Rockets (Aeronautics)

Ionospheric work in the ‘50s; Lloyd Beckner, extensively; McKerran Act and scientists; Satellite discussions in the early ‘50s; meeting and attendees at a meeting in Beckner’s room at IUGG; Project Farside; rocket work; discussions of using explosions in space to create shock waves; trapped radiation; Project Argus; Singer excluded from NASA and NRL but got funding from NSA.

Early training as a physicist; quartz-fibre electrometer; high-voltage installations, above 200 kilovolts; high-voltage accelerator, especially Van de Graaff machines; cloud chamber; fission 1939; reminiscences of Niels Bohr; leaving Europe 1939; war work at National Bureau of Standards 1940; rocket work 1940’s; post-war rehabilitation of laboratory facilities; technological improvements after the war; learning nuclear physics after the war; nuclear spin; development of shell model; rotational model 1952; gamma-ray detection; changes in research styles; research plans for the present (1967).

Concentrates on Bergstrahl's work at NRL (1946-56), principally as an experiment integrator for rocket flights, with additional coverage of his later work at Ford Aeroneutronics and Aerospace Corporation. Besides discussing the procedures and problems of integrating experiments, Bergstrahl relates his work at NRL on early attempts at high altitude photography, on rocket impact point prediction systems, and on cosmic ray balloon research. The discussion of his years (1956-62) at Ford Aeroneutronics examines his work on lunar and planetary studies, including work on the Ranger Hard Lander.