King of the Sea

All over the U.S., government and industrial laboratories are working on rockets, the most promising weapons for World War III. Most of the work is secret, but last week the Glenn L. Martin Co. of Baltimore told a few facts about a long-range rocket it is developing for the Navy. The new Martin missile will be called the Neptune: the name symbolizes the Navy's contention that rockets are seagoing weapons.

Slimmer, Steadier. The Navy says with a straight face that the Neptune is only a peaceful research project. Its specifications give it a warlike look. It will be 45 ft. long--one foot shorter than the German V2, which is now considered obsolescent. It will be slimmer (32 inches in diameter instead of 65) and will weigh about six tons fully loaded, instead of the V-2's 14 tons.

As planned, the Neptune will burn the same fuels as the V2: alcohol and liquid oxygen. It will also carry hydrogen peroxide, which suggests that, like the V2, it will have a steam-driven pump to rush the fuel into the combustion chamber.

Most important improvement over the V-2 is the steering system. The V-2 was steered on take-off by graphite vanes in the discharge tube. By deflecting the hot stream of gases, they kept the rocket upright and on its course until it gained enough air speed to allow the rudders in the tail to take effect.

The graphite vanes were probably the V-2's weakest point. The gases racing past them at far above the speed of sound had a temperature of some 4,500DEG Fahrenheit. Not even graphite could take such punishment long. Many V-2 misfirings were probably due to failure of the vanes and their guiding mechanism.

Instead of vanes to deflect the jet, the Neptune will have the whole "thrust unit" (combustion chamber and discharge tube) mounted so that it can be moved slightly. Gyroscopic stabilizing instruments in the nose will play the jet from side to side like water from a hose, overcoming the rocket's tendency to wobble on the takeoff.

Great Expectations. According to the present schedule, the Neptune will not be fired until late in 1948. But the designers know now, theoretically, about what the rocket will do. The jet will develop a maximum thrust of about 11 1/2 tons. This will last for 75 seconds, raising the rocket (with a minimum pay load of 100 lbs.) to 38 miles above the earth. Then it will coast upward to 237 miles before its momentum is exhausted. Its greatest speed coming down will be 8,200 ft. per second (4,833 m.p.h.). Maximum pay load: one ton. The Navy does not estimate publicly how far the rocket will travel horizontally. Since it rises nearly twice as high as the V2, it may be expected to exceed the V-2's 230-mile range.

At present the Navy is not discussing its plans for the Neptune. It will be useful, suggested one Navy spokesman, for probing the upper atmosphere. If war comes, presumably the Navy will consider arming its peaceful Neptune with a warhead.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.