The Aero Spacelines Pregnant Guppy

[Music] when the soviet union launched cosmonaut yuri gagarin into earth's orbit on april 12 1961 it marked the beginning of the human sojourn into space while sitting on the launch pad talking to mission control via the radio gagarin used a simple term payecoli which meant roughly off we go it was an apt term not only to represent the beginning of the manned part of the space age but also the way that that mission accelerated the space race as the united states moved in on what it hoped would be its historic first in manned space exploration they ran into unique problem and ironically the solution to this problem of cutting-edge technology was a piece of obsolete equipment supported by an enterprising private entrepreneur with the help of a few two by fours the aerospace lines b 377 pg the pregnant guppy deserves to be remembered a key moment in the space race came on may 25th 1961 when president john kennedy delivered a special message to congress if we are to win the battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all as did the sputnik in 1957 the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere were attempting to make a determination of which road they should take but the problem was that those dramatic events notably gagarin's vostok 1 mission had illustrated that the united states was decidedly behind its rival to win the race the u.s had to up its game he continued now is the time to take longer strides time for a great new american enterprise time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth i believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth it was a bold challenge one for which the executive was asking the enormous sum of an estimated seven to nine billion dollars additional over the next five years while the nation's scientists faced many obstacles in trying to achieve the goal one the president noted in particular we proposed to develop alternative liquid and solid fuel boosters much larger than any now being developed and it was those much larger boosters that would lead to a significant problem the launch engine for the apollo program the saturn 5 was the most powerful machine ever built producing a whopping 34.5 million newtons of thrust at liftoff the equivalent of about 85 hoover dams and more than 35 times the thrust of the vostok 1 that had taken gagarin into orbit one particular issue was the s4 at later s4b rocket stage this stage the first stage of the massive saturn v to be designed was fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen the original s4 used a cluster of six engines but the modified s4b used a single more powerful j-2 rocket engine the third stage of the saturn v that would carry the apollo missions the s4b was designed to fire twice once to carry the spacecraft into orbit after the cut off of the second stage and then a second time to propel the spacecraft for translunar injection setting it on a trajectory to arrive at the moon the contract for the s4 was one of only a few outside contracts to build a part of the saturn rocket system and on may 26 1960 the contract was awarded to the southern california-based douglas aircraft company while douglas was one of only a few firms with the capability to take such a contract their location did create an issue for various reasons of geography the nasa launch facility was in florida leaving the problem of how to carefully move a 41 foot long 18 foot four inch diameter 14 000 pound rocket stage from the u.s west coast to the east a 1965 publication of the douglas aircraft company's missile and space systems division explains as our nation's space vehicles increased in size and complexity the manufacturers of these space giants faced a new and increasingly difficult problem that of how to transport these celestial covered wagons while they were still on the ground rail might seem obvious but was actually out of the question u.s railroad routes had been designed with specific width limits that were douglas noted considerably less than the dimensions of the s4b stage there were of course roads but again size was a problem moving the s4b was the publication explained comparable to moving a three-story barn moving the stage would require two lanes of highway and on two-lane roads the transporter would hang over the edge of the pavement on both sides and that was just a start as the publication continues other difficulties included legal maximum size and weight limits moving time restrictions the enormous cost of permanently repositioning utility and power poles and detouring underpasses and bridges as to rhodes douglas concluded clearly the use of highways for long distance transportation is out of the question instead transport by era the rocket stage was approximately twice as large as the cargo capacity of the largest cargo plane of the era it was too heavy for existing helicopters as well when nasa asked douglas for a proposal and official nasa history explains douglas even suggested revising the use of airships one proposal envisioned the use of a blimp which would putter along from california to florida with a swaying s4 stage slung underneath as late as 1963 series thought was given to resurrecting a modern successor to the pre-war dirigible with an interior cargo hold to carry rocket stages more realistic was to carry the s4 by c aviation engineer robert tripp wrote in a 2002 edition of the magazine american heritage of invention and technology the only way to take the boosters to florida was to strap them on a barge and sail them through the panama canal the douglas publication stated that this choice was initially seen as the most viable studies by douglas during the initial design phases determined that water transportation together with a special highway transporter for use at terminal areas offered the most readily available solution for transport of the s4 and s4b stages nasa had experience shipping rocket parts by barge although usually much shorter distances from the marshall space flight center in huntsville alabama or the nasa machu assembly facility in new orleans nasa had created its own fleet of converted navy barges for the purpose the process of shipping such oversized cargo was complex and required the design and use of special equipment but shipping by barge offered its own set of problems the nasa history notes delivery of the s4 and s4b from california also involved the use of sea going barges and transports to carry these upper stages down the pacific coast through the panama canal across the gulf of mexico and finally across florida to cape canaveral this complex and slow operation and the potential delays from foul weather at sea generated increasing concern about meeting carefully coordinated deliveries of vehicle stages and related hardware the voyage could also be hard on the equipment tripp explains that the trip took 15 days and required the constant attention of five engineers and even so the parts arrived banged up and corroded from the weather they were designed to stand vertically and be filled with fuel when empty they were like a shell of aluminum foil the nasty history also expressed concerns about the panama canal if the canal were to be shut down for some reason seabourn shipments would be forced around south america and the carefully calculated lunch schedules would collapse while the stages were initially sent by barge nasa wanted a better solution while douglas had transported the thor missile stages using the douglas c-24 globemaster the thor missile was smaller had been designed for airborne operations the nasa history explains that a douglas assessment team spent several months on the project and came up with a proposal that envisioned a piggyback concept that used an air force c-133 transport design studies included pictures of the rocket stage positioned above the c-133 and purchase atop streamlined fairings because the stage was exposed to the passing airstream planners expected to fit the stage with a streamlined nose cone with vertical stabilizers at the rear to enhance its aerodynamic qualities in transit the proposal was a stretch and nasa writes douglas was ready to listen when approached with an unusual scheme the modification of an existing aircraft to completely enclose the rocket stage within an airplane's fuselage trip describes that plane as the most unusual aircraft development project since the wright brothers came out of their bicycle shop the scheme he explains from both engineering and financial points of view could be described as foolhardy john michael conroy was born in buffalo new york in 1920 served as a pilot of a b-17 in europe during the war plane was shot down in november 1944 and he spent the rest of the war as a pow he stayed with the air force after the war until 1948 and then flew as a commercial pilot in 1955 flying with the california air national guard he set a speed record flying coast to coast and back during daylight hours in an f-86 sabre jet but tripp notes conroy was never satisfied just to be a pilot he wanted to be a mover and a shaker in the aviation world the boeing 377 stratos cruiser was a long-range passenger aircraft that had evolved from the second world wars b-29 super fortress bomber the aircraft powered by four pratt whitney r-4360 wasp piston engines was considered advanced when it was introduced in 1947 but high operating costs and reliability issues have meant that only 55 were built the airframe had seen service with a handful of carriers including pan-american and northwest laureate but by 1960 was being superseded by jet aircraft such as the boeing 707 and the douglas dc-8 the nasa history explains about 1960 conroy and some partners acquired title to over a dozen boeing 377 airliners used mainly by pan am and northwest orient on their intercontinental routes during the stratocruiser's heyday in the 1950s the conrad group at first planned to use the planes for non-scheduled air carry operations but airlift for air force rockets also looked promising the website allaboutguppies.com describes the origins of the idea that conrad and his partners would pitch to nasa the idea had humble beginnings on the proverbial cocktail napkin one evening friends jack conroy lee mansdorf and others were discussing the problems nasa was having transporting the rocket booster stages aboard ships through the gulf of mexico mansdorf had recently purchased several surplus boeing stratos cruisers but wasn't really sure what to do with them conroy figured they could take one of the stratocruisers enlarge the fuselage big enough to hold a rocket booster and contract with nasa to fly the boosters from california to florida the group formed aerospace lines incorporated in van nuys california a 2020 edition of the national interest notes though the b377s were large airliners in the day they were nowhere near as big as they needed to be to transport some of nasa's larger components like the s4 second stage components of the saturn one rocket that nasa needed for apollo these stages were 40 feet tall couldn't fit inside a b377 conroy modified his b377s accordingly trip writes that the plant had three phases first lengthen the straddle cruiser's fuselage by 16 feet eight inches second build the enlarged fuselage 19 feet six inches in diameter with internal bracing over the old one and test fly that and third take out the bracing and cut away the old fuselage tripp notes that money was always a problem for the company when the company didn't have enough money for wind tunnel tests an engineer simply tied a model to a silk string and hung it in front of a fan tripp explains using cardboard and modeling putty he came up with a shape that was then drawn and used the engineering process was described as build to fit draw to match paint to cover the idea seemed unlikely the nasa history explains drawing heavily on his own financial resources conroy pushed the idea of his bulbous volumetric airplane despite the considered opinion of many aircraft engineers and aerodynamicists that no plane could be so distorted and distended enough to swallow an s4 rocket stage and still be able to fly the idea may never have gotten off the literal and proverbial ground if it did not the nasa history explains touched a responsive cord in marshall space flight center's visionary director dr verner von braun as jeff goodrum chief of msfc's logistics office recalled the sequence of events von braun warmed to the idea from the start the idea was innovated and its boldness appealed to him still the history notes neither msfc nor nasa headquarters could allocate substantial funds to such a project at the time nevertheless buoyed by the interests events at both douglas and msfc conrad decided to plunge ahead although there was no guarantee of a contract encyclopedia academic.com explains conversion work was undertaken by onmark engineering the plane was built from an x-pan am airframe with a five-meter section from an ex-british overseas airways corporation aircraft added immediately behind the wing the wing engines tail nose and cockpit were unchanged but a new upper fuselage of 6 meters diameter was added giving the aircraft a triple bubble appearance in front view the entire rear section including tail surfaces was detachable to allow cargo to be loaded directly into the fuselage the nasa history notes the name aerospace line selected for its unique plane was unnatural the former stratocruiser became a b377 pg the pregnant guppy conroy was so committed to the project that he mortgaged his own home but the nasa history rights by september 1962 conrad began running out of cash and credit he figured he needed some tangible support from nasa in the form of an endorsement to keep his creditors at arm's length conrad decided to fly his plan to nasa for a demonstration at this stage of the plane's development the nasa history notes the b377's original fuselage was still intact and the massive hump attached to the outside was held up by an interior framework of metal stringers and wooden two by fours short on cash conway had to get fuel for the trip on credit at msfc nasa rights the plane was visited by a mixed group of scoffers and enthusiasts including von braun while some onlookers made sour jokes about the reputed ability of the awkward looking plane to fly saturn rocket stages from the pacific to the atlantic coast von braun was delighted after a successful demonstration in which the plane flew on just two engines von braun was so interested that he wanted to fly in the plane the msfc director crawled into the airplane and took off to the consternation of those still dubious about the air-worthiness of the fuel-heavy airplane braced on the inside by a wooden framework nasa's planned to launch a saturn 1 vehicle in the spring of 1963 added impetus to put the guppy into service nasa writes the agency was going anxious over the delivery of the s4 stage because of a time slippage caused by test problems and the pregnant guppy would save considerable time by flying the stage from california to the cape in 18 hours as opposed to 18 to 21 days via ship nasa awarded aerospace lines an official contract and urged the federal aviation administration to provide an airworthiness certification while various delays meant that the launch did not occur until january of 1964. the pregnant guppy played its role nasser writes the guppy saved up to three weeks in transit time and affected substantial savings in transportation costs and won endorsements in long-term contracts from nasa officials the plane was operated by msfc but carried a variety of nasa freight including launch vehicles for the gemini program apollo command and service modules hardware for the pegasus meteoroid detection satellite f1 engines the instrument unit for saturn 1 and other general outsized nasa cargo the success of the pregnant guppy led to a new contract in 1965 for four more aircraft as nasa's need for large transport exceeded the capabilities of just one plane these new aircraft were even larger originally called the very pregnant guppy they were officially called super guppies while the pregnant guppy was scrapped in 1979 one of the four super guppies is still in nasa's service the last operational boeing 377 in the world jack conroy who was described by one douglas executive as a real swashbuckler the sort of aviation character that reminded him of the cartoon hero named smilin jack passed away from cancer in 1979 at the age of 58. at an operational cost of just around 16 a mile the pregnant guppy was far faster more reliable and more economical than barge transport the plane that airlines no longer wanted became what aviation historian margie bloom calls the plane that won the space race i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history got check out our community on the historyguyguild.local.com our webpage at thehistoryguy.com and our merchandise at teespring.com or book a special message from the history guy on cameo and if you'd like more episodes of forgotten history all you have to do is subscribe [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 100,756

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy

Id: bVSvGW_S948

Length: 17min 16sec (1036 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 04 2022