Talk:Vanguard TV-3

Early discussion
nice. in general, i thought that when we built rockets, their thrust was greater than their weight.


 * I assume that's a joke :-)


 * All seriousness aside, the second para under "Launch vehicle design" seems to have a lot of errors. It attributes its source to an article in the July 1957 Popular Mechanics, which I don't have access to, nor do I have other sources; since this is not supposed to be original research, I'll just record my doubts here.  The current article says, "The first stage allows the rocket to rise vertically under the powerful thrust of exploding liquid oxygen, ethyl alcohol, gasoline and silicone oil..."  First, if it explodes then the rocket explodes, which is not the desired effect; rather, it burns in a controlled way.  Second, the list of fuels is clearly wrong; no one would ever fuel a rocket with silicone oil, and I doubt that gasoline would be a wise choice either.  The article on the "Vanguard (rocket)" gives the first stage fuel as kerosene, which is much more likely.


 * The first para of current article also says that all three stages had gimbaled motors. That is untrue; the third stage used solid fuel, and gimbaled motors were not (and maybe still aren't) useable on solid fueled rockets.  Also, the third stage was spin-stabilized (as noted in the "Vanguard (rocket) article)" and as alluded to in the second para of this article); this is also incompatible with gimbaled motors. Mcswell (talk) 22:23, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Cause of accident
I realize that on 17-Jan-2008, IP 24.22.7.221 changed the explanation to make it more certain, based on "Glenn L. Martin Co. report of 1960" (would have been nice to cite this source in the article). However, after reading the NASA history chapter 11, it seems clear that although Martin was convinced of the validity of their conclusions, GE was likewise convinced of their own conclusions (loose connection in a fuel line above the engine). The NASA history states that Milton Rosen, the project technical director, conceded unofficially that the cause appeared to be "indeterminate," but that the Project managers would accept Martin's findings, thus making their explanation the "commonly accepted" version. However, it is still inappropriate to state the explanation as fact based on a Martin report, since that source does not have a neutral POV. (P.S. - NASA houses an amazing amount of historical material.) Fordsfords (talk) 20:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for clarifying this in the article. That section now explains both the uncertainty of the conclusion, and the technical aspects of the most likely failure mode. I wish we had a good article on liquid rocket turbomachinery to which we could add a wikilink! The diagram at liquid rocket shows a pumped bipropellant rocket engine -- maybe there's a way to integrate a link to that? (sdsds - talk) 15:54, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Like the person said above, I'm reasonably certain it was because the rocket weighed more than the thrust that came out the bottom of the engine. Therefore, instead of going "up", it went "down".  That is my thoughtful analysis after reviewing all the relevant information. 98.194.39.86 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 18:04, 17 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Of course if the thrust of the engine was less than the weight of the rocket, it would never have risen off the pad. The fact that it rose about 4 feet in one second indicates that the thrust must have been about 1.25 times the rocket weight, making the upward acceleration (1.25 - 1.0)g, where g is the acceleration of gravity, about 32 ft/sec/sec, so acceleration a = (0.25 * 32 ft/s^2) = 8 ft/s^2, approximately.  Then height h, after time t = 1 sec, is h = 1/2*a*t^2 = 1/2*8*1^2 = 4 ft, moving up at ~8 ft/s.  And then when the engine failed and thrust = 0, the rocket rose another foot or so (going from v = 8 ft/s to 0 ft/s) in about another 0.25 s to ~ 5 feet, and then fell to the pad.  Rockets being as delicate as possible for normal flight conditions, the short fall was enough to crumple the structure, and rupture the fuel tanks.
 * Rosen was the father of the girl who married one of my college roommates 20 years later, and we had several interesting conversations about Viking and Vanguard in later years. He told me his best people on the Viking Project were taken from him on Vanguard — to develop the Titan I missile. This he felt was a major source of the problems with Vanguard. Wwheaton (talk) 06:52, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Satellite design section
There is a 2-page article in the January 1957 issue of Popular Science that discusses some of the planned instruments for the Vanguard TV3 (including photos). However, I don't know if this should be cited as a reference as this precedes the launch of the satellite by several months and aspects of the design may have changed. Interestingly, the article states that the solar powered cell was not intended to provide power, but was instead supposed to reset the memory unit after each orbit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdmack01 (talk • contribs) 23:49, 3 January 2014 (UTC)


 * What part of the word "planned" escapes you? The phrase "planned instruments" was and is entirely appropriate. If you have facts to add, please add them.  98.194.39.86 (talk) 18:06, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Subsequent claims
I realize that the early space race was all about being "better" than the Soviets, but I do remember reading, about ten years ago, a claim that the United States was ready to put a satellite in orbit in 1956, but held off out of concerns that other countries (meaning the Soviets) would object to overflights by American spacecraft. The supposed idea was to allow the Soviets to go first, so they couldn't later object to American satellites doing the same thing theirs did. However, the Vanguard failure would appear to give the lie to that claim, because if the U.S. really was ready to go a year earlier, its first attempt after Sputnik would have succeeded. Does anybody else remember this claim? --Piledhigheranddeeper (talk) 18:18, 6 December 2017 (UTC)


 * The U.S. rocket that was ready to put a satellite in orbit in '56 was Jupiter (rocket). And, in fact, Explorer 1 succeeded on the first try less than four months after Sputnik.  --Neopeius (talk) 04:14, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:51, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Vanguard TV3.ogv

Removed paragraph of general Vanguard rocket, and of "orbit", information found elsewhere
The removed information is found (in a much more complete and elegant form as well) in the two cross-references to other Wikipedia articles, more general than a description of this particular launch. Hope this somewhat novice editor has not overstepped his experience base. No information added, just removed general, redundant info existing more properly elsewhere. Dr.gregory.retzlaff (talk) 05:21, 6 December 2022 (UTC)