Weidner, Hermann K

Weidner, Hermann K

Propulsion studies, liquid hydrogen upper stages.

University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama

1971-08-30

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Weidner, Hermann K

[00:00:02] Interviewer: It's an interview with Weidener at Marshall Space Flight Center. We want to talk to you a little bit about propulsion and liquid hydrogen technology. Were you involved in, for example, some of the early business with Centaur and the RL-10 engines and the problems with production, supply, and storage of LH2, its use in near-earth environment?

[00:00:57] HW: The latter part, I personally had no involvement. Of course, we all have due to our, you might say, our positions and people working for you, there are people which have concern themselves with the storage and [inaudible] and so on. Personally, I am not too knowledgeable about that.

[00:01:21] HW: Now, as far as the RL-10 engine is concerned, as you probably know, this was started under under the Air Force leadership, at one time then, a decision was made that this project was to be turned over to NASA, and Marshall was the selected place to do this.

[00:01:40] HW: Yes, we were involved very deeply in this. At that time, I was in what is now the Astronautics Laboratory, or now Organizational Propulsion and Behavioral Engineering, PMBE, I think, was the name. I was a deputy of the laboratory at that time and was at the same time director of propulsion for the center. So I was deeply involved in that part.

[00:02:09] HW: I know that, according to early plans, the engine…Let me put it this way: they were rather optimistic and ambitious plans to get this engine into production, and they had some fantastic schedules, how almost like pretzels, this was time these should come out for all sorts of NASA flight purposes. I think at that time, one was still hopeful that all these Mars and range missions and lunar missions, the unmanned ones, that they would all fly much faster and much earlier than originally planned.

[00:02:51] HW: Now, this was, of course, for many reasons not the case. Availability of payloads and all these things are much costlier, maybe than the early days people were thinking and expecting, so the money didn't go as far as it did. Also, NASA's budget did not keep growing. Obviously, the lunar program was more expensive, more demanding than it was. These things were suffering in a way from that.

[00:03:17] HW: But coming back to the engine, also the engine, I think, was not quite as ready as one was hoping, and there was more development work to be done. Our people here worked very closely with Pratt & Whitney during this period while this was a Marshall-assigned responsibility. The engine was brought to a maturity, which finally gave it a very fine flight record. For instance, on the early Saturn, the S-IV stage, on the upper stages, it has done marvelously well in 10 flights or so. Not quite 10. I think the first ones didn't have upper stages, but at least five or six flights or something like that, it has done very well.

[00:04:05] HW: Also, in the Centaur, I would say the engine has done well. And some of the early Centaur difficulties, one might not trace back to propulsion per se, but to all sorts of peripheral kind of problems, which an engine sees in a problem.

[00:04:22] HW: I believe this RL-10 is a jewel of an engine. That was really the first one, as you know, to have hydrogen as one of the propellants, as a fuel. I think Pratt & Whitney has, by and large, done an excellent job of getting this engine going. We had good working relations between our technologists and engineers here on the government side who worked together with the Pratt & Whitney people in seeing the problems through and getting the engine to the status it finally assumed, while the whole thing was still with Marshall. It was later on turned over to others, as you probably know.

[00:05:06] Interviewer: It was given to Lewis.

[00:05:07] HW: It was given to Lewis. The reason…

[00:05:08] Interviewer: Didn't start, didn't our liquid hydrogen technology kind of start with Lewis anyway?

[00:05:12] HW: Yeah, maybe this is certainly true. And the reason for that is very simple. If you look at the family of NASA centers, and each and every center plays a certain typical role. Now, Lewis being one of the family of research centers together with Langley, Ames, and places like that, they are supposed to work the basic technologies by charter. One of the prime things, if not the prime thing for Lewis, of course, is propulsion. They have done a lot of work by either contract outside or by in-house work to lay the groundwork within NASA for this technology. There are quite a number of remarkable things, which Lewis people worked out which have been accepted and taken over into the RL-10 program, like the injector, for instance. The injector is something which the Lewis people basically developed, which was introduced into the RL–10 engine and later on the J-2 engine. The J-2 engine had the same injector.

[00:06:12] HW: So it's only natural that the bits and pieces of technology work had to come out of Lewis at a time when the other part of NASA, namely the development centers like ours, were already taught to utilize those. There's a natural phasing kind of thing. The early work in areas which have promise for the future have to be carried by those fellows. People like ours are really system center. There are all these bits and pieces when they become available and ready and can be realized in real flight hardware or flight applications when they take over. Our place is really in this latter part of the NASA family.

[00:06:51] HW: We are a development center, a system center. This is our strength. We are not so much the technology area. Now, one cannot draw a very hard line between a research center and a development center. There are certain overlap areas. If you want to have excellent people to participate and do development, you have to allow them a certain part of early works and genuine and original work of their own.

[00:07:21] HW: It's in this overlap area where our discipline groups are allowed to do a certain part of work, which is close, of course, to the systems application thing. And what you say, the storage of hydrogen in space thing, is one of those areas where people around Charlie Wood
and so on, Hans Paul's group have been active over the many years. In that sense, applying now, or providing for hydrogen in space applications since now we had an engine or a means of using it to our advantage, these are things which then the systems and development group like ours has to concern itself with.

[00:08:02] HW: So this was a very, very heavy experience. The reason why the engine finally had to be, or the engine and the whole vehicle, Centaur vehicle had to be turned over to another center like Lewis was simply this: the Saturn program seemed to take on proportions of involvement and demands on our people that we just didn't feel we had the capacity of handle, of giving the Saturn the attention which we felt it deserved and doing these things at the same time. Now, looking back with hindsight, I think one can say there's no reason why we couldn't have done this, but be this as it may, that was a decision, therefore, at this time, that we told NASA we cannot do this anymore. The decision was made at the NASA top level that therefore this responsibility should be turned over to another center.

[00:09:07] Interviewer: Was there a period when Von Braun was not happy with liquid hydrogen propulsion in general?

[00:09:14] HW: I'm not aware of any such unhappiness. As a matter of fact, I'm sure that this is a story. I have been all these years very close to Wernher and certainly in the propulsion area. He would be the last one to not be ready to pick up what is ready and to the advantage of vehicles, and therefore, new capabilities.

[00:09:42] HW: No, not at all. If my recollection is right, there was, I think under Abe Silverstein, NASA set up some sort of a review team in the early Saturn or immediately pre-Saturn days where they were kind of reviewing. Maybe the question was very simple: what kind of propellants and therefore what kind of engines and stages, should a Saturn or a lunar vehicle, are we ready for this? Should we stay with the old JP type of propellants? Are we ready with our technology and the basis of knowledge to commit ourselves and the country to these upper stages? I think they did a hard look.

[00:10:31] HW: I don't know whether Werner as a person was even a member of this group. I couldn't say that with certainty. But I know that they came out with a recommendation, “Yes, we are ready for a pilot.” By all means, this was a correct decision, and had, to my recollection, the whole-hearted support of this, yes. There were some efforts going at that time on a what-if basis: “What would we do if?” This would not be the case.

[00:11:01] They were looking into Titan hardware, one cluster or build up something like that. What would it take to do this? This would have made for awkward type of vehicles, which would not have ever had the capability and capacity of this, of the Saturn V we had, the Saturn V especially. So I would say there is nothing to this question.

[00:11:28] Interviewer: I heard that story. Somewhere I came up with that story. We found many things like that.

[00:11:32] HW: It might be all of these things. This makes good reading. The conflict somewhere has more [inaudible]. Exaggerated sells papers [inaudible] certainly interesting.

[00:11:38] Interviewer: Can you make some comments about the development of the RL-10 Centaur system, the development of the S-IV and S-IV-B and even the S-II systems? Were there things that were useful on the Centaur and J2 that you were able to apply in the other ones?

[00:12:04] HW: Things useful on the Centaur and the J-2…What do you mean useful on the Centaur, which could be translated into a 2…?

[00:12:12] Interviewer: Yeah, besides the injector, for example.

[00:12:16] HW: You mean the engine, in the engine area, propulsion area?

[00:12:19] Interviewer: The engine area.

[00:12:27] HW: Yeah, I would expect that all government-funded kind of things, like a development, we are talking about the center development, by way of reports and so on, the difficulties and the solutions for those difficulties are common knowledge. They become common knowledge. These other companies, like Rocketdyne or Aerojet, they, of course, were using these things for their own laying out of the engines and designing these things properly.

[00:13:10] HW: But also, NASA was sponsoring bits of technology work. I think Adelbert Tischler—I don't know whether you've heard his name—at that time, he used to be with the Manned Space Flight family for propulsion when NASA was formed. He was originally a Lewis man, like George Low and many others.

[00:13:35] HW: Abe Silverstein was called—I'm digressing a little bit from the question of bits of interest—Abe was called up to Washington in the early days of NASA. I think Abe did one great thing, among others, when he came to Washington, he realized that a good transfusion of excellent people into this new headquarters thing was something to help the agency to get going. He maybe personally convinced and twisted arms of X number of his more senior and better Lewis people, which had grown up in the old NECA Lewis environment, where he was the center director. He convinced them to go with him to headquarters in order to form a basis from which an agency like this one could operate. Quite a number of people like those which, which I mentioned, and many others at that time went to headquarters and stayed there.

[00:14:37.740] HW: So Del Tischler was one of those fellows. His background then is specifically propulsion. He was one of the senior fellows. Later engine efforts like the F-1 engine, the J-2 engine, all this was started even though the assignment was given to Marshall, but he was our headquarters counterpart. For all the things, as you know, there is one headquarters office or headquarters guy or whatever it is, an organization in headquarters responsible.

[00:15:13] Interviewer: Was Milt Rosen over him? Or was it just a separate office?

[00:15:19] HW: Well, I think Milt Rosen you might see maybe in the pecking order was over him. I believe, if my recollection is right, the first guy, Mr. Manned Space Flight, who in the generation of subsequent guys is today admired was General Ostrander. Ostrander was the first Mr. Manned Space Flight. His idea was so that there should be in NASA, a launch vehicle center. He had picked Marshall for that, from the scout all the way up to whatever it is, should be in one center and that should be us. In that process, incidentally, the Centaur was ours since we were to be that center. As I say, we felt we couldn't do justice to all that, and still do the Saturn and our lunar commitment. So then, this is where this scheme started to make it hard.

[00:16:15] HW: The next one was Holmes. Milt Rosen was, I think, kind of a second man to Holmes or, I forget, to [inaudible]. But anyhow, he was at that level. Then in one of these interim periods, Milt Rosen was running the shop and therefore was above Del Tischler and all these other fellows. He was for a while in his function, maybe as deputy or so, was tending the shop while the new man was not selected yet. So then I would guess that he was above him. Especially engine was Del Tischler’s assignment in the Manned Space Flight family.

[00:17:06] HW: There was a lot of engine effort to be started, like with J-2. The RL-10 was with us at this time. Then the H-1 engine was with us at this time. So you see there was a sizable commitment and a sizable dollar volume which in this area would come via Huntsville. And Del Tischler was the program director, you might say, for that particular section and segment of Washington.

[00:17:32] HW: Now, Dale, in later years, when these engines were kind of a going concern, he moved away from the Manned Space Flight family and went back to the technology [OAR?] team. Up to maybe a year or two ago, has been Mr. Propulsion in the technology area for many years and has guided NASA's overall preparatory efforts. Maybe two years ago, he then got another assignment, like being Mr. Shuttle Technology, a very broad assignment. Now we've lost ourselves. What was the question?

[00:18:11] Interviewer: Yeah, I forgot my job.

[00:18:12] HW: You were asking, did technology from the RL-10 find its way? So what I was kind of saying, out of these Del Tischler kind of things, there were also technology efforts which went into the centers. These were efforts which went to all eligible contractors. There were also partly hydrogen technology.

[00:18:38] Interviewer: Was he the broker of these technologies? Did he get things from companies and pass them on to the centers and get studies from the centers and pass them on to contractors?

[00:18:44] HW: No, I think this is too narrow a connotation. Look at it this way: there must be a guy in headquarters who says, “I'm responsible for laying the groundwork for tomorrow. I believe that such and such things are ready to be done and should be done in view of NASA's broad objectives.” Then this is a guy who has to help to go forward to Congress and defend this and say, “Mr. Congress,” in hearings, “NASA efforts are being discussed for the next fiscal year.” He'd say, “Look, for such and such a reason, I believe such and such things should be done, and it would cost that much money,” and has to try to convince the congressional members, at least in this committee, that this is justified and just and right. Let's assume this is accepted, then, and X million dollars for such broad efforts are being accepted, not a task-by-task thing, but on an objective basis. He would now be the one who is, together with the centers, argue with the center, and break this down into the next level of objectives and maybe finally into tasks.

[00:19:59] HW: These tasks would then be very specific to work a better impeller or a better inducer on a pump or know something about bearings hydrogen-lubricated or about a better injector or cooling heat transfer questions or whatever it is. Things of identifiable tasks like that. Then one would basically go out on a competitive basis to industry and say, “Here is this task we want to be done,” and it's about these things we expect to come out on. It's a one-year or two-year kind of effort, and we are prepared to pay that much money for it, which is a level of effort. Then they come forward and offer what they would be thinking of doing. This is how they are determined.

[00:20:46] HW: Now, industry, of course, is involved in planting ideas and talking to all sorts of guys like us, like the Tischlers, or anybody who wants to hear it and where they think he has some influence on these matters. They'll go and talk and say, “Look, what I know,” or “What I think, I have a good idea. For such and such reasons, I believe it would be useful for NASA applications since it has such and such advantages.” So they come forward and tell the story. And of course, in so doing plant ideas that something is ready to be done. There is this process, no doubt, taking place, but it's intermixed with ideas of our people and so on. You leave their story. Are they really ready? Are we really ready to do things? Is there an application? But it's a whole family of guys which are communicating and talking to each other. Out of this come things which are ready and therefore should be picked up and be done.

[00:21:49] HW: The J-2 engine really was born about the time when it seemed to be—maybe we start one notch earlier—after this Sputnik kind of shock which the country and the entire aerospace family felt there was a field, one thing we can do immediately before we know what else we do, we need engines with larger thrusts. Since our three and a half pounds or so in orbit, this was something which wouldn't look well in the eyes of the rest of the world compared with statements of what the Russians were doing, so many thousand pounds. They had a dog up there. They did this and they did that. One thing became obvious that we needed something with more thrust, larger engines.

[00:22:37] HW: I believe, as I see it, the reason why this country didn't at that time do or hadn't done work in larger engines was simply this: since all these propulsion means, the engines are something designed for defense purposes—maybe you could say the payloads, hydrogen bombs and so on. This country had advanced to a point that in a much smaller weight they could pack, I don't know how much energy, and therefore they could get away with much smaller vehicles. Whereas the Russians, they might not have had this advancement or that level of sophistication in the payload concerns. They needed much cruder, much larger vehicles, much larger engines, which at the point when our space flight became of interest was an advantage, and they [inaudible] this advantage to the ultimate.

[00:23:34] HW: We went already with large thrust engines, and that was the point where it was said, “Let's build larger engines.” The F-1—one and a half million pounds of thrust—something unheard of. We had the 200, 250, or maybe a little less, 165, or whatever these figures, for the Atlas, for the Jupiter, for the Thor. This class of engines was all the country had at this time. Here we made a big step towards the one and a half million, which was by the factor of 10, or hydrogen from the, what was it, 15,000 of the RL10 to 150, 200,000 of the J-2 at that time. This was an unheard of step, which of course was right, since if you want to have man in space,
or a large payload into space, we needed these engines.

[00:24:24] HW: So this was one thing which everyone didn't have to ask what project, or what for, or so on. It was very obvious that this factor, 10 or so, was just needed. In these early space flight days, right after Sputnik, the country was ready to do this. As a matter of fact, these engines were started and formulated at a time when Kennedy's appeal, “Let's go to the moon,” was not really expressed. The thing was not said yet. It all came in handy when indeed these projects were formulated, and these efforts were going at this time. Now, the sizing was such that by the method of clustering, there was a lot of flexibility to take one, two, three, four, five, or whatever number of engines, and adapt it to the size of the final behavior. Exciting, exciting period. Quite different then than it is today.

[00:25:27] HW: I know I was on the Source Evaluation Board—the SEB—which was a very interesting job at that time. I was on a similar board just a few weeks ago on this new engine. Somebody gave me that—hints of scandal. This is today where everybody is competing for the few dollars which every so often come by. This time there was a big space program maybe coming, so if you don't win this one, then we win the next one. But today there's only one to be won, and you can make one guy happy, and there will be X number of unhappy people. It's a different game these days. I don't know whether I'm telling you something that's just useful for your purposes or not.

[00:26:15] Interviewer: Well, I think so. I think one of the things that we were interested in is seeing the Saturn program as a rather deliberate series of steps of building block concept. As far as engines were concerned, we were interested in the technology that was developed in one system that was applicable to another system, how you went from there. So that's why I was interested in what you would have to say, maybe about the RL-10 leading to the J-2 in that respect.

[00:26:43] HW: All the, let's say, all the things which were done in the RL-10 and were done in the Centaur and the stage application, they were no doubt useful to us and to the designers. It gives you the confidence that indeed these things can be mastered and can be used in a large scale in a field. Hydrogen being a rather novel kind of liquid in this application at least, and can one master and handle this in a field? Is it safe? Will the thing not burn up? Will we be able to master this? The leaks, hydrogen, you do not see it. If it burns, you don't see it somewhere. Of course you are playing with those very dangerous things in there. Can we insulate these large tanks? Can we pump it well and so on? Do we have know enough about the materials at these low temperatures about welding? How does material behave? How do welding seams behave in this environment?

[00:27:54] HW: The Centaur had used one class of material, glass, hard kind of stainless steel. We needed to go to other materials, like aluminum and so on. There was a lot to be learned, and the work which was stimulated and done in the Centaur and in the engine, no doubt had a very healthy effect on our confidence and readiness to go the hydrogen route. The Saturn engine, obviously, we took even the engine, the RL-10, and clustered it by way of, what was it, six or so? [inaudible] and the S4B, since that was the most readily available solution.

[00:28:41] Interviewer: Would you like to comment on the overall design philosophy? Roger mentioned the building block approach and off-the-shelf hardware, the whole seeming conservative nature of the design to fit within the required schedule and finances available?

[00:28:58] HW: Well, I think you said a word like conservative, and maybe Marshall is a conservative outfit as far as design philosophy is concerned.

[00:29:11] Interviewer: Do you feel that way?

[00:29:12] HW: Well, I think we have a healthy conservatism, and I don't say this in a negative sense.

[00:29:20] Interviewer: No, I'm not saying that.

[00:29:21] HW: You can overdo things very much by being daring, by going very close to the limits and so on. But then there's a question of how well do you really know the conditions in the design? Can you describe it well so that your analysis holds and so on. I mean, we rather would like to like the…[recording ends]

0:29:46