U.S. Army Ordnance Missile Command

[Music] come in gentlemen I think that'll be enough for today we've been making some decisions about some items of ground support equipment things used by troops in the field in the handling and launching of heavy ballistic missiles this is a typical array of support equipment for an army missile in this case the giant redstone the Army's newest and largest weapon the Army believes that all of its weapons even one as large as this missile must be completely mobile this means that the missile all of its supporting equipment and it sources of fuel can be airlifted to any spot on earth be moved on the ground from sight to site at this headquarters of the Army Ordinance Missile Command we are supervising the preparation of the big Jupiter ballistic missile for use in the field also once again we have developed this as a complete mobile weapon system for the use of the air Air Force so much public attention has focused upon other projects of the command in recent months that there may be a tendency to overlook our primary Mission the development production and supply to the field Army of rocket and missile systems some of these modern weapons are already serving their purpose providing greater Firepower and range for ground commanders overseas protecting American cities and other critical targets from Surprise Air Attack others are well along in development nearing the time when they will supplement or replace conventional artillery or first generation rockets and missiles because they will afford even more Mobility greater flexibility greater destructive power and increased range my command is responsible for 15 major weapon systems responsible that is from the concept of the idea through the development production test phases supplying them to the field and making sure they are ready for instant use if the need arises we also take active part in the training of the army Personnel who maintain the systems and we assist with training of those who fight them while we are essentially the Builders of weapons for the National Defense and they are certainly useful as deterrence to all out or brush fire War it is this Earth satellite the first explorer which caught the Public's imagination and which did much to restore basic confidence in our technical abilities for the launching of scientific Earth satellites the Army employed rocket systems which had been developed for Missions concerned with our weapons programs an outstanding example is the Jupiter sea based upon the Redstone missile which placed explorers 1 and three in orbit and which will be heard from again as we continue our exploratory efforts in outer space I am constantly being asked when we will launch another satellite or when we will shoot the moon my answer is the same every time the question comes up I believe in talking about these things after we do them so you'll know about the next one after it's up there and not before we're at work on Space Hardware as well as missile Weapons Systems pushing these programs with a sense of urgency which I am sure the American people can understand and support most of the Army's missile production takes place in industrial plants under contract but we do a good deal of development work and prototype testing in our Laboratories so that the bugs are out of the bigger missiles before they go into production to this Mission we commit all our resources making the best use of the creative imagination and the experience of our development team I rate it the best in the Free World now I want you to hear some of the technical details from the man who supervises these aspects of our work Dr Werner Bon Brown are you there Werner yes madas we have some visitors Warner I think they would be interested in hearing about some of the technical accomplishments and some of the areas in which we are now interested I'll be happy to discuss them General the development of a guided missile system requires a combination of almost every field of science and engineering the process of controlling a missile from its launching point to the Target without human sensory guidance requires automation of the highest order automatic control devices must assume almost the entire task of directing the basic operating functions within a missile time elements are so short that any attempt to control contr these giant transportation systems through human reaction to changing atmospheric or other conditions would be impossible the more complex the longer the time the missile must cover the greater becomes the demand for Perfection and control equipment it may seem incredible that these devices must sense every condition that affects the missile even before the missile itself has felt the effects of that condition and must correct for changes in course before those changes occur when you see the Redstone missile on the launching pad for example you actually are looking at a monument to automation within the missile are thousands of small highly accurate measuring sensing and actuating devices each perfectly tied to others in the overall system the failure of any one part to do its work means that the missile will fail to accomplish its Mission the Redstone missile you have just watched is the first of our really big missiles to reach the field it is now in the hands of troops in Europe giving the NATO Shield forces a deadly Dependable weapon of tremendous Firepower as general madas indicated the Redstone was a kind of parent to our Jupiter missile the experience we gained in the Redstone development helped us immeasurably when we tackled the irbm problem with its much greater range also we had the reliable Redstone to employ as a test bed for Jupiter components and systems so that we had the advantage of actual flight testing even while the Jupiter work was progressing and before the first Jupiter was fabricated Redstone provided us with a booster we needed for the so-called Jupiter C our re-entry test vehicle which on its first launching in September 1956 H an a ner payload over 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean we employed this dup SE system again in August 1957 to test one solution to the problem of protecting the Jupiter Warhead this was the first time that an object es spe model nose cone in this case had been hurled into outer space and successfully recovered we knew then that we were on the right track in May 1958 we were ready to test the full scale Jupiter nose con with the efficient help once more of our friends in the United States Navy the cone was successfully retrieved I know General madas agrees fully When I See This is one more example of the excellent cooperation within the Armed Forces we launch our big army rockets for Marines serviced by the Air Force and the Navy helps us to recover our nose C I suppose that we have demonstrated a technique which can Pro protect objects from burning up when they re-enter Earth's atmosphere is strongly suggestive of a further breakthrough we can now anticipate the entry of man himself into space it should be obvious that behind the visible demonstrations of any rocket technology are many unseen contributors our programs are so broad that in every state of the union someone is sharing in these accomplishments either in Private Industry in Research Laboratories government arsenals or at Proving Grounds and universities the basic research and development element of my command is the jet propul laboratory at Pasadena California managed for the Army by California Institute of Technology here we have more than 2,000 scientists engineers and technicians working under the supervision of Dr William Pickering you might say that the primary mission of JPL is anticipatory research and development we expect them to find out today what we will need to know tomorrow as we continue our rocket developments so that it will be immediately available able when we need it the jet propulsion laboratory shared the development of the Jupiter sea rocket and also packaged the instrumentation in the Explorer satellites the laboratory also played an important part in the interpretation of scientific data obtained from these satellites for example data about cosmic rays micrometeorites and temperatures in New Mexico my command is represented by the integrated White Sands Missile test range here the Army operates the rocket testing facilities for all three services and here we find out just how good the hardware is with the exception of the really big Rockets which can only be tested safely in their developmental phases over the Atlantic Ocean range off the Florida coast the nerve center of this huge complex is located in Northern Alabama At Redstone Arsenal here is located the Army rocket and guided missile agency which is responsible for our surfac to- a systems like the Nike family and our surfac to surface weapons of ranges up to about 100 miles like the Corporal or Sergeant nearby on the Arsenal is the Army ballistic missile agency which handles the bigger weapons like the Redstone the Jupiter and the oncoming persing it is this agency which in cooperation with the jet propulsion laboratory conducts the space projects assigned to us by the advanced research projects agency of the defense department Dr Von Brown will tell you something about these space projects we have been authorized two and possibly three more Earth satellites and one possibly two lunar probes General madas has summarized for you the kind of information we are obtaining for the first time on conditions in outer space much more scientific data is being derived from the Army satellite lights so much in fact that it will be some time before we have thoroughly digested it we will be using much the same rocket systems in our future undertakings as we have been discussing the Jupiter and the Jupiter C are the essential elements the lunar probe has excited much curiosity but we will attempt with the expert assistance of the jet propulsion laboratory our partner in this work is to shoot an instrumented payload towards the moon with the expectation of getting back from it accurate data about the moon's environment we're not going to try to shoot the moon in the literal sense just as is the case with our satellites the purpose of this project is a collection of information necessary to any further steps including the Advent of human activity into areas beyond Earth's environment I believe that the fact that we can sit here today calmly discussing things like satellites and moon probes pretty well testifies to the speed with which Science and Technology are propelling us into the Space Age just a few years ago such a discussion would have been considered little more than science fiction today however our minds have been conditioned by the demonstration of a rocket satellite capability to accept these Concepts not as dreams but as very real matter much work remains to be done before we can undertake Mann exploration of space over a substantial time period for example we must have greater thrust to lift much heavier loads off the Earth's surface at present rocket engines have been developed which produce thrust in the order of 200,000 lb that is not enough of itself it is possible to combine two or more engines in clusters as one solution the other solution is to scale up the size of the individual engine extending the upper limit of 200,000 lb thrust to perhaps 1 million lb another approach is to develop more effective fuels the Army recognizes the advantages of solid as well as liquid propellants and makes the choice for each missile system on the basis of the performance we require from it solid propellant Rockets are competitive now with liquid systems for ranges up to 1500 miles but are not yet because of their size and weight able to satisfy the Army's need for Mobility the really big payloads we look to the liquid propellant engines another broad area of engineering interest in our future developments concerns guidance and instrumentation so far as Earthbound long range missiles are concerned the accurate guidance can be considered a reality future work for such applications will be primarily in product Improvement component miniaturization and increased reliability I think I can illustrate this by the following the density of packing electronic components in our television sets is about 700 items per cubic foot new developments make it possible to pack 700,000 items in the same space in other words a complete amplifier is contained in a package smaller than the head of a house fly for lunar and interplanetary probes the guidance requirements are even more acute than for its satellites let us assume that we want a rocket to travel around the moon and a few thousand miles away from it to do this we must have a cut off velocity in the last propulsion stage of the rocket system which must be predetermined to an accuracy of about one part in a thousand the angle at which the vehicle must be injected into the Earth lunar ellipse would have to be accurate to within 1/4 of one degree and if we do not continuously aim the launching platforms and continuously change the preset trajectory program we must time the firing to within one to 10 seconds this is necessary because the Earth revolves continuously and the Moon is also in continuous motion to solve problems of such complexity and none are Beyond solution we are developing our human resources too at this Arsenal a second generation of missile developers has grown up in as rapidly approaching full maturity so that we have the scientific knowledge experience and skills in depth which are essential to the continuity of effort which pays the biggest dividends here we consider our team to be every man and woman in the organization military as well as civilian all of them dedicated first to provide those weapons vitally necessary for defense and then to utiliz this unique knowhow for space exploration many challenges lie for us in all fields of missile engineering we must improve our existing chemical propulsion systems while we develop more exotic systems involving nuclear and ionic propulsion one day man will find the means to control the conversion of mass into energy essentially the harnessing and controlling of the energy conversion which occurs in the hydrogen bomb Dr Von Brown and I have enjoyed this opportunity to tell you where the Army stands today in its rocket and space programs and to indicate some of the areas in which we expect progress as we continue my command was established for the purpose of bringing under one management all the resources of the Army in the missile field the better to utilize those resources in the nation's interest we will move forward just as fast as the necessary resources are made available we have the capability we have the facilities what we need is the continuing support of the American people expressed through the Congress we can see Limitless possibilities and benefits which will acre to mankind for many years to come history may well decide that the launching of our first Earth satellites ushered in a golden age of understanding and knowledge greater than mankind has ever known