Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

Exploring the Unknown 63
Boosters: Atlas and Bell Hustler. Hustler fires for 80 seconds between 620 -700
seconds flight time to inject into orbit. Maximum g’s 6.6 (first stage). Specific
impulse = 280 pounds per second per pound required of Hustler.
Time and Altitude. Six hours; perigee 150 miles; apogee 300 miles.
Reentry method: Retrorocket (-225 feet per second. One mile altitude at
perigee roughly equals 1.5 feet per second, Retrorocket weighs less than 5 percent
of vehicle.)
[15]
W/C O
A = 0.01
Maximum g’s, 7.5 at 1° reentry angle
Maximum temperature, not stated
Maximum heat transfer, not stated
Vehicle subsonic at 60,000 feet; 600 feet per second at 40,000 feet.
Cooling by ablation material.
Recovery and landing: Cloth parachute to recover entire capsule. Landing area
20 miles by 400 miles along path. Errors of 150 miles due to lack of knowledge of
air density between 125,000 and 250,000 feet. Lockheed proposes water recovery.
Tracking: 108 mc minitrack plus two way voice. Flywheel attitude control.
Either gimbal or jet-vanes on retrorocket.
Safety features: Overrides on man’s limited control functions. Hustler is fired
to escape if Atlas booster fails. If Hustler fails man has had it.
Schedule: Preliminary experimental flights (Thor with 300 pound payload)
in late 1958. Experimental centrifuge and vacuum chamber testing in mid-1958.
Manned flight in late 1959.
Cost: $10 x10 6