THE YEAR OF THE POLARIS

[Music] this is admiral and this is the nuclear submarine george washington beneath each of these hatches will be a 28-foot polaris missile designed to fly 1500 miles eventually 2 500 miles these hatches normally open at launch depth the natural habitat of submarines since 1945 when man first unleashed the force of the atom and fashioned it into a bomb he has been faced with the problem of getting it on enemy targets the only two delivered in anger hiroshima and nagasaki were big bulky things that weighed thousands of pounds and had to be carried in the bomb bays of b-29 now the year of the polaris a three-stage missile whose first stage is really a 380 foot submarine that can go around the world on a core of uranium only slightly larger than a golf ball and which can fire 16 hydrogen warheads without ever surfacing admiral rayburn they do look like the doors of doom don't they yes they do most of us more firepower from from the missiles which will be stored here and all the bombs dropped on both sides world war ii combined say again the firepower of these 16 missiles which will be in the air soon is greater in tnt equivalent than all the bombs dropped in both sides world war ii just one of these submarines a long time ago when we first heard about polaris privately we asked the navy for permission to chronicle its progress and eventually if it became successful to deliver this report this now is our report on polaris it contains not only the success but some of the disappointment and heartbreak along the way but above everything else it is the story of a group of dedicated men who dreamed and sweated and dared and gambled under the waters at cape canaveral on july 20 1960 in a climax unprecedented for a nation at peace exercise head power on all instrumentation systems are go weapons launcher tube number nine is pressurized now this is nickname uh standby for 10 seconds stand by standby many people have asked about the origin of polaris who was responsible for it well no one man was responsible for it but it came about in part as a result of a navy project called lamplighter in the early 50s when the russians began to develop a huge submarine fleet the navy engaged in this lamplighter exercise designed to examine what use could be made of a submarine fleet capable of launching missiles off our coasts while submerged as a result of this exercise they concluded that defense against such weapons was so difficult that we would be well advised to develop that kind of system ourselves and this is what our story is about when the navy first conceived of putting ballistic missiles in a fleet of underwater launching pads the hope was that the army's jupiter missile could be mated with the atomic submarine the navy was at that time the stepchild of the defense department which insisted that as long as the army had a 1500 mile jupiter missile which it wouldn't be permitted to use the navy adapted for use at sea instead of coming up with a missile specially designed to be fired from a submarine the jupiter shown here stands more than sixty feet high is filled with a hundred thousand pounds of highly volatile liquid oxygen and kerosene that has to be forced pumped just prior to launch requires a countdown period of anywhere from 15 minutes to 10 hours and as admiral rayburn the chief architect and guiding hand of the polaris project soon determined just wasn't going to work now the gypter is a large liquid fuel missile and we can conduct a control test to see if this missile could be used aboard chip and we were dismayed actually with the dangers inherent in large quantities of liquid fuels aboard ship to combine spaces someone told me you decided at one point it would be almost as easy to fire the submarine as the vessel is that that exaggeration after that if the navy didn't have the right missile to put in the submarine they at least had a nuclear submarine thanks to rear admiral hyman g rickover who virtually willed our nuclear submarine fleet into existence as early as 1956 rickover said this to us in my opinion the nautilus is not simply another new submarine that can travel for practically unlimited distances under the water i consider that she's a new weapon in that she may have just as profound and effect unable tactics and strategy as the airplane has had on war one of the earliest american efforts to use submarines as launching pads was the regulus shown here this required the submarine to surface disgorge a cumbersome launching pad and then fire an air-breathing short-range missile which was not a rocket at all but rather an unmanned aircraft but the regulus was run down by history with the advent of the soviet and american advances in ballistic missiles which soar out of the earth's atmosphere at speeds of 18 000 miles an hour the regulator solid fuel polaris route was taken in 1955 when the president was recovering from a heart attack and when defense secretary charles e wilson had little enough enthusiasm for rockets especially rockets designed to be fired from a submarine while submerged the fight for polaris was carried out largely by a group of young naval scientists and by admiral harley burke then as now chief of naval operations then as now a diplomat who remembers that enthusiasm for polaris was not exactly unanimous i've been told that you gave admiral red rayburn a letter which said in effect give this man anything he wants is that roughly right i gave admiral rayburn this letter because there was a lot of opposition within the navy too they're uh not opposition there were a lot of differences of opinion a lot of people thought this cannot be done there is too much to do there are too many things that are undeveloped too many breakthroughs that we have to have and so i gave admiral rayburn this letter and said to add to other people give this man what he wants and i'll restrict him to 50 people 50 managing managers 50 people directly under him he can choose anybody he wants but he he can't have very many and that was to keep it small so that each one of those people would be good and would be contributing i also told him in the same letter that there are many cutoff points on this thing many times many things that you have to go that you have to be able to do if uh if you reach a stage where you cannot do this thing we will kill the project but two other technological breakthroughs to send the navy on a completely different course one the atomic energy commission invention reducing the size of the hydrogen bomb warhead making possible a much smaller missile and the advent of highly powerful solid fuels the difference between a solid fuel and a liquid fuel is the difference between a bullet or an artillery shell and a jet engine solid fuel as used in rockets is mixed needed molded baked into a rubbery plastic-like substance but unlike the jupiter or atlas which is an enormous flying fuel tank the polaris solid fuel is the engine itself packed into the missile container specifically the polaris is two solid fuel bodies flying in tandem which separate automatically like this but as the experiments with solid fuels progressed there were other problems to be dealt with concurrently which is a fancy way of saying they had to be solved without ever knowing whether the entire concept would work there had to swimming pool tests further to determine the effect of water motion and depth on a bird that would have to live in sea water the earth's atmosphere and the vacuum of space this is stanley burris of lockheed polaris's prime contractor well now the missile comes out as a result of pneumatic pressure compressed air when do the engines fire and how is that determined the missile uh is launched by means of compressed air which is fed underneath and is released by a trigger-like mechanism that is uh all at once and the muscle is pushed out much the same as you would push the charge out of a shotgun or for that matter and a more common analogy it is very much the same as the navy has been launching torpedoes for a good many years it is in principle the same thing it does uh light at a definite time after what we call first motion of the missile which is the first movement uh being pushed by the air this missile unlike other missiles must be able to operate in water in atmosphere and up where there is no atmosphere right that is correct as a matter of fact that is one of the more uh interesting aspects of the design of this thing it's designed literally for two extreme conditions one the high pressure condition of water uh water pressure at the operating depths and from there to the surface and it's designed uh like any other vessel would be for that matter for the extreme heating environment that one reaches at these high supersonic speeds particularly in the high q region which is a way of saying that the lower end of the earth's atmosphere when you get out of the atmosphere of course this problem goes away in the matter of speaking and only manifests itself again as you get into re-entry problems about what you've heard plenty by this time i'm sure we we still have that problem on polaris but it's been rather neatly solved we think all right now let's say the missile comes up at the proper angle what happens if at the point when it reaches the surface it gets hit by say a 40-foot wave well to use your dimension exactly a 40-foot wave he might be in trouble although uh i really doubt it i just say this to be technically correct uh the system is designed to uh is designed to withstand the environment of of waves that are not much less than 40 feet that is part of the underwater launch problem that is part of the missile stability problem whether one can fire through waves and stand this uh perturbation on the side or at any any angle to it generally speaking highways do not bother the muscle within within reasonable limits i would hate to shoot one through a so-called tidal wave or anything like that but it's been designed with that in mind well you don't really guess about these things here do you you make waves yourselves don't you yes that's a function of this uh one of the functions of this facility we're in now we lower this uh assembly down into an appropriate depth in the pool and depending on what the experiment is we either generate waves or we don't but we can generate waves of appropriate height on a model basis to simulate the rather horrendous conditions we were discussing a few minutes ago to see how these models behave in addition to the exit uh phenomena of course we're interested in the underwater behavior of how stable they are and the effects of cavitation and things of that nature what looked feasible in a scale model pool might look different in the ocean so there were a series of launcher tests peashooter pop-up sky-catch and one called fishhook because the missile was tethered but long before the navy could know whether the polaris would really work from underwater it had to take another calculated risk that it would work at all so that concurrent to its success there would be an atomic submarine ready to be its launching site by 1965. in 1957 the rickover reactor group in the navy had on the ways at the general dynamics electric boat works in new london connecticut a 250-foot submarine called the scorpion an attack submarine boldly the navy cut the scorpion in half and inserted a 128 foot segment which made room for 16 polaris launching tubes and the scorpion was renamed the george washington simultaneously the navy shot the works with another 100 million dollars and converted another attack submarine then building into the patrick henry for use as a polaris submarine the launching system was farmed out to westinghouse near san francisco rocket engines to aerojet at sacramento guidance systems for the bird to general electric at pittsfield massachusetts guidance for the submarine to sperry on long island and north american automatics near los angeles but polaris got its biggest thrust from a rocket made in russia when defense secretary charles wilson authorized the polaris program he said the navy would have to pay for it out of existing funds no special appropriation that meant the navy had to cut back on other aspects of its program but then in the autumn of 1957 sputnik changed all that polaris got 350 million dollars of its own and orders to go full speed ahead and admiral rayburn revised his timetable and said he'd have a polaris submarine roaming the ocean by december of 1960 by september 24 1958 the solid fuel concept seemed on its way on pad 25a at cape canaveral sat a squat 28-foot champagne bottle which was the polaris in its first configuration but when the button was pushed and the bird took off it failed to program and the rain safety officer exploded it 40 000 feet in the sky post-mortem verdict a malfunction caused by a faulty part admiral rayburn read the contractor's elector in october there was another try but the polaris ax2 blew up on its pad the second stage blown clear seemed all right but had to be destroyed on the ground the first stage still belched fire like a roman candle post-mortem verdict failure of an explosive boat between stage one and stage two cynics began to call polaris the snake killer the palmetto bushes near canaveral are infested with rattlers by late december of 1958 the polaris ax-3 was ready she got off the pad in good style and even achieved a separation of stages but then the second stage began to gyrate wildly this time the trouble appeared serious trouble which the engineers diagnosed as hot bottom the heat from the burning fuel was causing the tail of the missile to come apart and the destruct button was pushed there was another try with polaris ax4 which met the same fate there would have to be a search for new materials two months went by before polaris ax-5 was on the pad to test another aspect of the bird's performance it went out of control and with it went many tempers in the pentagon admiral rayburn was advised to stop testing determined to adhere to his schedule rayburn fixed april 20 1959 as the firing date for the improved polaris ax6 it was an unqualified success 400 miles down the course at the electric boat shipyards in new london they had been under forced draft too it was only a year and a half after the welder's torch cut the scorpion's keel in half that the george washington slid down the way june 9 1959 uh [Music] that's a year less than schedule time for building a submarine of her class there had to be some human engineering also one had to design the missile envelope to fit the most optimum crews which took the polaris submarine to sea would have to be prepared to remain there for several months at a time and they'd have to know more about complex gear than any submarine crew before them the navy programmed two crews a blue and a gold for each ship began training the george washington's men at sunnyvale more than two years before they ever saw a polaris submarine is commander james osborne skipper of the george washington we've been involved in a continuous shaking down of this ship for 15 months 15 months of really the toughest and hardest work and under the toughest conditions that i've ever asked any of my crews that i've been with through my service in the navy to work under now let me tell you this with a man my service reputation and appreciation for individual excellence rayburn and rickover trained i'm not very easy to please until now every polaris fired had been from a stationary traditional launching pad at cape canaveral the next milestone was to lob one up and ignite it in mid-air and a ship launcher simulator was built for this purpose underground at the cape the first attempt was made on august 14 1959 right on schedule and was successful eight successes followed with no failures next a ship the observation isle once intended as a missile launcher itself was outfitted as a floating laboratory block house and launching pad six polaris were fired from the observation island at the same time the george washington was undergoing sea trials and ejecting dummy missiles out of its tubes it was this operation the russian trawler vega visible in the distance observed off long island but before a live polaris could ever be fired from the submarine it had to be proved that a live hot polaris could successfully be launched from below the surface and ignite above water this is san clemente island off the california coast where on april 14 1960 a launcher similar to that in the george washington was towed out into the pacific and with the help of cables and skin divers hauled down to a depth which cannot be revealed but corresponded to submarine launch position inside the launcher was a full-scale polaris but loaded with what is called a cut grain supply of solid fuel just enough of a charge to lift it 1800 feet above the water before falling back into the ocean [Music] the control barges were cleared of all personnel and in the block house on san clemente the first countdown on a live polaris underwater launch was begun all stations stand by for a mark at minus 120 seconds standby mark minus 120 seconds status report flight control looks like it's all ready guidance guidance ready ignition ignition okay tm tm one two and three d plus and filament uh reach our scroll space off scroll switch off all stations stand by for a 95 second count standby despite the complicated checking procedures which precede launch the missile only becomes a live poised weapon when this piece of hardware is inserted in the panel socket uh range this is a remote firing plug installed mark we have a prepared light this station is now ready for the event tm recording tm recorder on thank you mark minus 70 seconds stand by for a 65 second count standby okay let's keep it clean and cool 63 62 61 mark minus one minute the block house is a sealed protected fortress with no view of the missile before or after launch other than by electronic instruments and television cameras above and below water mark minus 45 seconds stand by for a 40 second mark standby mark minus 40 pumps on pumps on thank you for a market minus 30. calibration is complete thank you sk internal flight control internal system status tim okay guidance okay condition ready control ready flight control ready you have a green light i got a green board here we go 12 11 10 nine eight seven six five four three two one fire [Applause] oh [Music] is the first polaris in history making its exit from the sea and blasting off while poised in mid-air the technical achievement of this feat is dramatized by relating it to an atlas or a jupiter liquid fuel launch where the missile is lined up on its solid platform for many hours and many corrections are made on the pad for its ultimate line of flight in contrast the polaris on a tactical mission leaves the water sometimes at an unpredictable angle makes its gyroscopically controlled corrections and takes off toward the atmosphere and its target this firing was an important milestone but this countdown wasn't the only one going on there also had to be a managerial block house which coordinated all the breakthroughs involved all the contractors and made certain that everything came out at the same time one man had to be responsible for getting together all of these incredibly complicated pieces of machinery he had to have his fingertips on every piece to see to it that they all arrived at the right place at the right time and that they fit together properly you've never heard of this man he's never had his name in the newspapers he's a civil service employee doesn't make very much money but his contribution was in the field of management something that is badly needed not only on the polaris program but elsewhere in the country his name is gordon pearson you ought to meet him it's like uh creating an automobile transportation capability not an automobile but a total capability in which we were working out only on the internal combustion engine and the other mechanical features of an automobile but we were developing a rubber industry that could produce pneumatic tires we were developing a petroleum industry capable of producing the kind of gasoline that would make these automobiles run we were building roads bridges putting up gasoline stations and even running driver training courses and of course all this had to be done before anyone knew that the automobile was a feasible proposition that the wheels would turn or the carburetors function isn't that right that is right well as a result of your overriding priority you've had rather less interference than most similar organizations in washington haven't you this is true and it's one of the real advantages that we've hit in this program and it's an advantage not to be minimized we have been uh exempt or relieved of some of the attentions of people who in seeking to prevent small errors do quite often deny or at least delay big successes this has been a very real advantage to us we've adopted here very early in the staffing of our organization the concept you can get more work out of one man who was overworked than uh two men who were underworked they have a tendency to get in one another's way if there is uh more than absolutely necessary i think this has been a rather an important part of the success of our operations we've had to keep lean and hard in order to live together and to understand that we were dependent upon one another the submarines were going to be ready on schedule the polaris missiles were beginning to check out but they would have to be mated and go to sea together those first critical you