Word: rocketeers
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...conquest of space," says Rocket Engineer Harold W. Ritchey, "depends on solid propellants." Dr. Ritchey, chief rocket man for Thiokol Chemical Corp., manufacturer of solid propellants, backs up his flat statement in Astronautics. He has no hope that liquid-fuel rocket engines ("a remarkable chemical processing plant") will ever get spaceships into space...
...hard to make pump-fed engines much more powerful than they are now, and "the reliability of a single liquid-fuel engine is so low that even the most optimistic may quail at the idea of grouping more than a few turbopump systems into a clustered stage." Rocket engines using a solid propellant fire perfectly almost every time; they can be used in large clusters with expectation that all of them will do their duty...
...clusters will not be necessary, Dr. Ritchey says, because solid-fuel engines (unlike their liquid-fuel rivals) can be stepped up in power almost indefinitely. To show how this can be done, he starts with the semisecret Recruit rocket, which burns solid fuel, is 9 in. in diameter, weighs about 350 Ibs. and has 35,000 Ibs. of thrust. Using a set of formulas, he scales it up 50 times (perfectly feasible, he says) and comes out with a rocket that weighs 43,000,800 Ibs. and has 87,500,000 Ibs. of thrust, twice as much as is needed...
TENNESSEE GAS Transmission Co., nation's longest pipeline system, will go into manufacturing of solid rocket fuels and solid-propellant rocket engines. It is closing deal to swap $6,000,000 worth of stock for control of Grand Central Rocket Co. of Redlands, Calif., which is building third-stage rocket for Vanguard earth-satellite...
Space Slip. In London, Frank Barrow, explaining why he could not appear in court on a parking summons, wrote the judge: "I have volunteered this week for space travel in satellite or rocket, so I cannot foresee whether I shall be available to be present in court...