Likewise in the south there is nothing. The Black Sea or the Caspian Sea are not large enough.

For them it is much more reasonable to go inland.

I presume they have cleared the population out of those areas in which boosters might drop either through failures or in a programed drop of the first stage. The areas in which they launch do not seem to be too heavily populated anyway.

So I think their inland launching has practical reasons, no particular other reasons.

Representative PRICE. Thank you very much, Dr. Ehricke. The committee certainly appreciates your testimony.

Dr. EHRICKE. Thank you for inviting me, sir.

Representative PRICE. The next and final witness this afternoon will be Dr. R. E. Schreiber of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory.

Dr. William E. Ogle will accompany Dr. Schreiber to the witness stand.

Dr. Schreiber, we have had you several times on this subject. We are glad to have you this afternoon in open session.

STATEMENTS OF DR. R. E. SCHREIBER, N DIVISION LEADER, LOS ALAMOS SCIENTIFIC LABORATORY, AND DR. WILLIAM E. OGLE, ALTERNATE J DIVISION LEADER

Dr. SCHREIBER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate the opportunity to testify here again, particularly since the support of this committee over the last several years has been a very key factor in the progress we are making.

I have here today a model of the Kiwi-B reactor which I thought perhaps would be of interest to the committee.

The reactor is fired upward as you can see and it is mounted on a railroad car so it has a good deal of resemblance to the Kiwi-A series of reactors. It is considerably cleaned up, however, and represents a step in the direction of producing a reactor which should be suitable for integration into an engine.

What our program consists of over the next year or so has been discussed by other speakers here. I simply want to add the fact that because of the importance of getting a good and reliable reactor for use in the Nerva program we are taking the approach of building several detailed designs more or less in parallel and we are planning to conduct tests over the next year which will permit us to select the best design for the application in the Nerva program.

Experimentally these look a good deal alike for reasons of interchangeability and economy. We have used interchangeable parts wherever possible and in a sense we have a sort of "do it yourself" kit in which we will be able to make selections of the different internal designs as the results of our tests become available.

Our first test, which is scheduled for this fall, has already been discussed. This will make use of a gaseous propellant and it is primarily to prove out the new design features of the Kiwi-B reactor as contrasted with the more primitive designs of the Kiwi-A series. Following that we propose to do the liquid hydrogen startup test which is essential to any of these detailed designs and we will follow that with the design selection test on a schedule which not only is a

little bit unpredictable but will have to be modified as we get the results of one test after another. However, it represents our mainstream of activity as far as the Los Alamos laboratory is concerned. It is our hope that we can then produce a basic design which will then be further developed by the Nerva engine people.

I think that I will not try to offer any more formal statement here but would like to introduce Dr. William E. Ogle who is the Alternate Division Leader of J Division. That Division has the responsibility for all the test operations at Nevada.

I do not know whether he will have a prepared statement to present. He is certainly available here to answer questions about our progress to date as of course I am.

Representative PRICE. Dr. Ogle, the committee will be pleased to hear from you.

Dr. OGLE. Mr. Chairman, I believe most of the ground that I came here prepared to talk about has been covered, largely by Mr. Finger. I might reiterate, test cell A, which is to be used for the first test of the Kiwi-B, is expected to be ready to accept the reactor at the test cell face on September 15. I see no possibilities of a large delay in that date. We may be delayed a few days.

This contrasts, as has been pointed out, with a date picked last November or earlier of something like July 1. We have had delays in this schedule.

I have searched hard to find any one organization or set of people I can point to and say, "This is their fault." There is no such thing as far as I can find.

We have taken a little time to put in criteria. We have made changes in the field. We have had the normal types of delays in letting contracts, and so on.

I think I should point out that when we have in the past, and I suppose in the future, predicted a date for a test we have picked, I believe deliberately to help the work, the earliest date that we can imagine doing that test. Therefore, we have always expected some delay and I personally do not feel that the 2 months, approximately, so called delay, in getting ready for the test, has been one that reflects particulary on anyone.

We find it, I believe, an advantage to pick the earliest target date we can because of a feeling that if we pick later target dates we will probably be a little late on those, too.

Thank you.

Representative PRICE. Dr. Schreiber, if you had had test facilities available during the past year, could the laboratory have had reactors available for test?

Dr. SCHREIBER. I suspect if we had been certain quite early, and by that I mean at the beginning of this calendar year, that the only thing that was wanting was the completion of a reactor, we could probably beat the present schedule a bit.

However, this is a very difficult thing to analyze because designing and fabricating a reactor is not quite like putting a jigsaw puzzle together where you know if you put the last piece in it will all fit and work. It is a situation in which you are always compromising between time required to improve a certain item and the gains which you guess you will obtain by doing this.

So what we have in fact done is to keep very close track of the test cell schedule and have taken the time, when it appeared to be possible, to improve the reactor design and to incorporate any improvements which have come along in the time since we decided on a target date.

"As a result, I think one can always make a statement that you could have had a reactor earlier, but it is not necessarily the same reactor you are testing at a later date.

Representative PRICE. If you had had a test facility available earlier you would have been in a position to run more tests and you would probably have been spurred on to work a little faster.

Dr. SCHREIBER. I think I could be caught up by some of my colleagues by saying sometimes we are very fortunate that somebody else is blamed for the delay while we get ourselves out of trouble. Representative PRICE. What is your major concern relative to the early development of a useful reactor rocket engine?

Dr. SCHREIBER. I am not quite sure I understand your question. Representative PRICE. One of the major problems involves whether or not you have the development of a successful nuclear project. Are you so optimistic that you do not see any obstacle?

Dr. SCHREIBER. Not at all. I suppose as the earlier testimony indicated, the main concern that we have right now is that we will indeed come through with at least one successful design of the Kiwi-B reactor system since that is quite crucial.

Now, looking within the problems of a reactor design, there are many things which could go wrong. I do not think we should be too surprised to find that we have some rather disastrous failures in the course of this testing. After all, if we were certain that all of this would work very fine, we would not bother about these tests, we would go immediately to work on the engine.

As far as any administrative blocks are concerned, earlier this year we were, of course, somewhat concerned by the fact that there was discussion of cutting back this effort somewhat. All of this has been taken care of. I do not think we have any outstanding problems in that regard.

Representative PRICE. Were you encouraged by the preliminary testing you have already had?

Dr. SCHREIBER. Yes; I think we have no doubt that the tests of the Kiwi-A, the "A" prime and the A-3 gave us a good deal of design data which give us confidence now to go on to these more ambitious reactors.

Representative PRICE. Do you believe that the Kiwi-B tests as now planned will yield sufficient information and experience to go ahead with the reasonable probability of success in 1962 with the design of the NERVA engine?

Dr. SCHREIBER. Yes. Our own tests, of course, are intended to get basic performance. I should be careful to state that having successful tests here under static test conditions does not guarantee that there are no more problems in putting a reactor into an engine system.

On the other hand, if these are successful, I think that there is no fundamental block to going ahead.

There will be lots of engineering headaches and there will be some problems of auxiliary equipment. But that is why the engine contractor is now at work.

Representative PRICE. Mr. Ramey, do you have any questions? Mr. RAMEY. Is adequate emphasis being given to advance Rover type development, using different fuel elements?

Dr. SCHREIBER. This again is a matter of opinion. I suspect that we have no serious quarrel with the emphasis which is being given at the present time. In our own laboratory program, the Kiwi-B testing is recognized as having a rather high priority since if we cannot make that reactor go there really is not very much point in worrying about advance concepts. At the same time we are exploring ideas and would hope that as the NERVA program progresses and this responsibility is transferred to the NERVA engine contractors that we will be able to go on with that type of activity. Representative PRICE. Mr. Hosmer? Representative HOSMER. No questions. Representative PRICE. Mr. Morris? Representative MORRIS. No questions.

Representative PRICE. You have done such a splendid job describing the program that there are no questions in the minds of the committee members.

Mr. Ramey said you are also the last witness.

Dr. SCHREIBER. That may have had some effect.

Representative HOSMER. In that connection, Messrs. Simpson, Zisch, House, and Krasik have come a long ways to this meeting. If they have anything to add, I think they should do so.

Representative PRICE. I think they fulfilled their purpose by being available in case there were any questions that the members would like to ask. However, if any of them wish to make a comment of their own on what has been covered here this afternoon they may do so.

Mr. ZISCH. I would like to make a comment, that is that we are enthusiastic about this program. We have high confidence in the method by which it is being administered by the Government and the association in development with Westinghouse gives us great assurance of success.

I want that in the record.

Representative HOSMER. I think you can go home now, if we leave you alone and not draw you from your work, and get along with your job.

Representative PRICE. I might say I hope that this project keeps on the upward trend that it is now on and that we will not run into a period of depression such as we have had in some other projects that were of great interest to the committee.

That will conclude this afternoon's hearings.

The committee will recess until tomorrow morning at which time we will cover the SNAP program.

Commissioner Wilson of the Atomic Energy Commission will lead off tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow afternoon at 2 o'clock we will cover the Pluto ramjet program.

(Colonel Thorne's statement on the nuclear rocket program, referred to by Congressman Price on p. 59, follows:)

STATEMENT OF AIR FORCE INTEREST IN ROVER, BY COL. OLA P. THORNE, AFRDC-AE

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I welcome the opportunity to appear before the committee to express Air Force interest in Rover. It is indeed gratifying to see this program proceeding toward a firm goal of experimental flight.

The Air Force initiated the Rover program in 1956. Our early efforts in the program strengthened our conviction that demonstration of nuclear rocket flight would lead to potential military applications. Our conviction has been reaffirmed by recent NASA-AEC successes.

In 1958, when responsibilities for the nonnuclear aspects of the program were transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Agency, the Air Force made its turbopump facility at Santa Susana available to NASA to assist in the orderly continuation of this part of the program. Through Air Force personnel at NASA and Air Force personnel in the NASA-AEC Rover office at Germantown, we have maintained a close and fruitful contact with the program.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense recognized a foreseeable need for large booster capabilities to place military payloads in space. In mid-1959, the Director of Defense Research and Engineering reaffirmed to the Atomic Energy Commission the Department of Defense's interest in nuclear rocket propulsion development for future applications. At the same time, preliminary estimates of desirable nuclear rocket thrust levels were made known to AEC.

The Air Force has just recently completed a comprehensive study of nuclear rocket engine characteristics and operating parameters, based largely upon the present Rover technology. While we have not yet assessed all of the conclusions of these studies, the Air Force is convinced of the vast potential of nuclear rockets, particularly for heavy payload-deep space probes, requiring thrusts considerably in excess of 100,000 pounds. In addition, these studies indicate that in any given large nuclear rocket booster program that might be undertaken, large cryogenic test facilities, materials development, and other component development may well be the pacing items. I might add that these studies have been coordinated fully with NASA.

The Air Force has had the following companies participating in this study effort: Aerojet, Thiokol, Pratt & Whitney, and Westinghouse. We have closely participated in the monitoring and in the review of the study results with NASA and AEC. A most useful evaluation meeting on these studies was recently held at Edwards Air Force Base with NASA and AEC participating. We have a most excellent working relationship with these two agencies on the nuclear rocket work.

On the basis of these preliminary indications and our prior experience, we are, at the present time, conceptually planning nuclear propulsion tasks in extension of the basic studies. We would expect, among other things, to further define specific nuclear rocket characteristics in support of specific study requirements, conduct detailed studies of potential pacing research and development areas or items, and identify specific tasks for possible inclusion in an active research and technology program. In substance, the objective of such a program would be to support the advancement of nuclear rocket propulsion technology for possible future military application, particularly in those areas which are solely characteristic of military needs and are not identified within the scope of the Rover program.

The advanced technology program associated with Project Rover is the exploration of a possible unique and quantum step in propulsion technology. While definition of military requirements must wait upon sufficient engineering and test demonstration, the potential is already apparent. With large initial specific impulses, the heavy payload and high velocity characteristics of nuclear rockets indicate a capability which is currently unachievable with chemical systems. This concludes my statement.

(Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., Monday, August 28, 1961, the committee recessed to reconvene at 10 a.m., Tuesday, August 29, 1961.)