136
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
Mexico, and in the following October, the subsequent launch reached an altitude
of 70 km, nearly to the boundary of the upper atmosphere. Later, a more advanced
version of the Corporal would be deployed in Europe as the American first nuclear
missile. Two months after the WAC launch test, Malina’s team returned to the White
Sands once again to test the Private missile. In all, they launched 24 missiles without
a single failure. Although it was never used as a weapon, the Private was the direct
predecessor of all solid-fueled missiles that came after it.
For Malina, the success of the Private and WAC Corporal was bittersweet. He
finally developed a high-altitude sounding rocket, but it was already clearly that
the same machine was also a stepping-stone to a nuclear-armed ballistic missile. In
1947, due to growing tired of the predominance of military missile work, Malina
eventually left the JPL for Europe and worked for the United Nation Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris. Of course, maybe there is
something else to say about his departure. Malina resigned from his post at UNESCO
to become a studio artist in 1953. Malina never returned to research although in 1960
he helped found the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) with von Kármán
and others, to foster international cooperation in space exploration.
In December 1958, the JPL was transferred from the Army jurisdiction to NASA’s
control shortly after the establishment of the new organization. However, NASA’s
contractual arrangement with Caltech for the performance of research and development at the JPL began in 1962. Currently, the JPL becomes a unique national
research facility that carries out robotic space and Earth science missions, located at
Pasadena, 32 km northeast of Los Angeles, California, USA.
The JPL is a relatively late-founding rocket research institution, which has
completed a series of high-performance tasks of the solid rocket engine, liquid rocket
engine and sounding rocket in a relatively short time. However, its achievements far
exceed those of other research organizations and the rocket pioneer Goddard. What
is the secret of the JPL’s success? In addition to the military funding support, stable
scientific research environment and first-class R&D team, it is more important for the
approaches to solve the problems, which by using theoretical analysis and research,
the nature of the problem is explored, and finally, the physical realization method to
solve the problem is found out.
3.4.4 British Interplanetary Society
In the early 1930s, Philip Ellaby Cleator (1908−1994), a young office worker in the
Liverpool area, England, had been interested in space flight since he was a teenager.
He liked reading various space science fiction novels, collecting and sorting out other
countries’ news about rocket technologies and space flight researches published in
newspapers and magazines. He later recorded that his interest in space was kindled in
the middle of the 1920s by a film about radium and its proposed use as a nuclear fuel, in
which the closing scene was of a rocket-like vehicle heading for the empyrean, trailing
a radioactive glow astern. He was later to relate: “I have no idea how other members
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
Mexico, and in the following October, the subsequent launch reached an altitude
of 70 km, nearly to the boundary of the upper atmosphere. Later, a more advanced
version of the Corporal would be deployed in Europe as the American first nuclear
missile. Two months after the WAC launch test, Malina’s team returned to the White
Sands once again to test the Private missile. In all, they launched 24 missiles without
a single failure. Although it was never used as a weapon, the Private was the direct
predecessor of all solid-fueled missiles that came after it.
For Malina, the success of the Private and WAC Corporal was bittersweet. He
finally developed a high-altitude sounding rocket, but it was already clearly that
the same machine was also a stepping-stone to a nuclear-armed ballistic missile. In
1947, due to growing tired of the predominance of military missile work, Malina
eventually left the JPL for Europe and worked for the United Nation Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris. Of course, maybe there is
something else to say about his departure. Malina resigned from his post at UNESCO
to become a studio artist in 1953. Malina never returned to research although in 1960
he helped found the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) with von Kármán
and others, to foster international cooperation in space exploration.
In December 1958, the JPL was transferred from the Army jurisdiction to NASA’s
control shortly after the establishment of the new organization. However, NASA’s
contractual arrangement with Caltech for the performance of research and development at the JPL began in 1962. Currently, the JPL becomes a unique national
research facility that carries out robotic space and Earth science missions, located at
Pasadena, 32 km northeast of Los Angeles, California, USA.
The JPL is a relatively late-founding rocket research institution, which has
completed a series of high-performance tasks of the solid rocket engine, liquid rocket
engine and sounding rocket in a relatively short time. However, its achievements far
exceed those of other research organizations and the rocket pioneer Goddard. What
is the secret of the JPL’s success? In addition to the military funding support, stable
scientific research environment and first-class R&D team, it is more important for the
approaches to solve the problems, which by using theoretical analysis and research,
the nature of the problem is explored, and finally, the physical realization method to
solve the problem is found out.
3.4.4 British Interplanetary Society
In the early 1930s, Philip Ellaby Cleator (1908−1994), a young office worker in the
Liverpool area, England, had been interested in space flight since he was a teenager.
He liked reading various space science fiction novels, collecting and sorting out other
countries’ news about rocket technologies and space flight researches published in
newspapers and magazines. He later recorded that his interest in space was kindled in
the middle of the 1920s by a film about radium and its proposed use as a nuclear fuel, in
which the closing scene was of a rocket-like vehicle heading for the empyrean, trailing
a radioactive glow astern. He was later to relate: “I have no idea how other members