The unorthodox launching of this
modern sea serpent could revolutionize our space
program and save tax dollars, too
V
(W'ii-i.:'!ii'
THE
POLE
THAT
FLEW
By RAY DARBY
-J
ATE.
Thosu exclusive photos, Iho only ones releosod
by Iho Navy, show iho first lost of the ocean
launch idea. Abovo: the telnphone-polo rocket
pierces the water's surface and soars skyward
in an enlargement of a 16-mm. film frame. Be
low: technicians chock Conio rocket engine
attached to base of 102-foot polo used in tost.
IN this age when missiles can span
oceans and space vehicles can probe
the solar system, distance is not the
only astronomical figure involved.
Our grandparents would have leaped clear
out of their high-button shoes at the cost of just
one of the many concrete launch pads and tow
ering steel gantries required to fire modern
rockets. For example, the pad for the Saturn
space booster, with its million-and-a-half pounds
of thrust, is costing some 30 million dollars.
Lesser installations come but little cheaper.
This cost factor is one of the chief reasons
why so much interest was centered around a
busy acre of the sea off the Pacific Missile
Range headquarters at Point Mugu, Calif., on
a sunny day in June, 1960. Out there, Navy craft
were maneuvering one of the strangest missiles
ever conceived. It rolled sluggishly in the lazy
swells, looking more like a petrified sea serpent
than what it actually was a telephone pole 102
feet long, equipped with a small rocket engine.
Small, that is, in comparison with the enormous
boosters that send today's satellites into orbit.
And its story is as fantastic as Cinderella's.
Two Naval officers stationed at Point Mugu,
Cmdr. John E. Draim and Lieut. Chuck E. Stal
zer, had observed that buoyant objects would
float upright when weighted at the bottom.
If small. objects would float upright, they rea
soned, why not large objects, too? Large rock
ets, for instance. And since the vertical posi
tion is the customary one for launching rock
ets, would it not be possible to fire the "bird"
from the water? Instead of steel girders, the
rocket would be gripped and held by the mil
lions of tiny pressure fingers of the sea, thus
saving enormous construction costs.
There was another important consideration.
Nature had furnished an almost limitless supply
of liquid launch pads provided they actually
were usable. The advantages this offered were
obvious.
Having tentatively dubbed their scheme Proj
ect Hydra, after the nine-headed sea monster
of Greek mythology, the two officers went to
Capt. W. E. Sweeney, commander of the Naval
Missile Center at Point Mugu.
As Captain Sweeney tells it, "John and Chuck
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came into my office one day in January. They
were carrying an old ammo can filled with wa
ter. In that can they dropped a small missile
model which immediately floated vertically,
with the nose out of the water. They started
talking about the idea they had for applying
this same principle to a new method of launch
ing missiles. They simulated waves by stirring
the water, illustrating how stable the missile
would be in a rough sea. It sounded perfect, and
soon the Admiral gave his approval."
Now Draim and Stalzer had to prove the fea
sibility of their audacious plan. A team of ex
perts was organized and put to work on a do-it-yourself
basis. By means of tests made with
small, makeshift rockets designated Hydra I
and Hydra II, they first established the fact
that a solid-propelled engine could be success
fully ignited rinder water. Other tests demon
strated that a properly designed rocket would
float in an upright position with most of its
length beneath the surface. The larger it was
the less it would be affected by wind or wave.
Then the project ran into what appeared to be
an insurmountable dilemma: lack of funds.
There was little or no hope of getting sufficient
money to build a test rocket in the class of such
behemoths as, say, the Titan or the Atlas.
But here a typical Yankee device known as
ingenuity stepped in. Someone realized that an
ordinary telephone pole might conceivably be
used as a substitute. Someone else found an
extra-long one. Technicians weighted the butt
of the pole with lead plates, added a simple,
corkscrew-type fin as a stabilizer, and fastened
a Genie rocket engine to the base of it. The
Genie, with its comparatively small 33,600
pounds of thrust,would only be powerful enough
to boost the pole out of the water and into the
air, but it would suffice for test purposes.
The result was a pretty fair imitation of one
of our large space boosters. It weighed al
most 6 tons and was 105 feet in over-all length,
including the engine.
Anyone in the vicinity of Point Mugu on that
June day would have rubbed his eyes in dis
belief as the monster telephone pole shot out
of the water in a perfect lift-off and rose ma
jestically to a height of 380 feet; there it hov
ered briefly against the blue sky before plung
ing back into the sea. It certainly wasn't the
highest shot ever made, but this "rocket" was
never intended to orbit Mars. It was simply
meant to prove a point and it did.
The Hydra program is continuing, and at a
stepped-up rate consistent with recent develop
ments in the conquest of space. John Glenn's
orbital flight has renewed the faith of the world
in U. S. scientific ingenuity, and Hydra is a
good example of our willingness to experiment
Today, a technician presses a button on a con
sole in the operation center at Point Mugu and,
miles away, a stable rocket rises from its free
floating position in the sea. Tomorrow, it could
be a moon ship that takes us, smooth and
straight, from an ocean launch pad.
4 Family Weekly, April IS, 1962