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Show liuilii ., ., modern sea serpent could revolutionize our space program-r-andJsa- ve tax dollars, too age when missiles can span THIS oceans and space vehicles can Drobe the solar system, distance is riot the A nn Our JTrandnarents wnntr) hnv loanr! Moar n out of their shoes at the cost of just one of the many concrete launch pads and THXL! high-butto- or example, the pad for the Saturn rocKets. paceboosleTrwTthW . oi tnrust, is costing some 30 million dollars. Lesser installations come but little cheaper. This cost factor is one of the chief reasons why so much interest was centered around a : By RAY DARBY bus acre--of "the" PacificIissile the-sea-- off Range headquarters at Point Mugu, Califs on a sunny day in June, 1960. Out there. Navy craft were maneuvering one of the strantrest missiles ever conceived. It rolled sluggishly in th lary swells, looking more like a petrified sea serpent . than what it actually was a telephone pole 102 ieet long, equipped with a small rocket engine. Small, that is, in comparison with the enormous boosters that send today's satellites into orbit Ana lUstoryas-fantast- ie as Cinderella V. lwo faval officers stationed at Point Mugu, - drJohnErDraimjm -- zer, had observed that buoyant objects would noat upright when weighted at the bottom. If small objects would they reasoned, why not large objects, too? Large rock- ets, ioiLjnstanee-And-sin- o tion is the customary one for launching rock ets, would it not be possible to fire the "bird' from the water? Instead of steel girders, the rocket would be gripped and held by the millions of tiny pressure fingers of the sea, thus saving enormous construction costs. There was another important consideration. lmn? 1::4.1 iiaiur nanr fnrnichoH lluuue supply of liquid launch pads provided thev actual! were usable. The advantages this offered were float-uprigh- t, V if 1 " the only ones released JhMSW oy ine iaw. snow the first test nf tht nrn. O . i . , obvious. IhfLwnter ,S -- ot - . . - . aner me w"juia. Spt K-mn- tT" ... tt naving tentatively dubbed their schema Pmi , surface and soars sfcyword pierces in an eniorgemenfo o .. e. film cusuie V attached to 7 base of 102-foused in test pole , , Z cSf?fI5 nine-nead- W. E. SweenTy. . : sea ed tissue uentertPojnlMugu. pMntgvt came into my, office one day in January. They were carrying an old ammo caiTfilled with waT ter. In that can they dropped a small missile model which immediately floated vertically. talking about the idea they had for applying tms same principle to a new metnod oi launching missiles. They simulated waves by stirring heaterrillffstrating-ho- w would be in a rousrh sea. It sounded oerfect and oone2Ad Now Draim and Stalzer had to Drove the fea- sibility of their audacious plan. A team of ex- perts was organized and put to work' on a do- oasis, isy means oi tests made with and Hydra II, they first established the fact that a engine could be successfully ignited under water. Other tests demon-strate- d that a properly designed rocket wou ld float in an upright position with most of its length beneath the surface. The larger it was the less ifvould be affected by wind orrave. solid-propell- ed nlHEN THE J dilemma aek-nf-fti- Tirf- There was little or no hope of getting sufficient money to build a test rocket in the class of such behemoths as, say, the Titan or the Atlas7 But here a typical Yankee device known as ingenuity stepped in. Someone realized that an ordinary telephone pole might conceivably be ;ubstitteimeonelsefoundranr one. Technicians weighted the butt of the pole with lead plates, added a simnlA corkscrwtJpe Lfin as a JstabilizeMnd fastened a Genie rocket engine to the base of it. The Genie, with its comparatively small 33,600 pounds of thrust,wou!d only be powerful enough ... a. r 4Vn .T it . . air, oui u would suffice for test purposes. extra-lon- g Hsvi-ve- ... t ' npHE most result was a pretty fair imitation of one fujiJargepacboostertJKfiiVhpAal 6tons and was 105 feetUn iHcuiamg me engine. "Anyone over-a- ll length. inthe vicinity of Point Mncn nn thaf June day would have rubbed his eyes in disbelief as the monster telephone iole shot out of ina perfect lift-o- andjoseina-jestical- ly to a height of 380 feet; there it hovered' briefly against the blue sky before lEat?r &uv ff siwj, ever made, but this "rocket" was eveMntended-torbit-MaiIt-was-im- 74 troject ran into what appeared to be pir meant to prove a point and it did. The Hydra program is continuing, and stepped-u- p rate consistent with recent ; at a TIe rbitalHighrhas renewed the faith of the world m U. S. scientific ingenuity, and Hydra is a good ' i 1 '" - i4A fan". . ' HI . . .. -- . exampleurlliiPgne0prilPent iccnnician on a con- r ' pressesbutton sole m the operation center at Point Mugu and. -- c aay..a stable rocket rises from its free floatmg position in the sea. TomWrow. it could Ka ' ., . w am .moon --sum i .y fHof wac3 us, smooin ana traightrXrora an ocean launch pad. 7"i , famajf WeeWy, pril 15, 1X2 |