Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1959-08-16

Continued From First Page
the speciality built Vanguard
scientific" rocket which. has
mo military applications: In
two. the Army's Redstone me-
dunn orange missile. and In one,
the Air Forces Atlas intercon-
tinental ballistic missile.
Six Of the 10 launchings were
unqualified successes in the
sense Of doing all they were
sent up to do. or more. Three
tthe second and third moon
attempts and the first piscov-
ererl. might be termed partial
successes in that they per-
formed impressively but moi
up to the planned standard
And the remaining 10 were just
plain failures.
As Is 50 often the case n
rocketry. the failures are al
least as interesting 70 study q;
the successes. What caused the
10 disappointments? K
| Guidance Faults Blamed
Different things caused the
various malfunctions. of course
But performance Of the biz
bottom stage was not one Of
these things. Three, failure,
that seemed. to result Iron
guidance trouble in the FIRST
stage actually stemmed from
special experimental guidance
equipment that is not part Of
the standard military rocket
There are So many thing
that can 60 wrong with a mod.
ern missile that it is q wonder
anything ever goes right. The
complexity Of q rocket Is al.
most inconceivable. A Tho
or Jupiter blends the bruts
power Of q battleship with the
delicate balance Of q micro.
scopically machined gyroscope;
q sturdy turbopump that car
deliver dozens of gallons Of
frigid liquid every second with
q complex electronic computer
Regardless of this, the fact
remains that missiles like Thoi
and Jupiter are amazingly re.
liable when used for the pur.
pose for which they were built
as weapons. When tinkerec
with an adapted and rede-
signed for scientific purposes
they often act up. But thi.
should not reflect on their re.
liability.
The Jupiter that carried
monkeys Able and Baker Cui
to 800 miles and back again
"a ballistic, not an orbital mis-
sion) is q good example. This
was q military shot and the
monkeys went along on q
space-availabIe basis as what
might be called living ballast.
The Jupiter was fired in a
missile, test, and performed
perfectly. It landed more than
1000 miles downrariee within
only about 500 feet Of the pre-
else point at which 1t had been
aimed. This IL the equivalent
of firing Q heavy howitzer shell
Is miles and having 1t land
within I've feet Of the target.
Yet failures continue. The
more advanced the device, the
more likely it is to fail. The
string Of Atlas blowups earlier
this year. and last Fridays
Titan explosion at Cape Ca
naVeral are examples Of what
can be expected.
It is q curious fact of mis-
silery that even after q gadget
Is proved out, it does not al-
ways work as planned in new
situations. Atlas is well on the
way to Standardization and
there hasn't been q FIRST stage
Vanguard failure since Febru-
airy of last year. But it is q
fair bet that when the Van
guard FIRST stage is married"
to the Atlas in the Space Adj
|f1linistration's Project Vega
there win be q lot Of trouble
with unpredictable bugs"
The difhculty today - as
always in the fast-moving
space business - Is that tech
|niques cannot keep up with
theory. The state of the art
has g way Of running several