The Motts, as a group, had found their niche, and even Rachel’s mother, when she visited NACA, had to agree that her son-in-law had finally landed a job commensurate with his qualifications, but she did feel obliged to offer two criticisms: “They’re not paying you nearly enough, Stanley. And I hope that when you have a good hold on things here, you’ll apply to MIT for a teaching position.” She could not believe that any really first-class intellect ever spent the productive years of his life at any place other than Harvard or MIT. Second-class men did rather nicely at Princeton or Yale, and for the others, there were the Western colleges that excelled at basketball.
Stanley and Rachel were amused by her mother’s pretensions, and Stanley tried to explain that NACA was closely associated with the very Harvard and MIT professors whom she admired. “Experts from those schools often spend weeks with us at NACA working on problems too abstruse for the university men to solve. In fact, last week I was working with two professors from MIT on the problem of how to bring a body traveling twenty-five thousand miles an hour in empty outer space back through the friction of the heavy atmosphere without permitting it to burn up from the tremendous temperatures generated.”
Mott had told the professors, “If we ever send men into space, as Von Braun insists we will, the problem will not be getting them up into space. The Huntsville Germans are sure they can do that with rockets they already have. [228] The difficulty will be getting them safely down. Through the atmosphere. At temperatures which cause ordinary metal to burn like paper.”
The three men studied this in abstract for three weeks, then conducted what experiments they could in the wind tunnel, but since it was obvious that they could never generate speeds of 25,000 miles an hour, they were again thrown back into speculation. They spent another six weeks drafting a report on the current status of bringing a metal body back through the atmosphere, and in the end made a one-paragraph recommendation:
At the present state-of-the-art we do not know enough to make even tentative suggestions as to how this intricate problem should be solved, but we do know that our ignorance of the atmosphere above 65,000 feet will be a permanent disability unless immediately resolved. We recommend an intensive study of the atmosphere to a height of 200,000 feet and higher if present equipment permits.
This advice was so obviously sensible that when the MIT professors departed, the engineers in charge of NACA looked about for one of their men to head the study of the upper atmosphere, and because of Mott’s excellent work in the wind tunnels, they gave him the job, and for the next two years he spent about half his time at nearby Wallops Island.
This was one of the low, marshy barrier islands of the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia peninsula, contiguous to Chincoteague, where the wild ponies thrived. It was a forbidding place, smothered in mosquitoes and buried in swamps, but its splendid beaches, curving like majestic scimitars, provided launching spots from which scientific instruments could be thrown high into the air by small, powerful rockets using solid fuels.
There were in these early days no commodious quarters for visitors, so that when one flew the relatively short distance from NACA installations at Langley to the frontier area at Wallops, one traveled from long-established order to disorder, from comfort to discomfort. However, the life on Wallops was so primitive, with great fishing and boar hunting and living in tents, and improvised meals [229] heavy with carbohydrates, that most men enjoyed it: “This is the Daniel Boone part of my life. My wife and kids sure as hell can’t follow me here.”
At Wallops, America’s fundamental research into the upper atmosphere took place, and the secret of the excellent results obtained-best in the world-was twofold: rockets and telemetry. The former carried sophisticated scientific instruments thirty and forty miles into the air; the latter reported what happened en route ... up and down.
A specialist in telemetry explained his arcane art: “Simplest way to get data, of course, would be to have the nose cone or payload of the rocket containing the instruments parachute back to earth so we could visually check them. Two problems: our rockets must fire out to sea to prevent land disasters; and the complexity and weight of the parachute system would negate the value of the shot. So we go two different routes.”
He took Mott to the radar range, where delicate instruments monitored every moment of a rocket flight so that speed, acceleration and atmospheric resistance could be determined. “Look at the graphs the radar produces. They tell us everything.” The expert laughed. “Everything, that is, except what we really want to know. So we fall back upon this final system.” And he showed Mott how the instruments sent aloft delivered electrical impulses to a kind of radio which relayed them back to Earth. “When we send this baby up, it can talk to us in code and report every slight change it encounters. We call it telemetry.”
Occasionally the instruments didn’t work. A most intricate device would be placed atop a sounding rocket, complete with a score of telemetric devices, and it would soar the first five miles through the visible cloud layer, through the stratosphere and mesosphere, reporting perfectly on conditions there, but when it entered the ionosphere, where the data became critical, some small component of the instrument system, damaged by the physical stress of launch, would cease functioning and the shot would be scrubbed.
These failures irritated Mott, for he knew that he was on the verge of understanding the atmosphere, that mysterious ocean of air which seemed so evanescent on a summer’s day but which was almost as solid as an oaken board when one wanted to penetrate it at one’s own speed. He [230] studied the best reports available, especially those of the Russians, who had done such good work, and he constructed the most beautiful diagrams of the atmosphere, using eleven different colors to indicate the bands which appeared to differentiate the varied characteristics of this great, unknown ocean.
He was captivated by two physical features that did not seem, at first glance, to be in any way associated with NACA’s desire to bring a metal vehicle back through the atmosphere: the matter of temperature at various altitudes, and the spectacular manner in which pressure diminished as one rose higher and higher. He was not obligated to study these phenomena, but he was drawn to do so on the off chance that they might shed light on his basic problem.
He had always supposed, from his experience in climbing mountains and from what normal airplane flight proved, that the higher one went into the air, the colder one became, and his tests at Wallops confirmed this. At one mile up, it was cold. At two miles, it was noticeably colder. At nearly three miles in the Rockies, it was bitter. And on an airplane seven miles up, it dropped to -50°.
It continued this way to an altitude of about twelve miles, and then things went haywire, as if an entire new set of rules applied, for at sixteen miles, the temperature started to rise sharply until, at thirty miles, it was a comfortable +48°. But this soon changed, for at fifty miles, it dropped to a severe -100°, where it remained for some time.
But at about fifty-five miles, it started a dramatic leaping as if fire had been placed under the instruments; it reached more than +200°. And then at some point beyond which the Wallops machines could not yet soar, an almost unbelievable phenomenon would occur: the temperature of the atmosphere would be the same on all sides of the machine, but the side facing the Sun would accumulate so much radiation that it would heat beyond the boiling point, while the shadow side, only a few feet distant, would be -200°.
It was a crazy ambience, this vertical pillar of atmosphere, but it was the portion of the universe through which man must move if he wished ever to enter space, and its peculiar behavior was dictated by physical laws [231] that could be unraveled if men like Mott had sufficient brains and enough rockets at Wallops Island to accumulate the data. There were, of course, other groups in various parts of the United States, as dedicated as he, working on similar problems related to space: How to build better rocket engines? How to combine more efficient fuels? How to navigate when there are no landmarks to refer to? How to cons
truct suits in which men could live in a world of no pressure?
It was the latter concern which kept Mott focused on the problem of decreasing pressure as one rose through the atmosphere. At sea level it had been agreed that pressure was normal, 100 percent, but it diminished quickly as one climbed upward, until at the top of the Rockies it was only 50 percent of normal, and at five miles, it was so weakened that men required additional oxygen to breathe. If air pressure at sea level was judged to be 1, at sixty miles up, it became 0.000002, and so far as human breathing was concerned, oxygen and pressure both could be said to have vanished.
Mott spent several months analyzing this phenomenon and interpreting what it would mean to either a man or a machine, and he helped deduce the principles which would govern any flight into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. In doing so, he became so enchanted with this mysterious ocean of air that he would often stand on the beach at Wallops, not far from the primordial soup from which life had emerged three or four billion years ago, and watch with awe as one of his weather rockets soared into the air, bearing its precious little cargo of instruments which would send down arcane signals as to what was occurring aloft, and as it passed gradually from sight he would remain on the silent beach, imagining himself a passenger aboard that rocket, passing from cold to hot to burning hot and freezing cold, breathing normally in the first seconds, then feeling his throat constrict as oxygen became more rare, then gasping for one final breath of air that did not exist, before turning on the latest device of his imagination which would provide him with oxygen and proper pressure.
Like all such experimenters in these years, whether in the backwaters of America or the remote corners of Soviet Russia, Mott lived in a world of juvenile excitement, [232] moving from one threshold to another like a boy with a chemistry set or a new collection of maps, always wondering, speculating, making wild guesses, and striving to thrust back a little further the frontiers of knowledge. One evening, as he watched the Sun already sunk throw its rays around the edge of the western earth to illuminate one of his radiosondes rising into the highest layers of the atmosphere, a hundred miles up, making it shine while Earth grew increasingly dark, he realized that with imperceptible steps he was making the transition from engineer to scientist, for with the skills of the former he was attacking the mysteries which preoccupied the latter, and he was increasingly proud to stand in both camps, a man who could at the same time control material things like metals and wind tunnels yet grapple with the ultimate mysteries such as life at incredible altitudes. His four published papers indicated the direction in which his mind was growing:
Mott, Stanley and Crampton, Harry: Effects on the Base, Afterbody and Tail Regions of Twin-Engine Airplane Model with Extra Low Horizontal Tail Locations at a Speed of Mach 0.7. 1955.
Mott, Stanley and Winslow, Elmer: Aerodynamic Characteristics of a Delta Wing with a 75° Swept Leading Edge at Mach 2.36 to Mach 3.08. 1955.
Mott, Stanley: Preliminary Tables for Estimating the Properties of the Upper Atmosphere as Derived from Telemetry Delivered by Rockets and Free Balloons. 1956.
Mott, Stanley: Probable Structure of the Atmosphere at Heights beyond 350,000 Feet. 1956.
As his work at Wallops drew to a conclusion, it was generally recognized by his associates that he knew as much about the upper atmosphere as any man alive, and they suspected that this mastery would serve as a plateau from which he would ascend to even greater understandings, not because of his undoubted ability but because the speed of change was so great that anyone who stood upon an eminence in these particular years would be thrown inescapably higher.
As often happened with men obsessed by abstract ideas, [233] Stanley’s mastery came at the expense of his family life. Because of his increasingly protracted absences from Langley, Rachel had to assume responsibility for the boys, and she witnessed daily how much Millard and Christopher needed their father. The older boy had become moody and insecure; the younger, assertive and rather difficult to handle. Judging that only a little fatherly care could bring the younger son, Chris, back into orbit, she directed most of her attention to Millard, now thirteen, and the more she saw of him the more disturbed she became, for he was definitely developing characteristics which, if projected ten years, would make him most unmanly.
The children of top-flight engineers and scientists, such as those one saw at NACA laboratories, were apt to be highly individualistic, and this did not disturb Rachel, but she did believe that boys should develop as boys and girls as girls, and it distressed her to see anyone confused about his or her status. Millard was definitely confused and she wanted her husband to do something about it.
As soon as the problem was presented to Stanley, in whispers upon his return from Wallops, he acknowledged that he must act quickly, and he suggested a camping trip to the undeveloped marshes east of Chincoteague, and the family responded enthusiastically. They borrowed a small truck from a NACA engineer, put together some informal camping equipment, including a Coleman stove, and were off, taking the ferry from Norfolk across the mouth of the Chesapeake to Cape Charles and then up the peninsula to an area as wild and forlorn as any in America, but also as powerful because of its relationship to the sea.
There they camped, netting themselves off at night from the ferocious mosquitoes and probing Assateague Island during the day for signs of feral pigs and strange birds. Young Christopher lost his boisterousness the first day and settled down to enjoyable explorations with his father: “Look at the herons. Four kinds and the book shows only three.” With a heavy pencil he checked off each of the birds he saw, more than fifty, giving himself credit for some that not even Rachel could identify as they sped past.
Stanley spent many hours with the boy, leading the conversation when possible into the subjects of deportment and congenial family living. “Are those boys the police arrested fun to be with?”
[234] “The best.”
“What would you have done if you’d been arrested?”
“It wasn’t serious. They didn’t really steal anything.”
“They broke a window. They climbed into the store.”
“But they didn’t take anything.”
“They were taken to jail. Have you ever been in jail?”
Mott called the local police for the address of the nearest jail, and one morning he took his sons to see what a stonewalled prison was like, and when they saw the heavy gates and the bleak corridors they understood a little better what their parents were talking about. Young Chris, in particular, was impressed: “Mom, they ate from tin plates on long benches and every time somebody opened a door, somebody else locked it.”
“Boys who break into stores live in jails,” Rachel said.
The experience must have frightened Chris, for during the remainder of the camping trip he kept even closer to his father, so that by the time they packed for home Mott believed that he had reestablished contact with his younger son.
With Millard the problem was more serious, for the boy was not committing offenses against society which might one day land him in jail. He was at enmity with himself, and nothing that Mott senior could volunteer in an effort to penetrate the cloud in which the boy had immersed himself proved effective. “Grandmother is still willing to pay your way into a good school.”
“I’ll never go back.”
“Not to the same one.”
“They’re all the same.”
“Millard, there must be a hundred schools-”
“They’re all bullies.”
“One bad example.”
“Father, I don’t want to hear any more about it. Let her keep her money.”
“It isn’t a matter of money. When you grow up, do you want to be an engineer, like me?”
“I hate math.”
“All right, what don’t you hate?”
Millard would confide nothing, so Stanley and Rachel together talked with him about the necessity of a college education, and she said, “I know a dozen girls
who grew up with me, really fine girls. They were like you, didn’t [235] want an education. Now they can do nothing.
“They could do anything you do.”
“They could. But they don’t.”
“What’s stopping them?”
“College urges you forward to do things,” Rachel said, and in her case this had been true, for no matter where she had been assigned by good or bad luck, she had felt obligated to dig in, to do what was needed.
“To do what I do,” Stanley told his son, “you have to have at least two different degrees. The men who move the firing stands around don’t need any.”
“I’d like to move the stands,” Millard said defiantly.
“Of course you could,” Mott said quickly. “It’s a good job and those men are good men. But when a boy has the capacity …”
“I can’t do anything that you’re talking about,” Millard replied in an almost whining voice.
“Why don’t we try this way?” Rachel suggested. “You spend the rest of this year, Millard, thinking about the various things you might want to do. Tell us about them, and we’ll tell you the steps you have to take.”
“For example,” Stanley said, “if you want to be a policeman-”
“I hate jails.” And there the master conversation, the one that was to have unraveled difficulties, ended. Mott tried three more times to gain his son’s confidence, but Millard had found in school or on the streets someone his own age with whom he preferred to discuss important matters, and this meant that his parents were permanently excluded.
Mott’s attention to this vital concern was diverted when he was assigned by NACA to find the answer to the most fascinating question he had so far encountered in his adult life: “Mott, you know as much about the atmosphere as any man we have. The Department of Defense is faced with a perplexing problem: How to get a bomb or an aircraft back down through the atmosphere ... before it burns up? They’re assembling a top-drawer study group at our installations at Ames. We’ve nominated you because in the years ahead we’ve got to have someone here at headquarters who’s conversant.”
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