In 1952, a rocket motor was installed in a concrete cell at JPL, to be used in testing various fuels, nozzles and other variables in rocket motor design. At the time, JPL developed guided missiles and worked on other classified projects for the Army.
In 1955, an article entitled "Inside Rocket Test Cell F" by Ronald M. Deutsch appeared in the March 5 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. Deutsch visited JPL, talked to employees, and witnessed the test firing of a rocket motor.
A few weeks ago, under the watchful eye of a security escort, I crossed the threshold of Rocket Test Cell F -- a steel and concrete blockhouse in a giant laboratory so closely guarded that not one American in 10,000 knows even its name -- and stepped into a strange and disturbing world.
"Hi," said the test chief, a doctor of chemistry who had not yet reached his mid-twenties. "Grab a seat on the table by the window, and whatever happens, don't move."
"Hi," I said. "Why should I want to move?"
"Some people get excited," he shrugged. "Couple of months ago a test motor blew up and started throwing fuming nitric acid and burning rocket fuel. A visitor got panicky when the fumes began to come through the wall from the firing pit. He ran for the door, and one of our mechanics barely got him with a flying tackle. It's understandable," he added. "A nervous type. But the blockhouse and the surrounding area were being spattered with the acid and fuel. We didn't think he should go outside, and we preferred to keep the door closed."
Obediently, I took my seat on the table and watched through my slit of a window -- ten panes of safety glass thick and fronted by steel bars -- as the mechanics and engineers finished their preparations in the firing cell....
The warning siren above the blockhouse sent its dour wail over the hills, and above it could be heard the whoosh of compressed air as pressure was put on fuel lines.
"Ten seconds," said the test chief. "Five, four -" he counted down, and I covered an involuntary smile as I looked at the flimsy pipe. You might have thought this fellow was firing an atom bomb.
Then, with no warning, there was a deafening blast, and a shaft of blinding flame, 5000 degrees hot, powered into the hillside. Suddenly the rocket screamed, and the blast doubled its intensity. The whole blockhouse shook violently, and concrete dust filled the control room. The noise, the vibration and the brilliant flame dazzled and stunned the senses, and I couldn't have moved if that comet in the test cell had started coming toward me. Then all at once, after what seemed a couple of long minutes, the motor was silent.
"It's a long five seconds, isn't it?" asked Dr. Arthur Stosick, chief of the jet lab's Rockets and Materials Division.
"Seconds?" I asked, a little short of breath.
"Even with a little one like this, we don't dare fire any longer," said Stosick. "We tried a fifteen-second run on a similar motor once. It tore a piece out of the hill and showered molten rock over the hillside, burned it clean. The whole Lab turned out to fight the fire, and we just stopped it from taking the mountains behind us. Now we wet down the hill before firing."
"Of course," put in the test chief, "we fire engines of any size, such as the one for our Corporal guided missile, out of Muroc and White Sands. This little test motor had a few hundred pounds thrust. We fire them at twenty thousand pounds and more. But even the big ones are small enough to be carried by one man, and some are rated at a hundred and twenty thousand horsepower."
