LIQUID HYDROGEN AS A PROPULSION FUEL,1945-1959

 

PART III : 1958-1959

11. Large Engines and Vehicles, 1958

 

 

ARPA Initiates First Large Launch Vehicle

 

[215] The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), established since February 1958 and having a budget, could have acted immediately on the large launch vehicles proposed by the Ballistic Missile Agency in the December 1957 and March 1958 proposals to the Department of Defense, but did not. Instead, on 17 April 1958, ARPA requested that the Army Ordnance Missile Command study an advanced satellite carrier vehicle patterned after Juno III.* The new vehicle, designated Juno IV, was....

 


 

[216] TABLE 8.-ABMA's Recommended Engine Developments, 1958

No.

Thrust N (lb)

Propellants

R&D

1

1.8 MN (400 000 lb) sea level

RP-O2

1956-61

2

Cluster, 4 x 1.8 MN, SL

RP-O2

1958-63

3

356-445 kN (80 000 - 100 000 lb) in vacuum of space.

N2H4-F2

1967-61

4

2.2 MN (500 000 lb), vac.

N2H4-F2 or similar

5

45-90 kN (10 000 - 20 000 lb), vac.

space storable (non-cryogenic)

1957-61

6

134 kN (30 000 lb), vac, pressurized tanks.

H2-O2

1958-60

7

4.5-6.7 MN (1 - 1.5 million lb), SL

RP or N2H4-O2

1960-66

8

445 kN, vac.

space storable

1960-65

9

2.2 MN, vac.

space storable

1960-65

10

1.3 MN (300 000 lb), vac.

nuclear fission

1957-65

11

4 N (1 lb), vac.

ion*

1957-66

12

45 N (10 lb), vac.

solar power

1957-64

13

0.9-2.2 MN (200 000 - 500 000 lb), vac.

arc-thermodynamic*

1958-?

14

0.9-2.2 MN, vac.

magnetohydrodynamic*

1958-?

 

Source: "A National Integrated Missile and Space Vehicle Development Program." 2d ed., report D-R-16, Dev., Oper, Div., ABMA, Redstone Arsenal, AL, 14 Mar. 1958.

* Requires electric power source.


 

....based on a modified Jupiter IRBM as the first stage with the addition of upper stageS.16 ARPA earmarked $46 million for the project.

 

In the months following the Juno IV order, interest at ARPA shifted to alternative vehicles. During this period David Young, Richard Canright, and Richard Cesaro began discussing larger launch vehicles based on using a cluster of existing engines for the first stage. Canright, on loan from Douglas Aircraft, had examined the desirability of using multiple rocket engines in launch vehicles for redundancy and reliability, following much the same philosophy used for large aircraft. He was, therefore, an instant and strong advocate for a large launch vehicle using a cluster of engines. He differed from the Ballistic Missile Agency, however, in that he wanted to use existing engines-the tried and proven rocket engines powering the Atlas ICBM and Thor IRBM. Each of these produced a thrust of 670 kilonewtons (150 000 lb), but both were capable of a 25 percent increase in thrust. This meant that a cluster of 8 or 9 could produce a total thrust of 6.7 meganewtons (1.5 million lb). Cesaro, a former NACA propulsion researcher at the Lewis laboratory, also favored large launch vehicles using multiple engines.17

 

In addition to large vehicles, Canright also began to consider smaller launch vehicles that could use existing missiles as first stages. In these studies, it is not surprising that he favored the Douglas-built Thor over the Chrysler-built Jupiter. He argued that Thor not only had the capability of the Jupiter, but cost much less. Word of his considerations of Thor reached ABMA, home of Jupiter, where naturally there was some unhappiness over the turn of events. ABMA was also well aware of Air Force interest in large vehicles, evidenced by a June 1958 contract with Rocketdyne for a....

 


 

[217] TABLE 9. - NACA Working Group's Recommended Engine Developments. 1958

No.
Thrust N (lb)
Propellants
R & D

1

1.7 MN (380 000 lb), sea level

RP-O2

1956-61

2

Cluster, 4 x 1-7 MN, SL

RP-O2

1956-64

3

6.67 MN (1.5 million lb), SL

RP or N2H4-O2

1960-64

4

Cluster, 2 or 4 x 6.67 MN, SL

RP or N2H4-O2

1960-65

5

27 kN (6000 lb) in vacuum of space; vernier

space storable (non-cryogenic)

1958-59

6

200 kN (45 000 lb), vac., pressurized tanks.

N2H4-N2O4

1958-61

7

445 kN (100 000 lb), vac.

space storable

1960-63

8

2.2 MN (500 000 lb), vac.

space storable

1960-66

9

53 kN (12 000 lb), vac.

N2H4-F2

1958-63**

10

89 kN (20 000 lb), vac.

H2-O2

1959-60

11

356-445 kN (80 000 - 100 000 lb), vac.

N2H4-F2

1958-63

12

2.2 MN, vac.

N2H4-F2 or similar

1960-65

13

2.2 - 4.5 MN (0.5 - 1 million lb), vac.

nuclear with hydrogen

1957-66

14

4 - 4450 N (1 - 1000 lb), vac.

ion*

1957-?

15

4 - 4450 N, vac.

arc-thermo-dynamic*

1958-?

16

4 - 4450 N, vac.

magnetohydrodynamic*

1958-?

17

4 - 4450 N, vac.

thermonuclear

1958-?

 

Source: Working Group on Vechicular Program, "Report to the NACA Special Committee on Space Technology."18 July 1958.

* Requires electric power source.

** Under development at Bell Aircraft for the Air Force.


 

....study of large engines. There was plenty of competition building up over who would be responsible for developing launch vehicles.

 

One day in mid-1958, Roy Johnson, ARPA's director, sent Canright to represent him at a meeting in the office of Wilbur Brucker, Secretary of the Army. Involved were Brucker, Maj. Gen. J.B. Medaris of ABMA, ARPA chief scientist Herbert York, David Young, and others. Brucker, a blunt, outspoken Michigan attorney and vigorous proponent for the Army, lost no time in coming to the point: ARPA had sold out completely to the Air Force, ignoring the Army's superb missile team at Huntsville, as well as the equally superb missile, Jupiter. Canright attempted to state the reasons for selecting Thor over Jupiter, but Brucker interrupted and in colorful language made it amply clear that the Army's capability should not be ignored. After the meeting, Medaris told York and Canright that von Braun's operations required about $90 million a year and if ARPA would pay half that amount, the Army would be satisfied. Canright was incensed over the Army's pressure tactics, but York apparently saw little else that could be done. Years later Canright believed that this meeting was a major factor in the assignment of ABMA to develop a large launch vehicle.18

 

The meeting with Brucker did not resolve the issue of the configuration for the large launch vehicle. Canright went to Huntsville and told von Braun and his associates what ARPA wanted: 7 or 8 Rocketdyne H-1 engines in a cluster for the first-stage [218] propulsion system. At the time, von Braun still favored the Juno V configuration using a cluster of 4 larger engines, the E-1, still on the drawing board. Canright recalls Medaris taking him into his office along with von Braun and saying, in effect, that trying to make 8 engines of such complexity work together was totally impractical. Canright, however, remained firm; he cited the favorable reaction of the National Security Council's panel and indicated that if ABMA was not willing to cluster the engines, a contractor could be found who would. The meeting left von Braun still unsatisfied with the 8-engine cluster, and he continued to argue for the use of fewer and larger engines.19

 

The planning of Silverstein at NACA and the Air Force's June 1958 contract with Rocketdyne for feasibility studies of a 4.5-meganewton engine increased the pressure for ARPA and ABMA to resolve the stalemate over using the cluster of existing ICBM engines for a large vehicle. According to Richard Cesaro, a crucial meeting occurred at the Pentagon in mid-1958. Medaris and von Braun represented ABMA, and Roy Johnson, David Young, and Cesaro represented ARPA. With control of the purse strings, the ARPA men laid their views on the line in forceful language and had their way. They also made it clear that ARPA was not going to serve merely as a money conduit, but intended to manage the work, a far cry from the blank check approach that ABMA had enjoyed in the past.20

 

Competition from another direction faced ARPA: civilian space planning led by NACA's Silverstein. When Silverstein organized his propulsion and vehicle coordinating committee (p.195) with its first meeting on 7 August 1958, the ARPA men sprang into action. The day of the committee meeting, Young and Canright went to Huntsville to discuss the possibility of von Braun's starting immediately on the cluster engine. They proposed using some Juno IV funds for this as an expediency. Eight days after Young and Canright returned to Washington, Johnson signed ARPA order 14-59. It directed the Army Ordnance Missile Command and ABMA to provide a development and funding plan for a large launch vehicle and to demonstrate its feasibility in a full-scale, captive test by the end of 1959. Initial funding was $5 million; the same day, Johnson signed ARPA orders 15 and 16 for Juno IV development under reduced funding.21

 

ARPA order 14-59, 15 August 1958, was the start of the first U.S. large launch vehicle, which would later be named Saturn. With ABMA assigned to build a large launch vehicle, Medaris and von Braun began to escalate the funding needed. By the end of August, ARPA agreed to triple the funding, although this was not formalized until December. The name of the new vehicle was changed from Juno IV to Juno V, because the former had been widely identified with the cluster of four E-1 engines.

 

In September, a member of von Braun's staff made a tactical error. The team was accustomed to thinking big, and in a briefing to visiting NASA administrator T. Keith Glennan, a cost analysis was shown which used the firing of a hundred Juno Vs as a mission model. It was only an arbitrary assumption for a cost analysis, but on learning about it, Johnson of ARPA grew very concerned that the ambitious von Braun was getting out of hand and that the whole program might be cancelled as too costly before it was well started. The President's National Aeronautics and Space Council was meeting on 24 September, and Johnson summoned Medaris to Washington the day before in order to reach an understanding about the project. After a two-hour meeting, [219] the two agreed upon $13.4 million for FY 1959 and $20.3 million for FY 1960 for research and development. An additional $1.6 million to modify a Huntsville test stand and $7 million for Atlantic Missile Range facilities brought the FY 1959 funding to $22 million-quadrupling the initial $5 million in five weeks. This was still prior to ABMA's submission of a development and funding plan.

 

In October 1958, the September agreement hit a snag. On 10 October, ABMA submitted a formal request for the $1.6 million to alter its test stand. It moved through government channels smoothly until it reached the Bureau of the Budget. On 1 October, NASA was formally in operation and on 14 October, Glennan requested the Department of Defense to transfer the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the space activities of ABMA to NASA. The Bureau of the Budget was a party to this request, so when it received the ABMA request for $1.6 million for the test stand, it withheld approval until the Juno V project was clarified as to its scope and the responsible agency.

 

The enterprising staff at ARPA took the Bureau of Budget disapproval as only a momentary setback. An analysis was prepared showing that Juno IV was really not needed and its funds could be diverted to support Juno V. Johnson cancelled Juno IV and ordered a maximum recovery of those funds from ABMA. The ARPA staff was confident that the recovered funds, some $8 million, could be switched to support the clustered engine project, Juno V. Young and Canright hurried to Huntsville to see if the amount was sufficient to cover the proposed work, which included upper-stage design studies, additional component testing, and purchase of long-lead-time equipment. Von Braun's engineers convinced them that more money was needed and submitted two plans: one at $17 million and the other at $11 million. ARPA considered these and decided to allocate the $8 million for design studies, component testing, and testing another "battleship" (non-flightweight) first stage. An additional $3.4 million was allocated for purchasing equipment with long delivery times. It was now the end of October and the promised funding for Juno V in FY 1959 had climbed to $33 million. In planning for the next fiscal year, ARPA requested $40 million for Juno V work at ABMA and $14 million for guidance equipment.

 

Both ABMA and ARPA must have been pleased with the upward trend of funding, but on 13 November they got a shock. During that week, the Bureau of Budget had found that both ARPA and NASA had requested funding for a large launch vehicle in FY 1960. Clearly the problem of who does what needed resolution. On the 13th, James Killian, the President's science advisor, met with DoD, ARPA, and NASA officials to discuss, among other things, deleting Juno V funds from the ARPA budget. The question of transferring the large launch vehicle from ARPA to NASA was raised, but Glennan was noncommittal, so the issue remained unresolved. On 19 November, Secretary of Defense McElroy and his deputy, Donald Quarles, agreed to include $50 million in the DoD budget for the clustered engine stage, subject to further discussions with Killian and the Bureau of the Budget. This remained intact through the budget review and was in the FY 1960 budget submitted to Congress in January 1959.

 

The ARPA men were elated over the McElroy-Quarles action and two days later amended order 14-59 to increase the funding to $13 million, as promised in September. The same day Johnson urged Quarles to help in securing Bureau of Budget approval for the $1.6 million for the Huntsville test stand. Also the same day, ABMA submitted [220] a proposal to ARPA for increasing FY 1959 funding for the clustered engine project to $32.9 million, in accordance with the development plan, which included one vehicle for static firing and four more for test flights. The funding for FY 1960 was estimated at $60 million-$10 million more than McElroy and Quarles had agreed to include only two days earlier.

 

Quarles tabled the $1.6 million request for the Huntsville test stand until the FY 1960 budget was clarified. This occurred on 3 December and Quarles told Johnson that the DoD budget would contain $50 million for the clustered engine stage. Soon after, the Bureau of the Budget released the held-up funding for the test stand. Both ARPA and ABMA had reason to rejoice on another matter resolved on 3 December. An agreement of that date left ABMA with the Army but "immediately, directly, and continuously responsive to NASA requirements."22

 


* Juno I was a modified Redstone with three upper stages of solid propellant rockets. Juno II was a modified Jupiter IRBM with the same upper stages as Juno I. In Juno III, the solid propellant rockets in the upper stages were slightly larger. Juno I launched the first U.S. satellite ( Explorer I) and two others ( Explorers III and IV). Juno II launched two space probes ( Pioneers III and IV) and two satellites ( Explorers VII and VIII). Juno III was not built.

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