Setting the Stage at the University of Iowa

alloons led the initial forays into near space for scientific research. Victor F.

Hess, during a balloon flight in Austria on 7 August 1912, conclusively showed the extraterrestrial origin of cosmic rays.1 That event marked the beginning of an extraordinary chapter in the history of science, in which balloon-based research played an important role.2

Cosmic rays are nuclear particles that travel at extremely high speed. They originate in extraterrestrial space, probably mostly in supernovae. They consist of protons (hydrogen nuclei), alpha particles (helium nuclei), and lesser numbers of higher – charged atomic nuclei, as well as some electrons and photons. Most of the cosmic rays approaching the Earth collide with atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere to produce showers of secondary radiation. Because few of the primordial cosmic rays ever reach the Earth’s surface, it is necessary to study them from as high above sea level as possible. Balloons remain an important vehicle for their study.

The use of rockets for this purpose was seriously discussed as early as 1929 when, at a meeting in the home of John C. Merriam, then president of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D. C., one of the attendees optimistically asserted that if a rocket went more than 50 miles high, above the ozone layer, it would “settle the nature of cosmic rays.”3 In 1931, Robert Millikan at the California Institute of Technology tried to persuade Robert H. Goddard to use the high-altitude rockets that he was developing in New Mexico for cosmic ray research. However, Goddard, having become by that time apprehensive about collaborative arrangements and, as a result, an inveterate loner in his rocket work, shied away from such joint endeavors.4

Even during the development of the V-2 rocket (Vengeance Weapon Number 2) in Germany during World War II (WWII), serious thought was given by its designers

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6 OPENING SPACE RESEARCH

to using it for high-altitude research and space travel, but those thoughts had to be set aside because of the high wartime priority given to developing the weapon. In fact, project technical leader Wernher von Braun and two other staff members were imprisoned by the German Gestapo for two weeks in March 1944—charged with diverting their full attention from their wartime duties by planning to use rocketry for space travel.

An interesting vignette in that connection was related by Ernst Stuhlinger, one of von Braun’s close associates. In the fall of 1944, he visited his former mentor, Professor Hans Geiger, where he lay near the end of his life in a Berlin hospital. Geiger asked his former student what he was presently doing. Stuhlinger replied, “We are working on a long-range precision rocket which, we hope, will be able one day to fly to the Moon.” Stuhlinger went on to explain that he was working on the guidance system that would make it possible. Geiger’s interest was piqued, and he asked, “Do you think you could put a cosmic ray counter on board? And transmit the pulse signals to the ground? And really measure the cosmic ray intensity at high altitudes, far above the atmosphere?” Stuhlinger replied, “Absolutely, and we will certainly not send any of our rockets into space without some scientific instruments on board!”5

It was not until peace followed WWII that the first scientific instruments were carried aloft by rockets. The vehicles first used for that purpose were the captured German V-2 rockets that had been brought to the United States after the war, along with a cadre of senior German scientists and engineers led by Wernher von Braun. The primary purpose of the U. S. V-2 work was to help jump-start a nascent American rocket program.

Fortunately, the German team, with the support of their U. S. associates, followed through on the promise that the rockets would serve a useful purpose by carrying meaningful scientific instruments. By the end of 1950, approximately 63 V-2s had been launched in the United States, most with an assortment of research instruments. Strong leadership for the developing U. S. research program that employed the V-2s was provided by (in simple alphabetical order) Homer E. Newell Jr. (Naval Research Laboratory, NRL), William H. Pickering (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL), Milton W. Rosen (NRL), Homer Joe Stewart (JPL), John W. Townsend Jr. (NRL), and James A. Van Allen (Applied Physics Laboratory, APL). Those individuals all went on to figure prominently in developing the follow-on research rockets and the first U. S. satellites.

New vehicles for high-altitude research were soon developed in the United States, most notably, the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) Corporal by the JPL in California; the Aerobee, developed jointly by the APL and the NRL; and the Viking, developed by the NRL. By the end of 1950, approximately 10 of the WAC Corporals, 50 of the Aerobees, and 7 of the Vikings had been launched.

A more complete discussion of those rocket developments is contained in Chapter 7.

CHAPTER 1 • SETTING THE STAGE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA 7