User:WikiSabih/sandbox - Edward Forman

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Take-off on August 12, 1941, of America's first "rocket-assisted" fixed-wing aircraft, an ERCO Ercoupe fitted with a GALCIT developed solid propellant JATO booster

Edward Seymour Forman (December 3, 1912 – February 12, 1973) was an American engineer and inventor known for his pioneering work in early rocketry in the United States. Forman, along with his collaborators in Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT), demonstrated the first practical jet-assisted take-off (JATO) of an aircraft in the United States.[1] Forman was among the GALCIT innovators that went on to found Aerojet General Corporation, the largest rocket technology manufacturer in the 1940s,[2][3]: 258  and the GALCIT Rocket Research Group itself became the precursor of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.[4]

Biography[edit]

Early life and education: 1912-1934[edit]

Forman was born in Gillespie, Illinois,[5] the youngest of four brothers. The family moved to Pasadena, California in search of a better life. Forman attended Washington Junior High School, where he met Jack Parsons, who would become his lifelong collaborator and friend. Forman protected Parsons, who was two years younger than him, from bullying and the two boys struck a strong bond over their common interest in science fiction.[6]: 44–46  Forman was an avid reader of the Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs,[6]: 46  which is quoted as an influence by a generation of scientists and thinkers including Carl Sagan.[7] Inspired by science fiction, Forman and Parsons started building model rockets in their backyards and adopted the Latin phrase Ad Astra per Aspera (through rough ways to the stars)[5][6]: 47 as their motto. "It was our desire and intent to develop the ability to rocket to the moon", Forman later said about their high ambition as teenagers.[8]

Forman and Parsons moved to John Muir High School in Pasadena in 1929 and continued with their experiments in their backyards and out in the deserts. After graduation, Forman enrolled in Pasadena Junior College but dropped out without getting a degree. He took on an array of odd jobs working as carpenter, chauffer and postal worker as well as airplane mechanic, sheet metal worker and apprentice machinist in aircraft and ammunition factories.[9] Meanwhile Parsons found part-time work in Hercules Power Company, an explosive manufacturer, where he taught himself to be a chemist. The pair used their newfound skills to improve their designs and as the tests grew more complex and explosive, they moved their testing site into the nearby Arroyo Seco, a dry canyon wash at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains.[6]: 59–61 

Forman formed a strong friendship with Jack Parsons, a boy two years his junior who shared his interest in science fiction and rocketry, with the well-read Parsons enthralling Forman with his literary prowess, while Forman defended the unpopular Parsons from bullies. In 1928 the pair—adopting the Latin motto per aspera ad astra (through hardship to the stars)—began engaging in homemade gunpowder-based rocket experiments in the nearby Arroyo Seco canyon, as well as the Parsons family's back garden, which left it pockmarked with craters from explosive test failures. They incorporated commonly available fireworks such as cherry bombs into their rockets, and Parsons suggested using glue as a binding agent to increase the rocket fuel's stability. This research became more complex when they began using materials such as aluminum foil to make the gunpowder easier to cast.[10]: 4–5 [6]: 44–47 [11][12]

As Forman later said, "It was our desire and intent to develop the ability to rocket to the moon".[8] They adopted the motto Ad Astra per Aspera (through rough ways to the stars). At the time, rockets were considered by the public as well as the scientific/academic community not only impossible but ridiculous.[6]: 46–48 

GALCIT Rocket Research Group: 1934–1938[edit]

GALCIT members in the Arroyo Seco, November 1936. Left foreground to right: Rudolph Schott, Amo Smith, Frank Malina, Ed Forman, and Jack Parsons.

In the early 1930s, Forman and Parsons began to realize that the rocket technology was a more complex subject than they had first assumed.[6]: 64–66  They corresponded with rocketry experts on both sides of the Atlantic, but Forman later reminisced that they learned very little beyond the fact that nobody else had yet achieved much.[10]: 6–7 In 1935, a Los Angeles Times article titled “Rocket Plane Visualized Flying 1200 Miles Hour” caught the pair's eyes. The article covered a paper by William Bollay, an aeronautics graduate student at Caltech, on the works of Austrian engineer Eugen Sänger. When they approached Bollay, he directed them to Frank Malina, another graduate student, who was pursuing studies in rocket propulsion.[13][6]: 74–75  Malina shared their enthusiasm about rocketry and agreed to join their efforts. Foreman and Parsons wanted to build a sounding rocket, but Malina argued in favor of a more fundamental project to begin with. Malina later recounted that "Parsons and Forman were not too pleased with an austere program that did not include at least the launching of model rockets", but the group reached a consensus to test-fire an alcohol-based static rocket motor before building a more complex prototype.[14] The trio applied for funding from Caltech for the static test, which was turned down and derided as impractical. But Malina convinced his supervisor Theodore von Kármán to use the resources at the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory (GALCIT) for the test. von Kármán later wrote, “I was immediately captivated by the earnestness and the enthusiasm of these young men. Most young people are quite serious about their dreams, so this in itself was not what interested me; it was the unusually strong background of these young rocketeers….” He saw Malina as an outstanding student of aeronautics, Parsons as a self-taught yet capable chemist and Forman as an ardent rocketeer to whom rocket engineers were as familiar as car engines are to an automobile tinkerer.[3]: 235 

The group took the name the GALCIT Rocket Research Group, although they were still not receiving any funding from Caltech. The trio had to scrounge parts from junkyards and use the earnings from their day jobs to build their prototypes.[10]: 10  Forman later described it as a "hand-to-mouth operation".[9] The first liquid-fuel motor test took place near the Devil's Gate Dam in the Arroyo Seco on Halloween 1936. The first three tests failed to ignite the fuel and the fourth attempt accidentally ignited the oxygen line and dismantled the whole setup. The powder fuse was identified to be the source of the problem, so Forman modified the motor to accommodate a spark plug fuse and replaced the rubber hose in the Oxygen line with copper tubes. The second test on November 15 achieved successful ignition and Malina was able to collect the thrust data. Two more tests followed on November 28, 1936 and January 26, 1937, which generated more data for Malina.[13][15][16]

The test results impressed von Karman who allocated laboratory space on the third floor of Guggenheim for farther experiments. Forman and Parsons were hired as part-time employees. But soon after, a rocket fuel leak caused extensive damage to the building which happened to house the largest wind tunnel in the world at the time. The incidence got the group evicted from the laboratory space. A few months later, a thrust balance they had installed on Guggenheim’s outside wall exploded and propelled a piece of a gauge into the building. These accidents earned the group the moniker "suicide squad".[13][16] The notoriety of the group spread off-campus as newspapers carried articles about them and Popular Mechanics ran a photo of their experiments.[6]: 110  By early 1938, the group had improved the operating time of their static rocket motor from three seconds to over a minute before the parts got overheated.[17]

JATO and Founding of Aerojet: 1939–[edit]

See also: JATO

The Rocket Research Group continued working on the campus till 1938 when the group members got distracted by financial constraints and personal projects.[13] As Smith, Malina and Xuesen found employment outside of Caltech, Forman and Parsons were once again left on their own. At that time, they attempted to develop a machine-gun powered by powder rocket, but were not successful.[6]: 130 

In August 1938, GALCIT was approached by Consolidated Aircrafts Corporation of San Diego to assess the feasibility of rocket-assisted take-off of large aircrafts. Malina studied the problem and concluded that the rocket engine was particularly adaptable for this purpose, but the collaboration did not yield any tangible outcome. However, with the growing threat of World War II, the US Army Air Corps was also exploring the possibility of assisted take-off to aid heavily loaded aircrafts use the short runways available in a combat zone. At the time, Von Kármán was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) expert panel that was advising the Air Corps on technical problems. He recommended GALCIT for developing the technology, and the group received a $1,000 grant from NAS to prepare a proposal for a full-scale research program. To avoid the negative connotation of the word "rocket" at the time, the proposed scheme was named Jet-assisted takeoff (JATO). In 1939, the GALCIT Rocket Research Group was re-formed as the Air Corps Jet Propulsion Research Project with the three original members as full-time employees and Von Kármán as the guide.[1][6]: 156–158 

In the summer of 1941, GALCIT research led to a successful flight test, when Army test pilot Captain Homer Boushey flew a light Ercoupe monoplane with two 50-pound JATO units attached, and made several flights. For the last attempt, they removed the propeller, and on 23 August 1941, Boushey made the first unassisted rocket propelled flight with six JATOs under the wings.[2]

Aerojet General Corporation[edit]

Post World War II[edit]

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Solid-fuel JATO unit manufactured by Aerojet at the National Air and Space Museum

Under contract with the armed forces, these early rockets, called JATOs (Jet-Assisted Take Off), were fastened under the wings of airplanes to accelerate takeoff.[6]: 194  In 1942, Kármán, Malina, Parsons, Forman and another graduate student Martin Summerfield invested $250 each of their own money to found Aerojet General Corporation for the purpose of manufacturing the JATOs.[6]: 194  Forman was one of six founding members along with Parsons, Malina, Kármán, and two others, of Aerojet Engineering Corporation, which was incorporated in March 1942.[18]

In 1943, the Army Air Forces asked GALCIT to study the possible use of rockets to propel long-range missiles. The response sent in reply, dated 20 November 1943, was the first document to use the Jet Propulsion Laboratory name,[19] even though as far as Caltech was concerned, the JPL did not yet formally exist.[20] According to Malina, the work of the JPL was considered to include the rocketry research carried out by the GALCIT Rocket Research Group from 1936 on.[21]

Aerojet's first two contracts were from the U.S. Navy; the Bureau of Aeronautics requested a solid-fuel JATO and Wilbur Wright Field requested a liquid-fuel unit. The Air Corps had requested two thousand JATOs from Aerojet by late 1943, committing $256,000 toward Parsons' solid-fuel type. Despite this drastically increased demand, the company continued to operate informally and remained intertwined with the GALCIT project. Caltech astronomer Fritz Zwicky was brought in as head of the company's research department.[10]: 73–76 [6]: 191–192, 223–226 

Legacy[edit]

~Edward Airforce Base

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Malina, Frank J. (1967). "Memoir on the GALCIT Rocket Research Project". l'Observatoire Leonardo pour les Arts et les Techno-Sciences. Archived from the original on 2012-02-05. Retrieved 2007-04-10.
  2. ^ a b Winter, Frank H. (16 March 2017). "How the 'Suicide Squad' Turned Into One of the World's First Rocket Companies". Smithsonian Magazine. Smithsonian Institution. ISSN 0037-7333.
  3. ^ a b Theodore von Kármán with Lee Edson (1967) The Wind and Beyond, Little, Brown and Company
  4. ^ Zibit, Benjamin Seth (1999). The Guggenheim Aeronautics Laboratory at Caltech and the creation of the modern rocket motor (1936–1946): How the dynamics of rocket theory became reality (Thesis). Bibcode:1999PhDT........48Z. Archived from the original on 2017-07-10. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  5. ^ a b "Guide to the Edward S. Forman papers". oac.cdlib.org. Retrieved 2023-07-19.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Pendle, George (2005). Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons. Harcourt, Inc. ISBN 0-15-100997-X.
  7. ^ Sagan, Carl (1978-05-28). "Growing up with Science Fiction". The New York Times. p. SM7. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-12-12.
  8. ^ a b Landis, Geoffrey (July 2005). "The Three Rocketeers". American Scientist. 93 (4). Sigma Xi. doi:10.1511/2005.54.0 (inactive 2023-08-06). Retrieved 21 July 2023.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of August 2023 (link)
  9. ^ a b "JPL Plaque Honors LMSC Man". Lockheed MSC Star. 13 (48). November 8, 1968.
  10. ^ a b c d Carter, John (2004). Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons (new ed.). Port Townsend, Washington: Feral House. ISBN 978-0-922915-97-2.
  11. ^ Keane, Phillip (August 2, 2013). "Jack Parsons and the Occult Roots of JPL". spacesafetymagazine.com. International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety. Retrieved March 6, 2014.
  12. ^ Eng, Christina (February 20, 2005). "It took a rocket scientist / Research pioneer also delved into the occult". sfgate.com. Hearst Corporation. Retrieved May 12, 2014.
  13. ^ a b c d Conway, Erik M. (2007). "From Rockets to Spacecraft: Making JPL a Place for Planetary Science" (PDF). calteches.library.caltech.edu. California Institute of Technology. Retrieved March 22, 2014.
  14. ^ Malina, Frank J. (November 1968). "The Rocket Pioneers" (PDF). calteches.library.caltech.edu. California Institute of Technology. pp. 8–13.
  15. ^ "The Spark of a New Era". jpl.nasa.gov. NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. October 25, 2006. Archived from the original on June 24, 2017. Retrieved February 21, 2014.
  16. ^ a b "JPL 101" (PDF). jpl.nasa.gov. Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology. 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on June 24, 2017. Retrieved January 18, 2015.
  17. ^ Westwick, Peter J (2007). Into the Black: JPL and the American Space Program, 1976–2004. New haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN ISBN 978-0-300-13458-2. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  18. ^ Doyle, Stephen E.; Ciancone, Michael (21 October 2019). "Aerojet Engineering Corporation: Stimulation and Creation, 1935-1942". NASA STI Program. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  19. ^ Burrows, William E. (1999). This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age. Modern Library. p. 111. ISBN 0-375-75485-7.
  20. ^ Bluth, John. "Von Karman, Malina laid the groundwork for the future JPL". JPL.
  21. ^ Malina, F. J. (1969). Hall, R. Cargill (ed.). The U.S. Army Air Corps Jet Propulsion Research Project, GALCIT Project No. 1, 1939–1946: A Memoir. Essays on the History of rocketry and astronautics: proceedings of the third through the sixth Symposia of the International Academy of Astronautics. NASA conference publication, 2014. Vol. 2 Part III The Development of Liquid- and Solid-propellant Rockets, 1880–1945. Washington, D.C.: NASA Scientific and Technical Information Office (published September 1977). p. 153. OCLC 5354560. CP 2014.

Further reading[edit]

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