare planes available, and its speed of Mach 1.7 

made it ideal for transonic flight tests. Although the test plane had begun life as a 

Navy fighter, the supercritical wing program was aimed at civil applications. The 

airlines as well as the airline manufacturers closely followed development of the 

new airfoil. 

The modified Crusader, designated the TF-8A, made its first flight at Edwards in 

1971 and continued for the next two years. The test flights yielded data that 

corresponded to measurements from the preliminary tunnel tests at Langley. 

Most important, the supercritical wing promised genuine improvement in the 

transonic region, a fact that translated directly into reduced fuel costs and lower 

operational costs. Ironically, foreign manufacturers of business jets were the first 

The TF-8A research airplane with its modiffed supercritical wing. 

104 
AEROSPACE DIVIDENDS (1969-1973) 

to apply the new technology in new designs like the Canadair Challenger (Canada) 

and the Dassault Falcon (France). At the same time, both Boeing and Douglas 

applied the concept in experimental Air Force transports like the YC-14 and YC-15. 

As additional commercial manufacturers began utilizing data from the superCritical wing studies, NASA and the Air Force collaborated in the development of 

its military applications for combat planes. Known as TACT, for Transonic Aircraft 

Technology, the military effort used a modified F-IIIA. By the early 1980s, with 

refined flight testing of the F-IIIA still continuing, several operational aircraft had 

been designed to utilize information from this project. 

NASA's use of military aircraft to probe the transonic region paralleled a 

different effort that involved very high supersonic speeds. The aircraft in this case 

was one of the most exotic creations to fly-the Lockheed YF-12A, a highly 

Classified interceptor design that led to the equally highly classified SR-71A 

Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft. According to published performance figures, 

the Blackbirds were capable of Mach 3 speeds at altitudes of 80,000 feet or more. 

The planes originated in the famed Lockheed "Skunk Works" of Clarence "Kelly" 

Johnson, where Johnson and a talented group of about 200 engineers put aeronautical pipe dreams on paper, and then proceeded to build and fly them. The 

operating requirements of the plane at extreme speeds and altitudes for sustained periods created a completely new regime of requirements for parts and 

systems. As Johnson commented later, "everything on the aircraft from rivets and 

fluids, up through the materials and power plants, had to be invented from 

scratch." 

The first Blackbird flew in 1962; NASA first became involved in 1967, when Ames, 

where early wind tunnel data was acquired under tight security, was given 

permission to use the data in ongoing research. In return the Flight Research 

Center at Edwards organized a small team to assist the Air Force flight tests. But 

NASA wanted its own Blackbird for tests that would support the SST program still 

under way in the late 1960s. By this time, the SR-71A was operational. and the Air 

Force had put two YF-12A prototypes in storage at Edwards. When the Air Force 

offered the pair to NASA, the agency quickly accepted and also assumed operational expenses as well, although the Air Force assigned a small team for assistance in maintenance and logistiCS. 

NASA launched its Blackbird program with great enthusiasm. Engineers from 

Lewis, Langley, and Ames had a keen interest in propulsion research, aerodynamics, structural design, and the accuracy of wind tunnel predictions involving Mach 3 aircraft. The first YF-12A test missions under NASA jurisdiction began 

late in 1969 and flights averaged once a week during the next 10 years, examining 

an impressive variety of high-speed problems. One series involved a biomedical 

team who monitored physiological changes in the fl ight crews in order to measure 

stress in the demanding environment of high-speed operations. Many Blackbird 

test flights routinely carried instruments to analyze boundary layer flow, skin 

friction, heat transfer, and pressures in flight. Various structural techniques were 

employed in test panels on the planes. An experimental computerized checkout 

system diagnosed problems in flight and provided information for required 

105 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

maintenance prior to the next mission. The checkout system was seen as a 

valuable one for application in the Space Shuttle as well as military and commer~ 

cial planes. 

In many ways, the Blackbird program, covering a decade of intensive flight tests, 

was one of the Flight Research Center's most useful programs, with a rich legacy of 

information for later aircraft built for sustained cruise at Mach 3. The end of the 

program prompted a chorus of protest from the Blackbird flight team and other 

NASA personnel who felt the United States was frittering away its lead in high

speed flight and in technology generally. Such grumbling was probably pre ~ 

mature. The interest in aerospace and a national commitment to new technology 

was still high, although it took different directions. At first glance, the new concern 

for controlling aircraft noise, reducing pollutants from engines, and enhancing 

overall aircraft fuel efficiency might have seemed less glamorous than derring do 

at Mach 3. But the rationale for confronting such issues became urgent in the late 

1970s, and the solutions to these issues were no less complex and challenging 

than the problems of high speed flight. Aeronautical research continued to be a 

dynamic field of NASA programs to come. 

106 
Chapter 7 

ON THE EVE OF SHUTTLE (1973 1980) 

While Skylab was being built, other events significant to the future of space 

exploration were taking place. The initiatives bore the imprint of Thomas O. Paine, 

acting administrator after Webb's resignation in 1968 and administrator of NASA 

from March 1969 until he returned to industry in September 1970. One goal was a 

broad approach to increased cooperation in space exploration. As had so many of 

our international space initiatives in the postwar period, this effort offered 

~eparate proposals to the Soviet Union and to Western European countries. The 

approach to the Soviet Union began in 1968, with suggestions for advanced 

cooperation, especially in the expensive arena of manned spaceflight. One area of 

Soviet vulnerability might be rescue of astronauts and cosmonauts. By now the 

Soviet Union had lost four cosmonauts in flight, three in one accident, one in 

another. They had always evidenced a singular concern for cosmonaut safety. 

Perhaps some joint program could develop a system of international space 

rescue. The dynamics seemed right; by 1969 the evidence was clear that, whether 

the Soviet Union had in fact been in a moonlanding race with the United States, 

the United States was ahead. Secrecy in space was virtually nonexistent; size of 

payloads, destinations of missions, performance-all were detectable by tracking 

systems. 

Paine's first offer was for Soviet linkup with the Skylab orbital workshop. But the 

very hardware implied inequity. The Soviets were not interested. Further explora~ 

tions found lively Soviet interest in a completely new project to develop compati~ 

ble docking and rescue systems for manned spaceflight. Negotiations proceeded 

rapidly. Completed by George M. Low, acting administrator after Paine's depar~ 

ture, the grand plan for the Apollo Soyuz Test project (ASTP) called for a mutual 

docking and crew exchange mission that could develop the necessary equipment 

for international rescue and establish such criteria for future manned systems 

from both nations. A Soyuz spacecraft would lift off from the Soviet Union and 

establish itself in orbit. Then an Apollo spacecraft would be launched to ren~ 

107 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

dezvous and dock with the Soviet craft. Using a specially developed docking unit 

between the two spacecraft, they would adjust pressurization differences of the 

two spacecraft and spend two days docked together, exchanging crews and 

conducting experiments. All of this was agreed to and rapidly became a significant 

test for the validity of the detente agreements which President Richard M. Nixon 

had negotiated with the Soviet Union. 

An unprecedented detailed cooperation between the two superpowers ensued. 

A series of joint working groups of Soviet and American specialists met over 

several years to work out the various hardware details and operational procedures. At the Nixon-Brezhnev summit in 1973, the prospective launch date was 

narrowed to July 1975. The most concrete example of U.S.-U.S.S.R. cooperation in 

space proceeded with good faith on both sides. The mission flew as scheduled on 

15 July and smoothly fulfilled all objectives. 

The Space Shuttle 

The other major initiative of Paine's began on the domestic front and then 

expanded to the international arena. SkyJab having been narrowed to the point 

that it would be a limited answer to the future of manned spaceflight, President 

Nixon appointed a Space Task Group to recommend broad outlines for the next 10 

years of space exploration. Within this group, Paine won acceptance for the 

concept of the Space Shuttle. In its original conception, the Space Shuttle would 

have been a rocket-boosted airplane-like structure that would take off from a 

regular airport runway, fly to orbital speed and altitude, deploy satellites into 

orbit, repair or retrieve satellites already in orbit, and, using an additional Space 

Tug stage, lift manned and unmanned payloads throughout the solar system. 

Compared to earlier methods, the big changes would be that the launcher and 

Shuttle would be reusable for up to 100 flights, halving the cost per pound in orbit. 

But subsidiary changes were only slightly less important: satellites could be 

deSigned for orbital rigors, not the additional ones of rocket launch. In a manned 

mission, the Shuttle would handle a crew of up to seven people in orbit; three of 

these could be nonpilot scientists who went along to operate their experiments in 

an unpressurized laboratory carried in the Shuttle cargo bay. The flight crew alone 

could deliver 65,500 pounds of assorted satellites into orbit. 

The Space Task Group submitted its report to the President on 15 September 

1969. It offered three levels of effort: option I would feature a lunar-orbital station, 

an Earth-orbital station, and a lunar surface base in the 1980s; option 2 envisioned a Mars manned mission in 1986; option 3 included initial development of 

space station and reusable shuttles but would defer landing on Mars until some 

time before the end of the century. Eventual peak expenditures on these options 

were estimated to vary from SIO billion down to S5 billion per year. Study and 

rework went on for more than two years. Paine ieft NASA to return to industry; his 

successor, James c. Fletcher, took office in April 1971 and immediately reviewed 

the status of the Space Shuttle, particularly for its political salabi lity. He became 

quickly convinced that the Shuttle as then envisioned was too costly to win 

approval. Total costs for its development were estimated Clt SIO.5 billion. Fletcher 

108 
ON THE EVE OF SHUTTLE (1973-1980) 

In this cutaway illustration, the Shuttle orbiter is shown with the ESA Spacelab as the prime payload. 

Scientiffc instruments are mounted on ESA-built pallets mounted in the rear of the Shuttle's cargo bay. 

instigated a rigorous restudy and redesign which cut the cost in half, mainly by 

dropping the plan for unassisted takeoff and substituting two external. recoverable, reusable solid rockets and an expendable external fuel tank. This proved to 

be salable; President Nixon approved the development of the Space Shuttle on 5 

January 1972. 

First Paine and then Fletcher had been trying to get a commitment from 

Western European nations for a major system in the Shuttle. Their own joint space 

program had not been an unqualified success. In 1964, Western European nations 

had joined to form two international space organizations. ELDO to produce 

launch vehicles and ESRO to produce spacecraft and collect and interpret results. 

The technical capability was there. but issues of assigning specific contracts to 

separate countries and allocating budgets hampered rapid European progress. A 

proposed booster had three stages, each developed in a different country. The 

launch record was a gloomy history of one kind of failure after another. After years 

of effort, Western Europe had little to show for its independent launch vehicle. On 

the other hand, much had been learned about multinational coordination of 

advanced technology, and successful joint projects like Concorde and several 

multinational military aircraft ventures (such as the Pavavia Tornado) had pro109 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

moted a sophisticated aerospace community in Europe. Moreover. using American boosters, the ESRO group had successfully launched a variety of scientifjc 

satellites, applications satellites, and space probes. In addition to experienced 

contractors, the European space organizations had developed international centers, l.ike ESTEC in the Netherlands, to carry out research and maintain ongoing 

management of space projects. By the early 1970s, there was general agreement 

on the need for a new, unifjed organization. Based on the strengthening capabilities of its aerospace community, the European Space Agency (ESA) was established in 1975. A new start was in the air. 

It was into this restive environment that Paine came to talk about the next 

generation of the u.S. space program and to hold out promise of some discrete 

major segment to be developed and produced in Europe-a partnership that 

would give them a meaningful piece of the action with full pride of useful 

participation. Europe's response was warm, though it took a while to coalesce. 

Finally the joint decision was made: Western Europe agreed to build the selfcontained Spacelab that would fjt in the cargo bay of the Shuttle spacecraft; a 

pressurized module would provide a shirtsleeve environment for scientists to 

operate large-scale experiments; an un pressurized scientifjc instrument pallet 

would give large telescopes and other instruments direct access to the space 

environment. The cost, an estimated $370 million. In 1975 Canada joined the 

international effort, agreeing to foot the $30 million R&D bill for the remote 

manipulator used to emplace and retrieve satellites in orbit. 

The Space Shuttle promised a whole new way of spaceflight: nonpilots in space; 

multiple payloads that could be placed where they were wanted or picked up out 

of orbit; new designs of satellites, free from the expensive safeguards against the 

vibrations and shocks of launch by rocket. The $5.2 billion program would buy two 

prototypes for test in 1978 and 1979. Projected flight programs from 1980 to 1991 

identifjed a total of almost 1000 payloads to be handled by the Shuttle. 

The largest consumer of the NASA budget and of management attention during 

the late 1970s was the Space Shuttle. Since its beginnings in the early 1970s, the 

development story for the Space Shuttle had been quite different from that of 

Apollo in the 1960s. The original projected costs had been halved to win the 

necessary political approval of the program; this cut was only achieved by making 

severe compromises in the original design-from a system that would take off 

from a runway like an airplane, fly into orbit, and return to land on a runway like an 

airplane, to a system that would take off vertically like a rocket. jettison the 

boosters and fuel tanks, and return to land on a runway like an airplane. This 

initial compromise was not to be the last. as the budget continued to be lean year 

after year. Potential development problems were worked around because the 

money was not available to investigate them. The consequences of this insuffjcient level of research during the development cycle were not apparent in the 

years when the Shuttle was being designed and the components fabricated. As 

late as 1977, when the orbiter Enterprise was carried aloft by a modifjed Boeing 

747 and dropped to make approach and landing flights at Dryden Flight Research 

Center, progress was seen to be sure, if a little slow. 

110 
ON THE EVE OF SHUTTLE (1973-1980) 

The Shuttle orbiter's descent!landing tests were launched from the Boeing 747, also used to carry 

orbiters between Kennedy. Edwards Air Force Base, and other sites. 

In 1978 it became obvious that serious problems were dogging the main 

engines. A cluster of three of these high pressure liquid hydrogen fueled engines 

would propel the orbiter into orbit, aided by two solid rocket boosters. Not only 

were the main engines expected to produce the highest specific impulse of any 

rocket engine yet flown, but they also had to be throttleable and reusable-to fire 

again and again for many flights before being replaced. By 1979, a series of 

painstaking component by component analyses had identified and fixed most of 

the problems and individual engines were experiencing better test runs; but the 

first firings of the clustered engines generated a new set of problems. Grudgingly 

these too yielded to concentrated engineering rework; by the end of 1980 the total 

requirements of 80,000 seconds of test firing was in hand. 

The other pacing item on the orbiter was the thermal protection tiling that 

would shield most of the orbiter surface from the searing heat of reentry. Manufac~ 

ture and application of the 33,000 tiles lagged so badly that early in 1979 NASA 

decided to ferry the orbiter from the manufacturer's plant in California to Kennedy 

Space Center so that the remainder of the tiles could be applied there while other 

work and system checks were being done. But problems continued. The tiles were 

brittle and easily damaged; they did not bondto the metal properly and thou ~ 

sands had to be reapplied; they were too fragile and thousands more had to be 

removed, made more dense, and reapplied. Between the tiles and the engines, the 

III 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Space Shuttle budget overran for several years and the date for the first flight 

slipped two painful years, with serious consequences for many government 

domestic, and international customers. By the end of 1980, however, first flight in 

the spring of 1981 seemed truly possible. Operational flights were solidly booked 

out to the middle of the 1980s and the other three orbiters were moving through 

manufacturing. 

Viking orbiter montage of 102 photos of Mars in February 1980 (left) shows the Valles Marineris 

bisecting the planet, a gorge that would stretch from coast to coast of North America; to its left, three large 

volcanoes poke up through the unusual cloud cover. 

112 
ON THE EVE OF SHUTTLE (1973-1980) 

The Planets 

In space science the big program was Viking, which represented the first major 

fruit of a decision NASA had made some years before: to focus the space science 

program on the planets. Apollo, the reasoning went, would keep scientists busy 

for years analyzing the mass of data and samples that had been returned from the 

Moon. Not until that information had been assimilated would there be a need to 

consider whether more informaion was needed from the Moon and, if so, what 

kind. 

Meanwhile space science, while not neglecting the study of the Sun and the 

universe, would concentrate on the inner planets of our solar system and begin an 

assault on the enigmatic outer planets. Apollo had shown, and the early planetary 

flights had confirmed, that every celestial body had worthwhile lessons to teachlessons that were important in their own right as science as well as lessons that 

illuminated problems on Earth. Why did Earth have the kinds and proportions of 

minerals that it had? Why tectonic plates and volcanism? Why oceans and the 

unique atmosphere of Earth? Why did our atmosphere circulate and transfer heat 

the way it did? Every new body we studied represented a new laboratory and a 

different set of data. 

So it was that Mars, the most likely of the inner planets, became the first target 

of the more ambitious planetary program. In two launches the Viking program 

proposed to deploy four spacecraft in the vicinity of Mars; two orbiters would 

photograph the surface and serve as communications relays, while two landers 

would descend to the martian surface and photograph the terrain, measure and 

monitor the atmosphere and climate, and conduct chemical and biological tests 

on the soil for evidence of rudimentary life forms. It was very ambitious technology and complex science to be operated from over 40 million miles distance. 

But perform Viking did, in a technological triumph equal to (and in some ways 

greater than) the Apollo landings on the Moon. Arriving in the vicinity of Mars in 

mid- 1976, the spacecraft went into orbit around the planet. Subsequently the two 

landers arced down to the rock-strewn surface where each landed safely. The two 

orbiters circled the planet, mapping most of the surface. That surface depicted by 

the orbiters, plus the weather and seismic reports from the landers, told a story of 

a planet with a quiescent present but a very different, active past. Volcanoes half 

again as high as any on Earth and great eroded canyons deeper and longer than 

any on Earth spoke of times, probably three billion years ago, when Mars was very 

active volcanically, with widespread liquid flows. Trace gases in the present thin 

atmosphere indicated a much denser atmosphere in the past. There was water, 

frozen in the polar ice caps; there were occasional dust storms; there were 

seasonal as well as diurnal variations in temperature; there was only a trace of 

seismic activity now. Viking's elaborate biology instruments detected no evidence 

of life forms. When the intensive one-year study of the planet ended, the spacecraft continued observations and reporting at intervals, providing further data on 

surface features, climate, and weather. 

Earth's nearest planetary neighbor, Venus, was also probed during the last half 

113 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

of the 1970s. Two Pioneer spacecraft were launched toward Venus in the summer 

of 1978. Studying Venus presented a notably different problem than Mars or Earth. 

Its thick. heavy. hot atmosphere was impervious to normal photography and could 

be "seen" through only by means of radar. The first spacecraft arriving at Venus in 

December 1978. therefore. was an orbiter equipped with mapping radar to deline~ 

ate the major features on the surface. The second spacecraft was a bus which 

released four probes in a broad pattern; these parachuted slowly through the 

atmosphere. sending back measurements until they crashed. The venusian 

atmosphere. they reported. was remarkably similar in composition and tem~ 

perature on the day and night sides. There was a high sulfur content, with oxygen 

and water vapor at lower levels. By 1980 the orbiter had mapped over 80 percent of 

the venusian surface. Major features resembled two continents and a massive 

island chain-except there was no ocean. Instead a rolling plain enveloped the 

planet. One continent and the island chain were in the northern hemisphere. The 

continent was the size of Australia and had mountains taller than Everest; the 

island chain was apparently composed of two massive shield volcanoes more 

extensive than the Hawaii Midway complex. The continent in the southern hemi~ 

sphere was about half the size of Africa and exposed the lowest elevations on 

Venus in the Great Rift Valley. a huge trench 174 miles wide and 1395 long. with a 

depth similar to the great rift on Mars. 

Study of the outer planets using more sophisticated spacecraft began in 1977 

with the launch of VOljager 1 and 2 on 18 month flights to Jupiter. The Voyager 

system. Science magazine reported. was improved by a factor of 150.000 times over 

the Mariner 4 system. which flew to Mars in 1965. Voyager 1 made its closest 

approach to Jupiter in March 1979. with VOljager 2 following in July. The sensors 

recorded in fjne~grain detail the intricate weather patterns on Jupiter and 

detected massive lightning bolts in the cloud tops. Passes by the Galilean moons 

revealed startling differences; active volcanoes on 10. ancient rings on Callisto 

marking the edges of huge impact craters. Europa's surface was laced with cracks 

from crustal movement, and Ganymede had a varying grooved and cratered 

surface. 

With a boost from Jupiter's gravitational field. the Voyagers set course for 

distant. ringed Saturn. where VOljager I arrived in November 1980 and VOljager 2 

arrived in August 1981. With sufficient control gas remaining. the mission 

extended to a far away Uranus flyby in January 1986. with a Neptune flyby planned 

for August 1989. The venerable Pioneer II had visited Saturn in September 1979. 

discovering faint rings outside those discernible from Earth and demonstrating a 

safe flight path for VOljager 2 to follow on its path to Uranus. 

In the study of the Sun and its interrelationships with Earth. NASA continued 

analysis of the mass of data acquired by Skylab's Apollo telescope mount. OSO 8. 

launched in 1975. to make a detailed study of the minimum phase of the 11 year 

solar cycle. returned data until 1978. Helios 2. part of a joint program with the 

Federal Republic of Germany to study the basic solar processes. was launched in 

1976. As the solar cycle moved toward its maximum phase. the Solar Maximum 

Mission was launched in 1980 to study solar flares in the wavelengths in which the 

114 
ON THE EVE OF SHUTILE (1973-1980) 

Voyager 1 and 2 photographs of Jupiter and its moon 10. Above, the violent weather patterns that 

constantly swirl around the edges of the Great Red Spot, the huge storm which is larger than Earth . 

Below, the vivid surface of 10, punctured with volcanoes and stained with their ffow. 

115 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Sun releases most of its energy. Problems with the satellite led to rendezvous and 

retrieval by a Shuttle crew in 1984. 

To study the effects of solar radiation on Earth's magnetosphere and 

atmosphere, NASA launched International Sun-Earth Explorer 1 and 2 in 1977. Positioned some distance apart but in similar elliptical orbits, the two satellites (one 

provided by NASA, the other by the ESA) monitored the complex interactions of 

Earth's magnetosphere with incoming solar radiation. In 1978 ISEE 3 was added 

to the system. Positioned much farther out from Earth, the spacecraft receives the 

solar wind and flares about an hour earlier, when they are unaffected by the 

magnetosphere. 

In study of the universe, the major program of the second half of the 1970s was 

the series of three high-energy astronomy observatories. HEAO 1, launched in 

1977 and the heaviest scientific satellite to date, surveyed the sky for x-ray sources, 

identifying several hundred new ones. HEAO 2, following the next year, studied in 

detail the most promising of those sources. HEAO 3, launched in 1979, surveyed 

the sky for gamma-ray sources and cosmic-ray flux. The other satellite orbited for 

study of the universe was the International Ultraviolet Explorer (lUE). Carrying instruments from NASA, the United Kingdom, and the ESA, IUE recorded ultraviolet 

emissions using two ground control centers from which the experimenters could 

direct the observations of the satellite much as is done with telescopes in 

observatories on Earth. 

An intensified activity for NASA in the latter half of the 1970s was the congressionally mandated study of Earth's upper atmosphere, to learn more about the 

effects of gases such as freon on the ozone layer. A continuous measuring 

program resulted; several agencies provided data from which a detailed model of 

the complex processes could be constructed. The space applications program was 

active in the late 1970s. Communications research continued with the launch in 

1976 of Communications Technology Satellite 1. A joint project with Canada, CTS 1, 

investigated the possibilities of high-powered satellites transmitting public service information to small, inexpens}ve antennae in remote locations. 

Landsat 3 was launched in 1978, providing continuity for the flow of data to a 

growing number of users of Earth resources information. The most ambitious new 

Earth resources program was in agriculture. Encouraged by the results of the 

experimental Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment that ended in 1978 after 

demonstrating 90 percent accuracy in predicting the wheat production in the U.S. 

Southern Great Plains and U.S.S.R., the Department of Agriculture, with technical 

assistance from NASA and NOAA, began AgRISTARS (Agriculture and Resources 

Inventory Surveys Through Aerospace Remote Sensing) . 

A new form of resources surveying was attempted in 1978 with the launch of 

Seasat 1. Intended to report on such variables as sea temperature, wave heights, 

surface-wind speeds and direction, sea ice, and storms, Seasat 1 was an instant 

success. Unfortunately its life was cut short after three months in orbit by 

electrical power failure. Enough data had been recorded, however, to verify the 

effectiveness of the instrumentation and the existence of a group of potential 

users in the weather, maritime, and fisheries communities. 

116 
ON THE EVE OF SHUTILE (1973-1980) 

In environmental research, NASA launched Nimbus 7 in 1978, the last of the 

series of large experimental weather satellites. One of its instruments, together 

with one on Nimbus 4 and the observations of SAGE (Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas 

Experiment, launched in 1979), provided a profile and model of the ozone layer. The 

nations's weather satellite system was augmented in 1978 by the launch of Tiros-N 

and NOAA 6, the first two of a new generation of improved weather satellites in 

near-polar orbit. Tiros-N was a principal U.S. contributor to the international 

Global Atmospheric Research Program. 

In geophysical research, a small experimental Heat Capacity Mapping Mission 

satellite was launched in 1978 to derive day and night temperatures of rock 

formations as a possible means of locating mineral-bearing strata. In 1979 

another small satellite, Magsat, went into low orbit to take finer scale readings of 

anomalies in Earth's magnetic field that are directly related to crustal structure 

and therefore to possible mineral depOSits. In earthquake research, NASA completed in 1979 the fourth phase of data gatheringalong the San Andreas Fault in 

California. By means of satellites ranging from speCified points along both sides 

of the fault, experimenters estimated that the tectonic plates were moving 2.4 to 

4.8 inches per year. 

Aircraft and the Environment 

In keeping with rising energy concerns of the 1970s, NASA committed considerable resources to new engine and aircraft technologies to increase flight efficiency as a means of conserving fuel. The Aircraft Energy Efficiency program was 

begun in 1975 to develop fuel-saving techniques that would be applicable to 

current aircraft as well as future designs. The project covered several areas of 

investigation: more efficient wings and propellers; composite materials that were 

lighter and more economical than metal; improved fuel efficiency in jet engines; 

new engine technologies for aircraft in the future. 

The super critical wing was only one aspect of activity that also led NASA into 

the arcane subject of laminar flow-control . A smooth flow of air over the surface of 

a plane, or laminar flow, is a characteristic of low speeds. At cruising speeds, the 

air flow becomes turbulent. creating increased drag. Using models and analytical 

testing, NASA developed a system of tiny holes on the wing surface and a 

lightweight suction system to draw off the turbulent air. By the late 1980s, the 

agency was ready to begin flight testing of a laminar flow-control system for 

possible use on commercial aircraft. 

Other research efforts were carried out through the Engine Component 

Improvement Program. The objective was to target engine components for which 

wear and deterioration led directly to decreased fuel efficiency in jet engines. As a 

result. new components to resist erosion and warping were introduced, along with 

improved seals, ceramic coatings to improve performance of gas-turbine blades, 

and improved compressor design. Research results were so positive and so 

rapidly adaptable that new airliners of the early 1980s like the Boeing 767 and 

McDonnell Douglas MD-80 series used engines that incorporated many such 

innovations. 

])7 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

For business jets, NASA rebuilt an experimental turbofan, incorporating newly 

engineered components designed to reduce noise. Completed by 1980, this 

project successfully developed engines that generated 50 to 60 percent less noise 

than current models. For larger transports, Lewis Research Center started tests of 

two research engines that cut noise levels by 60 to 75 percent and reduced 

emissions of carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons as well. 

In a different context, NASA became engaged in procedures for flight opera~ 

tions in increasingly congested air space. Among the issues that needed assess~ 

ment were aircraft noise during landing and takeoff over populated areas; safe 

approach and landing procedures in bad weather; and methods for controlling 

high density traffic patterns. Useful information emerged from a modified Boeing 

737 twin jet transport. In the plane's passenger area, NASA technicians put 

together a second cockpit equipped with the latest innovations in instrumenta~ 

tion. This second cockpit became the flight center for research operations; the 

crew occupying the standard cockpit in the 737's nose functioned as a backup. In 

addition to precision descent and approach procedures on instruments, the plane 

played a key role in demonstrating the Microwave Landing System in 1979. The 

International Civil Aviation Organization eventually adopted the Microwave 

Landing System over a competing European design to be used as the standard 

system around the world. 

At Ames, scientists became interested in using aircraft as platforms for inves~ 

tigations of terrestrial as well as astronomical phenomena. Beginning in 1969, 

Ames acquired a number of different research planes and launched several 

imaginative investigations that continued over the following decades. High~ 

altitude missions relied on a pair of Lockheed 2 aircraft, originally supplied to 

the Air Force as reconnaissance planes. They carried out Earth resources observa~ 

tions, compiled land usage maps, surveyed insect infested crops, and measured 

damage from floods as well as forest fires. The high flying 2 aircraft provided 

information covering hundreds of square miles; for a more intensive look at 

details in a smaller area Ames brought in other speCialized planes that flew mid

altitude missions. 

One of the pioneers in mid altitude missions was a refurbished airliner-a 

Convair 990 christened the Gali/eo. Commencing operations in the early 1970s, the 

four engine jet conducted a variety of tasks, such as infrared photography, detec~ 

tion of forest fires, and meteorological investigations. Overthe Bering Sea in 1973, 

a joint study with the Soviet Union gathered data on meteorological phenomena. 

ice flow, and wildlife migratory patterns. The first Convair was lost in a tragic 

midair collision with a Navy patrol plane, but its operations had been so produc~ 

tive that acqUisition of a second plane was authorized. and Galileo II went to work 

in 1974. Conducting research at mid altitude heights, the new Convair 990 made 

international missions as well, induding archaeological studies of Mayan ruins 

and observations of monsoon patterns in the Indian Ocean. 

Other planes were added, like the small Learjet and the huge Lockheed 141 

Starlifter. which became operational with the Ames fleet in 1974. The Starlifter's 

interior size and load carrying capacity made it the best candidate for installation. 

118 
ON THE EVE OF SHUTTLE (1973-1980) 

of a 915-centimeter telescope for astronomical observatons. Many of the C-141 

missions, as well as those involving other Ames research planes, were international in scope. In 1977, the C-141, known as the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, flew to 

Australia to make observations of the planet Uranus during especially favorable 

astronomical conditions. American and Australian scientists studied the planet's 

atmosphere, composition, shape, and size, and discovered that Uranus possessed 

equatorial rings. 

At about the same time, the Learjet. equipped with a 30-centimeter infrared 

telescope, was operating high over the Arctic on a different international mission. 

Known as Project Porcupine, Ames worked with the Max Planck Institut fur Physik 

und Astrophysik in a study of the coupling between the magnetosphere and the 

ionosphere. The experiment called for the launch of a sounding rocket from 

Sweden. After the rocket ejected a barium charge, the Learjet followed the barium 

trail along the Earth's magnetic lines of force. Collectively, these researches by 

aircraft on a global scale enhanced professional contacts for NASA personnel and 

generated favorable foreign press coverage for the agency as well as for the United 

States. 

As Ames proceeded to carve out its niche in using aircraft as research platforms, 

the center also strengthened its role in flight research, moving beyond wind 

tunnel testing to flight testing. Taking advantage of Congressional support for 

aeronautical research, the director of Ames, Hans Mark (appointed 1969), gUided 

the center into research on short-haul aircraft, including V/STOL designs. Since 

the mid-1960s, Ames had been working with the U.S. Army on helicopter research, 

relying on the big low-speed tunnels at Ames, along with its excellent simulator 

equipment and other facilities. By the 1970s, both the FAA and the Air Force were 

working with Ames on a new generation of short-takeoff transports. In 1976, to the 

chagrin of Langley, Ames offiCially became NASA's lead center in helicopter 

research. Although the Pioneer project and future planetary missions shifted to 

the JPL at the same time (completed by 1980), the new aircraft programs enlivened 

activities at Ames. 

Among the rotor craft investigations, one of the most interesting involved the 

XV-15 Tilt Rotor Research Aircraft. with wingtip-mounted engines. For takeoff and 

landings, the engines remained vertical. with the big rotors providing lift; once in 

the air the engines and rotors tilted to the horizontal. propelling the XV-15 

forward. Bell Helicopter Textron built two aircraft for NASA and the Army. The first 

XV-15 went to Ames in 1978 for extensive tests in the 40 x 80 foot wind tunnel. to be 

followed by flight tests at Bell's plant in Texas. The first demonstration of inflight 

tests of the two prototypes was underway at Ames and at Dryden Flight Research 

Center during 1980. 

Somewhat more conventional was the Quiet Short-Haul Research Aircraft to 

investigate new technologies for commercial airliners. The research plane was a 

hybrid, using an extensively modified de Havilland C-8A Buffalo. Under contract 

to NASA. Boeing rebuilt the plane with new avionics, new wings and tail. and a 

quartet of jet engines mounted above the wing to generate "upper surface 

blowing" in order to increase lift. The plane made its maiden flight at Boeing's 

119 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

The XV-15 tilt rotor research aircraft. For takeoff (above), the craft's rotors are horizontal to provide lift, 

then they pivot forward (bottom) to a full vertical position to give cruising speeds twice those of 

conventional helicopters. 

120 
ON THE EVE OF SHUTTLE (1973-1980) 

Seattle plant in 1978, then flew to Ames for continued flight tests. The short 

takeoffs and quiet operations of the aircraft yielded much information for applica~ 

tion in both civi I and military design. One intriguing series of tests led to a 

successful landing and takeoff from an aircraft carrier-the first four engine jet 

plane to accomplish this feat. 

For NASA. the decade of the 1980s seemed particularly promising. Its aero~ 

nautical programs were successful; space science had seen solid achievements; 

and progress in the Space Shuttle raised confidence for prospects of outstanding 

missions to come. That confidence was to be severely tested. 

]21 

Chapter 8 

AEROSPACE FLIGHTS (1980 1986) 

For NASA flight research, the 1980s opened with a significant administrative 

change-the Dryden Flight Research Center lost its independent status and 

became ja directorate of Ames Research Center in 1981. This did not mean that 

NASA was downgrading flight research; on the contrary, several exotic programs 

emerged during the decade, and a variety of unusual aircraft continued to 

populate the skies above Edwards. 

Given the cost of experimental flight aircraft and the evolution of increasingly 

sophisticated electronic and simulator systems, it was perhaps inevitable that 

NASA eventually turned to smaller, pilotless radio controlled aircraft. In the 

1980s, this idea was embodied in the HiMAT, a contraction of Highly Maneuvera~ 

ble Aircraft Technology. The HiMAT, powered by a General Electric J85 turbojet 

engine, had a length of 23 feet and a wing span of 16 feet. 

The compact HiMAT was an evolutionary concept. originating during the M2 

lifting body program of the 1960s. To test a variety of lifting body shapes in flight, 

an innovative NASA engineer at Edwards built a twin engine radio controlled 

model that carried the smaller test models high into the sky and made 120 test 

drops. Typical remotely piloted vehicles (or RPVs) used an autopilot system and 

had restricted maneuverability. The Edwards aircraft, on the other hand, was 

completely controlled from the ground, using instrument references. By the late 

1960s, Edwards personnel were flying an actual lifting body test configuration,the 

Hyper III. in drop tests from a helicopter. Veteran fliers who flew the model by 

remote control found it a remarkable experience. "I have never come out of a 

simulator emotionally and physically tired as is often the case after a test flight in 

a research aircraft," one pilot said. "I was emotionally and physically tired after a 

minute flight of the Hyper Ill," he admitted. Although remote flight research 

continued, demands of the YF 12 Blackbird program and other projects kept it at a 

low level. Still. significant progress occurred. The Edwards team took a Piper Twin 

Comanche fitted with an electronic fly by wire system, added a television system 

123 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

The Highly Maneuverable Aircraft Technology test model (HiMAT), shown during a test ffight. A 

modular design allowed engineers to test a variety of wings, control surfaces, and different structural 

materials. 

for a remote pilot. and turned it into a successful remotely piloted aircraft from 

takeoff to landing. Although a backup pilot flew in the cockpit. the remote 

operators practiced stalls. stall recoveries, and even made precise instrument 

landing approaches. In the early 1970s. these skills were translated into an 

applicable test program to investigate stall and spin phenomena after several 

fighter planes were lost in spinning accidents. NASA let contracts to McDonnell 

Douglas for three %~scale models of the F-15. Each model cost $250.000; a fullsized plane cost $6.8 million. Piloted from the ground and released from a 8-52 at 

high altitude. the model F-15 program yielded useful information for final revisions of the operational Air Force fighter. The remote pilots doing the flying found 

the spin tests quite challenging: the heart beats of pilots in normal. manned 

flights went from 70-80 per minute to 130-140 during the remotely piloted drop 

tests. 

The remotely controlled flight tests were controversial. Extensive ground support systems were nearly as expensive for remote flight operations as they were 

for manned aircraft. Still. remotely controlled flights were useful; models offered a 

cost-effective method for testing esoteric deSigns; they were obviously advantageous in dangerous flight maneuvers. The positive factors were convincing as 

NASA and the military services pondered exotic configurations and materials of 

124 
AEROSPACE FUGHTS (1980-1986) 

combat planes for the 1990s and beyond. The logic for a test vehicle like the 

HiMAT was unusually strong. 

The HiMAT structure itself was composed of various metal alloys. graphite 

composites. and glass fibers. It had sharply swept wings. winglets. and canard 

surfaces--considered aeronautically avant garde when the first plane flew in 1978. 

Carried aloft by a B-52. the HiMAT was remotely-and safely- flown through a 

series of complex maneuvers at transonic speeds. The Hi MAT was designed as a 

modular vehicle so that wings. control surfaces. and structural materials could be 

evaluated at a fraction of the cost of building a full-sized aircraft. The HiMAT's 

changing configurations suggested the possible shapes of aircraft to come. 

While the HiMAT continued to test alternative design ideas. flight test specialists nonetheless recognized the persistent value of full-sized manned aircraft. 

The result was the Grumman X-29. a plane whose dramatic configuration matched 

that of the HiMAT. The X-29 had a single. vertical tail fin and canard surfaces-not 

unique in the 1980s. What made the X-29 so faSCinating was its sharply forwardswept wings. 

The forward-swept wing had precursors in German designs of World War II. In 

1944. Junkers put such an experimental jet into the air-the JU-287. Thewar ended 

before extensive flight tests could be carried out. but the JU-287 quickly revealed 

one of the major problems of any swept forward design: structural divergence. Lift 

forces on wings cause them to bend slightly upward. When the wings sweep 

forward. this force tends to twist the leading edge upward. increasing lift and the 

bending motion until the wing fails. One solution was to keep the wing absolutely 

rigid. but conventional metal construction made such wings so heavy they were 

impractical. Although swept forward wings occasionally appeared on various 

ai.rcraft in the postwar era. construction and weight problems proved intractable. 

The solution appeared in the form of composites. affording wings of light weight 

but high strength. 

Grumman had submitted an unsuccessful HiMAT design. which ran into severe 

wing-root drag problems. A forward-swept wing seemed to offer answers. and the 

company had quietly pursued the idea. NASA also became interested. and the 

DoD eventually agreed to support a radical new design. NASA became responsible for technical support and flight testing. In 1987. the plane was officially 

announced as the X-29. the first new "X" aircraft developed by the United States in 

more than a decade. The fuselage took shape very quickly. since the forward 

section came from a Northrop F-5A. Landing gear came from the General Dynamics F-16A. and the engine was adapted from a General Electric power plant 

developed for the McDonnell Douglas F-18 Hornet. At first glance. the X-29 

seemed a sorry aeronautical compromise. merely incorporating bits and pieces 

from other planes. But its wings and related design elements made it truly unique. 

Moreover. it was highly unstable. 

When the X-29 made its first flight in 1984. the forward-swept wings and canard 

surfaces were its most distinguishing characteristics. In swept back wings. controllability became a problem as increasingly turbulent air flowed over the wing 

tips and tail surfaces. The X-29's wing tips. however. were always moving in 

125 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

With its swept forward wing and composite construction, the X-29 offered weight and drag reduction of as 

much as 20 percent compared to conventional design and fabrication methods. 

comparatively undisturbed air, enhancing controllability at high speeds, and the 

canard surfaces also operated in an air stream much less turbulent than that 

around the tail. The rigid wing of the X-29 owed much to composites and the way 

they were layered in relation to the angle of the wing and aerodynamic stresses, 

overcoming the tendency to structural divergence. 

Among the electronic advances of the X-29, the most fascinating related to its 

inherent instability. Most planes were built to be stable in flight, returning to 

straight and level flight if diverted. In a dog fight. such placidity could be fatal. The 

F-16 jet fighter was built to be about 5 percent unstable, but the X-29 was built to 

be about 35 percent unstable. This extreme instability was more than any pilot 

could manage, so a trio of flight computers were developed to keep the plane 

under control while allowing the pilot a remarkable latitude in terms of maneuverability. At a rate of 40 times per second, the computers analyze the plane's 

attitude and decide what is necessary to keep the plane under control while 

responding to the pilot's inputs. This allows for some unusual flight maneuvers 

which could contribute to more agile combat planes in the future. For one thing, 

the X-29 could "levitate" in flight--climbing while maintaining a straight and level 

attitude. 

Exotic experimental military planes represented only one of several areas of 

NASA's study. During the 1970s, the general aviation sector became increasingly 

robust. Most Americans knew little about this remarkably diverse segment of 

American aviation, which included all aircraft except those flown by commercial 

airlines and the armed services. There were about 2400 scheduled airliners in 

service during the 1970s and 4300 in the 1980s, while the general aviation fleet 

126 
AEROSPACE FLIGHTS (1980-1986) 

Winglets were incorporated into the design of the Leariet model 55 (photo courtesy of Gates Leariet 

Corporation) . 

climbed from 150,000 to 220,000 aircraft, ranging from propeller driven single 

engine planes to multimillion dollar executive jets. Sales of general aviation 

aircraft represented a significant contribution to America's favorable balance of 

payments, since 90 percent of the world's fleet of general aviation types originated 

in American factories. Given the scope of general aviation operations in the 

United States and the significance of American domination of the world market 

for this sector, NASA's attention was probably overdue when the agency began 

comprehensive studies during the late 1970s. Results came very quickly as more 

than a dozen production and prototype designs incorporated features derived 

from relevant NASA studies. 

One distinctive hallmark of NASA's general aviation investigations was the 

wing tip winglet, a device to smooth out distorted air flow, resulting in improved 

wing efficiency and enhanced fuel economy. During the 1980s, a number of high 

performance business jets, such as the Learjet, as well as late model transports 

built by Boeing and McDonnell Douglas used this innovation. The agency also 

developed a new high performance airfoil for general aviation; the GAW 1. A 

separate research effort went into stall/spin problems, using radio controlled 

scale models as well as several different full sized operational aircraft. There were 

additional programs to probe exhaust and engine noise, engine efficiency, and the 

use of composites. A special investigation of crash survivability tested the air~ 

frames of planes as well as injuries to passengers, represented by carefully 

instrumented anthropomorphic dummies. A huge drop tower let the test planes 

plunge onto a typical runway; test results were useful to many aviation industry 

firms, including manufacturers of aircraft seats, seat belts, and body restraint 

systems. 

127 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

In cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration, crash tests were aimed at developing better 

protection for pilots and passengers in geneml aviation aircraft. Crash tower and damaged plane (inset). 

Satellites and Space Science 

During the 1970s, the number of American payloads put into space by rocket 

boosters diminished as mission planners waited for the shuttles to become 

operational. When the shuttles began flying with payloads in the 1980s, this did 

not mean that NASA's expendable rocket launches ceased. Several rocket 

launches had already been scheduled, and NASA also intended to maintain this 

capability as a backup through the mid 1980s. NASA boosters orbited a variety of 

communications and environmental satellites as well as several spacecraft invol~ 

ving space science. Moreover, the audacious Voyager continued its richly reward~ 

ing "grand tour" of the outer planets. Shuttle launches may have gotten the lion's 

share of news coverage, but rocketed payloads continued to demonstrate their 

share of utility and value in space exploration. 

Meteorological satellites and other Earth oriented space craft expanded their 

essential roles in contemporary society. During 1981, another Geostationary 

Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES 5) went into Earth synchronous 

orbit. In addition to expanded hurricane observations in the Caribbean zone, 

GOES 5 tracked Gulf Stream currents for fishermen and others with marine 

128 
AEROSPACE FLIGHTS (1980-1986) 

interests, provided invaluable data for weathercasters, and warned citrus growers 

aDout potentially crop killing frosts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration (NOM) not only supplied vital data on ocean temperatures and 

wave patterns with NOM~7; the multi mission spacecraft conducted a variety of 

atmospheric and tidal measurements while monitoring solar particle radiation in 

space, alerting manned space missions and commercial aircraft of potentially 

hazardous conditions. 

This network expanded with the launches of GOES 6 and NOM~8 in 1983. The 

latter joined a space based search and rescue system cooperatively operated by 

the United States, France, Canada, and the Soviet Union. Known as the Sarsat~ 

Cospas network, the satellites of the participating countries could pinpoint the 

locations of emergency beacons aboard ships and aircraft in distress. Within a few 

months of its becoming operational. the rescue network had saved some 60 lives 

around the globe. Landsat 4, launched in 1982, experienced transmission failures, 

so Landsat 5 took over during 1984, continuing vital coverage for forestry, agri~ 

culture, mineral resources, and other uses. Also during the 1980s, NASA launched 

a series of new Intelsat communications satellites to replace older models in 

geosynchronous orbits above the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. 

Nonetheless, space science payloads and planetary probes continued to be the 

most dramatic performers. Following the encounter of VOljager 1 with Saturn in 

1980, VOljager 2 made an even closer pass in the summer of 1981. These visits turned 

up considerable new information on Saturn's rings, moons, and weather systems, 

posing a number of new questions for planetary scientists. Continuing analysis of 

Pioneer Venus 1 also seemed to raise as many new issues as it closed. Launched in 

1983, the Infrared Astronominal Satellite was a joint project of NASA and scientific 

centers in the Netherlands and Great Britain. During its lO~month lifetime, the 

international satellite detected new comets, analyzed infrared signals from a 

number of new galaxies, and Yielded data that suggested many of them may be 

merging or colliding with each other. 

Planetary probes continued to turn up surprising insights into the nature of our 

solar system. Four and a half years after uncovering a wealth of new data on Saturn 

and its spectacular rings, VOljager 2 approached Uranus in January 1986. By the time 

the intrepid Voyager completed its flyby, the spacecraft had revealed more 

information about the planet and its company of moons than observers had 

learned since its discovery by the English astronomer William Herschel over 200 

years ago. 

The spacecraft's arrival represented something of a tour de force for the JPL, 

managers of Voyager's aptly named "Grand Tour of the Solar System." JPL's 

navigators had to place the spacecraft within less than 200 miles of a pOint 

between the planet's innermost moon, Miranda, and the planet's rings. Having 

traveled 1.8 billion miles from Earth, VOljager 2 now whipped toward its goal at 50 

times the speed of a pistol bullet. Commands from JPL to Voyager took 2 hours 

and 45 minutes to arrive. Unless the JPL crew did everything correctly, VOljager 2 

might miss the gravitational sling from Uranus to send it on towards its ren~ 

dezvous with Neptune in 1989. More important, engineers had to know the exact 

129 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

location of the Voyager so that its cameras would record something planetary 

instead of the infinite blackness of space. "That feat," explained a reporter for the 

National Geographic, "is equivalent to William Tell shooting an arrow in Los Angeles 

and hitting an apple in Manhattan." Many potential glitches were avoided, such as 

breaking into the onboard computer programs to fine tune the thrusters; com~ 

mandeering another backup computer to improve the rate of image processing; 

and dispatching further signals to help Voyager perform in a colder, darker 

environment than was the case for its Saturn flyby. 

There were other snarls as well. but Voyager 2 carried on superbly, turning up 

evidence of 10 new moons besides the five known orbs circling Uranus. Miranda, 

the smallest of the five, proved especially dramatic with a tortured surface that 

included an escarpment 10 times deeper than the Grand Canyon. The various 

moons represented a geological showcase, with mountains up to 12 miles high, 

plains dotted with craters, and sinuous valleys that may have been gouged out by 

glaciers. Voyager 2 also captured other curiosities about Uranus, including its 

offset magnetic field, fascinating ultraviolet sheen called an "electroglow," and 

erratic atmospheric patterns. Another mission to Uranus might be decades, or 

even centuries away. But the Voyager's legacy promised to give scientists and 

astronomers considerable data to ponder in the meantime. 

Shuttle Operations 

At liftoff, the Shuttle looked and sounded like an oversized rocket booster with 

wings. Power for the launch came from a combination of propulsion systems. A 

pair of solid fuel booster rockets straddled a huge propellant tank filled with 

liquid hydrogen and liqUid oxygen; the Shuttle itself perched atop the cylindrical 

walls of the propellant tank, which fed the trio of Space Shuttle main engines 

mounted in the Shuttle's tail. During the initial ascent phase, all five propulsion 

systems drove the Shuttle upwards. Following burn out of the solid fuel boosters, 

the empty casings separated from the external tank and parachuted back to Earth, 

where they were recovered from the ocean, refurbished, and packed again with 

segments of solid fuel. The Shuttle's liquid hydrogen main engines continued to 

fire, drawing propellants from the external tank. When the tank was empty, it too 

was jettisoned and destroyed by intense heat during its descent through Earth's 

atmosphere . A pair of maneuvering engines plus batteries of small rocket 

thrusters on the Orbiter refined its orbital path as needed and provided maneu~ 

vering capability during the mission. 

Compared to the Apollo spacecraft, the Orbiter was huge, with a length of 120 

feet and a wingspan of 80 feet. As many as seven crew'members could live and 

work in the flight deck area, and the cargo bay represented an additional payload 

or workspace area measuring 60 feet long by 15 feet in diameter. The Shuttle was 

des~d to carry payloads of 65,000 pounds to orbit at an attitude of 230 miles 

(smaller payloads allowed orbits of up to 690 miles), return to Earth, and land with 

payloads of 32,000 pounds (such as a malfunctioning satellite). NASA contended 

that the ability to reuse the booster rocket casings and the ability of Orbiters to 

make repeated missions made the Space Shuttle an extremely cost effective 

130 
AEROSPACE FLIGHTS (1980- 1986) 

space vehicle for years to come. Because of all the tiles on the Orbiter, personnel 

associated with the program often joked about the "flying brickyard," but there 

was great enthusiasm about the Space Transportation System, or STS. 

Although launches occurred at the Kennedy Space Center, and plans called for 

most Orbiter flights to finish there on a special landing strip three miles long, 

contingencies allowed for alternative landing sites at Vandenberg Air Force Base 

and Edwards Air Force Base in California, at White Sands, New Mexico, and at 

selected emergency runways around the world. In any case, the first few landings 

were planned for the broad expanses of the dry lake at Edwards; the Orbiter would 

be carried back to KSC from any remote site atop the specially modified Boeing 

747 ferry aircraft. There were only five landings at Kennedy Space Center before a 

blown nose wheel tire at the end of the 16th (5 I-D) mission shifted all subsequent 

touchdowns to Edwards. Some earlier flights had been diverted from Kennedy 

because of weather; the Boeing 747 transporter definitely proved its value in 

returning Orbiters from Edwards, White Sands, and Vandenberg. Following the 

nose wheel incident, engineers planned changes for Orbiter landing gear as well 

as improvements to the Kennedy landing site. 

Concerns about tiles and engines kept the first Orbiter for flight missions, the 

Columbia, grounded at KSC for nearly two years. In the meantime, other Shuttle 

crews kept their flying skills sharp by participating in further drop tests of the 

Enterprise and by training flights in a Grumman Gulfstream modified to imitate an 

Orbiter's landing characteristics. Crew members and trainees practiced experiments and other tasks in a microgravity environment through long training 

missions in a converted Boeing C-135 transport. These missions also tested 

theories about the nature of nausea ("motion sickness") caused by disorientation 

in space-a severe problem for crew members during long space missions. The 

plane would fly high, arching parabolas in the sky, giving trainees several seconds 

of "weightlessness" at the top of each stomach-churning climb. The training 

missions might last several hours-repeated climbs, nose-overs, and rapid 

descents before the next upward surge. For those aboard the plane, all this could 

be either highly exhilarating or very loathsome. Officially, NASA's C-135 was 

deSignated the Reduced Gravity Aircraft; unofficially, hapless trainees dubbed it 

the "vomit comet," "barf buzzard," and "weightless wonder." 

Finally, long hours of flight training and grueling sessions in electronic simulators came to an end. The Columbia's flight crew, astronauts John Young and 

Robert Crippen, joked that they had spent so much additional time in the 

electronic simulators that they were" 130 percent trained and ready to go." Their 

inaugural flight was set for 10 April 1981. But the Columbia mission, like others to 

follow, was scrubbed at the last minute on a technicality. Two days later, the 

countdown for Columbia matched a day of perfect weather at KSC. and the Space 

Shuttle thundered off into space, boosted by 7 million pounds of thrust from its 

solid-fuel rockets and liqUid-hydrogen engines. 

Reaching an altitude of 130 nautical miles, the Columbia's crew settled into orbit 

for a two-day mission. The Orbiter carried no cargo except an instrumentation 

package to record stresses during launch, flight, and landing, plus a variety of 

131 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

cameras. One of these, a remote television camera aboard the Orbiter, revealed 

gaps around the tail section, where some tiles apparently worked loose during 

launch. As the crew prepared for descent back to Earth, mission controllers were 

quietly concerned, worried that other tiles in critical areas along the Orbiter's 

underside might have fallen off as well. At a blinding speed of Mach 24, Columbia 

began its searing reentry back into Earth's upper atmosphere, where the intense 

heat of atmospheric friction built to over 3000° F. There were some anxious 

moments as the plummeting spacecraft became enveloped by a blanket of 

ionized gases that disrupted radio communications. At 188,000 feet, as the 

Columbia slowed to only Mach 10, mission control heard a welcome report from 

Crippen and Young that the Orbiter was performing as planned. A long, swooping 

descent and a series of planned maneuvers bled off excess speed and brought the 

spacecraft in over the Edwards area. Parked in cars, jeeps, and campers all around 

the edge of the landing area, an estimated 500,000 people had come to observe 

the Shuttle's return. The sharp crack of a sonic boom snapped across the desert, 

and the crowd soon saw the Columbia, now slowed to about 300 MPH, make its 

final descent and touchdown, a true, "spaceliner" symbolizing a new era in 

astronautical ventures. 

For all its teething problems, the Shuttle performed remarkably well through 

five years and 24 successful missions. Inevitably, there was some fine tuning and 

reworking of numerous tiles before a second launch of Columbia in November, the 

first spacecraft to return to orbit. During 1982, three more missions marked the 

end of flight tests and the beginning of missions to deploy satellites. The next 

year, four additional missions included three in the new orbiter, Challenger, ending 

on Columbia's flight with the ESA's "Spacelab" aboard. There were six crew mem~ 

bers, a record number for a single spacecraft, including Ulf Merbold, a German 

who represented the ESA. These flights in 1983, which counted America's first 

woman in space (Sally Ride) as well as the first black American (Guion Bluford), 

not only launched additional American and international payloads, but also 

significantly increased activities in space science, particularly with the Spacelab 

mission. To deploy satellites from the cargo bay, the crew relied on a unit called 

the Propulsion Assist Module, or PAM, introduced on the STS 5 mission in 1982. 

In the payload deployment sequence, the remote manipulator system lifted the 

satellite out of the Orbiter cargo bay. The Orbiter then maneuvered away; the PAM 

attached to the satellite automatically fired about 45 minutes later boosting the 

payload highter. The organization owning the satellite then took over, using 

thrusters on the satellite to circularize its orbit, checking out its systems, and 

making the satellite operational. Although the PAM booster was augmented by 

other systems, many payloads could be left in orbit after simply lifting them out of 

the cargo bay with the remote manipulator system. 

The orbiter Discovery joined the fleet in 1984, and Atlantis followed in 1985. The 

demographics of the orbiter crews reflected growing diversity, encompassing 

more women, Canadians, Hispanics, Orientals, assorted Europeans, a Saudi 

prince, a Senator, E. J. "Jake" Gam, and a Congressman, Bill Nelson. The various 

missions engaged astronauts in extended extravehicular activity, such as 

132 
AEROSPACE FLIGHTS (1980-1986) 

untethered excursions usi ng manned maneuvering units. In Mission STS II (41 C) 

in 1984, an astronaut using one of these units assisted in the first capture of a 

disabled satellite, the Solar Maximum payload (Solar Max). followed by its repair 

and redeployment. The mission also had the task of placing a new satellite in 

orbit. Scheduled for deployment was the Long Duration Exposure Facility, a 12~ 

sided polyhedron measuring 14 feet in diameter and 30 feet long. It carried several 

dozen removable trays to accommodate 57 experiments put together by some 200 

researchers from eight countries. After being lifted out of the Challenger, the big 

structure was to stay in orbit for a year, awaiting its return on a different Shuttle 

flight. 

For the crew aboard Challenger, the biggest task was the first planned repair of a 

spacecraft in orbit. The Challenger's thrusters boosted it 300 miles higher to 

intercept the Solar Max satellite. After some difficulties, due to the satellite's 

tumbling motion, it was finally stabilized and cranked down into the cargo bay by 

the remote manipulator system (RMS) . After a night's rest, George Nelson and 

James van Hoften donned space suits and went to work on the balky satellite, 

replacing a faulty attitude control module and some electronic equipment for one 

of its instruments. Sent back into orbit, the Solar Max's repair job in space saved 

millions of dollars. Later the same year, during STS 14 (51 A). the crew of Discovery 

had to retrieve a pair of errant satellites placed in improper orbits by faulty 

thrusters. Although the Canadarm managed to capture the satellites, they would 

not drop into the cradles in the cargo bay for their return to Earth, and the mission 

specialists had to manhandle each one aboard before closing the cargo bay doors. 

These missions conclusively demonstrated the Shuttle's ability to recover, repair, 

and if necessary, refuel satellites in orbit. The DoD also made two classified 

missions in 1985. 

Mission STS 22 (61 A). in October 1985, represented the fourth Spacelab flight 

and was notable for its eight member crew-requiring the eighth person to sleep 

aboard the Spacelab itself. Most significant was the special role of the West 

German Federal Aerospace Research Establishment, which managed the orbital 

work in which the Spacelab mission specialists carried out experiments in mate~ 

rials processing, communications, and microgravity. It was a highly successful 

mission, with only one memor~ble drawback. Aboard the Spacelab was a new 

holding pen for animals that contained two dozen rats and a pair of squirrel 

monkeys. The crew soon complained to controllers that the animal quarters 

needed modifications for any future flights. Food bars for the rats began to 

crumble, so that loose particles of rat food began floating around the Spacelab. 

Worse, some waste products from the rats also began to litter the Spacelab's 

atmosphere leading to pointed, scatological comments from the disgruntled 

crew. 

Continuing missions carried a variety of American as well as international 

scientific experiments. One involved electrophoresis, in which an electric charge 

was used to separate biological materials; the goal in this case was the produc~ 

tion of a medical hormone. Additional experiments emphasized vapor crystal 

growth, containerless processing, metallurgy, atmospheric physics, and space 

133 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

medicine, among other areas. The payload manifests for most missions were 

recognizably similar, listing satellites, experimental biomedical units, physics 

equipment, and so on. The manifest for STS 16 (51 D) in 1985 had a decidedly 

different quality, including a pair of satellites along with a "Snoopy" top, a wind~ 

up car, magnetic marbles, a pop over mouse named "Rat Stuff," and several other 

toys, including a yo yo. For die hard yo yo buffs, a NASA brochure reported that 

the "flight model is a yellow Duncan ImperiaL" The news media gave considerable 

attention to the whimsical nature of the Toys in Space Mission, although the 

purpose was educational. The toy experiments were videotaped, with the astro~ 

nauts demonstrating each toy and providing a brief narrative of scientific princi~ 

pIes, including different behaviors in the space environment. The taped 

demonstrations became a favorite with educators-and the astronauts obviously 

delighted in this uncustomary mission assignment. 

Despite occasional problems, Shuttle flights had apparently become routinean assumption that dramatically changed with' Challenger's mission on 28 January 

1986. 

On the morning of the flight, a cold front had moved through Florida, and the 

launch pad glistened with ice. It was still quite chilly when the crew settled into 

the Shuttle just after 8:00 A.M. Many news reports remarked on the crew's 

diversity; seven Americans who seemed to personify the nation's heterogenous 

mix of gender, race, ethnicity, and age. The media focused most of its attention on 

Christa McAuliffe, who taught social studies at a high school in New Hampshire. 

She was aboard not only as a teacher but as an "ordinary citizen," since Space 

Shuttle missions had seemed to become so dependable. Scheduled for a seven~ 

day flight, the Challenger also carried a pair of satellites to be released in orbit. 

NASA officials, leary of the icy state of the Shuttle and launch pad, waited two 

extra hours before giving permission for launch. When the Shuttle's three main 

engines ignited at 11 :38 A.M., the temperature was still about 36° F, the coldest day 

ever for a Shuttle liftoff. After a few seconds, the solid fuel boosters also ignited, 

and the Challenger thundered majestically upward. Everything appeared to be 

working well for about 73 seconds after liftoff. At 46,000 feet in a clear blue sky, the 

Shuttle was virtually invisible to exhilarated spectators at Cape Canaveral, but the 

telephoto equipment of television cameras captured every moment of the fiery 

explosion that destroyed the Challenger and snuffed out the lives of its crew. In the 

aftermath of the tragedy, stunned government and contractor personnel took 

action to recover remnants of the Shuttle and to begin a painstaking search for 

answers. 

Answers were essential, because the three remaining Shuttles were grounded 

while the cause of the Challenger explosion was identified and corrected. Until that 

time, the United States could not put astronauts into space or launch any of the 

numerous satellites and military payloads designed only for deployment from the 

Shuttle cargo bay. Moreover, construction of the planned space station in Earth 

orbit relied entirely on the Shuttle's cargo capacity. 

Detailed analysis of photography and Shuttle telemetry pointed to a joint on 

the right solid booster. It appeared that a spurt of flame from the joint (which 

134 
AEROSPACE FLIGHTS (1980-1986) 

joined fuel segments near the bottom of the booster) destroyed the strut attaching the booster to the bottom of the liquid hydrogen tank and burned through the 

tank itself. The tank erupted into a fireball. and the explosion blew apart the 

Challenger. Next, investigators had to understand the reasons for the faulty joint. 

In the meantime, President Reagan appointed a special commission to conduct 

a formal inquiry-the Rogers Commission, named after its chairman, former 

Secretary of State William P. Rogers. The Rogers Commission discovered that 

NASA had been worried about the booster joints for several months. The speCific 

problem involved O-rings, circular synthetic rubber inserts that sealed the joints 

against volatile gases as the rocket booster burned. It was believed that the 0­

rings lost thei'r efficiency as boosters were reused; their efficiency was even less in 

cold weather. The Rogers Commission further discovered that NASA and managers from Thiokol. suppliers of the solid fuel boosters, had hotly debated the 

decision to launch during the night before Challengers fatal flight. 

The Rogers Commission report, released in the spring of 1986, included an 

unflattering assessment of NASA management, calling it "flawed," and recommended an overhaul to make sure managers from the Centers kept other top 

managers better informed. Other criticisms not only resulted in a careful redesign 

of the booster joints but also led to improvements in the Shuttle's main engines, a 

crew escape system, modified landing gear, alterations to the landing strip at 

Kennedy Space Center, and changes for a host of aspects in Shuttle operations. 

NASA originally planned to resume Shuttle flights in the spring of 1988, but 

nagging problems delayed new launches through the summer. 

In the wake of Challengers loss, other changes occurred. Some realignment 

would have occurred in any case, since NASA Administrator James Beggs, indicted 

for fraud and later completely exonerated, had vacated the position in December 

1985. At the time of Challengers loss, an interim leadership was in place; in the 

aftermath of Challenger, James C. Fletcher returned to NASA's helm again. But loss 

of the Shuttle colored many subsequent senior management reassignments in 

NASA. along with a reorganization of contractor personnel . Even though President Reagan authorized construction of a new Shuttle for operations by 1991. the 

existing fleet of three vehicles remained inactive for over a year and a half. severely 

disrupting the planned launch of civil and military payloads. For some scientific 

missions, desirable "launch windows" were simply lost, and other missions, rescheduled sometime in the future, were severely compromised in terms of 

scientific value. In the case of the Space Shuttle program, NASA had not only 

stumbled, but was left staggering. 

135 
, 
 
Chapter 9 

NEW DIRECTIONS (since 1986) 

Although the flight ofVoljager 2 past Uranus and on toward Jupiter represented a 

striking success, it was almost lost in the clamor triggered by the loss of Challenger. 

During the next several months, the agency's frustrations multiplied. 

In 1986, Halley's Comet made its appearance again after an absence of 76 years. 

Halley was a valued astronomical performer. As the brightest comet that returned 

to the Sun on a predictable basis, scientists had adequate time to prepare for its 

reappearance. However, during Halley's dramatic swing across Earth's orbit, many 

American scientists lamented that no American spacecraft made a mission to 

meet it and make scientific measurements. Some U.S.-launched satellites were 

able to make ultraviolet light observations, but only the ESA. Japan, and the 

Soviet Union had planned to send probes close enough to use cameras-ESA's 

Giotto probe came within 375 miles of Halley's nucleus. Critics charged that 

excessive NASA expenditures on the Shuttle had robbed America of resources to 

take advantage of unusual opportunities such as the passage of Halley's Comet. 

In the' aftermath of Challenger, NASA's hopes for recovery were further plagued 

by a rash of misfortunes. In May 1986, a Delta rocket carrying a weather satellite 

was destroyed in flight after a steering failure. One of NASA's Atlas-Centaur 

rockets, under contract to the U.S. Navy for the launch of a Fleet Satellite 

Communications Spacecraft, lifted off in March 1987, but broke up less than a 

minute later after being hit by lightning. During the assessment of the loss, a 

review board scolded NASA managers for making the launch into bad weather 

conditions that exceeded acceptable limits. In June, three rockets at NASA's 

Wallops Island facility were being readied for launch when a storm came in. 

Lightning hit the launch pad and triggered the ignition of all three rockets; 

frustrated engineers watched the trio shoot off in a hopeless flight over the 

Atlantic shoreline before crashing into the sea. In July, disaster hit NASA again 

when an industrial accident on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral destroyed an 

Atlas-Centaur upper stage on the launch pad, forcing cancellation of a military 

payload mission. 

137 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

These embarrassments, and the brooding shadow of Challenger, dulled the 

otherwise bright successes. Early in 1987, determined launch crews had suc~ 

cessfully put two important payloads into orbit. The GOES 7 environmental 

satellite went into operation, returning vital information of the formation of 

hurricanes in the Caribbean. An Indonesian communications satellite, Palapa B 

2P, originally scheduled for a Shuttle launch, went into orbit aboard a Delta rocket 

launched from Cape Canaveral. While debate over the nation's space program 

persisted, NASA continued its spadework on several different projects. Taken 

collectively, they held considerable promise for many areas of both astronautics 

and aeronautics. 

Artist's concept of the Hubble Telescope after deployment from the Orbiter. The most powerful telescope 

ever built, it is intended to allow scientists to look seven times farther into space than ever before. The ESA 

supplied the solar power arrays for this international proiect. 

138 
NEW DIRECTIONS (since 1986) 

Astronautics 

Resumption of Space Shuttle missions for which special payloads were 

developed may well trigger a renaissance in astronomical science, especially in 

the case of the Hubble Space Telescope. Weighing 12Y2 tons and measuring 43 feet 

long, the Hubble Telescope with its 94.5 inch mirror is the largest scientific 

satellite built to date. All ground telescopes are handicapped by the Earth's 

atmosphere, which distorts and limits observations. The Hubble Telescope will 

permit scientists to collect far more data from a wide spectral range unobtainable 

through present instruments. The most alluring prospect of the Hubble Tele~ 

scope's operation is the potential to search for clues of other solar systems and 

gather data about the origins of our own universe, perhaps solving once and for all 

the "big bang" theory of the universe as opposed to the steady state concept. 

Once in orbit, the telescope is expected to pick up objects 50 times fainter and 7 

times farther away than any ground observatory; via electronic transmissions to 

Earth, the telescope can let humans see a part of the universe 500 times larger 

than has ever been seen before. A document issued by the JPL predicted that 

"primeval galaxies may be seen as they were formed, as they appeared shortly 

after the beginning of time." It is fitting that the Hubble Space Telescope is an 

international enterprise, with the ESA supplying the solar power arrays and 

certain scientific instruments as well as several scientists for the telescope's 

science working group. 

Nor was the Hubble Space Telescope the only major effort in astronomy, 

astrophysics, or planetary research . NASA planned a new family of orbiting 

observatories, often developed with foreign partners, to probe more deeply into 

the background of gamma rays, infrared emissions, celestial ray sources, ultraviolet radiation, and a catalog of other perplexing subjects. There were also 

several bold planetary voyages to be launched. In collaboration with the Federal 

Republic of Germany, the Galileo mission to Jupiter (requiring a six year flight 

after launch from the Space Shuttle) called for an atmospheric probe to be 

parachuted into the jovian atmosphere while the main spacecraft went into orbit 

as a long term planetary observatory. The Magellan mission envisioned a detailed 

map of the planet Venus; Ulysses (planned with ESA) was designed to explore 

virtually unchartered solar regions by flying around the poles of the Sun. All of 

these missions were targeted for the late 1980s and early 1990s; creative scientists 

and engineers were also concocting ambitious projects for the twenty first cen~ 

tury. 

During 1986 and 1987, Sally Ride, of NASA's astronaut corps, spearheaded a 

special NASA Headquarters task force charged with determining new priorities for 

the nation's space program. The task force eventually narrowed its recommenda~ 

tions to four principal possibilities. The first concerned Earth studies to gain 

knowledge for protection of the world's environment. A second proposal focused 

on accelerated robotic programs to explore the Moon and other bodies in the 

solar system . These two areas of activity were already implicit in many NASA 

programs underway or planned for the near future. The final two proposals were 

particularly exhilarating to partisans of manned exploration, since they projected 

139 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

a permanent human outpost on the Moon and subsequent manned expeditions 

to Mars. In the spring of 1987, NASA made a determined step towards lunar and 

martian missions by creating the Office of Exploration to begin planning for these 

programs. NASA's plans for an operational space station, while not crucial for 

these goals, were nevertheless important, since the station could playa major 

role in their support. 

The first technically reasoned studies of a space station began in the late 1930s, 

when Arthur Clarke and his friends in the British Interplanetary Society began 

publishing proposed designs. Rocketry in World War II seemed to make these 

speculations far less sensational to the postwar generation. In March 1952, the 

popular American magazine, Colliers, startled some readers but fascinated others 

with a special edition on space exploration. One of the more dramatic articles 

featured a space station shaped like a huge wheel. 250 feet in diameter. designed 

to rotate in order to provide artificial gravity for the station's inhabitants. 

During the next three decades, variations of the Colliers design and other space 

station structures appeared in a variety of popular and technical journals. Some 

early ideas, like the need for artificial gravity, persisted for a long time before 

finally disappearing (except for special requirements like centrifuge experiments). 

Others, like modular structures, free flying "taxis," and a stationary facility for 

zero gravity activities remained staples of space station thinking. With the organi~ 

zation of NASA in 1958, space station planning took on a more practical aspect as 

part of a national commitment to space exploration. Within two years of its 

founding, NASA had organized a committee within the Langley Research Center 

to study technology required for space stations. 

The process of deciding the design of a space station and its uses consumed 

over two decades and several million dollars. A significant milestone occurred in 

January 1984, when President Ronald Reagan endorsed the Space Station Free~ 

dom program in his State of the Union message. Meanwhile, NASA and contractor 

space station studies proceeded through several variations before one design was 

designated by NASA as the "baseline configuration." This structure, which 

emerged during 1987 88, was scaled down in size because of budgetary con~ 

straints and the reduced number of Shuttle flights after the loss of the Challenger.A 

primary concern was to put a station in operation by the mid 1990s. At the same 

time, NASA publicized what it called a phased approach, giving the agency an 

option for adding several large components once the basic space station was in 

place. The revised baseline configuration called for a horizontal boom about 360 

feet long, with pairs of solar panels at each end to generate 75 kilowatts of power. 

At the center of the boom, four pressurized modules, linked together. provided the 

focus of manned operations in a 220 mile orbit above the Earth. The American 

space station initiative included an invitation to foreign partners to share in its 

planning and operation; refining the details of this partnership engaged nego~ 

tiators from the United States, Canada, Japan, and the ESA over the next four 

years. The toughest negotiations involved ESA. The Europeans wanted to insure 

free access to the space station and to guarantee some technology transfer in 

return for their contributions to station development. The foreign partners also 

140 
NEW DIRECTIONS (since 1986) 

One of the many studies for the Space Station. Solar power panels at each end of the elongated truss 

structure supply electricity for the cluster of living and science modules at the center. Lab work will 

emphasize microgravity experiments in pharmaceutical research, development of ffawless crystals for 

advanced supercomputers, and life sciences investigations such as study of the behavior of living cells. 

strenuously resisted plans for significant space station activities by the American 

armed services. The United States and its international partners agreed to limit 

space station uses to "peaceful purposes," as determined by each partner for its 

own space station module. The final documents were signed by ESA. Japan, and 

Canada in September 1988. The United States was responsible for a laboratory 

module and a habitation module for the crew. The Europeans and Japanese were 

each responsible for the two additional laboratory/experimental modules; Canada was to supply a series of mobile telerobotic arms for servicing the station and 

handling experimental packages. Plans called for eventual use of manned and 

unmanned free-flying platforms for special missions away from the station. 

Eventually, the station might add solar-dynamic power generators and two vertical spines, located on either side of the module cluster and joined by upper and 

lower booms, providing additional attachment points for external scientific 

equipment. 

Aeronautics 

Aeronautical research proceeded along several lines. The Grumman X-29 began 

flying additional missions to test upgraded instrumentation systems. With Air 

Force cooperation, a considerably modified F-l11 carried out flight tests using a 

Mission Adaptive Wing, in which the wing camber (the curve of the airfoil) 

141 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

One version of the NASA developed propfan, mounted on a production airliner for ffight tests. 

automatically changed to permit maximum aerodynamic efficiency. With the 000, 

NASA launched development of a hypersonic aircraft, the X-30, tagged with the 

inevitable acronym: NASP, for National Aero-Space plane. Plans called for a 

hydrogen fueled aircraft that would take off and land under its own power. The 

plane would streak aloft at Mach 25, and be able to operate in a low Earth orbit 

much like the Shuttle, or cruise within the Earth's atmosphere at hypersonic 

speeds of Mach 12. Its ability to sprint from America to Asia in about three hours 

encouraged the news media to refer to it as the "Orient Express." A series of 

developmental contracts awarded during 1986 and 1987 focused on propulsion 

systems and certain aircraft components; an experimental, interim test plane was 

several years away. 

Other flight research represented a totally different regime of lower speeds and 

emphasis on fuel efficiency. Even though jet fuel prices dropped in the mid-1980s, 

the cost was still five times the amount in 1972, and represented a significant 

percentage of operating costs for airlines. For that reason, airlines and transport 

manufacturers alike took an intense interest in a new family of propfan engines 

142 
NEW DIRECTIONS (since 1986) 

sparked by NASA's earlier Aircraft Energy Efficiency Program. Using a gas turbine, 

the new engine featured large external fan blades that were swept and shaped so 

that their tips could achieve supersonic velocity. This would allow the propfan to 

drive airliners at jet like speeds, but achieve fuel savings of up to 30 percent. 

Different trial versions of multi bladed propfan systems were in flight test begin~ 

ning in 1986, with operational use projected by the early 1990s. 

Investigation of rotary wing aircraft continued, even as the experimental XV 15 

tilt rotor craft evolved into the larger 22 Osprey, built by Boeing Vertol and Bell 

Helicopter for the armed services. A joint program linked the United Kingdom, 

NASA. and the DoD for investigation of advanced short takeoff and vertical~ 

landing aircraft. Based on the sort of concept used in the British Harrier "iump~ 

jet" fighter, designers began wind tunnel tests of aircraft that could fly at super~ 

sonic speed while retaining the Harrier's renowned agility. 

Several new NASA facilities promised to make significant contributions to 

these and other futuristic NASA research programs. NASA's Numerical Aero~ 

dynamic Simulation Facility, located at Ames and declared operational in 1987, 

relied on a scheme of building block supercomputers capable of one billion 

calculations per second. For the first time, designers could routinely simulate the 

three-dimensional airflow patterns around an aircraft and its propulsion system. 

The computer facility permitted greater accuracy and reliability in aircraft design, 

reducing the high costs related to extensive wind tunnel testing. At Langley, a new 

National Transonic Facility permitted engineers to test models in a pressurized 

tunnel in which air was replaced by the flow of supercooled nitrogen. As the 

nitrogen vaporized into gas in the tunnel. it provided a medium more dense and 

viscous than air, offsetting scaling inaccuracies of smaller models-usually with 

wing spans of three to five feet-tested in the tunnel. 

Nonetheless, large tunnel models and full sized aircraft still provided critical 

information through wind tunnel testing. For years, the world's largest tunnel was 

a 40 x 80 foot closed circuit tunnel located at Ames. It was a low speed tunnel 

(about 230 MPH), but its size permitted tests of comparatively large scale models 

of aircraft. As Ames became more involved in tests of helicopters and new 

generations of V/STOL aircraft. the need for a full size , low speed tunnel became 

more apparent. The result was a new tunnel section, built at an angle to the 

existing 40 x 80 foot structure. Completed in 1987, the addition boasted truly 

monumental dimensions, with a test section 80 feet high and 120 feet wide, three 

times as large in cross section as the parent tunnel. Overall. the new structure was 

600 feet wide and 130 feet high. The original tunnel's fans were replaced with six 

units that increased available power by four times and raised the speed of the 

original tunnel from 230 to 345 MPH. 

The new addition, with a speed of 115 MPH, was an open circuit tunnel. using 

one leg of the original tunnel as the air was drawn through the bank of six fans. The 

very large cross section of the 80 x 120 tunnel minimized tunnel wall boundary 

effects, which could seriously distort tests of full sized helicopters and V/STOL 

aircraft. Although the tunnels could not be run simultaneously, technicians could 

set up one test section while the other was in operation. 

143 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Spinoff 

NASA had evolved into an agency of a myriad activities. During the peak of 

Apollo program research in the 1960s, NASA became committed to the "spinoff" 

concept-space technology and techniques with other applications. A series of 

organizational efforts to publicize and encourage practical application of new 

technologies had been consistent ever since. The Apollo era's legacy included 

considerable biomedical information and physiological monitoring systems, 

developed for manned space flight. that enjoyed widespread implementation in 

hospitals and medical practice generally. In other areas, development of the 

Saturn launch vehicles prompted widespread improvements in bonding and 

handling exotic alloys, cryogenic applications, and production engineering. 

The energy crunch of the 1970s prompted NASA to consider ways of transferring 

its considerable expertise in insulation materials, solar energy, heat transfer, and 

similar topics to the market place. In the process of analyzing a completely 

different problem, an investigation into the problems of hydroplaning (the tend~ 

ency of aircraft tires to skid on wet runways) resulted in the technique of grooving 

runway surfaces. Similar treatment of high speed highways was an obvious 

application; all this led to something called the International Grooving and 

Grinding Association, a conglomeration of some 30 obviously specialized com~ 

panies in America, Europe, Japan, and Australia. Such an association might sound 

amusing, but their treatment of airports, highways, sidewalks, warehouse floors, 

and industrial sites has demonstrably enhanced industrial and human safety. 

In the energy~CQnscious era of the 1970s, NASA's operational experience found many new applications. 

This prototype water heater, warmed by solar cells, was installed on a home in Idaho. 

144 
NEW DIRECTIONS (since 1986) 

In a different context, NASA developed an entity called the Computer Software 

Management and Information Center, known by a singularly impressive acronym, 

COSMIC. Managed by the University of Georgia, COSMIC represented over 1400 

NASA computer programs that were either directly applicable to customer needs 

or might be modified for specific requirements. The COSMIC library had provided 

answers for structural analysis as well as vehicular design; developed layouts for 

complex electronic circuitry; assisted architects in assessing energy requirements 

and reducing plant noise, and so on. Patrons of COSMIC thus saved invaluable 

time and millions of dollars by using available programs rather than developing a 

new one or risking serious design flaws by doing without. 

These and other programs represented a significant NASA contribution to 

economic and commercial development. The "commercialization of space," a 

theme of President Ronald Reagan's space policy in the late 1980s, promised 

many more benefits stemming from renewed Shuttle missions and an operational 

space station. Advantages in metallurgy, biology, and medicine seemed the 

likeliest to be realized in the near future. These programs implied more and more 

reliance on manned flight. a situation that continued to disturb the practitioners 

of space science, underscoring a dichotomy in the nation's program that has 

perSisted for many years. 

In 1980, NASA's budget stood at $5 billion, and rose to $10.7 billion for the 1989 

fiscal year. Manned space flight accounted for over half of that budget. while space 

science accounted for $1.9 billion, or about 18 percent. This share of funding for 

A computerized structural analysis program perfected by NASA was used in the development of the 

Beechcraft Super King Air business plane. 

145 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

With the launch ofSTS-26 (29 September 1988), the Space Shuttle Discovery marked NASA's first 

manned mission since the loss of Challenger and its crew two years earlier. 

space science reflected a consistent pattern over the years, averaging about 20 

cents of each NASA dollar. Critics of the space program often cited this difference 

in funding, and grumbled that so many Shuttle flights were scheduled for military 

missions. This fact, coupled with the need of 20 or more Shuttle missions to 

deliver space station components into orbit. meant fewer potential space science 

payloads. Critics also pOinted out that the cost per pound of Shuttle missions 

exceeded early projections by a considerable margin, undercuttir,g the original 

arguments in favor of the manned launch system. The Air Force had already, in the 

early 1980s, begun development of a family of expendable launchers, to reduce 

costs and provide alternatives to the possibility of a grounded Shut tie fleet. Many 

foreign customers found it economical to rely on the Ariane 1(lUnch vehicle, 

operated under the authority of the ESA. NASA itself planned to w,e a new series 

146 
NEW DIRECTIONS (since 1986) 

of expendable launch vehiCles to complement the Shuttle. Complicating the 

picture was the potential competition from a new Soviet shuttle vehicle, while 

ESA also had plans for a similar reusable spacecraft. Finally, the U.S. space 

commercialization policy prompted several U.S. companies to plan a variety of 

privately designed and built launch vehicles, which would also compete with 

NASA's own rocket launchers and the Space Shuttle. 

In 1990, the 75th anniversary of its founding as the NACA. the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is a robust and diverse agency, experiencing 

continuing challenges in a diversified environment of air and space that it has 

helped to create. 

147 

SUMMARY 
 

During the halcyon era between World War I and World War II, the NACA's work 

on airfoils, engine cowlings, icing, and other problems drew the attention of 

aeronautical engineers around the world. There were also institutional changes, 

especially in the 1930s, when the agency became more attuned to industry trends 

and became more politically aware in its interaction with congressional commit~ 

tees . World War II brought the most dramatic changes : research geared to 

national security; growth from one small facility to three spacious centers sited 

coast to coast ; and ballooning budgets and personnel rosters. For all its suc~ 

cesses, the agency also lost some of its luster as European advances in gas 

turbines and high speed flight received postwar attention. 

The postwar era entailed Cold War tensions and national security budgets that 

promoted advanced flight research . The NACA flourished. Cooperative programs 

with the mil itary brought the x~ 1 and ~ 15 into being. These programs also moved 

the NACA out of the tradition of research and flight testing by adding respon ~ 

sibilities for design and program management as well . The old "advisory" commit~ 

tee had become a major R&D bureaucracy. 

The shock of the successful Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957 altered the NACA 

forever. Granted billion~dollarbudgets by Congress, the new NASA was thrust into 

an international spotlight as America's answer to the Soviet Union for leadership 

in space exploration. With four new Centers, NASA rapidly developed skills in the 

novel field of astronautics. Personnel also had to build new ski lls as managers of 

huge budgets and mature aerospace contractors scattered across the continent. 

The spotlight of the space race also intensified the agency's problems when 

projects missed deadlines and when astronauts died. Still. Apollo was a suc~ 

cessful effort and an historic achievement. While issues of American and Soviet 

competition for global influence colored the origins of the program and the 

triumphant voyage of Apollo 11. the new awareness of the fragile existence of Earth 

within our universe also fostered a promising spirit of international cooperation. 

149 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

The post-Apollo era was not necessarily clear in terms of missions and purpose. 

The sense of urgency that spurred Apollo had dissipated. In aeronautics, NASA 

made sure progress in hypersonic flight and began highly beneficial programs to 

control pollution, reduce engine noise, and enhance fuel economy-programs 

that assumed growing importance in an environmentally conscious society. In 

astronautics, the Space Shuttle was a fascinating program, although critics maintained that it was a complex system with no major or scientific mission to justify 

its expense. A proposed Space Station, which would absorb numerous Shuttle 

flights, was plagued by budget issues; it was not expected to be operational until 

some time in the 1990s. 

Meanwhile, the loss of Challenger in 1986 underscored the risk of relying so 

heavily on the Shuttle at the expense of expendable launch vehicles. Reorganizing 

priorities for military and civil payloads proved to be a frustrating exercise. A 

renewed wave of criticism concerning lower budgets for space science surfaced, a 

reminder of controversies over manned versus unmanned flights that had been 

going on since the early days of the space program. There was also concern 

stemming from various studies that noted the constraining effects that seemed 

endemic to large bureaucracies, as well as the demographic realities of a work 

force-heavily recruited in the !960s-that might lose its sense of adventure as 

the time for retirement loomed. 

In 1990, the 75th anniversary of its origins as the National Advisory Committee 

for Aeronautics, NASA nonetheless appears to be on a steady course. With new 

initiatives in commercial space programs and a broad spectrum of projects for 

applied science and technology in daily life, NASA surely has ventured far from its 

aeronautical origins in 1915. But the dynamics of flight-whether spacecraft or 

aircraft-still pervade the agency's principal activities. Beginning in 1988 with the 

STS-26 mission of the Discovery, manned missions aboard the Shuttle have 

resumed. At the same time, use of expendable launch vehicles have picked up, 

evidence that NASA planners are serious in attempting to broaden their options 

for getting payloads into orbit. Looking ahead, the Hubble Space Telescope is 

only one of many promising ventures in the area of space science and applications. The final agreements for international development of the Space Station 

have been signed. A broad spectrum of international scientific investigations are 

underway. NASA has also joined with the U.S. DoD and the United Kingdom 

pioneers in vertical takeoff and landing aircraft like the Harrier to foster the 

research and technology for an advanced short takeoff and landing aircraft, 

continuing a European connection that dates back to the founding of the agency 

in 1915. The forward swept wing X-29 continues an impressive flight research 

program; elsewhere, the development of low-speed propfan technology promises 

significant gains in fuel efficiency for subsonic airliners of the future. 

The dynamics of flight promise to be just as challenging and fascinating in the 

future as they have been in the past. 

150 
BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY 

Background 

An up-to-date aerospace bibliography prepared by the staff of the National Air 

and Space Museum not only provides an annotated. comprehensive guide to both 

American and international sources but also includes a fine review of other 

bibliographies: Dominick A. Pisano and Cathleen S. Lewis, eds., Ai.r and Space 

History: An Annotated Bibliography (New York: Garland, 1988) For general coverage of 

flight, with emphasis on the years through World War I, see Charles H. GibbsSmith, Aviation: An Historical Survey from Its Origins to the End of World War II (London: 

Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1970, Rev. !985). The American chapter of early 

aeronautics is definitively recounted by Tom D. Crouch, A Dream of Wings: Americans 

and the Airplane, 1875-1905 (New York: Norton, 1981). Joseph J. Corn. The Winged 

Gospel: America's Romance with Aviation. 1900-1950 ( New York: Oxford University Press. 

1983), offers a thoughtful, interpretive analysis. For a combined survey of American aviation and space exploration. see Roger E. Bilstein, Flight in America: From the 

Wrights to the Astronauts (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984-1987). A 

popular and useful survey of astronautics. with numerous illustrations. is Wernher 

von Braun and Fred I. Ordway III, History of Rocketry and Space Travel (New York: 

Thomas Y. Crowell. 1975). A series of scholarly essays with special attention to 

American topics is included in Eugene Emme, ed., The History of Rocket Technology: 

Essays on Research. Development, and Utility (Detroit: Wayne State University Press. 

1964). The Pulitzer prize-winning study by Walter McDougal. The Heavens and the 

Earth: A Political History of the Space Age (New York: Basic Books, 1985), analyzes the 

American and Soviet space programs as part of the Cold War and technocratic 

trends. The NASA History Office has sponsored a series of monographs on air and 

space. most of which are noted below. A complete list of NASA History Series 

titles appears at the end of this book. 

151 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

NACA and Aviation to 1958 

The NACA's origins, technical contributions, and political evolution have been 

thoroughly assessed by Alex Roland, Model Research :The National Advisory Committee 

for Aeronautics, 1915-1958, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing 

Office, 1985). The first volume represents an historical narrative; volume two 

contains annotated documentation. Roland criticizes the po]iticization of the 

agency. James R. Hansen, Engineer in Charge: A History of the Langley Aeronautical 

Laboratory, 1917-1958 (Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1987). 

while covering the same time span, focuses on Langley's research functions. Both 

of these studies have strongly influenced this latest revision of Orders of Magnitude. 

A history of the Lewis Research Center, by Dr. Virginia Dawson, is in progress. The 

organization and early years of NACA's Ames facility are the subjects of Dr. 

Elizabeth A. Muenger, Searching the Horizon : A History of Ames Research Center, 

1940- 1976 (Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985). 

General trends in the aviation industry can be traced in John B. Rae, Climb to 

Greatness : The American Aircraft Industry, 1920-1960 (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 

1968). For specific technical development by individuals and organizations in 

addition to the NACA. see Ronald Miller and David Sawers, The Technical Development of Modern Aviation (New York: Praeger, 1970). The fascinating story of the jet 

engine, and Europe's leadership in this field, can be found in Edward W. Constant 

II. The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 

1980). The monographs by Roland and Hansen, cited above, represent other 

carefully argued viewpoints . 

For an informative look at early rocket societies in America as well as abroad, 

see Frank H. Winter, Prelude to the Space Age:The Rocket Societies, 1924-40 (Washington, 

D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983). On the background of German rocketry 

and Wernher von Braun, see the popularly written study by Frederick I. Ordway III 

and Mitchell R. Sharpe, The Rocket Team (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell. 1979). based 

on extensive interviews. 

For a summary of the NACA's early postwar aerodynamic activities, see Hansen, 

Engineer in Charge.The story of the X-I and the early challenge of the "sonic barrier" 

are detailed in Richard P. Hallion, Supersonic Flight : Breaking the Sound Barrier and 

Beyond (New York: Macmillan, 1972). There are further details in Hallion, On the 

Frontier: Flight Research at Dryden, 1946-1981 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government 

Printing Office, 1984). The story of Michael Gluhareff and the swept wing is 

recounted in an article by the same author, "Lippisch, Gluhareff, and Jones: The 

Emergence of the Delta Planform and the Origins of the Sweptwing in the United 

States," Aerospace Historian , 26 (March 1979): 1-10. 

Origins of NASA through 1969 

A series of NASA-sponsored histories covers the transition of the NACA to the 

new NASA and the progress of the Apollo program. The background ofthe IGY and 

America's initial plans to launch a satellite are the subject of Constance Green 

and Milton Lomask, Vanguard : A History (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institu152 
BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY 

tion Press, 1971). The dramatic transition from the NACA to NASA and the 

difficulties of launching a coherent space program are clearly set out in Lloyd S. 

Swenson, Jr., James M. Grimwood, and Charles C. Alexander, This New Ocean: A 

Histor~ of Project Mercury (Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966). 

Robert L. Rosholt, An Administrative History of NASA, 1958 1963 (Washington, D.C. : 

U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966), details the bureaucratic organization. 

As attention began to focus on possible lunar missions, politics and technology 

played interacting roles, a story that is set out by John M. Logsdon, The Decision to 

Go to the Moon : Project Apolio and the National Interest (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 

1970). Unmanned exploratory missions to the lunar surface are the subject of 

Cargill Hall, Lunar Impact: A History of Project Ranger (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govern~ 

ment Printing Office, 1977). 

Manned launches unquestionably provided drama during the space missions 

of the 1960s.The Mercury program is covered by Swenson, et al., in This New Ocean. 

For the official history of the next manned phase, see Barton C. Hacker and James 

M. Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans :A History of Project Gemini (Washington, D.C. : 

U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977). The Apollo missions (through Apollo 11), 

which formed the centerpiece of America's manned space effort during the 

decade, are the subject of Courtney G. Brooks, James M. Grimwood, and Lloyd S. 

Swenson, Jr., Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft (Washington, 

D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979). The success of Apollo required 

development of a family of large launch vehicles and a sophisticated launch 

complex. These topics are covered in Roger E. Bilstein, Stages to Saturn : A Tech~ 

nological History of the Apolio/Saturn Launch Vehicles (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Govern~ 

ment Printing Office, 1980). and Charles D. Benson and William B. Faherty, 

Moonport : A History of Apollo Launch Facilities and Operations (Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Government Printing Office, 1978). 

Although launches from Cape Canaveral inevitably drew hundreds of thou~ 

sands of enthusiastic spectators, public support of the space program was far 

from unanimous. A number of writers criticized the program as a cynical mix of 

public relations and profit seeking; a massive drain of tax funds away from serious 

domestic ills of the decade; a technological high card in international tensions 

during the Cold War. See, for example, Edwin Diamond, The Rise and Fall of the Space 

Age (Garden City, N.V. : Doubleday, 1964); Amitai Etzioni. The Moondoggle: Domestic 

and International Implications of the Space Race (Garden City NY.: Doubleday, 1964); 

Vernon van Dyke, Pride and Power; the Rationale of the Space Program (Urbana, III.: 

University of Illinois Press, 1964). 

On the other hand, Richard S. Lewis, a highly regarded scientific journalist, has 

written a balanced assessment, The Voyages of Apollo:The Exploration of the Moon (New 

York: Ouadrangle, 1974). Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff (New York: Farrar, Straus and 

Giroux, 1979). is a scintillating essay that emphasizes personalities of the astro~ 

nauts. Although astronauts are not necessarily considered skillful authors, 

Michael Collins, Carr~ing the Fire : An Astronaut's Journeys (New York: Farrar, Straus 

and Giroux, 1974), is an exceptionally welt written memoir that is notable for its 

lucidity, as well as its modesty. 

153 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

The Post..Apollo Years: 1969 .. 1980 

A trio of NASA sponsored monographs deal with the principal programs of the 

early post Apollo era. Edward C. Ezell and Linda Neuman Ezell, Tne Partnersnip:A 

History of the Apollo Soyuz Test Project (Washington, D.C. : u .s. Government Printing 

Office, 1978), is a fascinating record of the negotiations and technical adjustments 

necessary to bring American and Soviet manned spacecraft together in orbit. 

There had been considerable criticism of NASA's emphasis on manned mis~ 

sions, a bias that many observers felt had hindered progress in space science. This 

issue was somewhat ameliorated by the spectacular unmanned Mars probes of 

the late 1970s. The Ezell writing team detailed these actvities in On Mars : Explora~ 

tion of tne Red Planet, 1958-1978 (Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 

1984.) 

There was also a significant volume of space science undertaken in the manned 

missions of Skylab, carefully and skillfully explained by W. David Compton and 

Charles D. Benson, Living and Working in Space:A History of Skylab (Washington, D.C. : 

u.S. Government Printing Office, 1983). 

Science is also an important theme in Clayton R. Koppes, JPL and the American 

Space Program (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), a book that also elucidates 

relationships between NASA and its contractors, including the academic community. Space science is the principal theme of Homer E. Newell. Beyond tne 

Atmospnere: Early Years o/Space Science (Washington, D.C.: National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration, 1980). As a central figure during the years of Vanguard 

through Shuttle plans of the early 1970s, Newell's is a valuable memoir. For a 

recent survey, see Paul A. Hanle and v. Chamberlin, eds., Space Science Comes of Age: 

Perspectives in the History of tne Space Sciences (Washington, D.C. : Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982). 

Elizabeth A. Muenger, Searcning tne Horiwn: A History of Ames Researcn Center, 

1940 1976 (Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985) discusses 

this center's important role in aeronautics as well as astronautics. 

NASA's continuing work in high-speed flight research is chronicled by Richard 

P. Hallion, On tne Frontier: Flignt Researcn at Dryden, 1946-1981 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. 

Government Printing Office, 1984,), a book that covers the 15, lifting bodies, and 

the evolution of the Space Shuttle. 

Jay Miller, The Planes: X-I to 29 (St. Croix, Minn.: Specialty Press, 1983), is a 

useful, heavily illustrated reference work. David A. Anderton, Sixty Years of Aeronautical Researcn, 1917-1977 (Washin!gton, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 

1978). is a concise, well illustrated summary. Although it focuses on Langley and 

offers little interpretation, it is a useful guide to NACA and NASA aviation 

programs. 

NASA in the Shuttle Era 

The NASA History Office is sponsoring a number of projects on various aspects 

of the Space Shuttle, planetary probes, applications satellites, space science, the 

space station, universitylcontractor relations, cultural responses to flight. and so 

154 
BIBLIOGRAPHIC ESSAY 

on. While certain elements of these studies have been shared by the authors at 

professional meetings and NASA colloquia, publication of finished products is 

still pending. In the meantime a variety of NASA publications and other scattered 

sources can be consulted. 

Hallion, On the Frontier, provides an informative survey of high-speed aeronautical experimentation as well as useful flight test information about the 

Shuttle. Howard Allaway, "The Space Shuttle at Work," NASA SP-432 (1980), a 

NASA brcc.hure released on the eve of Shuttle operational nights, nonetheless 

provides good technical background and mission plans. 

The destruction of the Challenger is officially assessed in "Report of the President's Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger" (Washington, D.C. : u.S. 

Government Printing Office, 1968), and offers insights into NASA's political, 

technicaL and managerial characteristics. The agency became the target of many 

critical books and articles that not only dissected the Challenger incident but 

discussed perceived flaws throughout the NASA structure. See, for example, 

Joseph J. Trento, Prescription for Disaster: From the Glory of Apollo to the Betrayal of the 

Shuttle (New York: Crown Publishers, 1987). Alex Roland, "The Shuttle: Triumph or 

Turkey?" Discover, 6 (November 1985): 29-49, a cautionary assessment of the 

Shuttle, appeared three months before Challenger's last mission. 

A sense of NASA's varied efforts in energy research, aeronautics, and space 

science over the past several years can be found in "NASA the First 25 Years, 

1958-1983," NASA EP-182 (1983) . NASA has released numerous brochures pertaining to specific projects and missions. See, for example, "Galileo to Jupiter: Probing 

the Planet and Its Moons," Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL 400-15 (1979); Joseph J. 

McRoberts, "Space Telescope," NASA EP-166 (n.d.). These and a wide range of 

NASA news releases are well illustrated and useful sources. See also NASA's 

colorful and informative annual report, Spinoff (1976 to date), which includes 

programs that either are being applied or may be put to use. 

155 

INDEX 
 

Abbott, Ira, 48 

Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA), 48 

Advent, 56 

Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. See 

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 

Agena, 68, 69, 74, 75,77 

Agriculture and Resources Inventory Surveys 

through Aerospace Remote Sensing 

(AgRISTARS), 116 

Air Commerce Act of 1926, 11, 12 

Aircraft Energy Efficiency Program, 117 

"Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory." See 

Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory 

Air Transport Command, 23 

Aldrin, Edwin E., Jr., 77, 90 ill., 91 

Allen, H. Julian, 44 

American Aeronautical Society, 2 

American Rocket Society (formerly American 

Interplanetary Society), 28, 29 

American Telephone and Telegraph Company 

(AT&T), 56, 64 

Ames, Joseph, 25 

Ames Aeronautical Laboratory (Ames Research 

Center), 25, 26, 44, 50,53, 56, 66, 84, 105, 118, 

119, 121, 123, 143 

Apollo, 40, 52, 60-65, 68-71, 73-75, 77-81, 87, 

101, 102, 107; Apollo 4, 88; Apollo 6 through 

11, 88-91; Apollo 12 through 17, 98-100; 

Apollo fIre, 80; Apollo-Soyuz Test project 

(ASTP), 107; phase out 93, 98-100 

Applications Technology Satellites (ATS), 66 

Ariane (launch vehicle), 146 

Ariel/, 64 

Armstrong, Neil A., 74, 90 ill., 91 

Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), 43, 44, 

47, 54; Development Operations Division, 54 

Arnold, H.H. "Hap," 32, 33 

astronauts, 39, 57, 58 ill., 63, 64, 71, 74-81, 

88-91,98-100, 102, 107, 116, 132 

Atlantis, 132 

Atlas, 43, 44, 55, 63 ill., 68, 78; Atlas-Centaur, 

56, 137 

Atomic Energy Commission, 47, 48, 55 

autogyro, 19, 20 ill. 

B-17 Flying Fortress, 20, 24, 43 

B-29 Superfortress, 27, 38, 39,43 

B-47, 34, 36 

B-52, 124, 125 

B-58 Hustler, 41 

Bean, Alan L., 98 

Becker, John, 22, 50 

Beech 0-18, 24 

Beechcraft Super King Air (business plane), 145 ill. 

Beggs, James, 135 

Bell, Lawrence, 37,38 

Bell Aircraft Corporation, 50, 51, 54; Helicopter 

Textron, 119, 143; X-lA, 40 ill.; X-5, 40 ill., 

53; XP-59, 32; XP-59A, 31 

Blagonravov, Anatoliy A., 64 

Blackbird program, 105, 106; SR-71A, 105; 

YF-12, 123 

Bluford, Guion, 132 

Boeing Company, 15, 20, 21, 24, 36, 103, 105, 

119, 127; Boeing 80, 16; Boeing 247,20; Boeing 737,118; Boeing 747,111 ill., 131; Boeing 

767, 117; C-135 (Reduced Gravity Aircraft), 

131; Model 299, 20, 24; Stratoliner (Super 

Guppy), 79 ill.; Vertol 76, 53, 143 

Bomarc (missile), 43 

boost glider, 56 

Braun, Wernher von, 14, 29, 30, 43,46, 54 

Bredt, Irene, 50 

Brezhnev, Leonid, 108 

Busemann, Adolf, 34, 36, 40 

C-8A Buffalo, 119 

C-47,84 

C-135 (Reduced Gravity Aircraft), 131 

C-141 Starlifter, 118, 119 

California Institute of Technology (Caltech), 5, 

54 

Callisto, 114 

Cambridge University, 18 

Canada, 105, 116, 129, 140, 141 

Canadair Challenger, 105 

Canadarm, 133 

Cape Canaveral (Cape Kennedy), Florida, 69, 70, 

73, 80, 89, 134,137, 138. See also Kennedy 

Space Center 

157 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Caproni-Campini (Italian jet), 32 

Carpenter, Scott, 58 ill., 64 

Case Institute of Technology, 48 

Catalina (amphibian), 24 

Catholic University, 3 

Centaur, 55, 71 

Cernan, Eugene A., 76 

Cessna, 24, 84 

Chafee, Roger B., 80 

Challenger, 132-35, 137, 138, 140; explosion, 

134,135 

Chamberlin, James A., 68 

Chance Vought XF4N Corsair, 26 

Chanute, Octave, 1 

Clark University, 12 

Clarke, Arthur, 140 

Collins, Michael, 76, 77, 91 

Columbia, 91, 131, 132 

command module, 91, 99, 131 

command and service module (CSM), 91, 102 

communications, 23, 56, 57, 64-66, 71, 116, 129 

Communications Satellite Corporation (Comsat, 

ComSatCorp), 65, 83,98 

Communications Technology Satellite 1 (CTS 1), 

116 

Concorde SST (Anglo-French), 86, 87, 103, 109 

Cone Crater, 99 

Conrad, Charles P., Jr. ("Pete"), 98, 102 

Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation (later 

Convair), 43 

Convair, 43, 118; B-58 Hustler, 41; Convair 990, 

118; F-I06, 58 ill.; XF-102, 41; XF92-A, 40 ill. 

Cook, Arthur, 24 

Cooper, L. Gordon, 58 ill., 71 

Corporal (missile), 43 

cosmonauts, 57, 107 

Courier program, 56 

cowlings, 9-11, 15, 16,21 

Crippen, Robert, 131, 132 

Curtiss; Hawk, 10, 11 ill.; IN-4 "Jenny," 8; 

P-40,24 

D-18,24 

D-VII,9 

Daniel Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of 

Aeronautics. See Guggenheim Fund 

Dart, 34, 35 

Dassault Falcon, 105 

Debus, Kurt H., 69 

de Havilland; C-8A Buffalo, 119; Comet, 42; 

D.H. 108 Swallow, 39 

de la Cierva, Juan, 19 

Deimos (martian moon), 94 

Delta (rocket), 137, 138 

Descartes area, 100 

Discoverer (research satellites), 44 

Discovery, 132, 133, 146 ill. 

Doolittle, James H., 47 

Douglas Aircraft, 20, 23, 105; DC-I, 20; DC-3 

(military, C-47), 20, 21 ill., 23, 24; DC-4 

(military, C-54), 23; D-558-1 Skystreak, 40 ill. 

41; 

D-558-11 Skyrocket, 40 ill., 41; X-3, 40 ill., 41 

drag reduction, 25 ill., 26, 31, 34, 35, 38,40, 

103, 104, 125 

drag reduction, 25 ill., 26, 31,34,35,38,40, 103, 

104,125 

Draper, C. Stark, 60 

Dryden, Hugh L., 47, 48, 59, 63, 87 

Dryden Flight Research Center, 110, 123. See 

also Ames Aeronautical Laboratory 

Dyna-Soar project (X-20), 56, 84 

Eagle, 91 

Early Bird /, 83 

Earth, 57, 60, 62, 64, 113, 114, 132, 139; atmosphere and magnetosphere, 116, 142; early 

projects and training, 12, 50, 74, 77, 94-103; 

gravitational control, 90; lunar and planetary 

connections, 100, 114, 129; orbiting, 55, 56, 

61, 81, 88, 91, 103, 108, 137, 140; power 

plants, 68; resources program, 96-98, 101, 102, 

118; weather patterns, 49, 97, 117 

Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS), 

96, 97; ERTS 1, 96; ERTS 2, 98. See also 

Landsat 

Echo, 56; Echo /, 57 

Edwards Air Force Base, 38, 50-52, 84, 85, 104, 

105, 123, 131 

Eggers, Alfred J., 44, 56 

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 45, 47, 48 

ELDO (international space organization), 109 

Electronics Research Center, 93 

Engine Component Improvement Program, 117 

Enos (chimpanzee), 63 

Entelpris'e (orbiter), 110, 131 

Esnault-Pelterie, Robert, 14; L 'Astronautique, 14 

ESRO (international space organization), 109, 

110 

ESTEC (international center), 110 

Europa, 114 

European activities, 3, 5, 7, 17,50, 109, 110, 118, 

140 

European Space Agency (ESA), 110, 116, 

137-41, 146, 147; Spacelab, 109 ill., 110, 132, 

133 

158 
INDEX 

Explorer, 44, 47; Explorer 1,46 ill., 47; Explorer 

6, 57; Explorer 18, 71; Explorer-Jupiter, 46 

Experimental Sonic 1 (XS-I). See X aircraft 

extravehicular activity (BV A), 75-78, 100 

F-1, 44, 49, 60, 61 

F-5A,125 

F-8A Crusader, 104 

F-ll,41 

F-14 Tigercat, 53 

F-15, 124 

F-16, 126 

F-16A,125 

F-18 Hornet, 125 

F-86 Sabre, 33 ill., 34, 36 

F-l00 Super Sabre, 41, 42 

F-I06 Delta Dart (successor to F-102), 41 

F-lll (TFX Program), 53, 105, 141 

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), 54, 119, 

128 

Fifth Volta Congress on High-Speed Aeronautics, 18 

Fletcher, James C., 108, 109, 135 

Flight Research Center (FRC), 85 ill., 86, 105, 

106. See also Edwards Air Force Base 

flight tests, 8, 9, 23, 28 ill., 36, 38, 39, 41, 51, 

52,87, 103, 104, 119 

Fokker airliners, 15, 16; Fokker D-VII, 9 

Ford airliners, 15, 20 

Fra Mauro, 99 

France, 25, 83, 87, 103, 129 

Freedom 7, 57 

Friendship 7, 63 

Gagarin, Yuri, 57 

Galilean moons, 114 

Galileo, 96 

Galileo, 118, 139; Galileo II, 118 

Ganymede, 114 

GAW-l,127 

Gemini, 40,52,68,69,74, 77, 78, 101; Gemini I 

through 12,73-77; "Gemini 76," 74 

General Dynamics, 125 

General Electric, 32, 123, 125 

Georgia, University of, 145 

Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite 

(GOES), 128, 138; GOES-5, 128; GOES-6, 

129; GOES-7, 138 

Gennany, 3, 7,12, 14,24,25,29,31,34,36, 125; 

Air Ministry, 32; engineers, 43; Junkers 

JU-287, 33, 125; Me-163, 33; Me-262, 32; V-I, 

32; V-2, 29, 30, 32,43 

Germany, Federal Republic of, 114, 139; Federal 

Aerospace Research Establishment, 133 

Gilruth, Robert R., 44, 49, 59, 89 

Glenn, John H., Jr., 58 ill., 63 

Glenn Curtiss (company), 4 

Glennan, T. Keith, 48, 49, 54 

Global Atmospheric Research Program, 117 

Gloster (experimental jet fighter), 32; E28/39, 

32; Meteor, 32 

Gluhareff, Michael, 34, 35 

Goddard, Robert, 1, 12-14,28,29; A Method of 

Attaining Extreme Altitudes, 12; Liquid Propellant Rocket Development, 14 

Goddard Space Flight Center, 48, 97 ill. 

Gordon, Richard F., Jr., 77 

Gottingen, University of, 3, 7, 32 

"Grand Tour of the Solar System," 129 

Great Britain, 3, 10, 12, 25, 31, 32, 53, 87, 103, 

129, 143; British Air Ministry, 31; British Interplanetary Society, 28, 140; British National 

Physical Laboratory, 7; Royal Air Force 

(RAF), 9,31,32; SE-5A, 9 

Great Red Spot, 95 ill., 96, 115 ill. 

Great Rift Valley, 114 

Great War. See World War I 

Grissom, Virgil I., 58 ill., 63, 80 

Grumman; F-11, 41; F-14 Tigercat, 53; 

Gulfstream, 131; Hellcat, 24; X-29, 125, 126, 

141; XF-4F Wildcat, 24, 26 

Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory, California 

Institute of Technology (GALCIT), 29 

Guggenheim Fund, 5, 6, 13 

H-1 engine, 78 

Hadley-Apennines area, 100 

Hadley Rille, 99 ill., 100 

Halley's Comet, 137 

Hampton, Virginia, 21 

Harrier (British), 143 

Hawks, Frank, 11 

He-178 (1st gas turbine), 32 

Heat Capacity Mapping Mission, 117 

Helios 2, 114 

Herschel, William, 129 

High Altitude Continuous Tracking Radar 

Range (High Range), 51 

high-energy astronomy observatories (HEAO) , 

116,; HEAO 1 through 3, 116 

Highly Maneuverable Aircraft Technology 

(HiMAT), 123, 124 ill., 125 

High-Speed Flight Station, 38n, 50 

HL-IO, 85 ill. 

Hofton, James van, 133 

Holmes, D. Brainerd, 61, 77 

159 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Houbolt, John c., 61 

Houston, Texas, 69, 100 

Hubble Space Telescope, 138 ill., 139 

Hughes Aircraft Company, 56, 64 

Hunsaker, Jerome c., 3, 7 

Huntsville, Alabama, 43, 46 

Hyper III, 123 

hypersonic flight, 50-54, 142 

icing and deicing, 18, 19,21 ill., 22 

Ide, John Jay, 7, 24 

Imperial Military Engineering College, 34 

Infrared Astronomical Satellite, 129 

intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), 43, 86 

International Civil Aviation Organization, 118 

International Geophysical Year (IGy), 44 

International Grooving and Grinding Association,l44 

International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE), 116; 

ISEE 1 through 3, 116 

International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium (Intelsat), 65, 83, 129; Intelsat 4, 66; 

Intelsat 5, 66 

International Ultraviolet Explorer (lUE) , 116 

10 (Jupiter's moon), 95, 114, 115 ill. 

Iron Curtain countries, 83 

Italy, 24, 32 

J-2 engine, 78, 79 

J-5 Whirlwind engine, 15 

J85 engine, 123 

Jacobs, Eastman, 17, 18,32 

Japan, 137, 140, 141 

JATO Uet-assisted takeoff), 29 

"Jeep" Uet propulsion test bed), 32 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 43, 44, 47,54, 

64, 119, 129, 139 

IN-4 "Jenny," 8 

Johnson, Oarence "Kelly," 105 

Johnson, Lyndon B., 46, 47, 58, 59, 73, 74, 80, 81 

Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, 47 

Jones, Robert T., 35, 36 

Junkers JU-287, 33, 125 

Jupiter (missile), 43, 44 

Jupiter (planet), 95,96, 114, 115 ill., 139 

Karman, Theodore von, 5 

Kennedy, John F., 57-59, 63, 71, 73, 83 

Kennedy Space Flight Center, 70 ill., 102, 111, 

131,135 

Kerwin, Joseph P., 102 

Khrushchev, Nildta, 63 

Killian, James R., 47 

Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, 2 

Kohoutek (comet), 102 

Korean conflict, 36 

Kotcher, Ezra, 37 

Kuiper Airborne Observatory, 119 

Kummersdorf, Germany, 29 

landing gear, 15, 16, 20, 26, 84, 135 

Landing Loads Track Facility, 42 

Landsat (formerly Earth Resources Technology 

Satellite); Landsat 1, 98; Landsat 2, 98; 

Landsat 3, 116; Landsat 4,97 ill., 129; Landsat 

5, 129 

Langley, Samuel Pierpont, 1,2,4 

Langley (aircraft carrier), 12 

Langley Field, 5,23 

Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, 

4-10, 15-17, 19,20,22-28,32,36,37,39,49, 

50, 53, 54, 61, 84, 104, 105 

Langley Research Center, 80, 119, 140 

Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment, 116 

Launch Complex 39,88,89 

Launch Operations Center, 69, 70, 73. See also 

Kennedy Space Center 

launch vehicles, 49, 55-57, 61, 71, 80, 144, 146 

Learjet, 118, 119, 127 

Lewis, George W., 5, 6, 26, 35 

Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory, 25,26,48 

Lewis Research Center, 87, 105, 118 

Lexington (aircraft carrier), 12 

Liberty Bell 7, 63 

Lifting body, 56, 84-86 

Lilienthal, Otto, 1 

Lindbergh, Charles, 11, 13,24,25,57, 71 

Lockheed Aircraft, 11; Air Express, 11; C-141 

Starlifter, 118, 119; F-I04 Starfighter, 42; P-38 

Lightning, 24, 28 ill., 36; "Skunk Works," 

105; XF-12A, 105; XP-80, 33 

Long Duration Exposure Facility, 133 

Low, George M., 59, 89, 107 

lunar exploration, 12, 59-62, 64, 68, 73, 88-91, 

99,100 

lunar modules, 49, 60--65, 79-81, 90 ill., 91, 98, 99 

Lunar Orbiter, 68, 82 

Lunar Receiving Laboratory, 100 

lunar rover, 99 ill., 100 

M2, 84, 85 ill., M2-Fl, 84, 85; M2-F2, 85; 

M2-F3,85 

Mach, Ernst, 35 

Mach speeds, 35, 36, 38, 39, 411 50, 53, 85-87, 

103-06, 132, 142 

Magellan (mission), 139 

160 
INDEX 

Magsat,117 

Manhattan Project, 59 

manned space travel, 30, 49, 56--59, 63, 64, 68, 

73,79-81,88-91, 100, 107, 108, 144, 145; first 

space walk, 76, 80 

Manned Spacecraft Center, 69 

Mariner, 82; Mariner 2, 64; Mariner 4, 82; 

Mariner 5, 82; Mariner 6, 93; Mariner 7, 93; 

Mariner 9, 94; Mariner 10, 96 

Maritime Administration, 66 

Mark, Hans, t 19 

Mars, 49, 82,83,93,98, 100, 108, 112-14, 139 

Marshall Space Flight Center, 78 

Martin, 24; X-24A, 85 

Martin-Marietta Corporation, 67 ill. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2, 3, 5, 60 

Matador (missile), 43 

Mathews, Charles W., 69 

Max Planck Institut fur Physik und Astrophysik, 

119 

McAuliffe, Christa, 134 

McCook Field, Ohio, 5, 23 

McDonnel-Douglas, 73, 124, 125, 127; F-15, 

124; F-18 Hornet, 125; MD-80, 117 

McNamara, Robert S., 59 

Mead, George, 27 

medical developments, 42, 66, 67, 102, 103, 134, 

145 

Merbold, Ulf, 132 

Mercury, 40, 52, 57, 60, 63, 64, 68, 69, 71; 

Mercury-Atlas, 63; Project Mercury, 49, 50, 56, 

59,61 

Mercury (planet), 96 

Merritt Island, 70 

Messerschmitt, 34 

Michoud Ordnance Plant, 69 

Microwave Landing System, 118 

Midas (missile early-warning satellite), 44 

Minuteman (ballistic missile), 78 

Miranda, 129, 130 

missiles, 43, 44 

Mississippi Test Facility, 69 

Mitchell, William "Billy," 5 

Moffett Field, California, 25 

Mojave Desert, California, 38 

Molniya (satellite), 83 

Mueller, Geroge E., 77, 78, 80 

multimission design, 52 

Munk, Max, 7, 17, 35 

Muroc Army Air Field, 38, 50. See also Edwards 

Air Force Base 

Muroc Flight Test Unit. See High-Speed Flight 

Station 

National Academy of Sciences, 44 

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics 

(NACA), 1, 3; budget, 4, 43; Committee on 

Aeronautics, 50; first lO-year plan, 49, 54, 58; 

origins, 1-14; Physical Research Division, 17; 

Power Plants Committee, 27 

National Aeronautic Association, 9 

National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 

(p.L. 85-568), 48 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 

(NASA), 8, 9, 12, 48; Aircraft Energy 

Efficiency Program, 143; budget, 49, 56, 58, 

59,69,71, 77, 81, 93, 100, 108, 110, 145; Computer Software Management and Information 

Center (COSMIC), 145; directions, 54, 65; 

Headquarters, 49, 60, 64, 84, 85; Numerical 

Aerodynamic Simulation Facility, 143; Office 

of Education, 140; origins, 48-50; 75th 

anniversary, 147 

National Aero-Space Plane (NASP), 142 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 66, 98,116, 129; NOAA 6, 117; 

NOAA 7, 129; NOAA 8, 129 

national security, 26 

Navaho (missile), 43 

Naval Appropriation Bill, 3 

Nelson, George, 133 

Neptune, 114, 129 

Nerva, 55 

Netherlands, 129 

Nimbus, 83; Nimbus 4, 117; Nimbus 5, 66; Nimbus 7, 117 

Nixon, Richard M., 108, 109 

Norfolk, Virginia, 4 

North American, 51; F-86 Sabre, 33 ill. 34, 36; 

F-l00 Super Sabre, 41-42; P-51 Mustang, 18, 

24,35; XB-70, 42,86 ill., 103; XP-46, 36 

Northrop, 38, 85; F-5A, 125; X-4, 40 ill. 

Nova, 55 

NRX-A6 (reactor), 88 

Oberth, Hermann, 14 

Ocean of Storms, 98 

Ohain, Hans von, 32 

"Operation Paperclip," 36 

orbital workshop. See Skylab 

Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO), 93; 

OAO 2, 93, 94 ill. 

Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (OGO), 94 

Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO), 93,94 

Orbiter, 130-32, 138 ill. 

O-rings, 135 

]6] 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

P-40,24 

P-47,24 

P-51 Mustang, 18, 24, 35 

P-59,52 

Paine, Thomas 0., 107-10 

Palapa B 2P, 138 

Pan American Airways (pan Am), 11, 23 

Pasadena, California, 54 

Pavavia Tornado, 109 

PCA-2,19 

Peenemuende, Gennany, 29 

Pegasus (satellite), 78 

Phillips, Samuel c., 80 

Phobos (martian moon), 94 

Pickering, William H., 46 ill. 

Pilotless Aircraft Research Division (PARD), 39, 

40 

Pilcher, Percy, 1 

Pinecastle Field, Florida, 38 

Pioneer, 44, 82, 114, 119, 129; Pioneer 5, 57; 

Pioneer 10, 94, 95; Pioneer 11, 95, 96, 114 

Piper Cub 1-3, 24 

Piper Twin Comanche, 123 

Pitcairn, Harold, 19 

Pitcairn autogyro, 119-20 

Pitcairn PCA-2, 19 

planetary probes, 49, 129 

Pluto, 95 

Polaris, 43 

Prandtl, Ludwig, 3, 7 

Project Porcupine, 119 

propellants, 14,29,31,38,54,55,60,61,68, 79, 

87, 88, 111, 143; fuel efficiency, 117; jet 

propulsion, 31-33; propfan, 142 ill.; Propulsion Assist Module (PAM), 132; Project Porcupine, 119 

Quesada, E.R., 54 

Quiet Short-Haul Research Aircraft, 119 

Quimby, Harriet, 3 

Ranger, 64, 68 

Rayleigh, Lord, 3 

Reaction Motors, Incorporated, 38 

Reagan, Ronald, 135, 140, 145 

Redstone (missile), 43, 55, 57 

Redstone Arsenal, 43 

Reduced Gravity Aircraft (C-135), 131 

Reed, Robert, 84 

Relay (communications satellite), 56, 64 

remote manipulation system (RMS), 133 

Republic; P-47, 24; XP-47 Thunderbolt, 26 

research and research facilities, 2-14, 16, 19,20, 

22-26, 37, 44, 49, 84-88, 123, 142; airfoil, 9, 

17-19,21, 104, 127; energy, 67, 68; helicopter, 

119, 143; high-speed, 50, 53, 54; hypersonic, 

103-06; military, 22-24; reconnaissance, 105; 

research airplane, 56, 104; space science, 

128-30, 133, 134, 145, 146; supersonic, 31-49, 

54; transonic, 103-06 

Ride, Sally, 132, 139 

Robert H. Goddard Space Flight Center. See 

Goddard Space Flight Center 

Robert 1. Collier Trophy, 9 

rocketry, 1, 12-15,28-30,45, 128-30, 139 

Rockwell XB-70 Valkyrie, 42, 86, 103 

Rodgers, Calbraith P., 3 

Rogallo, Francis, 69 

Rogers, William, 135 

Rogers Commission, 135 

Rogers Dry Lake, California, 38, 39 

Rosny, 1.1.,14 

Roswell, New Mexico, 13 

Royal Air Force (RAF). See Great Britian 

Russia. See Soviet Union 

Ryan, 54 

S-IVB,101 

safety, 6, 22, 52, 74, 107, 144 

St. Luke's Hospital, 67 ill. 

Samos (reconnaissance satellite), 44 

Sanger, Eugen, 50 

Saratoga (aircraft carrier), 12 

Sarsat-Cospas network, 129 

satellites, 44, 49, 55-57, 64-68, 71, 78, 82, 84, 

110, 116, 117. 129-35; applications, 66, 83; 

communications, 56, 57, 71, 129, 138; Earth 

resources, 83, 96, 98; environmental, 138; 

navigational, 83; scientific, 49, 71, 81, 128-30; 

tracking network, 55 ill.; weather, 49, 57, 83, 

117, 137 

Saturn, 54, 55, 144; Saturn I, 62 ill. 64, 71, 78; 

Saturn IB, 61, 62 ill., 78-81, 88, 89,102; Saturn V 

(Advanced Saturn), 69, 70, 78, 79, 81, 83, 88, 

89,91, 102 

Saturn (planet), 96, 114, 129 

Schirra, Walter, 58 ill., 64, 74 

Schmitt, Harrison H., 100 

Schneider, William c., 101 

Scott, David R., 99 ill. 

Scout, 55 

SE-5A (British), 9 

Seamans, Robert c., 1r., 58,61,69,80 

Seasat 1, 116 

Sergeant (missile), 43 

162 
INDEX 

Shepard, Alan B., Jr., 57, 58 ill., 63 

Sikorsky, Igor, 34 

Sikorsky Aircraft, 24, 34; UH-34D, 63 ill. 

Silverstein, Abe, 48 

Skylab, 100-03, 107, 108, 114 

Slayton, Donald, 58 ill. 

Smithsonian Institution, 2-4, 12, 14 

SNAP, 55, 88 

Snark (missile), 43 

solar energy, 144 ill. 

Solar Maximum Mission, 114 

Solar Maximum Payload (Solar Max), 133 

sound barrier, 36-39 

Soviet Union, 12, 14, 43, 44, 58, 59, 63, 71, 83, 

87, 107, 116, 118, 129, 137, 147; Academy of 

Sciences, 64; "Cold War," 43; cooperation 

with United States, 107, 108, 129; Group for 

the Study of Reaction Motion (GIRD), 14; 

Tupolev TU-I44, 87, 103 

Soyuz. See Apollo 

Spacelab. See European Space Agency 

Space Shuttle, 84, 85, 98,106,108-12,116,121, 

130-35, 139, 140, 146, 147 

Space Station Freedom Program, 140, 141 ill. 

Space Task Group, 49, 60, 68, 69, 108 

Space Transportation System (STS), 131; STS-5, 

132; STS-II (41-C), 133; STS-14 (51-A), 132; 

STS-16 (51-D), 134; STS-22 (61-A), 132; 

STS-26, 146 ill. 

Sperry Messenger, 10 ill., 15 

Sputnik, 44, 52; Sputnik J, 44, 45, 57; Sputnik 2, 

45,47 

SR-17A Blackbird. See Blackbird program 

Stack, John, 37, 38 

Stanford University, 4 

Stinson, 24; Reliant, 23 

Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment 

(SAGE), 117 

Super Guppy. See Boeing 

Supersonic Cruise Aircraft Research Program, 103 

supersonic transport (SST), 54, 86, 87, 103, 105 

Surveyor, 68, 82; Surveyor 3, 98 

Swallow, 53 

Sweden, 119 

Syncom, 57,83; Syncom 2, 71 

Taurus-Littrow, 100 

telescope, 93, 94, 101, 114, 119 

Telstar, 56; Te/star I, 64 

TFX program. See F-III 

Theodorsen, Theodor, 17, 18 

Thiokol, 135; XLR-99, 51 

Thomas-Morse MB-3, 8 

Thompson, Floyd L., 80 

Thor (missile), 43, 44, 55 

Tilt Rotor Research Aircraft (XV-I 5), 119, 120 ill. 

Tiros (weather satellite), 44, 64, 83; Tiros J, 57; 

Tiros-N, 117 

Titan, 43, 68; Titan II, 69 

Titan (Saturn's moon), 96 

Toys in Space Mission, 134 

Tranquility Base, 90, 91 

Transit (navigation satellite), 44 

Transonic Aircraft Technology (T ACl), 105 

Treaty of Versailles, 29 

Truman, Harry, 43, 58 

Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin, 14 

Uhuru,94 

Ulysses (mission), 139 

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). 

See Soviet Union 

United Aircraft Corporation, 27 

United States, 116, 129, 140, 141; Bureau of the 

Budget, 58, 81; "Cold War," 43; Congress, 

47,49,58,59,64,71,80,81,83,96,97, 103, 

116; cooperation with Soviet Union, 107, 108, 

129; Department of Agriculture, 48, 116; 

Department of Defense (DoD), 43, 47, 49, 54, 

56, 57 98, 133, 142, 143; Department of the 

Interior, 83; Department ofTransportation, 93; 

House of Representatives, 80; National Bureau 

of Standards, 2, 4, 32; Navy Department, 4; 

Senate, 71; Senate Armed Services Committee, 

46, 47; vis-a.-vis other countries, 3, 12, 18, 23, 

33,43,44,47,57-59,63,71, 106; War Department, 2, 4; Weather Bureau, 4, 64, 83 

United States Air Force, 24, 37-39, 42, 43, 49, 50, 

54, 56, 68-70,76,78, 83, 85, 105, 118, 124, 

141, 146; Air Force Museum, 87; Mission 

Adaptive Wing, 141 

United States Army, 4,5,9, 10, 12,22-24,26,43, 

44,49, 53, 54, 78, 119; Air Corps (formerly Air 

Service), 10, 12, 24; Air Corps Enlisted 

Reserves, 26; Corps of Engineers, 60, 70 

United States Navy, 2, 10, 12, 22-24, 26, 43, 44, 

50,54, 68, 104; Bureau of Aeronautics, 8, 10, 

24; Fleet Satellite Communications Spacecraft, 

137; Naval Research Laboratory, 49 

Uranus, 114, 119, 129, 130, 137 

V-I, 32 

V -2, 29, 30, 32, 43 

VE-7,8 

163 
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE 

Valles Marineris, 112 ill. 

van Allen, James A., 46 ill., 47 

van Allen radiation belts, 81 

Vandenberg Air Force Base, 131 

Vanguard, 44-47; Project Vanguard, 49; 

Vanguard 1,47; Vanguard 6,45 ill. 

Venus (planet), 49, 57,64,96, 113, 114, 139 

Venus 1, 129 

Verein fur Raumschiffart (VfR), 14, 28, 29; The 

Girl in the Moon, 14 

Victory, John F., 5, 21 

Vietnam war, 93 

Viking (rocket), 43, 44, 93, 112 ill., 113 

Volta Congress, 34 

Vostok,57; Vostok 1, 57 

Vought; Corsair, 24; F-8A Crusader, 104; 03U, 

17 ill.; VE-7, 8 

Voyager, 82, 93, 114, 128-30; Voyager 1, ll4, 

115 ill., 129; Voyager 2, 114, ll5 ill., 129, 130, 

132, 137 

V/STOL design, ll9, 143 

Walcott, Charles D., 3 

Wallops Island, Virginia, 39, 137 

Warner, Edward Pearson, 7, 23 

weather, 23, 57,64,66 

Webb, James E., 58, 59, 64, 65, 69, 74, 80, 81, 

107 

Weick, Fred E., 10 

Wendover Air Force Base, 52 

Westover, Oscar, 24 

Whitcomb, Richard T., 40, 103 

White, Edward H., Jr., 74, 76, 80 

White Sands, New Mexico, 43, 131 

Whittle, Frank, 31, 32 

Wiesner, Jerome B., 57 

Williams, Walter c., 39, 50 

Wilson, Woodrow, 3,7 

wind tunnels, 7-10, 15-18,27 ill. 34, 36, 39, 104, 

119, 143; free-spin, 19; full scale, 54; fullspeed, 19, 28, 39; propeller research, 10, 15, 

16; refrigerated, 19; Reynolds number, 7; 

variable density (VDT), 7-9, 16-18 

wing technology, 31, 33-37, 104, 117, 119, 127, 

143; forward-swept wings, 125, 126; sweptwing design, 31, 33 ill., 34-36, 39, 52, 125; 

variable geometry wing, 54 

women, 26, 27; flrst woman in space, 132 

Woods, Robert J., 37, 50 

Woods Hole conference, 81 

World War I, 1,3,4, 7, 9, 15 

World War II, 15, 20, 23-32, 36, 43, 50, 140 

Wright brothers, 1, 2, 57 

Wright Field, 37 

Wright J-5 Whirlwind (engine), 15 

Wright Martin Company, 4 

X aircraft, 38-42, X-I (formerly Experimental 

Sonic 1), 38, 39, 50, 52; X-lA, 40 ill.; X-3, 40 

ill., 41; X4, 40 ill.; X-5, 40 ill., 53; X-15, 

50-52, 56; X-20 Dyna-Soar, 56, 84; X-24, 85 

ill.; X-24A, '85; X-29, 125, 126, 141; X-30 

(NASP) , 142 

XB-70 Valkyrie, 86 ill., 87, 103 

XC-142A,54 

XF2A Brewster Buffalo, 25 ill., 26 

XF4F Wildcat, 24, 26 

XF4N Corsair, 26 

XF-12A,105 

XF92-A, 40 ill. 

XF-102, 58 ill. 

XLR-99,51 

XP-46,36 

XP47 Thunderbolt, 26 

XP-59,32 

XP-59A Airacomet, 37 

XP-80,33 

YC-14,105 

YC-15,105 

YF-12 Blackbird, 123 

YF-12A,105 

Yeager, Charles "Chuck," 39 

Young, John, 131, 132 

Zahm, Albert F., 3 

164 
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Ezell, Edward Clinton, and Linda Neumann Ezell, On Mars : Exploration of the Red Planet. 1958-1978 

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Ezell. Edward Clinton, and Linda Neuman Ezell. The Partnerships: A History of the Apollo-Soyuz Test 

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Hall. R. Cargill , Lunar Impact: A History of Project Ranger (NASA SP-4210. 1977). 

Hallion, Richard P., On the Frontier: Flight Research at Dryden , 1946-1981 (NASA SP-4303. 1984). 

Hartman, Edwin P .. Adventures in Research: A History of Ames Research Center. 1940- 1965 (NASA SP-4302, 

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Levine, Arnold, Managing NASA in the Apollo Era (NASA SP-4102. 1982). 

Muenger, Elizabeth A , Searching the Horizon :A History of Ames Research Center, 1940-1976 (NASA 

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166 
About the Author 

Roger E. Bilstein is professor of history at the University of Houston. He is the 

author of Flight Patterns: Trends of Aeronautical Development in the United States, 

1918·1929 and of the official NASA history, Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of 

the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles. 

167