Milton Rosen
Encyclopedia
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
engineer and project manager in the US space program
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
between the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the early days of the Apollo Program. He led development of the Viking
Viking rocket
The Viking rocket series of sounding rockets were designed and built by the Glenn L. Martin Company under the direction of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory . Twelve Viking rockets flew from 1949 to 1955.- Origins :...
and Vanguard rocket
Vanguard rocket
The Vanguard rocket was intended to be the first launch vehicle the United States would use to place a satellite into orbit. Instead, the Sputnik crisis caused by the surprise launch of Sputnik 1 led the U.S., after the failure of Vanguard TV3, to quickly orbit the Explorer 1 satellite using a Juno...
s, and was influential in the critical decisions early in NASA's history that led to the definition of the Saturn rockets, which were central to the eventual success of the American Moon landing
Moon landing
A moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. This includes both manned and unmanned missions. The first human-made object to reach the surface of the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2 mission on 13 September 1959. The United States's Apollo 11 was the first manned...
program.
Viking rocket program
After the end of WWII, Rosen worked at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), where he was involved in the definition of alternative designs for high-altitude sounding rocketSounding rocket
A sounding rocket, sometimes called a research rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The origin of the term comes from nautical vocabulary, where to sound is to throw a weighted line from a ship into...
s, both for scientific research on the upper atmosphere, and for development of liquid rocket
Liquid rocket
A liquid-propellant rocket or a liquid rocket is a rocket engine that uses propellants in liquid form. Liquids are desirable because their reasonably high density allows the volume of the propellant tanks to be relatively low, and it is possible to use lightweight pumps to pump the propellant from...
technology for military purposes, following the German introduction of the large V-2 rocket
V-2 rocket
The V-2 rocket , technical name Aggregat-4 , was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp. The liquid-propellant rocket was the world's first long-range combat-ballistic missile and first known...
weapon.
He became NRL project manager for the Viking rocket
Viking rocket
The Viking rocket series of sounding rockets were designed and built by the Glenn L. Martin Company under the direction of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory . Twelve Viking rockets flew from 1949 to 1955.- Origins :...
, which was the first large US liquid-fueled rocket. Roughly half the size, in terms of mass and power, of the V-2, the Viking improved upon it in several important respects. Both were actively guided, and fueled with the same propellants (alcohol and liquid oxygen [LOX]), which were fed to a single rocket engine
Rocket engine
A rocket engine, or simply "rocket", is a jet engineRocket Propulsion Elements; 7th edition- chapter 1 that uses only propellant mass for forming its high speed propulsive jet. Rocket engines are reaction engines and obtain thrust in accordance with Newton's third law...
by turbine-driven pumps. The Viking airframe was designed and built under contract to NRL by the Glenn L. Martin Company
Glenn L. Martin Company
The Glenn L. Martin Company was an American aircraft and aerospace manufacturing company that was founded by the aviation pioneer Glenn L. Martin. The Martin Company produced many important aircraft for the defense of the United States and its allies, especially during World War II and the Cold War...
. The engine, built by Reaction Motors Inc (RMI) of New Jersey, was the largest liquid-fueled rocket engine developed in the United States up to that time. It produced 89 kN (20000 lbf) of thrust. As was also the case for the V-2, hydrogen peroxide
Hydrogen peroxide
Hydrogen peroxide is the simplest peroxide and an oxidizer. Hydrogen peroxide is a clear liquid, slightly more viscous than water. In dilute solution, it appears colorless. With its oxidizing properties, hydrogen peroxide is often used as a bleach or cleaning agent...
was converted to steam to drive the turbo-pump that fed fuel and LOX into the engine.
In a series of twelve flights between September 1949 and February 1955, Viking rockets explored the characteristics of the atmosphere above 30 km, and set a number of performance records, including the highest altitude, 158 miles (254.3 km), reached by an American single stage rocket up to that time.
Project Vanguard
In the early 1950s, the American Rocket SocietyAmerican Rocket Society
The American Rocket Society began its existence on April 4, 1930, under the name of the American Interplanetary Society. It was founded by science fiction writers G. Edward Pendray, David Lasser, Laurence Manning and others. The members originally conducted their own rocket experiments in New York...
set up an ad hoc Committee on Space Flight, of which Rosen became the chair. Encouraged by conversations between Richard W. Porter of General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
and Alan T. Waterman, Director of the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
(NSF), Rosen on November 27, 1954 completed a report describing the potential value of launching an earth satellite. The report was submitted to the NSF early in 1955.
When the US decided to orbit a scientific satellite during the International Geophysical Year
International Geophysical Year
The International Geophysical Year was an international scientific project that lasted from July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War when scientific interchange between East and West was seriously interrupted...
(IGY), a 1955 proposal from NRL, to build a launch vehicle based on the Viking as a first stage with a second stage based on the smaller Aerobee sounding rocket was selected, and again Rosen was project manager. The maturity of the Viking and Aerobee rockets played an important role in the choice. However there was also a strong hidden motive higher in the US government: to establish a precedent for overflight rights to East Bloc territory with a non-military civilian research rocket, in preparation for the highly secret national reconnaissance satellite program then underway. This classified NRL proposal was the genesis of Project Vanguard
Project Vanguard
Project Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory , which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket as the launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Missile Annex, Florida....
.
Unfortunately for the timely success of the satellite project, many of the most experienced people at Martin were shifted to the high-priority Titan
Titan (rocket family)
Titan was a family of U.S. expendable rockets used between 1959 and 2005. A total of 368 rockets of this family were launched, including all the Project Gemini manned flights of the mid-1960s...
ICBM program, and the mature Viking team was largely lost to Project Vanguard. The resulting shock to US pride and perceptions of national security, when the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
launched Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1
Sputnik 1 ) was the first artificial satellite to be put into Earth's orbit. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957. The unanticipated announcement of Sputnik 1s success precipitated the Sputnik crisis in the United States and ignited the Space...
, the first artificial earth satellite, on October 4, 1957 (on the much larger R-7 rocket
R-7 Semyorka
The R-7 was a Soviet missile developed during the Cold War, and the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile. The R-7 made 28 launches between 1957 and 1961, but was never deployed operationally. A derivative, the R-7A, was deployed from 1960 to 1968...
, developed as an ICBM), combined with the spectacular launch failure of the first complete Vanguard test launch December 6, 1957, is well known and recounted elsewhere. Thus the first US satellite, Explorer 1, was launched January 31, 1958 by a substantially larger Army Jupiter-C
Jupiter-C
The Jupiter-C was an American sounding rocket used for three sub-orbital spaceflights in 1956 and 1957 to test re-entry nosecones that were later to be deployed on the more advanced PGM-19 Jupiter mobile missile....
rocket, based on the Redstone missile, which had been developed by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency
Army Ballistic Missile Agency
The Army Ballistic Missile Agency was the agency formed to develop the US Army's first intermediate range ballistic missile. It was established at Redstone Arsenal on February 1, 1956 and commanded by Major General John B...
(ABMA) at Huntsville, AL under the leadership of Werner von Braun. The first successful Vanguard satellite launching came on March 17, 1958. Its payload, Vanguard 1
Vanguard 1
Vanguard 1 was the fourth artificial Earth satellite launched and the first satellite to be solar powered. Although communication with it was lost in 1964, it remains the oldest manmade satellite still in orbit...
, is the oldest satellite currently in orbit.
NASA and the Apollo program
Rosen went on after Vanguard to be involved in a number of important NASANASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
studies and committees that helped to define the family of large launch vehicles, designed from the beginning not as missiles, but as space launchers, that were eventually to be key components of the Apollo program. He was the principal author of a report to President Eisenhower, dated 27 January 1959, which proposed three families of vehicles needed to support an ambitious National Space Program.
The smallest, based on the Atlas missile, included an ambitious variant with a liquid hydrogen (LH2) – liquid oxygen (LOX) upper stage. This Atlas
Atlas (rocket family)
Atlas is a family of U.S. space launch vehicles. The original Atlas missile was designed in the late 1950s and produced by the Convair Division of General Dynamics, to be used as an intercontinental ballistic missile...
–Centaur
Centaur (rocket stage)
Centaur is a rocket stage designed for use as the upper stage of space launch vehicles. Centaur boosts its satellite payload to geosynchronous orbit or, in the case of an interplanetary space probe, to or near to escape velocity...
launcher was developed, after many difficulties, into the rocket that carried the critical Surveyor
Surveyor program
The Surveyor Program was a NASA program that, from 1966 through 1968, sent seven robotic spacecraft to the surface of the Moon. Its primary goal was to demonstrate the feasibility of soft landings on the Moon...
series of lunar landers, used to investigate the mechanical properties of the lunar surface, and to demonstrate the capability of soft-landing on rocket power which was an essential element of the lunar program. The early development of LH2–LOX technology also later proved critical to the capabilities of the Saturn family of large high-performance boosters.
The second family discussed, called Juno V at the time, eventually evolved into the Saturn I
Saturn I
The Saturn I was the United States' first heavy-lift dedicated space launcher, a rocket designed specifically to launch large payloads into low Earth orbit. Most of the rocket's power came from a clustered lower stage consisting of tanks taken from older rocket designs and strapped together to make...
rockets, using clusters of eight medium-sized, 188000 lbf (836.3 kN) thrust H-1
H-1 (rocket engine)
Rocketdyne's H-1 is a thrust liquid-propellant rocket engine burning LOX and RP-1. The H-1 was developed for use in the S-IB first stage of the Saturn I and Saturn IB rockets, where it was used in clusters of eight engines...
engines to yield 1500000 lbf (6,672.3 kN) liftoff thrust, and nine clustered propellant tanks adapted from the Army's existing Jupiter and Juno rockets. Although based on available component hardware in order to speed development, these boosters were substantially larger than any in use anywhere at that time, and promised to give the US parity in launch capability in the developing space race. The third family was based on the very large, 1500000 lbf (6,672.3 kN) single-chambered F-1 engine
F-1 (rocket engine)
The F-1 is a rocket engine developed by Rocketdyne and used in the Saturn V. Five F-1 engines were used in the S-IC first stage of each Saturn V, which served as the main launch vehicle in the Apollo program. The F-1 is still the most powerful single-chamber liquid-fueled rocket engine ever...
then beginning development. These featured two to four engines clustered to yield up to 6 million lbf of lift-off thrust, and were the start of a series of designs that eventually led to the final five-engined, 7500000 lbf (33,361.7 kN) lift-off thrust Saturn V
Saturn V
The Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA's Apollo and Skylab programs from 1967 until 1973. A multistage liquid-fueled launch vehicle, NASA launched 13 Saturn Vs from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida with no loss of crew or payload...
moon rocket.
See also
- Viking rocketViking rocketThe Viking rocket series of sounding rockets were designed and built by the Glenn L. Martin Company under the direction of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory . Twelve Viking rockets flew from 1949 to 1955.- Origins :...
- Project VanguardProject VanguardProject Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory , which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket as the launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Missile Annex, Florida....
- Vanguard rocketVanguard rocketThe Vanguard rocket was intended to be the first launch vehicle the United States would use to place a satellite into orbit. Instead, the Sputnik crisis caused by the surprise launch of Sputnik 1 led the U.S., after the failure of Vanguard TV3, to quickly orbit the Explorer 1 satellite using a Juno...
- Saturn rocket
- Apollo Program