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Science / Space Race

[MAY 26, 1968] EUROPA AD ASTRA (EUROPEAN SPACE UPDATE)

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by Kaye Dee

The recent launch of the ESRO 2B scientific satellite on 17 May (more on that below) reminds me that it has been a while since I wrote anything about the European launcher development programme being carried out in Australia. There have also been major developments in Europe’s space plans over the past few months, which look like they will significantly change the future of the European space programme.

For readers in the United States and other parts of the world, who may not be familiar with the European space programme, let me take a few moments to introduce the major players and provide a bit of background before talking about recent developments.

Cousins Rather Than Siblings: ELDO, ESRO and CETS
The two most important space bodies in Europe are the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) and the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO). ESRO’s focus is on developing scientific satellites for space research. ELDO looks to develop an independent satellite launch capability for Europe through the Europa rocket, conducting its test flights from the Woomera Rocket Range in Australia.

The French acronym CERS stands for Conseil Européen de Recherche Spatiale

These roles would appear to be complementary, and I have occasionally referred to ELDO and ESRO as “sister” institutions in previous articles, since they have grown up in parallel and have several member states in common. However, I’ve come to think that they are perhaps best considered as “cousins”, as they operate and forward plan quite separately from each other, resulting in a lack of co-ordination across Europe's space activities. While ELDO was established with an assumption that ESRO would be one of the customers for its launch services, ESRO has not waited for a European launcher to become available from ELDO: ESRO 2B has been launched under NASA’s auspices on a Scout vehicle from Vandenberg Air Force Base and for the foreseeable future all planned ESRO satellite launches will be on US rockets.

The French acronym CECLES stands for Conseil européen pour la construction de lanceurs d'engins spatiaux

Mention also needs to be made of the European Conference on Telecommunications by Satellites (CETS), the third space organisation in Europe, which is playing a role in pushing for some of the proposed changes in Europe’s space plans. Unlike ESRO and ELDO, CETS is not active in developing space technologies and vehicles, but provides a forum for European Post, Telegraph and Telecommunications agencies (PTTs) to consider the role of communication satellites and discuss the European role in the INTELSAT global telecommunications satellite system.

ESRO and ELDO: Parallel Lives
Stemming from initiatives taken in 1959 and 1960 by a small group of scientists, led by Italian Prof. Edoardo Amaldi and French physicist Prof. Pierre Victor Auger, ESRO was set up in the early 1960s. Like ELDO, it formally came into existence in 1964. ESRO’s member countries are Belgium, Denmark, West Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, and Britain, and the organisation’s focus has been on strictly civil scientific research. Four ESRO members (Britain, France, Italy and West Germany) also have their own national space programmes.

ESRO has already developed a number of technical facilities: the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands, is the newest, opened on 3 April. ESRO has also begun to establish its own space tracking network, ESTRACK, and has its own sounding rocket launch facility, ESRANGE (established in 1964), near Kiruna, Sweden.

The opening of ESTEC on 3 April by HRH Princess Beatrix and her husband Prince Claus included the royal couple being presented with a model of the ESRO 2B satellite

ELDO, on the other hand, was very much a British initiative in 1960-61, seeking partners in Europe for the development of an independent satellite launcher that would use as its first stage the UK’s then-recently cancelled Blue Streak missile. ELDO’s member states are Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands. Australia, despite being a non-European country, is also an ELDO member because of its role providing the test launch facilities at Woomera.

The first Blue Streak launch from Woomera in 1964, designated as ELDO F-1, the inaugural test flight of the Europa rocket's first stage

Both organisations operate with a policy of “juste retour” – allocating work to industry in member countries in proportion to their share of financial contribution to the organisation.

So you can see that, unlike the US civilian space programme, under the control of NASA, and the Soviet programme, under central control from the Politburo, there are many fingers in the European space pie, with many complementary and yet competing interests and national agendas.

Not Going Up from Down Under
When I last reported on the ELDO programme, it was to cover the loss of the ELDO F-6 launch in August last year. At the time, I mentioned that a reflight – designated as F-6/2 – was already in planning. Scheduled for December 5, 1967, the first attempt to launch F-6/2 was aborted just 12 seconds before lift-off due to a power failure.



Although successfully launched at 6 a.m. the following morning, the second stage failed to ignite after separation from the first stage. The vehicle then crashed down into the upper reaches of the Simpson Desert, repeating the failure of Europa F-6/1. This was the second failure of an active French Coralie second stage, and an investigation is still underway to determine the cause.

Despite this failure, the next Europa launch – designated F-7 – is still planned for October or November this year as the first test flight with three active stages. Let’s hope that the issues with the second stage have been resolved by then!

Has Britain Lost Its Way in Space?
Since coming to power in the October 1964, the Wilson Labour Government has shown itself to be considerably less enthusiastic about European space activities than its Conservative predecessor. This would appear to be in large part due to the struggling UK economy, but also a response to the lack of success of Britain’s attempts to join the European Economic Community in 1963 and 67, for which UK participation in European space was supposed to be a sweetener.

In 1965, when the cost of completing the original ELDO programme had already climbed to twice the early estimates, France began to call for a revised – and more expensive – programme to develop the Europa vehicle into a launcher capable of placing satellites into geostationary orbit. Calling the Europa I launcher “obsolete”, as it can only place satellites into polar orbit, France has proposed a more sophisticated and powerful Europa II vehicle that would enable Europe to launch communications and other applications satellites without reliance on the United States (which has already given indications that it will take measures to protect its monopoly on the use of geostationary satellites).

Applications satellites, especially for international communications (as demonstrated by INTELSAT), are almost certainly the way of the future in space developments outside human spaceflight, and West Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands have agreed with the French view. This resulted in a July 1966 proposal to complete ELDO’s Europa I programme and add a Europa II development programme.

The British Government, however, began to express severe doubts about the “technological use and the economic viability” of the ELDO programme and opposed the French-led changes. In 1966, it signalled that Britain would not participate in any further financing of ELDO programmes after present projects were completed. Britain also reduced its financial contributions to ELDO from 38.79% (the largest contribution to ELDO’s budget) to 27%, with the difference being made up by the other four paying members (Australia being a non-paying member, on the basis of providing the Woomera facilities).

The reduction in the British financial clout within ELDO, and the desire for an equatorial launch facility, has been a factor in ELDO planning to move away from Woomera to France’s national launch facility in Kourou, French Guiana, at the completion of the ELDO I programme, anticipated in 1970. This has greatly disappointed my friends at the WRE, who spent considerable effort in preparing plans for a launch facility near Darwin, in the Northern Territory, to support an equatorial launch capability in Australia for the Europa II programme.

The first launch from France's Kourou facility, the future home of the ELDO programme, took place on 9 April this year, with the firing of a Veronique sounding rocket

British Space Industry Weighs In!
In November last year, a report from the National Industrial Space Committee, which represents the space interests of British industry, recommended that the British Government should not reduce, but expand its spending on space research and development, in order to stop the brain drain from the UK and obtain a share in what is already being seen as the lucrative space technology business. It recommended that spending on space-related R&D should be increased by around a 25% increase from the present $A60 million to between $A75 million and $A87.5 million said the committee. Comments at the time from Mr Kenneth Gatland, vice president of the British Interplanetary Society, indicated that a major row was looming between industry and Government over Britain's failure to lead Europe into the commercial field of communication satellites. Although the Post Office, which controls British telecommunications, has expressed “severe doubts” about the commercial benefits of space-communication, this seems a bit strange when the Post Office is also the British signatory to INTELSAT, and the UK is the consortium’s second largest shareholder. “Government advisers”, Mr. Gatland said, “were being accused of leaving Britain high and dry through inept policies, allowing France and West Germany to benefit at Britain's expense.” Instead of the “national scandal” of Britain having spent an estimated $A124,707,500 on ELDO without any tangible end project in view, Mr. Gatland has suggested that Britain should give ELDO a target which would bring a return for the large capital investment.

A European Symphonie?
Whatever Britain’s misgivings regarding satellite communications, France and Germany are eager to move into the field of communications satellites to break INTELSAT’s monopoly on international satellite telecommunications. They have embarked on their own joint communications satellite project, known as Symphonie. As this project has taken options on two Europa II launches for its two satellites, it is, at present, ELDO's only customers! Mr Gatland has urged Britain to join France and Germany in the Symphonie project, which will promise a satellite in three to five years.

An early design for the Symphonie communications satellite, which is intended to be three-axis stabilised

Italy has decided to go it alone on the development of a telecommunications satellite known as Project Sirio. The design will apparently be based on the experimental telecommunications satellite that Italy was originally going to develop for ELDO, before that aspect of the programme was cut to reduce overall costs.

ESRO is also reported to be interested in moving beyond scientific satellites into the applications satellite area, in conjunction with CETS, which has expressed interest in the development of a satellite for television distribution.

Whither or Wither, Europe?
With all this history in mind, Europe’s space plans for the future have undergone considerable change in the past few months. According to a report released in March, Europe's space club has mapped out an ambitious programme for the next 10 years that would include telecommunications satellites for television, broadcasting and telephone calls, meteorological, air traffic control and Earth resources satellites, and large numbers of astronomical and other scientific satellites. This programme, which involves a 10 per cent annual increase of expenditure on European space projects, is intended to be discussed when Science Ministers from the 17 member states of ELDO, ESRO and CETS, meet in Bonn, West Germany, in June.

However, the ambitious proposals released in March evolving as originally anticipated is now unlikely, given the most recent events. On 18 April, Britain's Labour Government announced cuts in spending on space research and cast further doubts on the future of ELDO. Although the Government indicated that it would maintain its contribution to the current ELDO programme at the existing level, it could “see no economic justification for undertaking further financial commitments to ELDO after the present programme,” which is due to conclude in 1970.

This (not totally unexpected news) was followed by an announcement from ESRO on 26 April that it was cancelling its plans for its two largest satellites scientific satellites – a major blow for European space co-operation. The two massive TD 1 and TD 2 satellites (the TD stands for Thor Delta, the intended launch vehicle), each weighing 990 lbs, were to have been built under a 100 million franc (about Aus$17,800,000) contract by an international consortium including Hawker Siddeley Dynamics of Britain, the French firm Matra, the West German group ERNO, and Saab of Sweden.

TD1, scheduled for launch in 1970, was designed to study the relationship between earth and sun. TD2, planned for launch the following year, was focused on research into solar ultra-violet radiation and electromagnetic phenomena in the upper atmosphere. The reason for the satellites’ cancellation seems to be connected with disagreements within ESRO in regard to the juste retour allocation of work for the project.

ESRO’s First satellite in Orbit!
Despite the uncertainties about its future space plans, Europe is currently celebrating the launch of the first ESRO satellite to make it to orbit! ESRO-2B was launched 17 May from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on a Scout B rocket.

This flight occurred almost exactly one year after the loss of its predecessor ESRO 2A on 29 May, 1967. Also launched from Vandenberg on a Scout B, ESRO 2A was lost due to a malfunction of the rocket’s fourth stage, which prevented the satellite from reaching orbit. These first European satellites were launched on Scout vehicles due to an offer from NASA to launch the ESRO's first two satellites free of charge as a ‘christening gift’ for the organisation (and no doubt to woo ESRO towards continuing with US launchers even when ELDO's Europa rockets become operational!)

ESRO 2B, also known as Iris (International Radiation Investigation Satellite), Iris 2 and ESRO 2, is an astrophysical research satellite developed to study solar and cosmic radiation and their interaction with the Earth and its magnetosphere. This will provide continuity to the solar radiation observations of earlier satellites and continue similar particle measurements carried out by the UK’s Ariel 1 satellite. It is the first mission controlled by teams at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany.

ESRO 2B being prepared for launch

Placed into a highly elliptical near-polar orbit, with an orbital period of 98.9 minutes, ESRO-2B is about 33.5 inches in length, with a diameter just on 30 inches. It weighs 196 lb and is spin-stabilised, with a spin rate of approximately 40 rpm. The satellite is powered by 3456 solar cells on the outer body panels, supplemented by a nickel/cadmium battery. The satellite carries the same seven instruments as its lost predecessor: to detect high-energy cosmic rays, determine the total flux of solar X-rays, measure trapped radiation, investigate Van Allen belt protons and cosmic ray protons. And if you’re wondering why ESRO 2B is the first European satellite and what happened to ESRO 1, the simple answer is that ESRO 1 has yet to be launched! Difficulties in the development of the payload for the polar ionospheric satellite ESRO 1, designed to study how the auroral zones responded to geomagnetic and solar activity, meant that it was eventually agreed to launch ESRO-2 ahead of it. ESRO 1 is due for launch around October this year, so we here at Galactic Journey will cover its story soon. ESRO 2B being tracked at the ESOC mission control centre










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Science / Space Race

[January 8, 1965] The Skylark of Space (Britain's Skylark Sounding Rocket)

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by Kaye Dee

Hopefully Doc Smith will forgive me for borrowing the title of his famous story for my article, but I couldn’t resist because it fits so well. Since I began writing here, I’ve been wanting to talk about the Skylark sounding rocket, the first British rocket capable of reaching space (whether you go by the US Air Force and NASA definition of space beginning at 50 miles, or accept the Federation Aeronautique Internationale definition, based on the work of Theodore von Karman, of 100 kilometres/62 miles).


A different kind of Skylark reaching for the stars!

Hatching the Skylark

Sounding rockets, which can carry payloads into space, but do not have enough thrust to put them into orbit, are often neglected when discussing the Space Race. But they are perhaps more important (and certainly more often launched!) than satellites.

These suborbital rockets were still a relatively new technology a decade ago, and even by the end of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) only a handful of countries (including Australia, I’m proud to say) had developed a national sounding rocket capability. First announced in 1955, the Skylark sounding rocket was developed for the IGY by the UK Ministry of Defence’s Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), in collaboration with the Royal Society’s Gassiot Committee, which focuses on meteorology and upper atmosphere research.


Diagram showing the original design for the Skylark rocket. The design has been evolving ever since, improving the capabilities of the vehicle

The new rocket was originally called the Gassiot High Altitude Vehicle, which is a bit of a mouthful, and the story is that, in 1956, one of the engineers working on the rocket’s design at the RAE decided that he would like to see it named “Skylark”. I don't know if he was a fan of Doc Smith's work, but a class of UK rocket motors is named after British birds, so that was more likely his inspiration for the name. In any case, he apparently put up a paper to his superiors suggesting that the rocket should be renamed to something that would simpler and more memorable for public relations and offered a list of alternatives, none of which were particularly appealing except, very deliberately, Skylark. The plan worked, and the name Skylark was approved for the rocket.

Flying to Australia

Sounding rockets, like test missiles, need a lot of empty land on which to fall back to Earth; Woomera was the obvious place for Britain’s new scientific rocket to be launched. Skylark components and payloads are made in the UK and then flown to Australia by transport planes. These include a special dedicated “explosives” transport plane that carries the rocket engines to Australia fully-loaded with their solid propellant. The rocket motors are delivered directly to Woomera, while the payload parts arrive at the Weapons Research Establishment’s (WRE) Salisbury facility, near Adelaide (see June entry), where they are assembled by WRE technicians and British payload specialists and then transported to Woomera to be fitted to the launch rocket.


A Skylark instrument bay and nosecone being tested in a workshop at the WRE's facility in Salisbury, South Australia

Because of its slow acceleration, the Skylark needs a very long launch rail to ensure its stability in flight and this massive tower dominates Range E at Woomera, where the sounding rocket launches take place. It’s 80 feet tall and weighs 35 tons, so transporting it to Australia was quite a task. Interestingly, because of steel shortages in Britain when the tower was being designed, it’s actually made out of war surplus Bailey bridge segments!


View of Range E at Woomera where sounding rockets are launched. The massive Skylark launch tower dwarfs everything around it. Australia's first sounding rocket, Long Tom, also used this launcher initially

Skylark Acsending


An unusual philatelic cover from Uncle Ernie's collection marking a Skylark launch in 1958 – and British nuclear tests at the Maralinga range, adjacent to Woomera

The first Skylark launch took place in February 1957, before the official start of the IGY in July that year, with the first three flights being performance-proving flights. On its fourth flight, in November 1957, the Skylark showed that it could reach the space environment, soaring to an altitude of 79.5 miles. This flight was also the first to carry a suite of scientific instruments provided by British universities, including two experiments that have since been flown on many Skylarks: a ‘grenade’ experiment and a ‘window’ experiment. In the grenade experiments, grenades are ejected from the rocket during its flight and the explosions detected on the ground by microphones and flash detectors. From these measurements, temperatures and wind velocities at different altitudes can be determined. In the ‘window’ experiment, strips of radar chaff (also known as ‘window’) made from aluminium are ejected into the atmosphere to be tracked by radar, which provides velocity measurements of upper atmosphere winds.


I love this timelapse photo of a Skylark night launch, taken in 1958. SL04, the first Skylark to reach space, was also launched at night, although it seems that no-one thought to take a picture of that historic launch!

Of course, since 1957, the number and range of scientific experiments being flown on Skylarks has steadily increased, helping to provide a new understanding of the conditions in the upper atmosphere and the fringes of space. When the first experiment releasing sodium vapour into the atmosphere to study atmospheric density and winds flew in late 1958, people in areas hundreds of miles from Woomera thought that the strange sight of a reddish-yellow cloud might be associated with Sputnik III, the massive Soviet satellite that was in orbit at the time!


Clouds over South Australia, taken from above by a Skylark rocket in 1962, as part of a meteorological experiment

Skylark Improving

The original design of the Skylark rocket used a single Raven solid rocket motor. To increase its altitude and payload carrying capacity, different variants of the Raven have been used, and in 1960 the Skylark became a two-stage launcher, with the use of a Cuckoo motor for an additional boost on some flights. There have also been experiments with a parachute system, to try to recover some instruments or photographic plates intact, but so far these have not been very successful.


A Skylark rocket enhanced with a Cuckoo boost motor soaring into the stratosphere

Until very recently all Skylark flights were unstabilised, but just last year there were two experimental flights using Sun sensors to provide stabilisation. The development of this technique will make the Skylark more suitable for taking astronomical observations at high altitude, above the thickness of the atmosphere, and I’ve heard that there are plans for small X-ray and Ultra-violet telescopes and other astronomy payloads to be flown on future launches.

A Century of Skylarks


The Research Vehicles Group and others involved with Skylark at Woomera celebrate the 100th Skylark launch

At the end of September the Skylark notched up its 100th flight, which is perhaps not surprising as the launch rate has been steadily increasing. There were 19 flights in both 1963 and 64, and this year looks as if it will be even busier. The WRE has a section that manages the Skylark launches – the Research Vehicles Group: because of the high rate of firings and the time it takes to prepare each rocket for launch, there are four Skylark launch teams within the Group, each one dedicated to a specific Skylark flight.


Technicians from a WRE Skylark launch team preparing a rocket for firing in 1961

1964 also saw another new step for the Skylark, with two launches taking place for the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO) at Italy’s Salto di Quirra Range on Sardinia. This range was established in 1956 under the management of Luigi Broglio, who I mentioned last month as the mastermind behind Italy’s first satellite (see December entry). This Range is providing facilities to ESRO until its own sounding rocket facility near Kiruna in Sweden is completed.

Skylark looks set to become the workhorse of the European sounding rocket program, just as it is for Britain. NASA has even launched Skylarks out of Woomera: as part of a co-operative Ultra-violet astronomy programme with Australia, four ‘NASA’ Skylarks were launched at Woomera in 1961

Skylark in Orbit

Skylark rockets have also played a role in Britain’s Ariel satellite programme, helping to test out instrumentation and experiments before they were included in the satellites. Like Canada , Britain launched its first satellite, Ariel 1, in 1962 (see September entry), with help from the United States, which provided the satellite body in which the British experiments were installed, as well as the launch. In March last year, Ariel 2 was launched for Britain by NASA. In advance of both these flights, so much of the equipment was checked out beforehand on Skylark flights that I’ve heard that some wit described the satellites as “Skylark in orbit”!

Ariel 1

Britain's Ariel 1 and 2 satellites are almost identical. The scientific instruments on both were tested out on Skylark flights before being launched into space

It's been exciting to watch the progress of the Skylark programme and I expect that this versatile sounding rocket will be operational for many years to come. Australia has it's own sounding rocket program that has been designed to complement the Skylark research in many ways. I'll have to devote an article to it in the not too distant future

[Join us at Portal 55, Galactic Journey's real-time lounge! Talk about your favorite SFF, chat with the Traveler and co., relax, sit a spell…]




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Science / Space Race

[July 4, 1963] Down Under to the Worlds of Men (Woomera, Part 2)

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by Ida Moya

There’s been some great (and terrible) science fiction writing in the journey last month. I so appreciate these reviews, which help me find interesting things to read, and bring me up to date on the preoccupations of science fiction authors. The illustrations from the magazines that The Traveler includes are so compelling in style and subject matter. I think that they are an under-appreciated art form that, perhaps, sometime in the future, could become appreciated and highly collectible.

A few months ago I wrote about my friend Mary Whitehead, who works as an Experimental Officer in Australia. She recently wrote me back with some corrections, that I will pass on to you, in order not to mar the historical record.

For example, I said that Mary lived at Woomera, which was not the case. I was conflating the rocket testing range with the place where most of the computing work got done. She actually lives near the Weapons Research Establishment (WRE), which is located in Salisbury, a small town about 15 miles north of the big city of Adelaide. Woomera Rocket Range is in the isolated outback another 300 miles north of that.

In 1949, Mary, who studied mathematics in college, got a job in the Bomb Ballistics Section of the WRE. At that time, Mary was the only professional woman at Salisbury. Her first work was to lead a team of female Computers. At first, they used mechanical calculators like the noisy Friden’s and then Marchant’s like we used at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory.


Bomb Ballistics Group Computer Judith Ellis recording data with pencil and paper from film, in 1949. (Courtesy of Defense Science and Technology Group)

In 1956 British company Elliott Brothers developed a custom-designed digital computer called WREDAC (Weapons Research Establishment Digital Automatic Computer) for WRE; one of but four digital computers in Australia at that time. This was a very sophisticated vacuum tube machine, a one off made a few years later than the ENIAC-style MANIAC we used at Los Alamos. In 1960 the WRE acquired the modular, somewhat mass-produced IBM 7090 mainframe computer, which is so valuable that they run it constantly, in three shifts.

Mary and some of her crew do go every once in a while to stay for a week at Woomera Village, next to the test range. She insisted that the Computers be able to observe the actual launches of rockets and missiles, and be trained in the operation of the data collection equipment — kinetheodolites, high-speed cine-cameras, radars, radio missile tracking systems, Doppler and telemetry reception equipment — in order to better interpret the results when they get back to Salisbury.


Two Computers wearing their army gear operate a kinetheodolite at Woomera around 1949.

Early on, it was quite a battle with the Range Superintendent to get her team to Woomera. He was concerned that it was an unsuitable and morally dangerous place for unattached young women. The compromise was that the women wear army gear – hat, khaki shirt and slacks, heavy brogues and leather jerkins for cold weather.


A team of computers visiting Woomera in 1950, wearing the army dress required by the Range Superintendent. Experimental Officer Mary Whitehead, Chaperone for the group, is second from the left. (Courtesy of Defense Science and Technology Group)

Back then, Woomera also did not have facilities for women, so they returned early from the range to have their showers from 4 to 5, before the men returned. The female Calculators also ate in the Officer’s Mess, so that they did not have to consort with the rougher men in the Other Ranks Mess. Today, though, the women working at Woomera have their own hostel and mess and no longer have to wear that army gear.

One part of Woomera range is a row of carefully calibrated cameras that take a series of photographs of a test launch. Her team also calibrates the cameras, which involves taking photographs of the starfield and getting the framing exactly right; a project that can take several weeks. Once calibrated, the tests commence and the launch photographs go back to the analysts, who use an overhead projector and other specialized equipment to translate each piece of film into location and time data. It’s really an amazingly detailed process involving a lot of cooperation. Now, what once took her team 4 weeks to calculate using Marchants, can be done in just a day on the IBM.


Long range Baker-Nunn camera for tracking satellites and photographing rockets, Woomera

Another mistake in my article that Mary pointed out to me was that she had never visited Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. When she visited America, she went to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory to get a better star catalogue. She also went to Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, and then the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Washington State, where she consulted with some men who had devised the mathematics for using stars as background markers for measuring the trajectories. Mary also went to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, which must be where we met. She didn’t get to observe any missile tests at White Sands, but spoke with a man there who studies the refraction of light.

The project Mary is working on now is called Black Knight. It is a research ballistic missile, a test vehicle being used to get data to better design and build missiles, develop launch techniques, and learn how to handle such a big item. Mary’s group examines the Black Knight’s trajectory and re-entry into the atmosphere. So it’s important to get those measurements right, so these ballistic missiles can be better designed.


Blue Streak, one of many missiles tested at the Range, on its launcher at Lake Hart, Woomera, 1963

Mary, like me, is working for her government. In Australia and Britain, like the United States, there are careful bureaucracies that establish titles and pay rates. As a female Experimental Officer, Mary is paid the standard women’s rate of two-thirds of the male wage. Most of Mary’s female Computers are right out of school, and are expected to stay for only a few years, until they are married, when it is mandatory that they retire. Miss Mary Whitehead is not married, perhaps because of this system. Mary has even joined the Professional Officer’s Association to try to lobby for equal pay for equal work, but she is frustrated because the rest of the members are men so they don’t think too much of her appeals. Right now she trains new recruits, who start at the men’s base pay, which is more than she makes as an experienced officer. This Programmed Inequality that includes discarding of skilled Calculators and discouraging of skilled female technical workers is a great loss to the accuracy of this trajectory work in particular, and the development of computing technology in Australia and the United Kingdom in general.

I won’t tell you yet how much I make, but I too am stuck in a similarly unfair and enraging bureaucratic system. But, like me, Mary finds the work and constant learning so stimulating that it is almost worth it. Fortunately, the national push for equal rights among the races and sexes is beginning to change this awful standard. The 1960s is opening with turbulence; some people agitating for change, while other forces oppose this change, as the Traveler keeps pointing out. It’s a confusing time and hard to know what is real anymore. Perhaps a little science fiction and fantasy will ease this pain, and give us some insight into the potentials that we can build into our tomorrows.




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Science / Space Race

[Mar. 30, 1963] Mercury waltzes Matilda (the tracking and research station at Woomera, Australia)

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by Ida Moya

I’m back from a whirlwind of helping the data analysts at Los Alamos get their FORTRAN formulas running on that balky old IBM Stretch computer. I can see why IBM only made 8 of these things. It is miraculous to have a computer that can fit into a single room, but this stretch (pardon the pun) in computing technology still averages only 17 hours uptime a day — and that’s also a stretch (no more, I promise).

When it breaks, this swarm of white-coated men in ties comes in and fusses around with it with a bunch of special tools, as well as the set of ALDs (Automated Logic Diagrams) that come with every IBM computer. The way those diagrams are produced and updated with punch cards and special line printers is an amazing story, but for another time.

Although we at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory can comfort ourselves that the Stretch is the fastest computer in the world, I’m still envious of the institutions that have the better-engineered IBM 7090 computers. These are being used for calculations for the exciting Mercury program.


IBM 7090 at the Weapons Research Establishment's headquarters at Salisbury, on the northern outskirts of Adelaide in South Australia.

The Mercury spaceships do not have a computer on board – computers are far too heavy – so for figuring out how to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere the astronauts rely on computations sent by radio from the pair of IBM 7090 computers at the Mercury Control Station at Cape Canaveral. It’s an incredible amount of faith to put in one site, so Mercury control has those two redundant IBM computers, plus another set of computers in New Jersey. A third computer gathering information from the flight is on the other side of the globe — in Adelaide processing tracking data collected at at Weapons Research Establishment in Woomera, Australia. There is also another control center at Muchea, in Western Australia.


Control room of the astronaut tracking station at Muchea in Western Australia, part of US Project Mercury

A lot of people haven’t heard of Woomera, so let me tell you a little bit about it. At Woomera, more is being done than track Mercury astronauts. This part's an open secret, but the Brits and the Aussies are working together there on testing (or doing “trials” as they say) on rockets, missiles, and even atomic weapons. That's why they built this testing range in the middle of nowhere, in the outback of Australia.


Woomera Research Establishment Officer’s mess

A few years ago we had a visit from Bill Boswell, the Woomera director, along with a team from Maths Services, and Mary Whitehead, the leader of the Planning and Data Analysis Group. They were visiting various computer installations at Point Mugu, White Sands, and Cape Canaveral. These are all larger-than life place-names, but they really just represent groups of men and women madly making observations, coding the photographs in a way the computer can understand, and using these results to steer the manned spaceships. Mary and I had time to talk about more prosaic things, like her new apartment (or “flat” as they call it down under) in Woomera village, and the troubles of living so far from civilization.


Mary’s new flat at Woomera

Woomera reminds me a lot of Los Alamos. It is a similar purpose-built town, isolated from the surrounding population by remoteness and security. Entire families live there, with houses, apartments, and schools for the kids. There are clubs and mess halls; a bowling alley and community grocery store. The store sells just canned and packaged food; if you want something fresh the closest produce is 50 miles away. The planners made a lot of efforts to plant trees, most of which failed. Honestly, it sounds awful to me. I love the "Land of Enchantment" (New Mexico), where things actually grow. The two science towns also have odd mixed populations – for Los Alamos, it is the influx of American and foreign scientists, local Hispanos, and the San Ildefonso tribe. In Woomera, it is the influx of British scientists, local Aussies, and the aboriginal people. Personally I think Los Alamos does a better job of integrating the native population.


Community store in Woomera

There’s something about space that is so exciting. Space has it all: exploration, discovery, danger, and destiny. There’s so much more to it than my dry work of computers, trajectory calculations, and strangely named groups that I am so mired in. That’s why I am so excited to find science fiction and Galactic Journey’s reviews, which is opening my mind to our real future in space that this work makes possible.




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