440 Project Apollo: Americans to the Moon Document II-1 Document Title: NASA, “ Minutes of Meeting of Research Steering Committee on Manned Space Flight,” 25–26 May 1959. Source: Folder 18675, NASA Historical Reference Collection, History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. Within less than a year after its creation, NASA began looking at follow-on programs to Project Mercury, the initial human spacefl ight effort. A Research Steering Committee on Manned Space Flight was created in spring 1959; it consisted of top-level representatives of all of the NASA fi eld centers and NASA Headquarters. Harry J. Goett from Ames, but soon to be head of the newly created Goddard Space Flight Center, was named chair of the committee. The fi rst meeting of the committee took place on 25 and 26 May 1959, in Washington. Those in attendance provided an overview of research and thinking related to human spacefl ight at various NASA centers, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the High Speed Flight Station (HSFS) at Edwards Air Force Base. George Low, then in charge of human spacefl ight at NASA Headquarters, argued for making a lunar landing NASA’s long-term goal. He was backed up by engineer and designer Maxime Faget of the Space Task Group of the Langley Research Center and Bruce Lundin of the Lewis Research Center. After further discussion at its June meeting, the Committee agreed on the lunar landing objective, and by the end of the year a lunar landing was incorporated into NASA’s 10-year plan as the long-range objective of the agency’s human spacefl ight program. NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION 1520 H STREET NORTHWEST Washington 25, D.C. Minutes of Meeting of RESEARCH STEERING COMMITTEE ON MANNED SPACE FLIGHT NASA Headquarters Offi ce Washington, D.C. May 25-26, 1959 Present: Mr. Harry J. Goett, Chairman Mr. M. B. Ames, Jr. (part time) Mr. De E. Beeler Dr. A. J. Eggers Mr. M. A. Faget Mr. Laurance K. Loftin, Jr. Mr. George M. Low Exploring the Unknown 441 Mr. Bruce T. Lundin Mr. Harris M. Schurmeier Mr. Ralph W. May, Jr., Secretary Observers: Mr. John Disher Mr. Robert Crane Mr. Warren North Mr. Milton Rosen (part time) Mr. Kurt Strass COMMITTEE PURPOSE The Directors of the Offi ces of Aeronautical and Space Research and Space Flight Development had planned to attend the beginning of this fi rst meeting to express their interests in and objectives for the Committee. As circumstances prevented their attendance, the Chairman disclosed his interpretation of their views. He reaffi rmed that the Committee was formed by the Offi ce of Aeronautical and Space Research and reports to that offi ce. The offi ce desires that the Committee take a reasonably long term look at man- in-space problems leading eventually to recommendations as to what [2] future mission steps should be and to recommendations concerning broad aspects of Research Center (including JPL and HSFS) research programs to assure that they are providing proper information. It is hoped that the Centers will assist the Committee by making general studies for it as deemed necessary and that there will be a healthy relationship between the Centers and Committee with mutual support. Although the Committee needs to do long range thinking about space fl ight missions and concepts, it should be set signifi cantly beyond Mercury and Dyna Soar. The Chairman further explained, that although the Offi ce of Space Flight Development had no cognizance over the Committee, the director has expressed hopes that the Committee in an interim sort of way could make some recommendations by September 1959 regarding what type of approach Space Flight Development should take in using Fiscal Year 1961 budget money earmarked for Project Mercury follow-up. Following these statements there was some discussion of our relationship to other committees, in particular the ARPA Man in Space Committee, the ARPA MRS-V Committee and the NASA Long Range Objectives and Program Planning Committees. The fi rst committee was set up for ARPA-NASA relations on Project Mercury and apparently is being disbanded. The MRS-V Committee has just formed, has NASA representation (George Low), and concerns an ARPA manned recoverable satellite vehicle project that has no fi rm status as yet. The latter committee composed of Dr. Hagen and Messrs. Ames and Clement is concerned with arriving at a general ten year NASA research and development program for Dr. Glennan’s use with the Space Council in connection with the 1961 budget. Each member then gave this views about how this Committee should operate. There was unanimous feeling that we should not be infl uenced by other committees or groups. NASA is concerned with the national space program so 442 Project Apollo: Americans to the Moon this committee should do long range objective planning, decide what supporting research and to some extent what vehicle recommendations are appropriate, and then take aggressive steps to assure that the work is implemented with proper orientation and coordination among all NASA Research Centers including JPL and HSFS. Certain space fl ight objectives have to be decided upon early to work toward. The Committee should not get bogged down with justifying the need for man in space in each of the steps but out-rightly assume that he is needed inasmuch as the ultimate objective of space exploration is manned travel to and from other planets. It is felt that the Committee can help put [3] more objectiveness in NASA space research by stressing overall jobs to be done and concepts to be explored. Past experience as with the X-15 and Mercury has shown that research geared to defi nite objectives is mutually benefi cial to both research planning and project development. On the other hand a point was made that the Committee has to assure that NASA research retains enough diversity to avoid overlooking important new ideas. It is questionable, however, as to whether the NASA will be able to develop space research to the degree of systematic coverage that the NACA was able to do previously for example in the case of the aerodynamics of aircraft wing and body confi gurations. National Booster Program Mr. Rosen reviewed the national booster program as presently conceived including Scout, Delta, Vega, Centaur, Saturn (formerly Juno IV) and Nova. This information is largely available in a brochure on the booster program distributed to all NASA centers and is not repeated here. A tabulated synopsis is appended however. [not included] This information is still fairly current except it now appears that the Saturn payload capabilities may be as much as 50 percent higher. The Nova vehicle depends strongly on hydrogen and its design is still very fl uid. Lewis is working reasonably on this project and Mr. Lu[n]din agreed to supply reasonably detailed information on it for distrubution [sic] to committee members. NASA has invited proposals to develop a system to recover the two rocket engines and associated vehicle tail section that is normally ejected from Atlas. The proposals are to be for eight Atlas’ if the overall operation is shown to be at a net saving to the Government. The Committee asked for copies of the proposal invitation. Subsequent to the meeting Mr. Rosen has indicated that the contract document is not in a form suitable for distribution and probably would not be of any interest to the members since no specifi cations are made, Space Flight Development will be glad to make them available to the Committee. Mr. Crane reviewed the stringent booster requirements of Dyna Soar to assure that the vehicle will not exceed critical load and temperature limits throughout the fl ight range. This restricts the vehicle to a rather limited altitude- velocity corridor. To accomplish this any of the [4] boosters in the present booster program would have to be modifi ed to a major degree. A 4-barrel modifi ed Titan fi rst stage booster has been proposed by one of the contractors. The Committee asked to be kept informed of the Dyna Soar booster developments. Exploring the Unknown 443 Dyna Soar Mr. Ames briefl y reviewed the history of Dyna Soar up to its present status of source selection between two contractors – Boeing and Martin-Bell. He also discussed some of the philosophy of why it is considered as a hypersonic research vehicle for exploring the fl ight corridor at speeds up to orbital and some of the design features. Some concern was voiced that the Dyna Soar concept utilizes the radiation cooling principle to the limit of existing technology without leaving much room for growth. Thus some members felt that Dyna Soar did not fi t in the NASA space exploration mission. Other members, however, recognized the need for continuing to look at vehicle conrecognized [sic] the need for continuing to look at vehicle concepts with orbital fl ight and conventional landing capabilities; Dyna Soar does fi t into this picture and also permits exploration of winged vehicles at speeds up to orbital. Project Mercury Mr. Faget discussed in considerable detail the Project Mercury concept, its operational and design features, the test and build up development programs, its status and planned schedule. The material he discussed is largely summarized in a document prepared by the Langley Space Task Group entitled “Project Mercury Discussion” dated May 18, 1959, which was distributed to most Committee members. A movie was also shown dealing with the Mercury capsule fabrication, mockup, escape rocket system and orientation control system. Project Mercury has pointed up the need for general research on large parachutes. PROGRAM REVIEWS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS Mr.