Liquid Rockets and Propellants

But five years ago, the space technologists of the world were urging that elementary scientific experiments be performed in space. The unprecedented progress since that time has demonstrated the enormous scientific, economic and military utility of space flight. As our planning increases in scope to reflect this progress, it has become evident that space vehicles of great size will be required, which in turn requires propulsion systems of greatly increased capacity. It has, furthermore, become evident that the budgeting of massive development programs cannot tolerate errors in the design of basic systems. Thus the fundamental understanding of the processes occurring in rocket engines has assumed great importance. This realization has brought about ever increasing efforts in rocket technology, as well as in all the other technical areas associated with space flight.

Approximately half the papers in this volume were presented at the American Rocket Society Propellants, Combustion and Liquid Rockets Conference held at The Ohio State University on July 18, 19, 1960. The other papers had been submitted to the American Rocket Society for publication, and were chosen for this volume in order to round out a coherent presentation of several topics of current research interest in liquid propellant rocketry. Among these are the performance of rockets at high altitudes, combustion instability, and engine improvement through component development.