In the 1950s, the ambitions of America’s fledgling space program caused great fascination among both young and old.
Above is a poster, with the only identifying information I could find given as “Copyright 1959 Educational Posters # 117 “Space Age”. Only one of the vehicles depicted in the artwork was actually built, and really flew. (Can you tell which one? The answer is at the bottom).
Anyone who knows where and how to obtain a high-resolution image of this artwork: please let me know!
In 1963, the same chart was included in a magazine article. (Dickenson, Fred. “U.S. Space Hardware – Today and Tomorrow”. New York Mirror Magazine, April 28, 1963 pp 9-10). Unfortunately, I have no further information.
Answer to the question above: The North American X-15, shown left and center. It was an experimental hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft, which first flew on June 8, 1959 after being dropped from a B-52 bomber at Edwards Air Force Base in California. During the program, the X-15 reached altitudes over 100 kilometers (62 miles), meeting the definition of “space” as acknowledged by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. In terms of speed, the X-15 eventually achieved Mach 6.7 (or 6.7 times the speed of sound). Even today, this is the world record for self-powered, manned aircraft. Unless, of course, we include NASA’s Space Shuttle in this class. (But that would be a stretch. The initial stage of the Space Shuttle’s ascent relied on external boosters, the second phase on an external tank that weighted a lot more than the orbiter. And the shuttle’s descent was unpowered during atmospheric flight – at which point it was just a passive glider. By contrast, once the X-15 was released by the carrier aircraft, it accelerated and flew under its own power and (at least on most flights) used internal fuel. This self-propelled flight phase was when the X-15 reached its record-making altitudes and speeds. On the return trip, the X-15 was also a passive, unpowered glider like its predecessor, the X-1, as well as the much later Space Shuttle.
Today is the 100th anniversary of the first launch of a liquid fueled rocket. In a snowy field near Auburn, Massachusetts, the feat was accomplished by American rocket pioneer Robert Hutchings Goddard (October 5, 1882 – August 10, 1945).
According to Goddard’s field notes, the contraption nicknamed “Nell” reached an altitude of 41 feet (12.5), during a total flight time of 2.5 seconds. There were only a few witnesses: Goddard’s 25-year old wife Esther (serving as photographer), Goddard’s crew chief Henry Sachs, and Clark University assistant physics professor Percy Roope. Some boys who were out sledding happened to pass by and were mesmerized by the surreal display of an object being launched into the air.
Before the launch of “Nell” on March 16, 1926. Photo (most likely) by Esther Goddard.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that anything but fragments of the historical rocket are still around. Goddard and his compatriots took the parts to their workshop, and most parts were reused.
Goddard was a staunch American patriot. At a time when the military was still very skeptical of any military potential for rockets (or plainly ridiculed the idea), Goddard tirelessly advocated for research and development of rockets for military use. Long before commercial uses for rockets, military funding must have seemed vastly more rational than asking for money to pursue another grandiose idea: that of using rockets to leave the Earth and fly to space. The latter concept had captured Goddard’s imagination since childhood. But aside from a few visionaries, most serious engineers and scientists at the time thought of such ideas as just plain silly, unviable, and ridiculous. (Meanwhile in Europe, Hermann Oberth mirrored Goddard’s ambitions for leaving the Earth’s atmosphere and sending rockets to space).
Robert Goddard lecturing at Clark University
Much of the work Goddard did for the military was rather secretive. And this wasn’t just because of the need to keep weapons development secret, but also because funding rocket research from military budgets would have been controversial, to say the least, even within the military.
It appears to me that Goddard was discretely involved in military research very early on in his career. Re-reading some of Goddard’s biography, I came across an interesting tidbit in the notice announcing his death, published by the New York Times of August 11, 1945.
In the very last paragraph, it casually notes:
During the first World War he was research director for the United States Signal Corps, both at Worcester and at Mount Wilson Observatory in California.
“Worcester” might refer to Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where Goddard enrolled in physics classes in 1904, and eventually became a laboratory assistant and tutor. Goddard remained at WPI until 1908, then began his graduate studies at Clark University in Worcester in the fall of 1909.
While studying at Clark, Goddard continued working in Salisbury Labs at WPI and anecdotally caused a damaging explosion, whereupon his work was moved to the Magnetic Lab. In 1912, Goddard accepted a research fellowship at Princeton University’s Palmer Physical Laboratory.
But this was all before WW-1. Therefore, the reference in the New York Times would either be incorrect, or Goddard had already started working on secret “side projects” on behalf of the military as early as during his graduate studies at Clark, beginning in 1909, or possibly even earlier, at WPI.
So what was he secretly working on?
The project was a man-portable recoilless anti-tank rocket launcher weapon, nicknamed the “stovepipe” or “bazooka”. The development of the bazooka involved the development of two specific lines of technology: the rocket-powered weapon and a “shaped charge” warhead. Goddard was probably commissioned to work on the solid fuel rocket and its launch tube. In other words, the delivery system for the warhead.
Reportedly, Goddard and his co-worker Clarence N. Hickman successfully demonstrated the weapon to the U.S. Army Signal Corps at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, on November 6, 1918. But as the Compiègne Armistice was signed only five days later, the project was halted. (It reemerged for the WW-2 effort, at which point Hickman had taken the lead, and Goddard may no longer have been involved at all).
What about the New York Times’ reference to Mount Wilson Observatory? This one is rather intriguing. Obviously, a secluded astronomical observatory on a California mountaintop would seem like a rather unlikely place for rocket research.
Although notes linking Goddard to Mount Wilson can be found in several sources, none of them are original, and I found no definitive evidence. All I was able to locate is a photograph.
In its archive, Clark University has a picture of Robert Goddard “loading 1918 forerunner of “bazooka” of World War II, Mount Wilson, California”, according to Esther Goddard’s annotation. However, since Goddard and Esther weren’t a couple at the time, this image (if it is indeed from 1918) could not have been taken by Esther. Besides, since a woman’s presence at the all-male Mount Wilson Observatory would have created quite a stir in 1918, we can all but rule out Esther as a first hand witness. Most likely, her annotation was made much later, possibly long after her husband’s death in 1945. Therefore, her annotation does nothing to establish a location. The widow merely recorded something she recalled being told about her late husband’s work.
I take the view, pending evidence to the contrary, that this picture wasn’t taken on Mount Wilson, and that Robert Goddard was never really present there. His supposed work at the observatory was probably just a convenient cover story concocted by someone at the U.S. Army Signal Corps.
It is however possible that the cover story was deemed necessary because Goddard may have had some contacts, interviewed for a job, or done some work at Caltech around that time. Caltech is just down the mountain, so there is at least a geographic proximity. Perhaps the Signal Corps wanted to shield Goddard and the bazooka project. Or perhaps Goddard himself wanted to keep a possible visit and connection to Caltech concealed from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Clark University, and Princeton University?
Only very few of the original space pioneers are still with us, and we keep losing the last remaining few.
Fellow pilot, war hero and astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who keeps very engaged online, posted this:
Grieving the loss of one of my best friends, Jim Lovell. His extraordinary legacy is cemented by many space missions: Gemini VII, Gemini XII, Apollo 8 and Apollo 13.
Our mutual respect had no limits. The Gemini XII mission we flew together paved the way for the Apollo missions. Heartfelt condolences to Jim’s family. Farewell Jim. You will be missed, my friend. Godspeed!
50 years after it had taken him and his fellow astronauts John Young and Ken Mattingly to the Moon, U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Charles Duke (ret.) visits the command module of the Apollo 16 spacecraft.1 (Young passed away in 2018, and Mattingly in 2023).
The photos below show “Charlie” Duke as a U.S. Naval Academy midshipman in 19572, and (back row, third from left) as a student at the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School class 64-C3, which commenced in August 1964 at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The commandant at the time was Chuck Yeager.
60 years ago today, topping the spectacular success of Sputnik 1, the Soviet Union again amazed the world with the launch of Sputnik 2. This satellite was much larger than its predecessor, and it carried the first living passenger to space: Laika the dog. The mission paved the way for human spaceflight by proving that life could be sustained in space.
Ever since I was a boy I have been wondering what happened to Laika. My books only reported that she did not survive, but did not give any details. Unfortunately the truth of the matter is rather sad and shocking. I believe Laika’s fate should be mentioned.
At one time, she was a mongrel stray dog wandering the streets of Moscow. She ended up in an animal shelter, and was one of several dogs picked up for the space program. Her age was estimated to be around three years, and she weighed 6 kg (13 pds).
During her training, Soviet personnel called her “Kudryavka” (Russian for “Little Curly”), “Zhuchka” (“Little Bug”) and “Limonchik” (“Little Lemon”), but somehow “Laika” stuck. In addition to her, two alternate dogs were being trained: Albina and Mushka.
The dogs were subjected to noises and forces similar to what they would experience during launch. In order to adapt the dogs to the tiny confines of Sputnik 2, they were kept in progressively smaller containers for up to 20 days. Of course all this meant tremendous stress for the dogs, who stopped urinating and defecating and deteriorated physically. The dogs were trained to eat a gel food, presumably because it produced little bodily waste and was easy to transport and dispense.
The schedule was extremely tight, because Nikita Khrushchev wanted a launch on or before Nov. 7 (the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. It would have been impossible to design a re-entry and landing system in such a short time. As a result, Laika’s flight was planned to end in a fireball. But before re-entry, Laika was meant to be poisoned by remote control.
After the final selection was made, Laika was placed in the satellite three days before launch. Just prior to launch, her fur was sponged in an alcohol solution and iodine was applied. Electrodes were attached to send back telemetry of her bodily functions.
The data showed that during peak acceleration of the launch, her pulse rate increased from 103 to an incredible 240 beats per minute. The poor dog’s breathing quickened to three to four times the normal rate. After engine cut off and in the weightlessness of Sputnik 2’s orbit, she relaxed somewhat, but it took three hours for her life signs to return to normal. She was clearly agitated but appeared to be eating her food.
There had been a problem during launch: one part did not jettison properly, which prevented the climate control system from functioning properly. As a result, the interior of Laika’s vehicle reached 40 °C (104 °F).
Soviet sources gave many conflicting accounts of what happened next, but fact is that Laika suffered a slow and awful death. Perhaps the most authoritative (and most recent) account is contained in a paper submitted by Dr. Dimitri Malshenkov to the World Space Congress in Houston, Texas, in 2002. It asserts that Laika died from overheating between the 5th and 7th hour of the flight.
Laika has not been forgotten, nor should she be. Her name lives on in numerous books and articles, on postage stamps from various countries, in brands of consumables and in pop music: (iTunes currently lists hundreds of items containing “Laika” in either the artist name or song title).
The first time I visited SpaceX, it was still a startup company operating out of an industrial warehouse. Since then, SpaceX has become the darling of the New Space movement, and it has a long list of pioneering accomplishments. Among them: the first landings of spent rocket stages for later re-use.
The idea had already been proposed by Wernher von Braun’s team in the 1960s, who hoped to land and re-use future versions of 1st stages for the mighty Saturn V rockets. At the time, the concept could not be pursued due to the tight timeline of the Apollo program.
After the moon missions had been prematurely ended, the Saturn rocket program was eventually put on ice and then canceled entirely. Wernher von Braun thought that the upcoming Space Shuttle program should be supplementary to a continued development of the Saturn multi-stage rockets into a whole family of vehicles with partial reusability.
A part of the proposed Saturn heavy lift rocket family.
In terms of reusability, a multitude of concepts were studied. Propulsive landings would have been too much of a technical challenge at the time, so most proposals included parachutes and a splashdown on water, a paraglider apparatus, or wings. For instance, here some historic papers on the matter:
(Warning: these are large files. Download times may vary).
As Von Braun began to vehemently criticize NASA’s sole focus on the Space Shuttle program, he and his Saturn rockets were cast aside. Von Braun was given an inane desk job in Washington D.C. and left NASA a few years later. But as it turns out, Von Braun’s was right, and his suggested route would have been the correct one. Almost five decades later and into the foreseeable future, multi-stage rockets, not winged bodies, still provide the most reliable and least costly transport to space. Not only that, costs can be dramatically reduced, as SpaceX has clearly demonstrated.
It took a private company, SpaceX a long time to make von Braun’s vision of reusable rocket stages a reality. It wasn’t easy, as this video compilation attests.
I have seen a lot of film footage of exploding rockets. (They were quite numerous in the early days of spaceflight). But I’ve never seen anything like the incident that destroyed a SpaceX Flacon 9 at the launch pad at Cape Canaveral on September 1.
I’ve replayed the video provided by USLaunchReport.com over and over, slowed in down, and examined every frame leading up to the event. It seems quite clear that something exploded near the 2nd stage umbilical, which then ripped apart a tank. This happened extremely fast. After the initial explosion, fuel and oxygen can be seen gushing out, rushing down and igniting into a fiery cascade. The initial explosion’s flash was so bright and strong that its reflections can even be seen in the spherical tank sitting on the ground, quite a distance away from the rocket.
But I also noticed a puzzling detail. There’s a strange object moving very rapidly toward the rocket! It doesn’t hit the rocket, but it can still be seen in the air with the initial explosion already in progress.
See for yourself. Here are three frames in sequence. (The time bar does not reflect real time). I’ve marked the object with an arrow.
What is this? An extremely fast-moving aircraft in the far distance? This should be easy to verify or discount. Or perhaps a bird moving rapidly between rocket and camera? This would have been a very fast bird, flying in a perfectly straight line and without a visible wing flap.
All other options I could come up with would be rather sinister — such as a drone or some kind of weapon.
Vertically landing rockets have been a staple in science fiction for a long time:
And in the 1960s, Wernher von Braun’s Saturn team was already intensely thinking about outfitting future versions of the Saturn V with reusable stages. Among the many concepts studied were a winged flyback version and a parachute-assisted return. Unfortunately, these ambitions never went beyond the drawing stages. While closing down the Apollo program, NASA made the fateful (and as we now know, mistaken) decision to pursue the Space Shuttle as NASA’s exclusive launch vehicle. The vehemently protesting Wernher on Braun was sidelined and “kicked up” into a senior administrative position with little real decision making power. (Disappointed and unsatisfied, he left NASA a few years later). Since then, astronauts have been confined to low Earth orbit, going essentially nowhere but in circles.
It took almost five decades for the reusable rocket concept to return and become reality, and it was neither NASA nor any other national space program, but two private companies which accomplished the first proof-of-concept.
In November 2015, Blue Origin had successfully landed an experimental test rocket at its launch site in West Texas. It plans to use the rocket again. And on December 21, 2015, California based SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket to space while returning and landing the rocket’s 1st stage to the launch site for a powered, vertical landing. For the first time a rocket has been successfully landed during a commercial satellite launch.
The concepts used by the two companies are very different, as illustrated here:
The end result result of the SpaceX flight is certainly stunning and resembles what science fiction described so many decades ago:
It now remains to be seen if recovering and refurbishing an entire rocket stage and its engines is indeed cheaper than building a new one — something that hasn’t been tried on a commercial scale. But if Wernher von Braun was right (and he usually was), this should be the way to go.
