New Mexico and Technology Nuclear Energy Research High Altitude Survival (Space Medicine) Rocket...

New Mexico and Technology

• Nuclear Energy Research

• High Altitude Survival (Space Medicine)

• Rocket Tests

• And more…

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Ted Spitzmiller

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Objective

• To understand more about New Mexico and its involvement with high technology…– Pioneers, engineers, and astronauts– Events that alter and illuminate our time

Who Am I?• Aviation and Space Historian

• Graduate US Army Guided Missile School

• Taught Nuclear Weapons 3 years

• Flight Instructor for 40+ years

• Computer Guy for 50 years (MS/CIS)

• Invented the Internet (with Al Gore)

• Mrs. Kritter’s Dad

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Birth of the Bomb 4

I started building models

airplanes at the age of 7

4Aviation

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New Mexico’s role in the Birth of the Atomic Age

World War II

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A Bit of Background• 1939--Certain isotopes of

Uranium could be split (fission) to produce energy.

• Enough to make a bomb?• War was raging in Europe.• Germany had been in the

forefront of the research.• America build an atomic bomb…

if one could be made.

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OSRD Creates Manhattan Project-1942

Directed by Brig Gen Leslie Groves Four secret laboratories: •Los Alamos, New Mexico

– Location chosen for its remoteness. – Physics and engineering "think-tank"– Final assembly of bombs, from

materials/components •Originally a few hundred people… required over 2,000.•Lots of problems and secrecy.

Irony

• Many of the physicist who worked on the project were driven out of Europe by Nazi anti-Semitism.

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Find

Los Alamos

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J. Robert Oppenheimer• UC Berkley physicist

• Chosen by Groves to lead bomb development effort

• Understood the problem, the resources available, and the people

Los Alamos 1945

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Los Alamos Today

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Bomb Required Enriched u235• Only 1 in 600 atoms of natural uranium is

u-235

• Bomb requires >90% u-235

• Numerous methods to separate u235 from u238– Gaseous diffusion & cyclotron best known

• Oakridge, Tenn

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Two Methods of Creating a

Bomb

Purity

Density supercritical

Mass

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Trinity Site

Location to test the bomb!

To be detonated on

Top of a Tower

• Avoid extensive fallout

• Take advantage of the Mach-Y effect

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Gadget Raised to the Top

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From the start of the laboratory at Los Alamos in March 1943 to the first test in July 1945 was only 2 years and four months.

Explosive energy equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT

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Decision to use the

weapon is another story

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Hiroshima 1945—Little Boy

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Hiroshima Today

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What about the German Effort? That’s another story.

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The Atom Spies—Yet another story

Trinity Site TodayOpen to visitorsfirst weekend of October and April

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Questions?

Local Museums

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Let’s Talk Rockets

Robert Goddard• Father of Modern

Rocketry

• Experimentalist

• Launched first successful liquid fuel rocket

• March 16, 1926

Goddard Moves from

Massachusetts to Roswell

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V-2 – First Large Liquid Fuel Rocket

• Developed by Wernher von Braun in Germany during WWII.

• Surface to surface missile

• Send 2000 pound explosive warhead (payload) 200 miles

Wernher von Braun Operation Paperclip

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Technology Transfer

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Launched From White Sands

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Testing Moved to Cape Canaveral, Florida as Rockets

Grew Larger

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V-2 Comparison of Saturn V & Shuttle

• Saturn V sent men to the moon 1968-72

• Launched Skylab Space Station 1973

• 250,000 lbs. To earth orbit

• Shuttle 65,000 pounds to earth orbit

Shuttle 4.4 million lbs. 6 million lbs. thrust

Saturn V 6.0 million lbs. 7.5 million lbs. thrust

Space Medicine

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Dr. Randy Lovelace - 1943 High Altitude Bailout from 40,200 feet

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Original Mercury Astronaut’s

Medical Tests at Lovelace Clinic

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High Altitude Ballooning

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Using High

Altitude Balloons

to test Survival

Equipment

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Lt. Joe Kittinger’s

record parachute

jump

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102,800 feet down

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International Balloon Museum

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Rocket Sleds TestEffects of High Speed

Ejection

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New Mexico Museum Of Space History

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And There is… Roswell

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Aliens!

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Time Line to Space

Tsiolkovsky

1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Goddard

Oberth

Kittinger-Free Fall

Stapp-Rocket Sled

Von Braun V-2

Glenn

Armstrong

Space Shuttle

Challenger Columbia

Space Race

ISS

YWB

New Mexico… A Prominent Player in “Advanced Technologies”

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