Word: aerojet
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Thiokol sales have gone from $4,800,000 in 1951 to last year's $31 million, which brought net profits of $1,452,000 (but still far behind the $162 million sales of its chief competitor. General Tire & Rubber Co.'s Aerojet-General Corp.). Though Thiokol's first-quarter sales are off a bit because some of its military contracts ran out and one plant was damaged by fire, Thiokol expects a 50% gain for all of calendar 1958. Reason: solid fuels are far simpler and safer to handle than liquid fuels that require a maze...
Projected traffic to the moon is getting heavy. Latest notion for a moon vehicle is the Aerobee M, which Aerojet-General Corp. has just thought up, using available hardware. If given priorities and $30 million, Aerojet says it can hit the moon in less than a year...
According to Aviation Week, the Aerobee M solves the propulsion problem with five stages of solid-fuel rockets, starting with a cluster of four Aerojet Seniors, which were developed for the Navy's Polaris missile. The initial guidance problem is not solved at all. Instead of attempting the extremely difficult feat of steering the vehicle accurately during its quick spurt through the earth's atmosphere, Aerojet proposes to fire it from a launcher pointed in the general direction of the spot in space where it is expected to meet the moon...
There were three critical solid-fuel rocketry breakthroughs: 1) development at Caltech and Aerojet-General Corp. of a new type of solid fuel that will last a year or more inside underground launching cylinders without cracking; 2) development at Massachusetts Institute of Technology of a new-type guidance gyro that can be kept running continuously inside the underground slots for as long as two to three years; 3) successful testing by Thiokol Chemical Corp. of the biggest solid-fuel rocket engine ever built, with more than enough thrust to meet ICBM requirements...
...breakthroughs came at an awesome rate. Raborn needed a reliable solid fuel, for liquid fuels are both too volatile and too bulky for shipboard use. Aerojet-General Corp. and Thiokol Chemical Corp. brought out solid fuels with a wallop ("as simple," says Raborn, "as the comb in your pocket"). Even so, solids presented a big problem: how to cut off burning with the split-second precision necessary if the missile is to land on target. (Liquid oxygen can be shut off mechanically with a valve.) The solution: a design called a retrorocket that automatically blasts portholes in the fuel chamber...