Rocket Girl

by George D. Morgan

  On this day, Mary was working on the theoretical performance of a 50/50 mixture. She had been leaning over her Friden calculator all morning, punching endless numbers into it, and her neck muscles were aching. She looked up and stretched those muscles for a moment, and noticed the red crew cut walking down an adjacent aisle. The fact that he was carrying a cardboard box into the building, instead of the other way around, meant he was a new recruit.

  “Who's that guy?” she asked, turning to Irving.

  Mary and Irving watched as one of the clerks intercepted the red crew cut at a T-intersection of aisles and led him to an empty wooden desk about a hundred feet away.

  “No idea,” said Irving. “But he looks barely out of college. They just keep getting younger and younger around here.”

  At lunchtime, Mary stopped at Tom Meyers's table before going through the cafeteria line.

  “Tom—who's the redhead we just hired?”

  “Oh yeah. Richard Morgan. He's our new hotshot heat-transfer specialist. Pretty smart guy—Caltech graduate.”

  Mary nodded, then turned to get her lunch.

  “Oh, hey,” added Tom. “You'd probably like him. I hear he's a great bridge player.”

  Cute, funny, handsome, intelligent, single—all great attributes to be sure. But if a guy could play bridge, then relationship possibilities had to be considered. Mary was past the age most women got married, and she was sure she was at least three or four years older than the new redheaded recruit. But bridge was a force like fluorine: not easily tamed.

  “Can you set something up?” she asked.

  Tom smiled and gave her a wink. “What are great managers for?”

  Six months later, Mary Sherman became Mary Sherman Morgan.

  “Rockets are large, rockets are small,

  If you get a good one, give us a call.”

  —DANIEL G. MAZUR, MANAGER, VANGUARD OPERATIONS GROUP1

  In America, Wernher von Braun had two things the Soviet Union could never offer Sergei Korolev: Collier's and Walt Disney.

  In the early 1950s, von Braun wrote a series of articles for Collier's Weekly about the possibility of human space travel and what it would take to achieve it. With a circulation of four million, the Collier's articles made a deep impact on the consciousness of the country, galvanizing the public's imagination in the same way von Braun had been influenced as a young man by the novels of Jules Verne.2 The attention of the American public became riveted on the very real possibility that Verne's outlandish stories might become science fact. It had already happened with the invention of Verne's submarine, why not rockets to the moon?

  On the strength of the Collier's articles, Walt Disney asked von Braun to make some appearances on his new television show, Man in Space.3 For Disney there were very real commercial reasons for this, including his desire to promote Tomorrowland in the recently opened Disneyland.4 But Walt Disney had personal reasons as well, not the least of which were the boyhood fantasies that had imagined Disneyland in the first place. Walt Disney, like many Americans, was excited about the future of space travel. The addition of von Braun's appearances on the show describing what human space travel would be like soon had the imaginations of the American public firing on all cylinders. Thus began a public-relations campaign on the part of von Braun to get the country philosophically attuned to his frequency: that human space travel was our destiny, and since the technology already existed to achieve it, we ought to get started.

  All this von Braun–centric publicity created a quiet breech in the nation's space focus—a breech so subtle almost no one was aware of it at first. On the one hand, the US government had begun work designing large rockets that might one day be capable of manned flight, while on the other hand, they had assigned von Braun to rocket projects intended as non-orbital weapons. The situation was like telling the quarterback of the championship football team he was not allowed into the stadium.

  Several years later, when Vanguard rockets were failing and exploding, the philosophical breech in American rocket policy would suddenly lurch into the open. As Eisenhower and his minions scratched their heads over why the people wanted their heads on a platter, the stadium roared for its quarterback. It was one of the first illustrations of how television, though still in its infancy, would come to mold public policy—the policymakers be damned. All of that was yet in the future. For now, Disney's weekly television show helped Americans, and many people around the world, come to know Wernher von Braun as a warm, friendly neighbor. As Madison Avenue wonks might say, Wernher von Braun became a household name.5

  And through all of this, Sergei Korolev was full of envy. The Soviet politburo had chosen to keep his identity a well-guarded state secret. No speeches, no public appearances, and certainly no television. Wernher von Braun was quickly attaining that which Korolev lacked but always wanted: respect, fame, hero worship. This imbalance in the way the world treated him and his German/American counterpart angered Korolev, but it also steeled his resolve. Where von Braun failed, he promised himself, he would succeed. Russian intelligence had ascertained that von Braun's talents were being frittered away by the Americans. Apparently the US political machine had exiled the man to some dusty outpost known as Fort Bliss and given him almost no responsibility or authority over space policy at all.

  And so Korolev began selling his ideas to every comrade and politician who would listen, including Khrushchev himself. While the Americans fiddled over the burning of Rome, Sergei Korolev would prove to the world that it was he, not von Braun, who deserved their adulation. The former leader of Germany's advanced rocket program could make cutesy television appearances, perform gooey speeches before ladies’ clubs, and continue to have his ruggedly handsome mug plastered over half the magazine covers in America. It was all just a pile of cush’ sobash'ya as far as Sergei was concerned.

  Sergei Korolev resolved to earn his place in history without kowtowing to such artificial media god-making. Sergei Korolev would waste no time, squander no moment. He would show the world its mistake in idolizing the former German Nazi, and he would do it with a project so imposing everyone would have no choice but to pay attention. Sergei Korolev would build the largest, most powerful rocket anyone had ever conceived.

  Taking a sip from a jet-black cup of coffee, Sergei manipulated his slide rule and performed his next calculation.

  “No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternizing with the enemy.”

  —HENRY KISSINGER

  Ernst Stuhlinger was one of von Braun's most experienced and trusted engineers. He had been an integral member of the German A-4 and V-2 production teams, providing numerous crucial solutions to design problems as they inevitably arose day by day. Now, as he made the long trek from Hangar 3 across the tarmac toward von Braun's office, he stared at the mathematical symbols and formulas before him, and they stared back. For Stuhlinger and the other engineers, math was a beautifully perfect science with whom no one could argue. If a math formula said something was true, then it was true. No matter where you were in the universe, two plus two would always equal four, seven would always be a prime number, and force would always equal mass times acceleration. Mathematics offered the infinite surety and permanence so lacking in all other aspects of human endeavor. Math. Lovely, sexy math.

  But perfection has a downside; it oftentimes carries bad news. For though it was an axiom that “if a math formula says something is true, then it is true,” the converse was also correct. Perfection sometimes delivers bad news, and today the bad news was being carried in Stuhlinger's hands in the form of a thousand angry formulas. He and his fellow engineers had crunched the numbers again and again, as if perfection could be improved upon through repetition. The answers were always the same, and the news was always bad. Perfection was a beautiful mistress, but she could be a real bitch.

  Stuhlinger stopped for a moment to allow a golf cart full of army mucky-muck brass to pass by, then he resumed his walk. He swore in Germa
n, realizing von Braun would not be happy with the equations and results he was about to deliver, like presents from some evil twin of Santa Claus. The bad news could not have been worse for America's nescient space program: The Redstone rocket did not have enough lifting capacity to place a satellite into orbit. The final number at the bottom of the page said it all: 93.10 percent. The Redstone, as currently engineered and designed, had the capacity to come within 93.10 percent of reaching orbit—meaning, of course, that it would not reach orbit at all. It was not just off, it was way off. Were the Redstone to attempt an orbital launch that day, it would climb into the stratosphere, run out of energy, tilt over, and eventually splash down thousands of miles away in the Atlantic Ocean—another embarrassing failure anxiously awaiting its live television close-up.

  Stuhlinger took a deep breath, then knocked on Wernher von Braun's office door.

  General Bruce Medaris set the army-green receiver down on its army-green hook.

  “Tell Colonel Wilkins I want to see him at once.”

  His secretary, Miss Biddle, stood patiently at one corner of his desk. “Where should I find him?”

  “Try the golf course.”

  Colonel Wilkins was on the fourth green at the army's nine-hole course in Huntsville when Miss Biddle came trotting up. The appearance of the tall, skinny woman with the coke-bottle glasses always meant one thing: General Medaris wanted to see him. He tapped the ball gently and watched the trajectory skirt past the hole, missing it by several inches. Nothing like a summons from the general to throw him off his game.

  The colonel excused himself from his playing partners and followed Miss Biddle.

  General Bruce Medaris had two three-digit numbers in front of him. The first number was 284. The second was 305. Both numbers were measurements of specific impulse. Measured in seconds, specific impulse is a sort-of horsepower rating for rocket propellants. As with horsepower, so with specific impulse: the higher the number, the greater the power. Every fuel and oxidizer propellant combination had its own specific impulse value. Such values were calculated theoretically on paper, then adjusted downward a few points (sometimes many points) after data reduction from static-engine tests produced less than theoretical results (and they always produced less than theoretical results). In rocketry, more than any other endeavor, reality always trumped theory.

  The lower number, 284, was the specific impulse for the Redstone rocket's current fuel/oxidizer propellant combination of alcohol and liquid oxygen. This was the propellant combination von Braun used in the V-2. Due to his extensive experience and knowledge with those propellants, he had chosen to utilize them in the design of his US Army rocket systems, including the Redstone. It seemed logical at the time.1

  That number, 284, was a well-known value to von Braun and his engineers; it was one that had always served them well. However, it was also an ideal number, meaning it was the highest specific impulse one could expect from a LOX/alcohol system under the best conditions, using propellants of perfect purity and equipment of faultless function—neither of which ever happened. 284 was the ceiling, the end, the maximum, the upper limit, the pie-in-the-sky. Most important, 284 was a number no LOX/alcohol rocket could ever rise above, let alone reach.

  The higher number staring at General Medaris, 305, was different. It was not theoretical. It was not pie-in-the-sky. Unlike 284, it was not a number affixed to any particular propellant combination. Rather, 305 was a number that had been vomited forth from a series of slide-rule calculations performed by Wernher von Braun's engineering team. 305 was not a number so much as it was a goal, a target, an objective, a nightmare, an impossibility. 305 seconds was the minimum specific impulse value the Redstone propellant system would have to hit if the rocket would have enough power to push a small satellite into orbit.

  In other words, General Medaris had a terrific ICBM, but not the satellite booster he was seeking.

  Colonel Wilkins entered, still wearing his golf shoes.

  “You needed to see me, sir?”

  “Yes, Colonel. I just received some disturbing news from Dr. von Braun.” For a moment the general appeared lost in thought. The colonel knew better than to interrupt him.

  “Turns out the Redstone, as currently designed, will never reach orbit.”

  “Even with the lengthened tanks and other improvements? Dr. von Braun seemed so confident at our last briefing.”

  “Yeah, well, the Krauts sharpened their pencils and somehow figured out that the Redstone has what it takes to get 93.1 percent of the way into orbit. Do you know what 93.1 percent gets you in the satellite business, Colonel?

  “No sir.”

  “It gets you bupkis!” The general's face was getting red. It was not a good sign. “If we launched the Redstone today, it would keel over at a very high altitude and splash down somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. A pile of worthless sheet metal. That's what 93.1 percent gets you. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We have no idea how far along the Russian space program is, but the fact that they were able to assemble an A-bomb in no time means we ought not to underestimate them. The army needs a new propellant combination for the Redstone—a new fuel, a new oxidizer, or both. And we need ’em two days before yesterday. I'm sending you out to California—a little backwater they call Canoga Park.”

  “Excuse me, sir. Did you say ‘California’?”

  “There's a company there. North American Aviation. Got some of the best engineers in the business. Not as good as the army, of course, but good. They designed and built the Redstone booster. They know the system bass-ackwards and forwards. If anyone can solve this problem, it's them.”

  The general handed his subordinate a folder.

  “Here's the contract. My secretary will give you a binder listing all the vendor's engineers. Their job is this: to find a new propellant combination that can give us that extra 6.9 percent of performance without making any more changes in the rocket's design. Tell them I want it two days before yesterday. I got a plane on the tarmac warming up. Dismissed.”

  “Sir, I probably ought to pack a few things…”

  “You'll be back long before you soil your stupid-ass underwear, Colonel. The pilot's waiting.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The two officers exchanged salutes, and Colonel Wilkins headed for the door.

  “Colonel.”

  With his hand on the doorknob, Colonel Wilkins stopped and turned around.

  “The country's reputation is riding on our shoulders. There's a lot at stake. Tell those white-shirts at North American I want them to put their very best man on this project. You understand? Their very best man. Whoever they choose doesn't know it yet, but he's about to become the most important person in America.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  And with that, Colonel Wilkins left the office and walked toward the far corner of the building. Long before he arrived at that corner, he could hear them—the earthy purr of four Pratt & Whitney R-1830 turbocharged radial engines, each producing 1,200 awesome, earth-shattering horsepower. R-1830 engines meant he was probably going to be riding a B-24 Liberator, one of the finest planes ever built. At a top speed of 270 mph, he would easily be back from the “backwater” in plenty of time for the annual officers-versus-enlisted men golf tournament.

  The pilot gave an urgent hurry-it-up wave, and Colonel Wilkins accelerated to a trot.

  Many years hence, when people would ask Richard Morgan why he only bought used cars, he would say, “I'll buy a new car when the price of new cars goes down to what I paid for my Volkswagen in 1953.” And he meant it. My father would hold onto that little, green VW bug with the small rear window for fifty-seven more years before one day selling it to a collector, a man who offered my father more money than the car's original purchase price. When it came to cars, I always thought my dad was crazy. Yeah, crazy like a fox.

  Today I am riding in that green 1953 VW. I am a one-year-old baby.

  Car seats for infants
and children have not yet been invented, so my mother is holding me in her arms as my father drives me to my aunt Amy's house. By the 1950s, most of the Michael Sherman family has abandoned North Dakota and resettled in Southern California. All the Sherman kids are now grown and married and having children. My mother's older sister is now Amy Wengler and lives just a couple of miles from us in Reseda. She babysits me Monday through Friday so both my parents can go to their jobs at North American Aviation.

  On this warm autumn morning, my father pulls the 1953 green VW alongside the curb in front of the Wenglers’ boxy, three-bedroom stucco home. My mother hands me into my aunt's waiting arms, then gets back into the car. Since I'm only a baby, and far from sentient, I am completely unaware that my mother is about to change the world.

  Of course, she is completely unaware of it as well.

  Tom Meyers knew Colonel Wilkins was coming. He had been forewarned by the mucky-mucks upstairs, who had been forewarned by the mucky-mucks in Downey. It was a contract so secret no one was allowed to discuss it over the phone. A contract so important, a full-bird US Army colonel was delivering it personally.

  “A representative from the army is bringing you a new contract.”

  “What kind of contract? A new engine?” An order for a new engine design would mean at least four more years of job security for his entire department.

  “I can't discuss it on the phone, Tom. But let me make this clear: you are to put your very best man on this. The army was very insistent. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “This contract will be your department's top priority for now.”

  It was a mysterious call, but hardly the first such call he had received over the years. Everyone was paranoid of Soviet spies, and that paranoia was creating a great deal of anxiety and phone-a-phobia. In the aerospace industry, people were becoming wary, suspicious. Employees would walk to their cars at the end of the day and look over their shoulders to see if they were being followed. They would drive to work the next morning and take far too many glances at their rearview mirrors.