AEDC played vital role in space shuttle development

  • Published
  • By Patrick Ary
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  The last space shuttle launch is set for early July. Bill Peters remembers the first.

"Probably the first 50 ... I watched about every one of those either live if I could, or I would record them," said Peters, the Aerodynamics and Propulsion Section manager for ATA. "Many of us engineers in the wind tunnel area were glued to the set."

They had good reason to be, because they played a major role in getting the shuttle into space.

While the shuttle is a NASA program, the space agency relied heavily on AEDC during development in the decade before it lifted off for its first manned mission. In 1972 - the same year that Peters arrived at AEDC - shuttle development and testing was getting underway in earnest.

The first AEDC tests under the space shuttle name took place in 1970 on a stage-and-a-half concept developed by Chrysler Corporation. A year later, North American Rockwell tested a model. Also in 1971, aerodynamic tests were conducted on the complete shuttle vehicles proposed by the two principal contenders: McDonnell Douglas/Martin Marietta and North American Rockwell/General Dynamics.

AEDC workers were determined to gather data that would give NASA the means to develop a vehicle that would fly and keep astronauts safe - by using tools much less advanced than today's technology.

"In the early days, the computer systems we utilized were much more primitive," Peters said. "We were in the late days of the Apollo program, and sophistication of much of the electronic equipment was much less technical than it is now. So the process for testing was more hands-on ... we used a lot of slide rules. Hand calculators were not even in place until about the middle 70s, so it was a lot of pencil and paper."

Several designs were tested - some of which barely resemble the vehicle the shuttle eventually became.

"Initially it was going to be a two-part vehicle that was flown back," Peters said. "Not only the orbiter; the external tank was going to be flown back and retrieved, so the early concepts were two-winged bodies. We had done some of that initial testing. It wasn't too long after that they narrowed down, because of cost and effectiveness, they chose not to have the external tank as a flyback configuration."

In the early days, every wind tunnel on base was being used to conduct testing, Peters said. Aerodynamic forces and pressures and heat transfer data were gathered to help determine the right construction materials and establish baseline flight models for the ascent portion of the mission. AEDC also conducted separation tests for the solid rocket boosters and external tank.

"We have generated data in our wind tunnels for NASA to use for most portions of the flight database to assist in making space access safe, reliable and efficient with that vehicle," Peters said. "Even though a lot of the needed data were acquired at NASA facilities, we were a key part of providing information they could not get in their facilities."

All of that work culminated with the launch of Columbia in 1981; a launch that Peters said gave him a feeling that mankind was on a new quest.

"I think everybody felt very fortunate that they had been a part or could be a part of contributing to the success of such an advancement in our space program," Peters said. "Even though we are not a direct part of NASA, we feel a strong kinship to the fact that we have a similar mission in terms of NASA putting flight vehicles into space and to assist advancing technology in the field of aeronautics."

Refining work has been conducted throughout the remaining years of the shuttle's life as NASA has come back to AEDC to test everything from the shuttle's main engine to thermal tiles. Peters said he had no idea when they started work on the program that it would last so long, but he's proud of the work that has been done to keep it flying.

And he's looking forward to whatever comes next.

"I think that the heart of man - the heart of us - is for exploration," he said. "I think we have something built within us to explore. I think that's part of America. I think that's a part of who we are. That's a part of how we settled this country. So I feel we have a heart for it that's not going to be extinguished regardless of the budgets on the national level or even the technical difficulties we face.

"We are experimenters. We are developers, and we will reach and go and do. We're not at the end point. We're still at the beginning."