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M Ike G Runtm An, B Lazing the T Rail. T He E Arly H Istory of Spacecraft And

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M Ike G Runtm An, B Lazing the T Rail. T He E Arly H Istory of Spacecraft And Mike Gruntman, Blazing the Trail. The Early History of Spacecraft and Rocketry, AIAA, 2004, pp. 231-234 eral Schriever at 409 East Manchester Blvd., Inglewood, Califor Inglewood, Blvd., Manchester East 409 at Schriever eral DevelopmentDivision Western special the program, Atlas the manage To followed. effort development Force Air the of reorganization the First, program. ICBM American the accelerated cantly now possiblewithin high-yield, compact, and low-weight nuclear warheads: the Atlas development on 1 March 1954, the Bravo test demonstrated the feasibility of what relaxed and the program priority and funding increased. In the early an 1960s providing the stringent assuring performance characteristics were some- in status operational the achieve could Atlas the that stated Augenstein W. Bruno RAND's by assessment The ICBM. Atlas the of feasibility the confirmed study dent mental andresearch theexperi- analyses, supervisingtheresearchphase,andcompletelycontrolling system making of capable engineers and scientists of group competent unusually cal direction be in the hands of techni- over-all that requires agency “the nature of the task for this new future. The Committee stated that would become prominent in the ing andtechnicaldirection area, technical new a of emergence demanding thus was ICBM the of complexity The urgent. Atlas program was deemed most management agency for the entire Setting up a special development- begin. would development actual the a top priority of the Air Force and rank now would km), (10,200 miles n 5500 of range projected the with las, the ballistic missile effort. The At- mended a radical reorganization of (Neufeld 1990, 255). are believed to be unsatisfactory” projects, Snark, Navaho, Atlas, and Air Force] consisting of three long-range missile program [of the present the of aspects “important that stated Committee The out.” ruled be that thispossibilitycertainlycannot us, it is also felt by the Committee sion that the Russians are ahead of evidence does not justify a conclu- that “while existing [intelligence] The report of the Teapot Committee triggered a set of events that signifi- days Two before the Committee Teapot issued its report, another indepen- The Teapot Committee recom- The Teapot Committee noted system engineer- thestateofart. phases oftheprogram.” , that (WDD) was activated under command of Gen- chives, Patrick Air ForceBase,Florida. Air chives, Patrick Ar- Office History Wing Space 45th of tesy Systems Command established newly the of command tary space program. In 1961, he assumed played an important role in the early mili- priority of the Air Force. Schriever also las, the highest research and development At- velopment American of ICBM the first A. Schriever, 1910–2005, supervised de- ern DevelopmentDivision Force's Air of Commander 12.26. Fig. Early History of Spacecraft and Rocketry Early History of Spacecraft . Photo (ca. 1956) cour- nia, in July 1954. July in nia, General Bernard General program was Air Force West- Program Missile Soviet 1960s the Early in Status tional Opera- Achieve Could Atlas Direction Technical ing and Engineer- System tory” Unsatisfac- Program ... Missile Range “Long- 231 12. Building the Foundation , AIAA, 2004, pp. 231-234 and Rocketry Spacecraft Fig. 12.27. From humble beginnings to a Fortune 500 company: Simon Ramo (left) and of Dean Wooldridge outside the original location of their Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation in Westchester, California. Several years later the company would merge with Thomp- son Products forming TRW, Inc. Photo courtesy of TRW, Inc. History Second, the role of the system engineering and technical direction was substan- tially expanded. The Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation (R-W), the predecessor of Early TRW, Inc., was founded by Simon Ramo and Dean Wooldridge to provide such services for the Air Force. (In contrast, the Army relied on its in-house expertise WDD, of the von Braun's group at the Redstone Arsenal for technical direction of the TRW, Army ballistic missile programs.) R-W's Space Technology Laboratory (STL) STL, would thus become the main participant in the Atlas and other ICBM, IRBM, and Trail. The and the space programs. The STL's role generated controversy, however, and, in several Aerospace years, many functions in system engineering and technical direction would be Corpora- taken over by the newly formed nonprofit Aerospace Corporation. Development and deployment of such complex systems as the ICBM and tion future spacecraft required new management approaches. Concurrency, broadly understood as the parallel development and simultaneous completion of all of the Blazing the tasks necessary for system development and deployment, became critically im- portant. Bernard Schriever was among the pioneers of this emerging manage- ment concept when he advocated concurrency in a special Air Staff study in 1950. Schriever's WDD grew, assuming later the responsibility for the Titan, Thor, and Minuteman missile systems as well as for the early military space programs, Gruntman, including the photoreconnaissance Corona satellite system. General Osmond J. Ritland became WDD's vice commander in April 1956. In June 1957, WDD was Mike 232 Early History of Spacecraft and Rocketry TRW AND THE AEROSPACE CORPORATION Hughes Aircraft Company had emerged as a guided missile powerhouse and major defense contractor in the early 1950s. Disagreements with Howard Hughes led to resignation of two leading specialists Simon Ramo and Dean Wooldridge, who formed in September 1953, with the financial help of Thompson Products Company, a new company, the Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation (R-W). R-W started with four employ- ees, including the founders, and was located at first in a former barbershop on 92nd Street in Westchester near the Los Angeles airport. Thompson Products and R-W merged in 1958 to form Thompson Ramo Wooldridge, Inc., the name officially short- ened to TRW, Inc., in 1965. R-W became the main provider of system engineering and technical direction for the Air Force's Atlas ICBM. R-W's Guided Missile Research Division (GMRD) later , AIAA, 2004, pp. 231-234 expanded to provide system engineering for the Titan ICBM and Thor IRBM pro- grams. After launch of Sputnik, GMRD was reorganized as a separate subsidiary cor- poration, the Space Technology Laboratory (STL), with Simon Ramo as president, Louis Dunn as executive vice president and general manager, and James H. (Jimmy) Doolittle as chairman of board of directors. The propriety of a for-profit company performing so exclusively services for the and Rocketry government was questioned by Congress. STL was in “an intimate and privileged position” for an Air Force contractor, being involved in evaluation of the bids from other companies. Internal barriers between STL and the parent company, TRW, did not prevent charges that such an arrangement gave TRW unfair competitive advan- tage. TRW was also not entirely happy because of the imposed limitations on the scope of hardware contracts the company could bid on. STL's rapid expansion, al- Spacecraft though being profit oriented, was perceived by many as inherently inappropriate for of the technical direction of government programs. Consequently the solution to the problem was found in the formation of a nonprofit institution, the Aerospace Corporation, in June 1960 with Ivan Getting as the first Aerospace's president. Getting served in this position until 1977. The mission of History Aerospace, according to the letter of contract, was “to aid the U.S. Air Force in apply- ing the full resources of modern science and technology to the problem of achieving those continuing advances in ballistic missile and military space systems which are Early basic to national security.” By the end of 1960, the Aerospace Corporation had bought the recently finished STL's research and development center on El Segundo Boulevard and hired more than 1700 employees, one-third being scientists and engineers. Many specialists came to Aerospace from TRW's STL. Technical functions of Aerospace concentrated on Trail. The general system engineering and technical direction (GSE/TD) of the Air Force's bal- listic missile and space systems. Today, Aerospace operates as Federally Funded Re- search and Development Center (FFRDC) for the Department of Defense. TRW has evolved into a Fortune 500 company, a major defense contractor special- izing in missile and space systems and defense electronics. The company continues to this day its original work on maintaining readiness of the nation's ICBMs. TRW had become the first industrial company to build an exploratory spacecraft, Pioneer 1, for Blazing the NASA. TRW designed and built numerous military and civilian space systems, in- cluding Defense Support Program (DSP), Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, deep space Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft, and astrophysical space observatories Comp- ton (γ-rays) and Chandra (X-rays). Northrop–Grumman acquired TRW in 2002, which became Northrop–Grumman Space Technology. Gruntman, Mike 233 12. Building the Foundation reorganized into the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division (AFBMD). Schriever built a unique military organization with a high level of education where “more than one third of the hand-picked officers held Ph.D.'s and Master's degrees.” 231-234 Unique The Air Force assigned the highest priority to the Atlas program on 14 May 1954 and gave the full go-ahead in Military January 1955, with Convair's Astro- Organiza- nautics Division in San Diego, Cali- tion fornia, as the prime contractor. Con- , 2004, pp. vair that had led the Atlas develop- ment was not entirely happy with the new arrangement that significantly downgraded its role in systems en- , AIAA gineering and technical direction. Thus, the Teapot Committee led to a ketry Top fundamental reorganization of the Air Force entire American strategic missile pro- Priority gram. The Committee, in the words and Roc of General Schriever, “really pulled the cork and got the ICBM program ft underway” (Schriever 1972, 58). Another high-level government committee headed by James R. Kil- lian, Jr. issued its findings on 14 Feb- Spacecra ruary 1955.
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