Rocket Renaissance - Air Force doubling rocket system capability

Airman, August, 2001 by Tech. Sgt. John B. Dendy IV

The Air Force is doubling the capability of every U.S. rocket propulsion system -- now

The rocket test produced a tsunami of sound waves, as startling as the 2,000-foot-high steam cloud that hurled itself over the outdoor workshop -- a lone, sun-burnished mountainside on a flat Mojave Desert valley, 100 miles from Los Angeles.

Space industry executives watched the world's newest reusable rocket engine gulp fuel while scientists revved the system up and down. Tremors vibrated cars parked two miles away on the far side of the mountain. The towering plume of labcoat-white steam rose from the pad as it filled the cool desert air. After 90 seconds of this bedlam, the test ended, the steam vaporized and silence reigned.

Welcome to the Rocket Lab, a mecca for rocket scientists.

In the food chain of sounds at the lab, the new big engines dominate the domain. Think of them as "The Really Big Engines That Could." Second in the pecking order are large vacuum pumps that rumble while space vacuum chambers are filled with hushed waterfalls of blue light from space thrusters.

Third would be the scraping noise of lathes run by machinists and researchers while they carefully craft advanced carbon or miniature plastic parts. All other lab sounds, from Bunsen burners to arc welders, are tied for fourth place.

On a 65-square-mile parcel of Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., the lab's mission is to ensure America's edge in propulsion. Accordingly, the lab and the nation's civilian rocket industry are working under a 15-year national plan for rocket propulsion. Its mandate: double rocket propulsion capability by 2010.

This "rocket renaissance" plan has airmen extending every Air Force propulsion system's capability, such as tactical and ballistic missiles, space launch boosters, and satellites.

The only activity that comes close to the lab scientists' work intensity might be their regular roller hockey game. Once these noontime contests end, airmen rocket from the rink to their labs.

"You do notice a lot of hockey sticks around here. We're all on a team, and we play once or twice a week," said Capt. Rene Gonzalez, a propulsion materials engineer.

The modest shingle at the Air Force Research Lab's propulsion directorate's entrance reads, "Welcome to the Home of Real Rocket Science." The facility doesn't disappoint visitors or customers.

"The rocket scientists are here. There are certainly other locations in the country, but we are one of the biggest homes for them," said site commander Col. Wesley Cox.

The lab maintains 26 of the nation's high-thrust static rocket stands. Those pads are "outdoor workbenches" where technicians clamp down rockets and monitor their performances after remotely "lighting the fuses."

Workers perform propulsion engineering, small-scale testing and research elsewhere on the campus at Edwards. They can improve current systems, or develop new products, like a rocket that lifts off on invisible laser beams. This working concept craft may someday boost a payload into space for $500 a pound. That "GI spacelift price" looks as good as a nickel root beer compared to the $10,000 to $20,000 per pound cost to book the Space Shuttle, said Cox, who did his doctoral dissertation on turbine airfoils in the 1970s.

Honey, I shrunk the satellite

With two-thirds of the nation's large rocket test stands in a single place, one might guess "abnormally small" is not the forte at Edwards; yet, the facility is a leader in nanotechnology and microtechnology. Those are late 20th century science terms for making dwarfish devices. Researchers are providing materials to make this feasible, according to Dr. Wes Hoffman, a principal scientist and leader of basic and applied research teams for more than 20 years.

His lab is a hotbed of microtube technologies because microtubes have more space-related applications than the Mojave has desert. This year, Hoffman's team made microthruster nozzles for positioning satellites with a propulsion-induced nudge that Cox calls the "gnat sneeze."

Each of the new nozzles is roughly the size of the word "PLURIBUS" on a penny. While one normal-sized rocket nozzle won't fit through the average American's garage door, the storage bins for microthruster nozzles are clear glass laboratory vials -- the size of your thumb.

The Air Force researched microtube technologies for years, when no one else cared to. Suddenly, the industry is inspired, because it sees big global markets for such items as microsatellites.

Spinoff POSS-ibilties

The lab team developed a superplastic that's strong and light enough to last in space. It considers the find the most promising plastic blend discovery in 40 years, because industrialists will add it to products without altering their assembly lines,

Wisely, the Air Force has patented this chemical plastic technology, known as polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes. Someone generously gave it the short name of "POSS." The plastic's proponents envision a day when an Air Force sniper's gun sights -- enhanced with POSS -- won't require changing because of scratches. Companies could prosper selling scratch-free windows or nail polish. The potential POSS-ibilities are rich.