Authors: Richard Tongue
This state of affairs did not last for long. Though initial development progressed, it became apparent that the requirements for a naval missile were incompatible with the long-range goals of the Army; the Navy would soon begin work on the Polaris missile, which would later provide the focus of its nuclear deterrent force. By 1956, the Navy had withdrawn from the project, which left the sole role for the Jupiter as the backup to the Thor, and therefore at grave risk of cancellation.
Further, the Jupiter would not even be able to find a home in the Army. While missiles such as the Redstone were operated by the U.S. Army in the field, the 'Wilson Memorandum', issued by the Pentagon in 1956, indicated that the Army would not be permitted to operate any missiles with a range greater than 200 miles. The Jupiter could only be operated by the Air Force, and it could hardly be expected that they would adopt a missile created by a rival organisation in preference to their own.
While the Jupiter was in danger of cancellation, and as the Navy was withdrawing, it was about to attain a new triumph. In a bid to help get the missile into production, General Medaris pushed for the earliest possible test of the missile at IRBM ranges. A key problem had been the re-entry of the nose cones, the element that would hold the warhead of the missile; the first 'maximum range' test, Missile 27, would be fired without the nose cone. Strictly speaking, this was not a 'true' Jupiter missile, the first of these would not be launched until May 1957 – this was a Redstone/Jupiter hybrid, using the basis of the proven Redstone booster (confusingly, the 'Redstone' missile was named after the 'Redstone' Arsenal) to test Jupiter components. In this case the hybrid was the 'Jupiter-C' type, an elongated Redstone missile with solid fuel upper stages.
While the missile had four stages, in this case, the fourth stage – instead of being filled with solid fuel – was filled with sand. The reason for this was simple – had it been fuelled,
the fourth stage would have entered orbit
. This had been pointed out during the development stage, and far from authorising a satellite launch, even one thrown together rapidly, the missile was ordered loaded with sand. Upon its launch from the Atlantic Missile Range, the missile attained an altitude of more than six hundred miles, and a range of three thousand miles – far in excess of its design specifications. (When it was reported, the launch was described as a 'man-made comet'.) Two missiles had been prepared for launch; the success of the first rendered the second shot unnecessary, and the other - Missile 29 – was placed in storage in the hope that it might be used for the launch of a satellite should Vanguard falter.
In the event, the Jupiter escaped cancellation. The decision on whether to cancel the project or not was deferred again and again, until the point where the missile was close enough to operational status that cancelling it seemed like a poor idea given the money already spent. In addition, the Jupiter won other missions in the interim, including the 'Hardtack' operation, a series of high-altitude nuclear tests in the Pacific. Ironically, the flight that the Jupiter would become best known for would
not
be flown by a Jupiter, but by a Redstone missile bearing its name.
The Vanguard rocket, as might be predicted given that it was a technical advancement considerably in advance of the state of the art, was running into a series of delays. The creation of a new launch system was proving time-consuming, and the team working it only had the experience of the Viking project behind them, a rocket with considerably less potential than many other similar vehicles in the US arsenal. Costs were rising, but this was less important than the fact that the delays were mounting.
Not that anyone thought that it was a race. The Soviet Union had claimed many times that they were on the verge of a launch into space, but few believed that they had the technical proficiency to pull off such a launch. These few were generally those in the American rocket community, who were aware that not only did the Soviet Union have a long-standing domestic interest in rocketry, but had also managed to obtained some critical material and personnel from Germany. On August 26, 1957, TASS indicated that it had launched, “A super long-range intercontinental rocket”, sounding very much like what was planned for the Atlas missile – a missile that was still years away from entering service. Even so, there was a general assumption that the United States, with its presumed technological edge, would not be beaten to the punch.
In a strange coincidence, a collection of key dignitaries were present at Redstone Arsenal on October 4
th
, 1957. The new Secretary of Defence, Neil McElroy, was visiting the base as part of his orientation tour; the Secretary of the Army was also present, as well as a selection of senior Army officers. They were celebrating the evening at a cocktail party when the news came through that the first satellite was orbiting the Earth, and it originated in the USSR – the launch of Sputnik 1. Most of
the people in the room were aware that the United States had, more than a year ago, passed up the opportunity to launch a satellite first. It was von Braun who broke the silence following the announcement.
“
We knew they were going to do it! Vanguard will never make it. We have the hardware on the shelf. For God's sake turn us loose and let us do something. We can put up a satellite in sixty days, Mr. McElroy! Just give us a green light and sixty days!”
This proved slightly optimistic, but certainly the unused Missile 29 represented a proven method of launching a satellite into space from American soil. While the new Secretary of Defence was not willing to provide clearance over the cocktails, the rhythmic beep-beep-beep of the satellite proved a critical psychological element. The entire nation was up in arms, demanding that some response should be made to the Soviet launch; though they were slightly slow to pick up on it, the leaders of the Soviet Union rapidly began to promote the launch as an example of Soviet technological superiority.
In this atmosphere, all of a sudden the pocketbooks that had been closed to anything related to 'space' opened. The Army would have the opportunity to attempt their satellite launch with Missile 29, as well as another missile; but they would have second fiddle once again, as they would operate as a back-up to the Vanguard team; as officially they were the 'orbital satellite' team, so they would receive the first chance to launch as a counter to Sputnik 1.
In December, Vanguard was ready to begin its first launch, and a satellite was duly fitted. By then, Sputnik 2 had been shot into space, carrying Laika, the first living animal to enter space. This only heightened public demand for action to be taken to counter their lead. On December 8, 1957, the rocket lifted from the pad...only to explode two seconds later, sending out a blast heard miles away. The satellite that was intended to orbit the Earth survived, but proved too damaged to use; it ended up in a file cabinet at the NASA Historical Archives. This delay meant that Vanguard would lose its chance to be the first American satellite in orbit, and opened the way for the Army to attempt to launch it's satellite, christened Explorer 1, into orbit in January 1958.
Not that it was as simple as that, of course. While General Medaris had finally obtained permission for a pair of satellite attempts, only a limited period was available for launch before the site was required for other duties – including a second attempt by Vanguard in February. During the first few days, attempts at launch were frustrated by poor weather conditions. January began to run out, and the time approached when they would be forced to yield their slot on the pad. Finally, on January 31
st
, the decision was taken to make an attempt at a launch, and Missile 29, another Jupiter-C, was fuelled for launch. Conditions appeared to be good, and the final countdown began.
The missile left the launchpad, rising into the sky in a virtual parallel of the 1956 launch, though this time with a
fuelled
fourth stage! All early indications were that the launch was a total success, but it this was not the end of the story, and the anxious wait began for the signal of Explorer 1 to reappear over the horizon, indicating the completion of a successful orbit. The minutes passed and across the country, people held their breath.
It was perhaps an appropriately dramatic touch to the end of the story of Explorer 1 that it was late; the missile had worked better than had been predicted, placing the satellite into a higher orbit, but finally, Goldstone Tracking reported that it had picked up the satellite's signal – the United States had managed to close the gap with the Soviet Union, albeit with a considerably smaller satellite.
ABMA had beaten all comers to launch the first American satellite into space, and a further series of launches quickly followed. The Jupiter-C boosters that had been mothballed following the successful re-entry tests of 1956 were rapidly recommissioned, and were readied for a series of follow-on space shots. The first of these, Explorer 2, was launched in March 1958, with a similar mission profile to Explorer 1, but with far less success. The first stage of the launcher failed to reach the required velocity, and the satellite was unable to reach orbit.
Explorer 3 was a different story. Three weeks following the failure of Explorer 2, it entered orbit and provided one of the more astounding discoveries of the early satellite shots – the first readings of what became known as the 'Van Allen Belt', a belt of radiation that surrounded the Earth. This provoked excitement from the scientific community, and there were great demands for more data on this new discovery; Explorer 4 and Explorer 5 were tasked for this objective; Explorer 4 was a success, though Explorer 5 went the way of Explorer 2.
Vanguard was still continuing in parallel to the Explorer program, but with less success. A launch attempt in February, following Explorer 1, was a failure, and success was finally achieved in March with the launching of a 3
¼
pound satellite into orbit; attempts to launch larger satellites in following months were also failures.
Despite the obvious successes of the Explorer program, particularly in contrast to Vanguard, ABMA was beginning to run into difficulties. All that the agency had to offer as a space launcher was the Jupiter-C, and the inventory of these vehicles was rapidly running out. The Army satellite program had been sneaked in behind the backs of a lot of senior officials, and ABMA had no designated space role beyond the Explorer
flights
; though General Medaris was seeking assurances that his agency would receive a share of space projects in the future, the responses were less than satisfactory.
By the autumn of 1958, however, authorisation had been received for the use of a new launcher configuration called the Juno II; this was an
actual
Jupiter IRBM, with upper stages similar to those used by the Jupiter-C (which, remember, was based on the
Redstone
missile.) This would be used for a more ambitious program – launching a pair of probes to the moon.
As with the launching of the first satellite into orbit, ABMA faced competition in the probe flights to the moon, this time based on its old rival, the USAF Thor IRBM, which would have three attempts to launch a probe to the moon before the Jupiter would have its first. Only the second of the three 'Thor-Able' shots attained any measure of success, attaining an altitude of just 71,300 miles, enough to provide some valuable scientific data, but less than a third of the way to the moon.
If this was a novel, the Juno II would have been as triumphant a success as Explorer 1 had been, but this was not to be. At its first attempt, it attained an altitude of just 63,500 miles, less than the second Thor-Able – but the instrumentation on board
did
provide more valuable information on the Van Allen Belt, providing the first indication that there were in fact
two
such belts.
Even the second Thor-Able was not a resounding success, though the probe it carried, Pioneer IV, did at least attain escape velocity and pass the orbit of the moon. By then, the Soviet Union was making serious bids for the moon itself, and before long, its early Luna series of probes would be completing the goals the United States was failing – close flyby, hard landing, and photography of the hidden 'dark side' of the moon.
By this time, ABMA was beginning the initial planning work on its most ambitious project of all, the Saturn rocket. The launcher that would become NASA's workhorse during the lunar landing program originated as an Army project, the brainchild of Von Braun. The original design need was simple – to counter the obvious Soviet lead in launch payload capacity. Not merely to match it, but to surpass it, was the goal, and the target was an incredibly ambitious million pounds of thrust.
The design was a quantum leap forward – the intent to have the launcher in service as early as
1961.
To accomplish this ambitious goal, the concept of clustering engines was to be employed, instead of waiting on the larger engines that were then on the drawing board, but which would not be available for some years. This had the advantage that proven motors could be employed – indeed it was hoped to utilise some of the same basic designs for the Jupiter IRBM – in order to dramatically cut both testing time and costs.
It was hoped that the Saturn could be employed in a wide range of missions, both civilian and military. Serious discussions on the
possibility
of putting a man into space were well advanced by 1959, and there were several projects beginning the relentless march from the drawing board into reality. The USAF 'Man-In-Space-Soonest' project was evolving into NASA's 'Project Mercury', and the USAF X-20 'Dyna-Soar' reusable spaceplane was in its early stages. The ability to launch large payloads into orbit would be vital for space exploration in the coming decade, and the Saturn was destined, it was hoped, to become the workhorse of space.