Casual Triumph

There was a strangely routine air about the rocket test. No exasperating, last-minute delays, no long, apprehensive countdowns -- someone simply pressed a button and a dagger of pale yellow flame spewed skyward. White smoke climbed above the dry hills, and an enormous roar echoed along the California-Mexico border. After exactly 109 seconds, as scheduled, silence came back to the test stand.

It was the very casualness of the static test, the ease with which the engineers stuck to their strict schedule, that made the test so impressive. The plain cylinder, 60 ft. long and 13 ft. in diameter, made by Lockheed Propul sion Co. for the Air Force, was the biggest solid-propellant booster ever tested, and the simple fact that it developed 1,000,000 lbs. of thrust, exactly as planned, was a technical triumph. Lockheed engineers also man aged to test several new rocket-motor features on their roaring monster. The casing was made of a new nickel steel, only 3/8 in. thick; the lining of the booster's throat, seared by exhaust gases, was made of reinforced plastic, far lighter than conventional graphite: jettabs pushed into the racing exhaust to simulate steering. Each of the novelties worked perfectly on the first try.

It was all in sharp contrast to the long, costly, gingerly testing of big liquid-fuel engines, which are festooned with intricate plumbing and normally require years of development before they work properly. "Solids won't be second in the booster field much longer," said Lockheed Propulsion's President Robert F. Hurt. "One of these days the big boosters will all be solids." General Joseph S. Bleymaier, deputy commander of the Air Force's Space Systems Division, for which the engine was built, seconded the motion: "I believe this will usher in a new era of solid-propellant rocket motors."

So firm is their faith in the advantages of solids, four large rocket companies are putting millions of their own, dollars into development--a rare gamble in the Government-nurtured aerospace industry. In addition to Lockheed, Thiokol Chemical Corp., maker of the Minuteman booster, has put $12 million into a Georgia plant to build solid-propellant engines up to 21 ft. 8 in, in diameter with 3,000,000 Ibs. of thrust. Aerojet-General Corp., maker of the Navy's Polaris booster, is doing the same near Miami. The United Technology Center of United Aircraft is building smaller solids at Sunnyvale, Calif. The rocketmakers are all betting high that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will eventually be forced to call on them for help.

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