Hugh Dryden's Career

Hugh L. Dryden's

Career in Aviation

and Space

by

Michael H. Gorn

NASA History Office

Code ZH

NASA Headquarters

Washington, DC 20546

Monographs in

Aerospace History

Number 5

1996

MONOGRAPHS IN AREROSPACE HISTORY #5
Hugh Dryden's Career

Foreword

This account of the life of Dr. Hugh Latimer Dryden is especially appropriate now. The NASA Hugh

L. Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) was named in his honor exactly 20 years ago. This year we

also celebrate 50 years of flight research here. It is fitting that people associated with the Center, with

NASA as a whole, and those outside of NASA who are interested in the history of aviation and space,

be reminded of Hugh Dryden’s enormous contributions.

Hugh Dryden was a research scientist of the highest order, an aeronautics pioneer, the Director of the

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and then the first NASA Deputy Administrator. Dr. Hugh Dryden’s special relationship to the Dryden Flight Research Center goes far beyond its

name. Among Hugh Dryden’s first actions after becoming the NACA’s Director of Research in

September 1947, was to inform Walt Williams, the director of the flight research operation here in

the desert, that the NACA Muroc organization, formed the previous year, would now become a

permanent facility known as the NACA Muroc Flight Test Unit.

Hugh Dryden strongly supported the flight research conducted here with the early rocket-powered

aircraft. He represented the NACA on the interagency Research Airplane Committee that supervised

the beginnings of the critically important X-15 research at the High Speed Flight Station.

As Dr. Gorn recounts, Hugh Dryden had begun work in the transonic region very early in his career,

and in fact it was he who coined the word “transonic,” because no such word existed to describe

speeds at or near that of sound in the early 1920s. Much of the research conducted here at the Center

has concerned transonic flight, so that is another link between Dryden the man and Dryden the

Center.

Dr. Gorn also describes Hugh Dryden’s work with the “crucial transition from laminar to turbulent

flow,” another very important aspect of flight research here at DFRC over the five decades of its

existence. This work continues today in the research being done on the F-16XL to examine Supersonic Laminar Flow Control—a project that would have been dear to the heart of Hugh Dryden.

Finally, Hugh Dryden wrote a description of flight research that has served ever since as the unofficial

motto of the Center that bears his name and, in a very real sense, carries on his work. It separates, he

stated, “the real from the imagined,” and makes known the “overlooked and the unexpected.” That

brief line more effectively describes exactly what we do at the Dryden Flight Research Center than

anything that has been written before or since.

For all of these reasons, I am very glad to have this story of the life of Hugh Dryden appear during the

Dryden Flight Research Center’s anniversary year. We at Dryden will look forward to the full length

biography that Dr. Gorn is preparing to write as a follow-up to this shorter study. This account does

a great service in bringing Hugh Dryden’s accomplishments to light.

Kenneth J. Szalai

Director

Hugh L. Dryden Flight Research Center
Hugh Dryden's Career

Table of Contents

Introduction................................................................................. 1

Early Years.................................................................................... 1

World War II ................................................................................ 5

The NACA Years .......................................................................... 7

The Transition from the NACA to NASA ................................... 11

Early NASA Years ....................................................................... 13

Continued Service in NASA ....................................................... 15

Final Years .................................................................................. 19

Notes ......................................................................................... 21

Key Documents.......................................................................... 25

1. The Nation's Manned Space Flights, 1 October 1965....... 26

2. Joint US-USSR Talks on Cooperative Space Research

Projects, Rome 1963........................................................ 45

3. Hugh L. Dryden to Senator Robert S. Kerr, 22 June

1961. ............................................................................... 66

4. A National Space Program for the United States, Los

Angeles, California, 26 April 1958.................................... 68

5. Scientists of Forty-Six Nations Study the Land, Sea,

and Air Around Us, 16 April 1956. .................................. 83

6. Trends in NACA Research and Development, Los

Angeles, California, 5 October 1951. ............................... 91

7. The Dawn of the Supersonic Age, Berkely 24 May

1948 and Los Angeles 25 May 1948. ............................. 106

8. The Importance of Religion in American Life,

12 March 1950. ............................................................. 123

Index ....................................................................................... 131

Cover photo: NASA Photo EC96 43457-1, bust of Hugh Latimer

Dryden unveiled at the ceremony on March 26, 1976, renaming

the NASA Flight Research Center as the Hugh L. Dryden Flight

Research Center. The bust is a cast of an original bronze by Una

Hanbury, also dating from 1976. The copy now resides in building

4800 of the Dryden Flight Research Center. Photo by Dennis

Taylor.

Design and layout: Steven Lighthill, Visual Information Specialist,

Dryden Flight Research Center
Hugh Dryden's Career

Introduction

Hugh Latimer Dryden led a life rich in paradox. Born in obscurity, he attained international prominence. Indifferent to selfadvancement, he nonetheless rose to the pinnacle of the aeronautics

profession and subsequently assumed a pivotal role in the initial

period of space exploration. Although a research scientist of the first

order, he nurtured within himself a profoundly spiritual outlook.

Early Years

Hugh Dryden began his uncommon journey in remote and

rural Worcester County, Maryland, at the southern tip of the state.

His father, Samuel Isaac Dryden, renounced the farming tradition

common to the Eastern Shore and taught school in Pocomoke City,

one of the county’s few population centers. Inhabited by only

1,000 people in the late 19th century, this working class town on

the quiet Pocomoke River found itself isolated by crude roads and

hard travel from the sophistication of Baltimore and Washington,

D.C. Samuel Dryden married a local woman named Zenovia Hill

Culver, and in an ambitious venture, turned from teaching to

operating a general store at a country crossroads known as West

Post Office. The young couple had three sons; the first was born on

July 2, 1898, and named Hugh Latimer. Raymond followed soon

after, and Leslie was born many years later.1

Like the rest of rural America at the turn of the century, the

people of Worcester County lived in comparative isolation, but

economic forces bound them to national and international financial

events. Depressions often seized the country during the 19th

century and another was suffered in 1901. Like earlier episodes, it

spread extensive unrest and unemployment. In 1907, the nation

experienced yet one more of these temblors when several of the

large New York banks underwent runs on their assets because of

their speculative excesses. To repay depositors, loans were called in

throughout the country, credit contracted everywhere, and many

businesses failed.

Samuel Dryden suffered a hard fate in the Panic of 1907, one

that transformed his family’s fortunes. The elder Dryden had to

abandon his general store and decided to start afresh with his wife

and sons in Baltimore. For him, this move symbolized the end of

ambition; he found work as a streetcar conductor and remained one

the rest of his life.

For young Hugh Dryden, Baltimore opened opportunities that

were unthinkable in Southern Maryland. Indeed, in the big city he

showed extraordinary promise. He entered Baltimore City College

(a high school, despite its name) and received his diploma at age 14,

the youngest ever to graduate. Not merely the youngest, he ranked

first in a class of 172 and won the Peabody Prize for excellence in

mathematics.

If not a prodigy, then certainly highly precocious, the quiet and

diligent student continued to blossom. Despite slender family

resources, he received admission (on scholarship) to Johns Hopkins,

1
Hugh Dryden's Career

the university founded by Baltimore’s famous

Quaker merchant. Dryden proved himself especially gifted in physics and mathematics and began

advanced study with Professor Joseph Ames, an

important figure on campus. Ames not only

headed the Physics Department but also eventually

became President of Johns Hopkins. More important to Dryden’s development, his professor would

one day chair the National Advisory Committee

for Aeronautics (NACA), an institution at the

vanguard of aircraft research. In Dryden, Ames

had discovered a star pupil, whom he called, “the

brightest young man [I] ever had, without exception.” He took his Bachelor’s degree with honors

in three years and in 1918 completed a Masters

thesis etitled “Airplanes: An Introduction to the

Physical Principles Embodied in their Use.” Ames

had introduced Dryden to a subject that would

occupy the rest of his life.2

Certain of Ames’ encouragement and assistance, Dryden decided to work toward his doctorate. Two obstacles blocked the way: lack of money

and the military draft. The United States entered

World War I in April 1917, but only in the desperate Battle of the Marne the following year did American forces

suffer heavy losses. Ultimately, about 50,000 U.S. soldiers died on

or over the fields of France. Dryden faced conscription but was

spared the dangers and disruptions because of age; the Selective

Service Act of 1917 exempted young men until their twenty-first

birthday. He would be safe until July 1919.

Ames found a means by which Dryden could satisfy both his

patriotic instincts and his need for cash. The professor had placed

several of his students at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in

suburban Maryland and in June 1918 found a summer job for

Hugh as an inspector of munitions gauges. Dryden accepted gratefully, expecting to return to school in the fall. While the position

entailed a long train ride each day and a streetcar connection

enroute from Baltimore to the Bureau, it also opened some fine

opportunities. Within weeks, Ames persuaded Dryden to transfer to

the Bureau’s new Aerodynamics Section, at the heart of which

stood one of the nation’s first wind tunnels. More important, the

Johns Hopkins professor now appeared regularly in Washington on

NACA business and took the occasion to offer courses to his NBS

students. Dryden could thus work a full schedule at NBS (for the

salary of $100 a month) and use the wind tunnel for after hours

doctoral research under Ames’ watchful eye.

Dryden wasted no time. In spring 1919, he received the Ph.D.

degree in applied physics, at 20 the youngest person ever to earn a

Johns Hopkins University doctorate. His dissertation, titled “Air

Forces on Circular Cylinders” described the scale effects of air

flowing around columns perpendicular to the wind and launched

him in the rising field of aerodynamics.3

Hugh Dryden at age 17 as he

appeared in the Johns Hopkins

yearbook ca. 1917. (NASA photo

76-H-545 from a Johns Hopkins

Universityoriginal)

2
Hugh Dryden's Career

Not content merely to receive his doctorate and obtain his first

professional position before he could vote, Dryden experienced

equally noteworthy events in 1920. In January of that year, he

married Mary Libbie Travers, a young woman he had met some

years before at Sunday School in the Appold Methodist Church,

Baltimore. Outgoing and fun-loving, she provided counterpoint to

her young husband’s reserved and laconic manner, perhaps somewhat mitigating his ways over the years. At first, they lived in Baltimore, but when he awoke one evening in New Jersey after falling

asleep on the homeward bound train, they decided to relocate their

household to Washington, D.C. Finally, during the same year, he

won promotion to Chief of the Aerodynamics Section and henceforth directed the Bureau’s wind-tunnel research and operations.4

Dryden’s scientific standing rested largely on the theoretical

insights, the experiments, and the publications dating from his first

six years in this position. Very early in his tenure, he selected the

field of high-speed aerodynamics, concentrating on problems

associated with flight at or near the speed of sound. Because almost

no one had yet studied velocities in this range, the choice suggests

the audacity of youth. Indeed, when he began his inquiries in 1920,

the winner of the Schneider Cup Race—a competition among the

fastest aircraft in the world, pressed to their limits—flew at a mere

107 miles per hour.

Nonetheless, working with his friend, mentor, and the future

director of NBS Dr. Lyman Briggs, Dryden sought to unravel the

strange phenomenon known as compressibility. At the time, it

denoted unexplained boundary-layer separation and buffet encountered by propeller tips rotating at very high speeds. The problem

arose as engines of increasing power drove the

blades faster and faster. The Dryden-Briggs

research was conducted at large compressor plants

during the mid-1920s because wind tunnels could

not yet supply the needed velocity. This research

resulted in some of the first experimental observations of aerodynamic drag approaching the speed

of sound, in very early insights regarding the

effects of compressibility on lift and drag, and in

invaluable data for propeller manufacturers designing high velocity airfoils. Dryden and Briggs'

findings also stimulated additional transonic

research and ultimately prompted the construction of supersonic wind tunnels capable of testing

theoretical design concepts applicable not only to

aircraft but later to rockets and missiles. He and

Briggs obtained the first U.S. wind-tunnel data

showing lift and drag for airfoils above the speed

of sound. Thus, the young physicist quickly

established his reputation.

Dryden attracted yet more notice with his

breakthroughs in wind-tunnel design. In the late

1920s, he and A.M. Kuethe, a Bureau colleague,

discovered a dilemma: an airship model had been

Dryden at 30 ca. 1928. (NASA

photo 76-H-546 from a Johns

Hopkins University original)

3
Hugh Dryden's Career

tested at both the NBS wind tunnel and the one at the Navy Yard in

Washington, D.C. The drag data results were 100 percent at odds

with each other.

To quantify accuracy, Dryden and his associate employed a hot

wire anemometer, rigged ingeniously to measure rapid air fluctuations. They discovered that even slight variations in turbulence

inside wind tunnels could cause large experimental discrepancies.

Using the special anemometer, Dryden redesigned existing facilities

to help compensate for such differences and also suggested new

methods of wind tunnel construction that would greatly reduce

incidental turbulence.

His research benefitted from these more nearly accurate and

consistent instruments. These instruments allowed him to observe

with great precision the crucial transition from laminar to turbulent

flow within the boundary layer. The application of more exacting

measurements, in turn, opened the way for wing and propeller

designs that maximized laminar flow, thus reducing drag.5 More

importantly, his findings verified experimentally the pivotal laminar

flow concepts theorized in 1907 by the German Ludwig Prandtl,

thus winning for Dryden wide acclaim among the world’s aerodynamics practitioners.

Yet paradoxically, his daily routine at the NBS increasingly

involved not only basic research but also a wide variety of engineering projects. During the late 1920s, he investigated the effects of

wind pressures on skyscrapers and chimneys. During the early 1930s

he found himself leading a classic Depression-era inquiry on new

materials and techniques for low-cost housing. The young physicist

also became active in automotive streamlining and even researched

water circulation in the plumbing of the Empire State Building.

Despite the heavy load of solutions-oriented research, which

diverted him from (but did not prevent) the pursuit of fundamental

studies in his chosen field, Dryden remained at NBS. In fact, he

undertook these new assignments with the same firm purpose as

ever. Perhaps the needs of a growing family suppressed any secret

desires for more basic research. Hugh, Jr., was born in 1923 and

Mary Ruth arrived two years later. The economic hardships of the

time may also have bred a degree of caution. More likely, though,

Hugh Dryden’s personality and religious frame of reference anchored him to NBS. Genuinely self-effacing, his instincts revolted

against careerism and self-promotion. Just as compelling, his private

yet intense spirituality—he had been a lay Methodist minister since

his teens—rendered him all but deaf to the call of ambition. In any

event, he worked steadily and diligently at the Bureau, impressing

his colleagues as much with his modesty as his intellect.

Dryden rose in rank almost in spite of himself. In 1934, he

became Chief of the Mechanics and Sound Division, which included

his own Aerodynamics Section.6 This promotion seemed to inaugurate a cascade of recognition, both in America and abroad. First, he

was elected to the Philosophical Society of Washington and became

a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of

Science. Then in 1934, he travelled to Europe to present a paper at

the Fourth International Congress of Applied Mechanics. Entitled

4
Hugh Dryden's Career

“Boundary Layer Flow Near Flat Plates,” it further enhanced

Dryden’s standing because of its significant contribution to describing the mechanics of laminar flow. Two years later Aerodynamic

Theory, a book of essays by the most eminent international authorities, rolled off the presses in Berlin and included a section by

Dryden on aerodynamic cooling. Finally, to crown these remarkable

years, in 1938 he was invited to deliver the Wilbur Wright Lecture

sponsored by the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences, the first

American so honored. He presented a magisterial survey of the

existing state of research in a lecture called “Turbulence and the

Boundary Layer.” The Bureau responded to this extraordinary

chain of professional successes by naming Dryden its Chief Physicist.7

World War II

When Dryden celebrated his 40th birthday in July 1938, he

unknowingly neared another milestone. Like millions of others, his

path would be refracted by war. Events in Europe and Asia portended another worldwide conflict and a sharp rise in military

projects at the Bureau confirmed it. Until now, his career entailed

the management of small numbers of technical people who used

relatively simple equipment to arrive at narrowly defined objectives.

He knew every member of his staff, their work, and their capacities.

Shortly, he found himself directing large numbers of people from a

variety of institutions, commanding an impressive array of resources,

and assuming responsibility for undertakings of the highest national

importance.8

The venerable NACA opened these opportunities for Dryden

and many others. In 1940 its new chairman, Dr. Vannevar Bush,

directed NACA’s Executive Secretary John F. Victory to draft

congressional legislation for a National Defense Research Committee. The proposal would systematically enlist and employ civilian

scientists in the war effort. When the idea bore fruit in the creation

of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD),

Bush left the NACA to head OSRD. Shortly after his arrival, a call

was issued for scientists to discuss the feasibility of guided missiles.

Because of his fame in aerodynamics, Dryden assumed a leading

role. Meantime, the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance reckoned the

potential military value of such weapons and assembled a group of

its own employees, as well as a cadre of professors from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The OSRD leaders asked Dryden

to take charge of this group, known as the Bureau of Ordnance

Experimental Unit. Headquartered at the NBS, the project also

incorporated Dryden’s own staff.

For much of World War II, Dryden immersed himself in the

immense task of conceiving, designing, testing, and finally procuring operational units for the Navy. The sense of wartime emergency

added to the pressure. Dryden found relief from these demands—as

well as delight—in the birth of his third child, Nancy, who arrived

in 1940.

The missile, called the Bat, consisted of an aircraft-launched

5
Hugh Dryden's Career

gravity bomb capable of self-correction in flight. As transmitters in

its front end beamed radar waves to enemy vessels, a receiver (also

embedded in the Bat) picked up the reflected pulses and sent

appropriate signals to the missile’s control surfaces, steering it

toward the target. Bomber crews could thus release the weapon

from a considerable distance and fly away with the confidence that

the weapon would reach the target on its own. To realize this great

advance in naval warfare, Dryden divided his researchers in three

categories: Navy personnel for munitions development and testing

(on barges in Chesapeake Bay and on Liberty Ships in the Atlantic),

the M.I.T. contingent for homing system experiments, and the NBS

team for aerodynamics work. Despite formidable technical and

administrative obstacles, Dryden and the Bat enjoyed a significant

success. Indeed, although several automatic guided missiles were

developed by the U.S. during the war, only the Bat proved effective

under fire. It appeared first in the Pacific in April 1945 at the Battle

of Okinawa. Aircraft of Fleet Wing One not only sank several

Japanese ships with the new weapon but also employed it successfully against land targets.9

Fresh from the experience of guided missile development,

Dryden undertook a second wartime assignment. In the fall of 1944

he received a call for assistance from long-time friend and colleague,

Dr. Theodore von Kármán, a man known as much for wit and

charm as for brilliance. The world-renowned Hungarian physicist

had been persuaded by Commanding General of the Army Air

Forces Henry H. Arnold to lead a group of scientists to Europe to

assess war-related breakthroughs in flight. Dr. von Kármán reluctantly agreed and turned to his trusted confidant Hugh Dryden to

be his partner. They faced great challenges. General Arnold ascribed

the highest national importance to their mission, demanding not

just a report on the existing state of aeronautical knowledge with

Pearl Harbor in mind, he also wanted a forecast of long-range developments necessary to prevent (or deter) future devastating air attacks

on American cities. Beginning in December 1944, Dryden would

devote the better part of a year assisting von Kármán in this endeavor.

During several months of preparation in the Pentagon Dryden

and von Kármán assembled some of the nation’s most able figures

in the various flight sciences. The team, known collectively as the

Army Air Forces Scientific Group, departed in April 1945 to Europe, with hopes of visiting the U.S.S.R. as well. In London,

Dryden and von Kármán donned uniforms bearing the simulated

ranks of colonel and major general, respectively, and moved forward

to Paris. They advanced to the German border and crossed it on

learning of a highly secret aeronautics laboratory just unearthed at

Braunschweig. This complex, brilliantly concealed in a setting of

woods and farms, had been reduced to ruins by the invading U.S.

troops. Dryden interviewed many of the remaining scientists about

their projects and pored over technical data relating to swept-wing

aerodynamics, high-speed human physiology, and other surprising

research. He then parted from von Kármán and traveled to

Munich, where Dr. Wernher von Braun, General Walter

6
Hugh Dryden's Career

Dornberger, and some 400

scientists of the Peenemu··nde

rocket facility had been relocated. There Dryden conducted

intense interrogations about the

V-1 cruise missile and the V-2

ballistic missile. Meanwhile, von

Kármán flew to Moscow, and

Dryden returned to Germany to

finish the job. At one point, his

quiet but determined style was

put to the test. When he discovered an uncrated Swiss wind

tunnel, he pressed to have it

shipped immediately to Wright

Field for investigation. Despite

the crush of transatlantic air

freight, he proved persuasive;

precious space was found on a B-17 bomber. After further exploratory trips to the United Kingdom (U.K.), Switzerland, and France,

Dryden returned home.

The whole Scientific Advisory Group reunited in Washington,

D.C., that summer to draft Where We Stand, which recounted the

existing state of air power technology. A second foreign tour then

got underway, to Europe again and to Asia. Once it was completed,

General Arnold would receive his much anticipated long-range

forecast. Rather than travel with the others, Hugh Dryden remained

in Washington to act as general editor of the ensuing report, which

was due to the general on December 15, 1945. During November

and early December the task all but inundated him. In just a few

weeks the 25 contributors produced 33 essays, all requiring

Dryden’s close scrutiny for unifying conceptual themes, technical

accuracy, and substantive editing. As he finished, he cabled each

article to von Kármán, who had remained in Paris to write a long

introductory essay titled “Science, the Key to Air Supremacy.”

Along with the rest, Dryden also reviewed the text of his great

friend and managed to write two sections himself on guided missiles. The resulting thirteen volumes—known together as Toward

New Horizons—touched on every aspect of air power research, from

aerodynamics to propulsion, from fuels to radar. It made a lasting

impression on General Arnold and the U.S. Army Air Forces.

Thanks in large part to Dryden’s exacting standards of scientific

rigor, logical consistency, and written clarity, the conclusions imparted one clear and lasting thought to the Army Air Forces (and

later to the U.S. Air Force): To deter attack, modern air power

required the constant application of the latest and best scientific

thinking. For his labors he received the National Medal of Freedom

from President Truman.10

The NACA Years

Dryden returned to the NBS upon completion of Toward New

Dryden, Dr. Ben Lockspeiser

(Great Britain), Theodore von

Kármán, and Dr. A.P. Rowe

(Great Britain) in occupied

Germany, 9 May, 1945. (NASA

photo 76-H-547 from a Johns

Hopkins University original)

7
Hugh Dryden's Career

Horizons, but like so many

scientists who engaged in warrelated research and administration, he had substantially outgrown his old responsibilities.

Whether he sought it or not, the

war had earned him a stature of

consequence in aeronautics, and

this new standing received

almost immediate recognition.

In January 1946, he became the

Bureau’s Assistant Director and

six months later, its Associate

Director. Yet soon and suddenly,

Dryden’s career attained full

flower. Since 1919, the formidable engineer George W. Lewis had

been the NACA’s Director of Aeronautical Research, its chief of

day-to-day operations. The organization multiplied during World

War II: from 500 employees in 1939 to 6,000 in 1945 and from

one laboratory when he began to five research facilities shortly after

the war. Lewis’ health collapsed under the exertions associated with

the NACA’s wartime responsibilities, and in 1947 his resignation

became imminent. When the NACA Main Committee (its governing board) met in Washington, D.C., to consider successors, they

found a leading candidate close at hand. Few could match Dryden’s

record of sparkling scientific achievement and wide administrative

experience. Hugh Dryden assumed the position in September,

becoming perhaps the most influential civilian figure in American

flight research.11

Dryden’s new importance rested in part on the very size and

superiority of the NACA’s physical plant, which constituted a sort of

legacy from Lewis to Dryden. The first field location had arisen on

remote marsh land in Hampton,

Virginia, and opened in 1920.

By the 1930s, the Langley

Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory housed a full-scale wind

tunnel and many other unique

pieces of research equipment.

Nonetheless, striking European

aeronautical advances before

World War II prompted Congress to allocate funds for the

NACA’s expansion. Gradually,

Langley doubled its capacity to

undertake new projects. In the

meantime, an immense laboratory was planned for Moffett

Field near San Francisco, California. Designed to augment the

aeronautical research of West Coast aircraft manufacturers, the

facilities built in 1939 and 1940, became known as the Ames

Aeronautical Laboratory (for Dryden’s mentor Joseph Ames). Its 12

High-speed wind tunnel at

Langley Memorial Aeronautical

Laboratory, Langley Field, VA.

(NASA photo LMAL 28410)

NACA 16-foot wind tunnel at

Ames Aeronautical Laboratory,

Moffett Field, CA. (NASA photo)

8
Hugh Dryden's Career

by 24 meter wind tunnel dwarfed the former world’s champion at

Langley. In 1940, yet another impressive center, this one devoted to

propulsion, received congressional approval. Upon the death of

George Lewis in 1948, this facility erected in Cleveland, Ohio,

assumed the name of the Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory.

Finally, two test operations came into being. To explore flight

characteristics in the transonic range, a former naval station overlooking Chesapeake Bay was pressed into service as the Pilotless

Aircraft Research Station at Wallops Island, Virginia in 1945. To

gather flight data on transonic and high-velocity experimental

aircraft, the NACA opened the Muroc Flight Test Unit in 1946 on

the dry lakebed near the desert outpost of Mojave, California. After

1954, this unit was renamed the NACA High Speed Flight Station.

Yet the wind tunnels, runways, test stands, hangars, and fabrication shops that comprised the NACA in 1947 accounted for only a

part of Lewis’ legacy to Dryden. Perhaps to a

greater degree, the NACA’s strength lay in its

unusual staff. In the face of the Great Depression,

many of the nation’s best young aeronautical

engineering minds turned to the NACA for

relatively secure employment. The work was not

just steady, but interesting. Before World War II,

the NACA concentrated on theoretical studies

and basic aerodynamic research. Once the United

States joined the conflict, it concentrated on drag

“cleanup” for American aircraft. The contributions before and during the war were immense. A

family of pioneering airfoil shapes, cowlings for

radial engines, and imaginative wind-tunnel types

and designs only begin to express the achievements. Even more than these advances, the body

of knowledge contained in the NACA technical

publications had become an international standard

for aeronautics research. It also employed such

genuine luminaries in the aerodynamics profession

as Max Munk, Fred Weick, Eastman Jacobs,

Richard Whitcomb, Robert T. Jones, and John

Stack.12

 Yet, the NACA directed by Hugh Dryden (after 1949 as

Director rather than simply Director of Research) would differ from

that of his predecessor. The new research director did have extensive

administrative experience but regarded himself principally as a

scientist among scientists, one who pointed his staff and his agency

toward new discoveries. Indeed, at the time of assuming his duties,

he had already been editor of The Journal of the Institute of the

Aeronautical Sciences for six years (a post he continued to fill until

1956). In addition Dryden helped found and sat on the board of

editors of The Quarterly of Applied Mechanics. As readers of these

publications knew, Dryden had devoted his entire research career to

high-speed flight. Now, he would lead the NACA in this direction.

He took courage in this objective in October 1947 when he

learned, just after arriving at the NACA, that Captain Charles E.

9

Hugh Dryden, Director of

NACA preparing to board a

LockheedConstellation enrouteto

give the 37th Wilbur Wright

Lecturebefore the Royal AeronauticalSociety,Egland, in

April 1949. (NASA photo 76-H549 from a Johns Hopkins Universityoriginal)
Hugh Dryden's Career

Yeager had flown a rocket-powered aircraft past the speed of sound.

The event gave Dryden occasion to state clearly the NACA’s future

course:

During the first 25 years—until World War II—most

of the NACA’s research was concentrated on aerodynamic problems... [and] the NACA produced a

wealth of information that was used to good advantage by America’s aircraft industry. This was a course

of action that paid handsome dividends, in directly

useful information, on the taxpayers’ investment.

The NACA’s effort in World War II was devoted

largely to applied research, the business of finding

‘quick fixes’ to improve the performance of existing

airplanes and to make production engines more

powerful. By the close of World War II, the end had

come for development of the airplane as conceived

by the Wright Brothers. Now, it was possible to

build useful rocket engines, and with this development came the possibility of flight at velocities

exceeding the speed of sound and to altitudes higher

than the earth’s atmosphere.13

Dryden turned immediately to constructing the necessary

infrastructure to achieve his goal. Wind tunnels capable of simulating velocities up to ten times Mach 1 now became imperative and

national figures, such as Air Force Secretary W. Stuart Symington,

supported the idea (although more for reasons of Cold War superiority than scientific inquiry). Nonetheless, Congress voted for a

National Unitary Wind Tunnel Plan shaped by Dryden’s vision of

aeronautical research, which

allocated these immense and

costly resources on a systematic

basis and distributed them

equitably among the NACA and

the U.S. Air Force for supersonic and hypersonic testing.

This task completed, Dryden

and his laboratories concerned

themselves with flight vehicles.

Before and during the 1950s,

the NACA made invaluable

aerodynamics contributions to

the USAF high-velocity Century

Series fighter aircraft. In 1954,

he assumed the chairmanship of

the new Air Force-Navy-NACA

Research Airplane Committee.

This group surveyed the data from such experimental programs as

the X-1, X-2, X-3, X-4, X-5, YF-92A, D-558-1 and -2 and conceived of the hypersonic X-15 rocket plane. Dryden provided more

than a guiding hand in the deliberations. Year after year, in a time of

NACA Executive Committee

meeting at Langley Research

Center June 2, 1950. (NASA

photo)

10
Hugh Dryden's Career

pinched budgets, he achieved

consistent congressional support

for the X-15 during the early

National Aeronautics and Space

Administration (NASA) period

(see below). Eventually flying as

fast as 4,520 miles per hour and

as high as 67 miles above the

planet, the X-15 program lent a

solid technical basis to the early

U.S. human space program,

embodied in Project Mercury.

(See below for a discussion of

the more purely aeronautical

results of the X-15 flight research.) Finally, the NACA

Director pressed for solutions to the problem of re-entry heating

encountered by vehicles such as missiles, aircraft, and capsules,

penetrating the atmosphere from high altitudes. The NACA scientists found answers in the blunt body shape discovered by H. Julian

Allen of the Ames Laboratory and in the principle of ablation

resulting from the materials research of Robert Gilruth at Langley.

Dryden’s earliest and clearest position on fully realized space

flight occurred in 1955 after his election as Home Secretary of the

National Academy of Sciences. In this capacity, he was asked to

review satellite programs proposed for the International Geophysical

Year (IGY). Skeptical of expensive and unproven ventures, the

NACA Director at first balked at the requested $100 million annual

appropriation (which, after all, rivalled the entire yearly budget of

the NACA). He relented once a set of clear scientific objectives had

been formulated. Under his direction, the NACA assisted the IGY

projects significantly. The Langley Laboratory formed a Satellite

Vehicle Group to explore spacecraft structures, trajectories, and

guidance; its Pilotless Aircraft Research Division initiated rocket

studies.

Thus, by the mid-1950s Dryden had accustomed the NACA to

the idea that high-speed research and, ultimately, space endeavors

loomed large and would assume even greater importance in time.

Of course, in 1957 Dryden still focused his organization’s 8,000

employees mainly on atmospheric flight. Although he had shifted an

increasing part of his staff and resources to space-related projects,

until a firm national commitment to space exploration emerged,

Dryden and the NACA—whose final A, after all, stood for aeronautics—could only accomplish limited objectives in research and flight

outside the atmosphere. Once the President and Congress gave

their assent, however, Hugh Dryden could summon within his

organization a cadre of experienced scientists and engineers able to

assume pivotal roles in the new endeavor.14

The Transition from the NACA to NASA

Of course, the spur to space came not from within the U.S. but

NACA meeting at Lewis Laboratory, October 1957. (NASA

photo)

11
Hugh Dryden's Career

from outside it. The launch of the Soviet Sputnik

I satellite on October 4, 1957, released almost

palpable shock waves across the country. At once,

Sputnik represented not only the capacity of a

hostile power to fly without challenge over American territory; it also destroyed the complacent

belief that U.S. technology surpassed all others.

Amplified by sensational reports in the press, the

distant signals from the little sphere in orbit rang

like trumpets in the ears of the President, members of Congress, and military leaders.

Dryden, his headquarters staff, and the NACA

laboratories did not share the nation’s panic. They

knew the Soviets had the capacity to launch a

satellite, an objective declared publicly by the

Russians earlier in 1957. This flight would be

their contribution to IGY; the U.S. promised a

similar feat with Project Vanguard. Dryden also

realized the NACA’s ten years of achievement in

high- speed flight left the institution better prepared than any other to participate in whatever

space policy might emerge after Sputnik.

Yet, in a case of high irony, despite his long

and vigorous pursuit of preliminary space research, Dryden himself fell victim to the Sputnik

hysteria. He became identified in the newspapers and in Congress

with the scientific establishment, which somehow had allowed

Sputnik to happen. Dryden, however, did little to cast off the false

characterization. His plain, unassuming style and disdain for selfcommendation attracted few allies in a time of loud accusations and

expansive promises. Indeed, the political climate suggested a new set

of personalities, unattached to the perceived shortcomings of past

years, for leadership in space. Thus, during the 12 months of deliberations about an institutional response to Sputnik, Hugh Dryden

was consulted and considered for a role of leadership; was not only

heard, but heeded. Yet, his ultimate role turned out to be smaller

than expected.15

The National Aeronautics and Space Act (which became law in

July 1958) and its offspring—the National Aeronautics and Space

Administration—owed much to Dryden’s efforts. Many government entities vied for control of the space mission: the Air Force,

the Army, the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects

Agency (ARPA), the Atomic Energy Commission, and the NACA

itself. To choose among the candidates, President Eisenhower

directed his Science Advisory Committee to review the various

administrative options and make recommendations. On it sat two

NACA figures of recognized competence and reputation: Hugh

Dryden and the new chairman of the Main Committee, General

Jimmy Doolittle. Together, they successfully lobbied the President’s

science advisors for a civilian space agency based on the NACA as its

organizational core. They also testified before Congress, outlining

the new agency’s budget and span of operations, then stamping

Dryden(seated, second from left)

with the House Select Committee

on Astronautics and Space

Exploration in April 1958, at

hearings concerning the creation

of NASA. (NASA photo 76-H550 from a Johns Hopkins Universityoriginal)

12
Hugh Dryden's Career

both with the NACA imprimatur.

As these consultations proceeded, Dryden prepared his staff and

laboratories for their vastly expanded field of action, which they had

already begun to explore. He formed a Special Committee on Space

Technology chaired by an associate from Toward New Horizons

days, Professor H. Guyford Stever of M.I.T. Members included

such notables as James A. Van Allen, Wernher von Braun, H. Julian

Allen, and William Pickering. Dryden also took administrative steps

in anticipation of passage of the July law. Guessing what lay ahead,

he asked Robert Gilruth and a Langley team to plan for human

spaceflight. He also persuaded Abe Silverstein, the Assistant Director of the Lewis Laboratory, to transfer to Washington and assume

the task of structurally transforming the NACA into NASA.

In the end, Dryden would oversee neither Gilruth’s nor

Silverstein’s labors. This job would be assumed by T. Keith

Glennan, President of the Case Institute of Technology and President Eisenhower’s nominee to be NASA’s first Administrator.

Glennan agreed to come to Washington only on the condition that

Hugh Dryden serve as his deputy. After 40 full years of government

service, Dryden concealed his disappointment and continued to

serve the public.16

Early NASA Years

Now 60 years of age, Dryden still had much to offer, and

Glennan sorely needed his help. More than anyone, Dryden knew

every corner of the former NACA, from its personalities to its

technical capacity, from its budgetary practices to its institutional

peculiarities. More vital still, he possessed as complete a knowledge

of early space endeavors as anyone in America. Indeed, he had been

responsible for or associated with almost all such efforts. Dryden

had also developed through the years a finely tuned instinct for wise

bureaucratic choices, honed in hours before congressional committees and sharpened in countless White House meetings. Finally, and

perhaps most important of all, Hugh Dryden was known universally. Because of his prominence in such societies as the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, of which he

had been both president and vice-president, and his distinguished

scientific research, he had perhaps as many contacts overseas as at

home. In the United States, he knew just about every major, and

many minor, figures in the field, including aircraft manufacturers,

airline executives, airframe designers, test pilots, university scientists,

and military officers.17 So Keith Glennan, a distinguished highly

capable engineer and administrator in his own right, began his

tenure at NASA with perhaps his best decision: his choice of deputy.

The titular transformation of the NACA to NASA occurred on

October 1, 1958. The actual realignments stretched on for two

years and fell mostly to Dryden. Forming a single, cohesive entity

from many constituent parts called forth some of the deputy

administrator’s best qualities: calmness under pressure, intensity in

powers of analysis, and clarity of mind that remained fixed on the

13
Hugh Dryden's Career

critical objectives despite any distractions of the moment. The

Army held two of the most important pieces of the emerging

mosaic. Together, these facilities had answered Sputnik 1 in January

1958 with America’s first Earth satellite, Explorer 1. Despite Army

objections, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) left military cognizance on the last day of 1958. At the same time, an Executive Order

assigned to NASA the Army contract with the California Institute of

Technology, which provided for JPL staffing and operations. Army

brass resisted more strenuously the loss of a part of its Ballistic

Missile Agency in Huntsville, Alabama—the Development Operations Division, under the direction of Wernher von Braun, employing some 4,000 scientists and engineers. Nonetheless, after much

bureaucratic scuffling, in March 1960 it too was transferred to

NASA. With it came the prize of prizes: the gigantic Saturn booster

project. Dryden also negotiated with the Defense Department a

series of understandings on launch support and astronaut training.

In addition he arranged for the gradual assumption by NASA of

such crucial programs as the Air Force’s F-1 rocket engine. The

Navy’s Project Vanguard and ARPA’s space science projects also

found homes at NASA. Finally, Dryden exercised a nurturing hand

in establishing at Greenbelt, Maryland, the Robert H. Goddard

Space Flight Center to launch and track unpiloted space vehicles

and to develop space science experiments.18

Having locked NASA’s structural components in place, Dryden

spent the next years in somewhat contradictory pursuits: on the one

hand advising and guiding those who planned the human missions

that ultimately overtook the Soviet lead in space and, on the other,

negotiating patiently and effectively with Soviet representatives for

cooperation in space. His extensive international experience with

professional societies prepared him well for diplomatic service. He

first acted as Alternate Representative for Ambassador Henry Cabot

Lodge to the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on the Peaceful

Uses of Outer Space. “I served,” he later recalled, “on the technical

subcommittee, and had the opportunity to prepare with some of my

colleagues a report on the technical aspects of space technology.” In

fact, his activities resulted in a NASA invitation to other countries to

undertake joint space research projects of mutual interest. Dryden

then became chief negotiator during direct talks with the U.S.S.R.

With his counterpart, Academician Anatoly A. Blagonravov, he

signed limited, but nevertheless unprecedented, agreements on

meteorology, communications, and magnetic field data. Dryden

insisted on, and achieved, exchanges which provided clear mutual

benefits. He likewise pressed for understandings with the U.K.,

Canada, Italy, and other nations to share information derived from

space. “I am persuaded,” he said, “that there are very great values to

the United States in this cooperation.”19

At the same time, Dryden laid the foundation for American

leadership in space. All through the early months of Glennan’s term,

the headquarters staff undertook the burdensome task of long-range

planning. The resulting Ten Year Plan—in which Dryden played an

indispensable part—proposed expenditures of one to two billion

annually and an average of two launches per month. Luckily, a

14
Hugh Dryden's Career

reversal of fortune occurred in the sky, lending credence to the

expansive projections. During 1959, seven of seventeen U.S.

launches failed, but then, the program righted itself. Explorer 6

went into orbit and functioned perfectly. Pioneer 5 embarked

toward Venus and ultimately relayed planetary data from as far as 22

million miles away. Tiros 1 captured thousands of photographs of

the Earth’s weather. In addition, in August 1960, Echo 1 unfolded

in orbit to become the world’s first passive communications satellite.

The greatest challenge still awaited: To launch humans, not just

machines, into space. Dryden followed the unveiling of the Ten

Year Plan with an announcement to the NASA Industry Plans

Conference that Project Mercury, the first U.S. program for launching humans into space, would be followed by a more ambitious one

named Project Apollo.

Continued Service in NASA

But would Hugh Dryden participate in these activities, or retire

at last? Toward the end of 1960, his period of office-holding appeared to be drawing to a close. John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated

Richard M. Nixon for the presidency in November and all the

executive appointees, including Keith Glennan, submitted their

resignations. The deputy administrator also handed in his letter, but

since the Kennedy transition office never acknowledged it, he stayed

on in a caretaker capacity until the new administration selected its

nominee.20 Unfortunately, during the period of transition NASA

came under sudden attack.The President-elect’s Ad Hoc Space

Panel, led by Dr. Jerome Wiesner, the White House Science Advisor-designate, issued a report sharply critical of the U.S. aeronautics,

space, and missile programs. Naturally, the committee’s recommendations were not free of political coloration; while he headed the Ad

Hoc Panel, Wiesner also chaired the Democratic Party’s Science

Committee. Moreover during the year before the election, the

Democratic candidate warned repeatedly of unfavorable space and

missile “gaps” between American and Russian capabilities. Once

elected, the winning party felt obliged to pinpoint the causes of the

alleged inadequacies. These charges were published in the pages of

the New York Times, which reprinted the Wiesner Report. It cited:

1. “A number of organizational and management

deficiencies as well as problems of staffing and

direction.”

2. Duplication between NASA and the military

space programs arising especially from rocket and

ballistic missile research.

3. Flaws in the technical aspects of Project Mercury.

4. Neglect of aerodynamics research.

5. The exclusion of university and industrial scien15
Hugh Dryden's Career

tists from NASA activities.

6. A preoccupation with

in-house research at the

expense of private sector

cooperation.

7. Lack of vision in the

selection of science

missions and errors in the

selection of scientists to

achieve them.

Undoubtedly, these accusations stung Dryden. As NACA

Director and NASA Deputy

Administrator over the past

thirteen years, he had been

perhaps more responsible than

anyone for the policies criticized by Wiesner. He had worked

tirelessly, often brilliantly—and always unobtrusively—to move

aeronautics toward the margins of space. Although politics may

have motivated some of the complaints, most of them accurately

reflected an institution in the process of metamorphosis, from a

laboratory operation to one based on contracts administration. On

the other hand, some of the report’s charges, especially those

relating to civilian versus military roles and the long-term objectives

in space, required decisions at the highest levels of government.

Indeed, they awaited action by President Kennedy himself.

Be this as it may, in one area—Dryden’s own specialty, aeronautics—the criticism in the Wiesner report was clearly inaccurate.

Although in the wake of Sputnik the former aeronautical laboratories and facilities of the NACA had shifted much of their emphasis

from pure aeronautics to the problems of space travel, they had by

no means neglected aerodynamics research.

At Langley, for example, in the early 1950s, aerodynamicists had

studied the variable-sweep wing as a way to improve the operating

efficiency of a military aircraft. The NACA High Speed Flight

Station had flight tested the concept on the X-5 from 1952 to

1955. The NACA researchers had subsequently identified a solution

to changes in stability as the wings rotated through various angles

of sweep. Wind-tunnel tests at Langley led the Department of

Defense in 1961 to approve production of the first U.S. variablesweep fighter, the F-111. Many subsequent military aircraft incorporated the concept.21 This important aerodynamic discovery was

continuing during the very years of transition from the NACA to

NASA that the Wiesner Report purported to examine.

To give but one of many other examples of continued

pathbreaking research in aerodynamics, as already noted the X-15

flight research was also beginning during Glennan’s administration

of NASA. The implications of that program for space were highly

James E. Webb, NASA Administrator, and Hugh L. Dryden,

Deputy Administrator, appear

before the Honorable Overton

Brooks, Chairman of the House

Committee on Science and

Astronautics on March 13, 1961.

(NASA photo 61-Admin.-9)

16
Hugh Dryden's Career

significant, but flight research had only begun in 1959. Thus its

significance for both aeronautics and space could not be fully

appreciated in early 1961 when the Wiesner Report appeared.

Nevertheless, the X-15 airplane had been on the drawing board

since 1954. By the end of 1960, the aircraft had already completed

31 flights at the NASA Flight Research Center in the Mojave

Desert. Those knowledgeable about the program could already

anticipate the enormous fund of data the aircraft would provide in

such areas as hypersonic air flow, aerodynamic heating, control and

stability of flight at hypersonic speeds (above Mach 5), reaction

controls for flight above the atmosphere, transition from aerodynamic to reaction controls, piloting techniques for reentry, human

factors, and flight instrumentation. These data significantly modified existing aerodynamic theory, especially in the areas of heat flow

and wind-tunnel testing, and the X-15 aircraft went on to become

one of the most successful flight research programs in the long

history of the NACA and NASA.22

Although they failed to recognize such contributions, the

Wiesner recommendations alerted NASA to the Kennedy

administration’s intentions. Despite the implications about his

performance, Dryden remained publicly unaffected by the tempest,

and the press left him unscathed. In the midst of the crisis, he

managed to preserve a sense of calm and continuity at the agency.

Dryden knew the criticism could only be answered by the new

administrator; therefore, calling on reserves of patience and endurance, he concentrated on the tasks at hand and outlasted this painful

episode.

His response reflected his view of life. In one of the many

sermons he delivered from the Methodist pulpit, Dryden remarked

that “one major mark of rank in the organic world is the capacity to

suffer. The aim of life, therefore, is not to abolish suffering, for that

would abolish sensitivity, but to eliminate its cruel, barbarous, and

useless forms. To willingly accept toil, trouble, and suffering, these

are goals for scientists as well as for other men.”23

Worse suffering lay ahead. Later in the year a routine medical

examination revealed a malignancy in his chest. After surgery and

additional treatments, he returned not to reduced activity, but to

the busiest schedule of his life. During the years remaining to him,

the visits to the hospital recurred every few months, and the medications became more severe; yet the frantic pace of speeches, banquets, meetings, and professional conferences never slackened.

Typically, he spoke of his affliction to no one.

In spite of the criticism and doubts raised by the Wiesner

Report, the Deputy Administrator had long worked out for himself

a clear and unchanging mental schematic of the nature of American

space exploration. He divided it into three categories:

The first includes those missions intended primarily to

produce scientific data with respect to the space environment, the sun, earth, and planets and the galaxy,

using telemetry of information from unmanned vehicles. The second is composed of earth satellite mis17
Hugh Dryden's Career

sions for application to meteorological research and

weather forecasting, long distance wide-band communications, navigation, and similar tasks. The third relates

to the travel of man himself in space, at first in a satellite

orbit, later to the moon, and later to the planets and

outer reaches of the solar system.24

Hugh Dryden devoted most of his waking hours to the achievement of the third segment of the U.S. space mission. He did so in

tandem with President Kennedy’s appointee as NASA Administrator, former Bureau of the Budget Director James E. Webb. Like

Glennan, Webb agreed to the position only on condition of

Dryden’s continued service. So long in harness, Dryden acceded to

the request.

Within three months of the Kennedy inaugural in January 1961,

American human spaceflight received two powerful boosts—one

from the successful orbital flight of Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, and

another from the botched invasion of Cuba. The young President

searched for ways to strengthen the image of his weakened administration and found his answer in space. The NASA Ten Year Plan had

projected a lunar circumnavigation by astronauts. To defeat the

Soviets at their game, especially after Gagarin’s triumph, the U.S.

required an even more daring enterprise. Landing astronauts on the

Moon and returning them to Earth would assure an equal footing

with the Russians. Both sides would have to start from the beginning, building all new spacecraft and boosters. On May 25, 1961,

the President announced to a joint session of Congress his commitment to sending Americans to the lunar surface and back to Earth

before the end of the decade.25

Dryden threw himself into the intricacies of human space flight

with even greater enthusiasm than before. The conception and

planning of Project Mercury bore his imprint from the very inception. Projects Gemini and Apollo also owed an immense debt to his

heavy labors and quiet service. He found it possible to make such

contributions because he and James Webb had established clearly

defined spheres of operation. The administrator accepted as his

highest priority to lobby and win the support of Washington’s

political elite for the space program as well as to convince the voting

public of its value. The two men shared responsibility for the broad

policy direction of the agency but to Dryden fell the hardest decisions involving technical and fiscal choices: which systems and subsystems to fund or to eliminate, to accept as presented or to modify;

which scientific experiments to pursue; how to structure programs

for maximum utility; how to obtain the cooperation of universities,

corporations, and foreign powers; how to prepare and present

budgets to congressional committees.

Dryden acted in this indispensable capacity not by attempting to

superimpose his viewpoints on the NASA Headquarters and Center

staffs. Instead, he served as Webb’s savant, capable, as one historian

has observed, of:

solving the problems of Gordian knots without...

18
Hugh Dryden's Career

violently cutting through them. He did not

cut through them, but neither did he neatly

untie them. Instead, it was he who showed

others how the untying was done—and

without their ever being aware that they

were under instruction. Dryden had a great

talent for showing other brilliant men how

to become even more brilliant, without their

ever realizing how great had been his assistance. More often than not, Dryden’s

wisdom and judgment...were felt without

ever being seen.26

While Dryden recognized the perils of defeat in

the Cold War, he never regarded Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, the many unpiloted

scientific probes, or the satellites launched during

his tenure merely as demonstrations of American

superiority. Rather, as he told Senator Robert S.

Kerr (D, Oklahoma); Chairman of the Committee

on Aeronautical and Space Sciences:

The setting of the difficult goal of landing a man on

the moon and return to earth has the highly important role of accelerating the development of space

science and technology, motivating the scientists and

engineers who are engaged in this effort to move

forward with urgency, and integrating their efforts in

a way that cannot be accomplished by a disconnected series of research investigations in the several

fields. It is important to realize, however, that the

real values and purposes are not in the mere accomplishment of man setting foot on the moon, but

rather in the great cooperative national effort in the

development of science and technology which is

stimulated by this goal....The national enterprise

involved in the goal of manned lunar landing and

return within the decade is an activity of critical

impact on the future of this nation as an industrial

and military power, and as a leader of the free

world.27

Final Years

By 1965, the illness to which Dryden had given no quarter

finally began to drain his capacity for resistance. He summoned his

energy and flew to Hawaii to address a governors’ conference, then

stopped in Seattle to appear as keynote speaker at a meeting of the

National Academy of Sciences. Upon returning to his desk in

Washington, he resumed the customarily heavy schedule, then

traveled again, once to New York and once to Chicago. On November 16, he entered the hospital for the usual periodic treatments,

NASA executive meeting with

left to right; HughL. Dryden,

Deputy Administrator, James E.

Webb, Administrator, and Dr.

Robert C. Seamans, Jr. Associate

Administrator. (NASA photo 66-

H-93)

19
Hugh Dryden's Career

expecting to be released fairly soon, but his condition worsened,

and he remained through Thanksgiving. Hugh L. Dryden died on

the evening of Thursday, December 2, 1965. Despite the obvious

physical decline, his degree of activity had long belied the true state

of his health, and friends and colleagues expressed shock at his

passing. President Lyndon Johnson, a great admirer of Dryden,

whom he had known over a decade-long collaboration, told the

nation that “no soldier ever performed his duty with more bravery

and no statesman ever charted new courses with more dedication

than Hugh Dryden. Whenever the first American space man sets

foot on the moon or finds a new trail to a new star, he will know

that Hugh Dryden was one of those who gave him knowledge and

illumination.”28

Dryden received many other accolades and awards during his

lifetime and after his death, but perhaps his greatest and most

appropriate honor came on March 26, 1976, when NASA renamed

the NASA Flight Research Center as the NASA Hugh L. Dryden

Flight Research Center. At the dedication ceremonies, then-NASA

Administrator James C. Fletcher stated:

in 1924, when the fastest racing planes did well to fly at

280 m.p.h, Dryden was already probing the transonic

range of . . . flight. Later in the 1920s, he sought to

develop methods of accurately measuring . . . turbulence in wind tunnels. In 1938, he was the first American to deliver the Wright Brothers Lecture at the

Institute of Aeronautical Sciences. His “Turbulence and

the Boundary Layer” became a classic summary of

man’s knowledge of the subject to date. It is most

fitting that this Flight Research Center, with its unique

and highly specialized capability for solving aerospace

problems, should memorialize the genius of Hugh

Dryden.29

20
Hugh Dryden's Career

NOTES

1 Shirley Thomas, Men of Space, 8 Vols. (Philadelphia: Chilton,

1960-1968), II:65; Richard K. Smith, The Hugh L. Dryden Papers,

1898-1965: A Preliminary Catalogue (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University, Milton S. Eisenhower Library, 1974), 19.

2 Thomas, Men of Space, 65, 67; Smith, Dryden Papers, 19-20;

Eugene M. Emme, “Astronautical Biography: Hugh Latimer

Dryden, 1898-1965,” Journal of the Astronautical Sciences (1977):

154; James H. Doolittle, “Hugh Latimer Dryden: A Tribute,”

reprinted from Astronautics and Aeronautics (1966): 1; Anon., “Dr.

Hugh Latimer Dryden, 1898-1965,” Headquarters National

Aeronautics and Space Administration unpublished biographical

sketch, December 2, 1965, 3, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

3 Raymond L. Bisplinghoff, “Hugh Latimer Dryden, 1898-1965,”

reprinted from Applied Mechanics Reviews (1966): 1; Thomas, Men

of Space, 67; Smith, Dryden Papers, 19-20; Emme, “Astronautical

Biography,” 154.

4 Emme, “Astronautical Biography,” 154; Thomas, Men of Space,

68; Smith, Dryden Papers, 21.

5 John T. Greenwood, ed., Milestones of Aviation (New York: Hugh

Lauter Levin Associates, 1989), 97-98; Jerome C. Hunsaker and

Robert C. Seamans, Jr., “Hugh Latimer Dryden, July 2, 1898-

December 2, 1965,” reprinted from Biographical Memoirs of the

National Academy of Sciences (1969): 37-38; Smith, Dryden Papers,

22; Emme, “Astronautical Biography,” 154-155; Bisplinghoff,

“Hugh Latimer Dryden,” 2; Thomas, Men of Space, 70.

6 Smith, Dryden Papers, 23; Emme, “Astronautical Biography,”

155-156; Hunsaker-Seamans, “Hugh Dryden,” 39; Thomas, Men

of Space, 69-70; Bisplinghoff, “Hugh Latimer Dryden,” 2.

7 Thomas, Men of Space, 72-73; Smith, Dryden Papers, 22;

Hunsaker-Seamans, “Hugh Dryden,” 40; Emme, “Astronautical

Biography,” 156.

8 Smith, Dryden Papers, 23.

9 Smith, Dryden Papers, 23; Emme, “Astronautical Biography,”

156; Hunsaker-Seamans, “Hugh Dryden,” 40; Thomas, Men of

Space, 73-74.

10 Michael H. Gorn, The Universal Man: Theodore von Ka' rma' n’s

Life in Aeronautics (Washington, D.C. and London: Smithsonian

Institution Press, 1992), 98-117. For a reprint of Where We Stand

and Science, the Key to Air Supremacy see Michael H. Gorn, ed.,

Prophecy Fulfilled: Toward New Horizons and Its Legacy (Washing21
Hugh Dryden's Career

ton, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994); “Dr. Hugh Dryden

of NASA is Dead,” New York Times, December 3. 1965.

11 Bisplinghoff, “Hugh Latimer Dryden,” 3; Smith, Dryden Papers,

24-25; Thomas, Men of Space,” 76; Frank W. Anderson, Orders of

Magnitude: A History of NACA and NASA, 1915-1980 (Washington, D.C.: NASA SP-4403, 1981), 4.

12 Roger E. Bilstein, Orders of Magnitude: A History of the NACA

and NASA, 1915-1990 (Washington, D.C.: NASA SP-4406, 1989),

24-26; Anderson, Magnitude, 2-12; Smith, Dryden Papers, 24-25;

James R. Hansen, Engineer in Charge: A History of the Langley

Aeronautical Laboratory, 1917-1958 (Washington, D.C.: NASA SP4305, 1987), passim.

13 Quoted in Thomas, Men of Space, 77.

14 Smith, Dryden Papers, 25; Emme, “Astronautical Biography,”

159-160; Thomas, Men of Space, 77-78; Bisplinghoff, “Hugh

Latimer Dryden,” 3; Hunsaker-Seamans, “Hugh Dryden,” 41-42;

Bilstein, Magnitude, 44.

15 Smith, Dryden Papers, 25-26; Thomas, Men of Space, 78-79;

Emme, Astronautical Biography, 160; Anderson, Magnitude, 17.

16 Emme, “Astronautical Biography,” 160-163; Thomas, Men of

Space, 78-79; Smith, Dryden Papers, 26; Bilstein, Magnitude, 47-

48.

17 Hunsaker-Seamans, “Hugh Dryden,” 46.

18 Bilstein, Magnitude, 48-49, 54, 56; Smith, Dryden Papers, 27;

Thomas, Men of Space, 80; Emme, “Astronautical Biography,”

164.

19 Quoted in Thomas, Men of Space, 82; Smith, Dryden Papers, 28;

Emme, “Astronautical Biography,” 165; Bilstein, Magnitude, 63-

64; Bisplinghoff, “Hugh Latimer Dryden,” 4; Hunsaker-Seamans,

“Hugh Dryden,” 48. For an excellent, detailed account of

Dryden’s negotiations with Blagonravov, see Edward Clinton Ezell

and Linda Newman Ezell, The Partnership: A History of the ApolloSoyuz Test Project (Washington, D.C.: NASA SP-4209, 1978), 37-

60.

20 Bilstein, Magnitude, 49, 57; Emme, “Astronautical Biography,”

165-167; Thomas, Men of Space, 81.

21 James Schultz, Winds of Change: Expanding the Frontiers of

Flight, Langley Research Center’s 75 Years of Accomplishment, 1917-

1992 (Washington, D.C.: NASA NP-130, [1992]), 82-83; Richard

P. Hallion, On the Frontier: Flight Research at Dryden, 1946-1981

(Washington, D.C.: NASA SP-4303, 1984), 52, 323-326.

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22 Hallion, On the Frontier, 103-129; Wendell H. Stillwell, X-15

Research Results (Washington, D.C.: NASA SP-60, 1965), esp. 4, 6,

19, 26, 37, 45, 50-53, 56, 73.

23 Emme, “Astronautical Biography,” 166-168; Quoted in

Hunsaker-Seamans, “Hugh Dryden”, 49, and see 46-48; Smith,

Dryden Papers, 27-29.

24 Quoted in Thomas, Men of Space, 80; Emme, “Astronautical

Biography,” 168; Hunsaker-Seamans, “Hugh Dryden,” 49; Smith,

Dryden Papers, 29.

25 Bilstein, Magnitude, 57-59; Anderson, Magnitude, 28.

26 Smith, Dryden Papers, 28-29; NASA, unpublished biographical

sketch, December 2, 1965, 11, seen in the Dryden File, NASA

Historical Reference Collection.

27 Quoted in Bisplinghoff, “Hugh Latimer Dryden,” 4.

28 Smith, Dryden Papers, 32; Quoted in Hunsaker-Seamans, “Hugh

Dryden,” 49.

29 “Remarks by James C. Fletcher, Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, at the Dedication of the Hugh

Dryden Flight Research Center, March 26, 1976,” Fletcher Files,

NASA Historical Reference Collection. Fletcher added that the

Dryden Flight Research Center “was established in 1947—the same

year Dr. Dryden became the NACA’s second director. He played a

key role in the aircraft tested here in its early years—the X-1, D558, X-3, X-4, X-5, XB-70 and the X-15.”

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Index

Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA): 12

Air Force, U.S.: 10, 12

Air Force-Navy-NACA Research Airplane Committee: 10

Allen, H. Julian: 11, 13

Ames Aeronautical Laboratory: 8-9, 11

Ames, Joseph: 2, 8

Anemometer: 4

Apollo Program: 15, 18

Army, U.S.: 12, 14

Ballistic Missile Agency: 14

Army Air Forces, U.S.: 7

Scientific Advisory Group: 6-7

Arnold, Henry H.: 6-7

Baltimore City College: 1

Baltimore, Maryland: 1

Bat Missile: 5-6

Blagonravov, Anatoly A.: 14

Braun, Wernher von: 6, 13, 14

Briggs, Lyman: 3

Brooks, Overton: 16 ill.

Bush, Vannevar: 5

California Institute of Technology: 14

D-558-1: 10

D-558-2: 10

Doolittle, James: 12

Dornberger, Walter: 6-7

Dryden Flight Research Center: 20. See also NACA High Speed Flight

Station and the other early names listed there.

Dryden, Hugh Latimer: 2 ill., 3 ill., 7 ill., 9 ill., 12 ill., 16 ill., 19 ill.

Academic career: 1-2

Aerodynamic research: 3-5

Aerodynamic Theory, contribution to: 5

“Air Forces on Circular Cylinders” (doctoral dissertation): 2

“Airplanes: An Introduction to the Physical Principles

Embodied in their Use” (masters thesis): 2

Awards and recognition: 4-5, 7, 20

Career: 2-3 , 4-5, 8, 9, 13

Character and qualities: 1, 12, 13-14, 17

Death: 20

Engineering projects: 4

Final illness: 17-20

Life in general: 1, 20

Negotiations with the Soviet Union: 14

Religiosity: 1, 4

“Turbulence and the Boundary Layer”: 5, 20

Dryden, Hugh Latimer, Jr. (son): 4

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Dryden, Leslie (brother): 1

Dryden: Mary Libbie Travers (wife): 3

Dryden, Mary Ruth (daughter): 4

Dryden, Nancy (daughter): 5

Dryden, Raymond (brother): 1

Dryden, Samuel Isaac (father): 1

Dryden, Zenovia Hill Culver (mother): 1

Echo 1: 15

Eisenhower, Dwight D.: 12

Empire State Building: 4

Explorer 1: 14

Explorer 6: 15

F-1 rocket engine: 14

Gagarin, Yuri: 18

Gemini Project: 18

Gilruth, Robert: 11, 13

Glennan, T. Keith: 13, 15

Goddard Space Flight Center: 14

House Select Committee on Astronautics and Space: 12

Jacobs, Eastman: 9

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL): 14

Johns Hopkins University: 1-2

Johnson, Lyndon B.: 20

Jones, Robert T.: 9

Journal of the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences: 9

Kármán, Theodore von: 6-7, 7 ill.

Kennedy, John F.: 15, 18

Kerr, Clark: 19

Kuethe, A. M.: 3

Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory: 8, 11, 16

Lewis, George W.: 8, 9

Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory: 9

Lockspeiser, Ben: 7 ill.

Lodge, Henry Cabot: 14

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): 5, 6

Mercury Project: 11, 15, 18

Munk, Max: 9

Muroc Flight Test Unit (later, Dryden Flight Research Center): 9

NACA High Speed Flight Station: 9, 16. See also NASA Flight Research

Center, Muroc Flight Test Unit, Dryden Flight Research Center.

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA): 2, 5, 8-11,

10 ill., 11 ill., 12

Aeronautical research: 8-11

Space Research: 10-11

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National Aeronautics and Space Act: 12

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): 12-20

Cooperation with the Soviet Union: 14

Space efforts: 13ff.

Ten Year Plan: 14

NASA Flight Research Center: 17

National Bureau of Standards (NBS): 2-5, 7-8

National Defense Research Committee (NDRC): 5

Navy, U.S.: 5

New York Times: 15-16

Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD): 5

Pickering, William: 13

Pilotless Aircraft Research Station: 9, 11

Pioneer 5: 15

Pocomoke City, Maryland: 1

Prandtl, Ludwig: 4

Quarterly of Applied Mechanics: 9

Rowe, A.P.: 7 ill.

Saturn booster: 14

Seamans, Robert C.: 19 ill.

Silverstein, Abe: 13

Soviet Union: 14 See also Sputnik.

Sputnik: 12

Stack, John: 9

Stever, H. Guyford: 13

Symington, W. Stuart: 10

Tiros 1: 15

Toward New Horizons: 7-8

V-1 cruise missile: 7

V-2 ballistic missile: 7

Van Allen, James A.: 13

Vanguard Project: 12, 14

Variable sweep wing: 16

Victory, John F.: 5

Webb, James E.: 16 ill., 18, 19 ill.

Weick, Fred: 9

Where We Stand: 7

Whitcomb, Richard: 9

Wiesner, Jerome: 15

Wiesner Report: 15-16

Wind tunnels: 2, 3-4, 8 ill., 8, 10, 16, 17

Worcester County, Maryland: 1

World War I: 2

World War II: 5-7, 10

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X-1: 10

X-2: 10

X-3: 10

X-4: 10

X-5: 10, 16

X-15: 10, 11, 16-17

YF-92A: 10

Yeager, Charles E.: 9-10

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About the Author

Michael H. Gorn is Associate Editor, Smithsonian History of

Aviation Book Series, and Research Collaborator, Smithsonian

Institution, National Air and Space Museum. He is the author of

several books, articles, and reviews in aerospace history, including

The Universal Man: Theodore von Kármán’s Life in Aeronautics

(Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992) and Harnessing the Genie:

Science and Technology Forecasting for the Air Force, 1944-1986

(Government Printing Office, 1988). He is working on a fulllength biography of Hugh Dryden under contract with the

Smithsonian Institution Press. It is provisionally entitled “Skyward:

The Life of Hugh L. Dryden of NASA.” Dr. Gorn earned his B.A.

(1972) and M.A. (1973) degrees in history at the California State

University at Northridge and his Ph.D. degree, also in history, from

the University of Southern California (1978).

Monographs in Aerospace History

This is the fifth publication in a new series of special studies prepared under the auspices of the NASA History Program. The

Monographs in Aerospace History series is designed to provide a wide

variety of investigations relative to the history of aeronautics and

space. These publications are intended to be tightly focused in

terms of subject, relatively short in length, and reproduced in

inexpensive format to allow timely and broad dissemination to

researchers in aerospace history. Suggestions for additional publications in the Monographs in Aerospace History series are welcome and

should be sent to Roger D. Launius, Chief Historian, Code ZH,

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, DC,

20546. Previous publications in this series are:

Launius, Roger D. and Gillette, Aaron K. Compilers. Toward a

History of the Space Shuttle: An Annotated Bibliography. (Number 1,

1992)

Launius, Roger D. and Hunley, J. D. Compilers. An Annotated

Bibliography of the Apollo Program. (Number 2, 1994)

Launius, Roger D. Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis. (Number 3,

1994)

Hansen, James R. Enchanted Rendezvous: John C. Houbolt and the

Genesis of the Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous Concept. (Number 4, 1995)

137