Kelly
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Fundamental research is needed. The logical agency for this is NASA with its excellent research facilities, representing the investment of hundreds of millions of dollars, and which it would be a waste for private industry to duplicate even if funds were available.
It is a waste of our resources, too, when research is repeated. Yet this occurs. Two specific examples: development contracts for aircraft radomes able to withstand 500°F temperatures; a contract for development of titanium landing gear. The Blackbirds have been operating with titanium gear for 22 years! Their radomes give fine performance at 650°F!
There also is not enough use of what we already have accomplished. Sometimes the attraction for something new is irresistible over adapting proven equipment for a lot less money. We should not be repeating costly development work. Lockheed’s Lancer and universal trainer proposals, discussed earlier, come to mind. Rather than improve the proven for readily-available, low-cost vehicles, the military opted for new aircraft with comparable capability to be developed over a considerably longer period of time and at much greater cost.
We must study our areas of potential vulnerability. Are we relying for defense on a team of dinosaurs? If it is necessary to penetrate an enemy country, what will be the best way to do it?
Many mappings from U-2 overflights and space satellites provide us with information on the location of Russian radar and missile stations, sites of factories, and other strategic targets, for example.
A number of years ago the Skunk Works made studies of penetration into the Soviet heartland. We computed probable aircraft losses for different approaches—bombers coming in at sea level to others operating at 80,000 feet. The study did not incorporate aircraft with low radar cross-section design.
We evaluated the proposed B-1 subsonically at low level and a hypothetical bomber cruising at Mach 3 at 80,000 feet.
Our conclusion was that a subsonic plane at low altitude would be subject to attack by all versions of Russian fighters, from the older MiG-15 to the later faster types. Efforts to incorporate the latest radar avoidance techniques in already existing design were not very productive. The loss rate was put at 35 percent of the fleet. And cost per unit for the bomber was more than $200 million per plane, not counting costs for crew training and support.
The high-altitude supersonic bomber was much more expensive than the low-altitude aircraft, but had a survivability rate about three times greater.
My own conclusion from these early studies was: why a manned bomber at all? If we can get the accuracy we expect from intercontinental missiles, I see little reason for sending a man on the attack mission.
A familiar argument is that the bomber can be recalled. Well, the missile can be blown up en route with a radio signal. There is little reason for putting a man over Russia except perhaps for reconnaissance in some cases. And then you hope he will survive the 45 minutes’ overflight through high-altitude clouds of nuclear contamination.
One U-2 monitoring atmospheric quality a few years ago, when both Russia and the United States were testing hydrogen bombs, found the same cloud of nuclear debris circling the earth six times—propelled by the jetstream along an airplane polar route over the United States.
The vulnerability of the U.S. Navy, or any navy, in a nuclear war—or any kind of war—is a concern. With satellite tracking stations making a pass overhead every 90 minutes, it is very easy to follow a fleet moving at a speed of 20 knots. At one time, Russian satellites actually were providing us with much of the information on our fleet location. Our own reconnaissance was better than theirs over land.
It is perfectly feasible to launch a land-based ICBM or IRBM carrying a dozen warheads at a fleet under way. I know of no way at present to stop an incoming missile speeding on a 90 degree course straight down on you.
The Russian Backfire could launch its missiles, carried under the fuselage, from about 240 to 250 miles away and guide them to knock out our capital ships. The ability to stop that Backfire is important.
The vulnerability of the U.S. Navy is vitally important. Military missions aside, a high-priority purpose is to protect the tankers hauling oil around the continent of Africa and transocean from the Middle East. Keeping these shipping lanes open is important for more than one reason. There is in this country a shortage of strategic materials—e.g., vanadium, chromium, platinum. Many of these metals come from Africa and the developing nations.
Russia has very good submarines—bigger, faster, deeper diving than ours—and many more of them than we have. Their newest is almost as large as a cruiser. Their subs can do 50 mph—much faster than ours. Their latest have titanium hulls which make them more difficult to detect. Titanium is non-magnetic and escapes some of the means we have of detecting submerged submarines. The Russians can build these large-size titanium hulls that give their subs the deep diving capability because they have the huge presses to do it. We do not.
If Russia with all her submarines decides to put us out of the shipping business, it will be a big problem for us.
Of course, we may find other ways to match their submarine performance. Do not write off our Trident and earlier Polaris submarine-launched missiles.
Anti-submarine warfare is a constantly changing battle. Lockheed’s carrier-based S-3A ASW aircraft for the U.S. Navy, after only five or six years’ service, already had changed over to new electronic gear for locating submarines.
Several years ago it was discovered that every submarine makes its own distinguishing operating sounds. No submarine is totally quiet, though that is the goal. These sounds now have been classified into a sort of directory, so that with sonar and other detection equipment our ASW planes, ships, and land-based stations can follow and identify the trail of an individual sub, know whether it is large or small, diesel-powered, electric, or nuclear.
ASW aircraft really originated with the Hudson bomber during World War II when an RAF plane became the first in history to capture a sub. Lockheed since then has built more ASW aircraft than all other companies combined.
ASW has been a developing science from those first beginnings, when the target had to surface with snorkels to recharge batteries to today’s nuclear-powered models that can remain submerged for days. Historically, the submarine has been ahead of the game step by step, temporarily to be overtaken by search-and-destroy techniques but then racing ahead again.
For years, I have said—jokingly because it is totally impractical—that in any next war I wanted to be in a nickel-plated, nuclear-powered, deep-diving submarine with plenty of food and reading material, because it would be the safest place in the world. Nickel plate would make the sub very smooth and very quiet. That would be prohibitively expensive, of course, but there are other platings we are studying seriously now for silencing purposes.
“Operations analysis,” or “operations research,” as an approach to design decisions really took off from those early ASW efforts in World War II and immediately afterward. Lockheed determined to stay in the anti-submarine business, and to do so we knew we had to keep ourselves educated. After the war, we sought a Navy research contract, even on a “no-cost” basis. I set up a group under Robert A. Bailey to study all phases of submarine and anti-submarine development—sonar, weight analysis, noise, etc.
We were given privileged information and, in return, reported to the Navy every few months on results of our studies. The heart of operations analysis, and the only method to make it worthwhile and accurate, is to keep it a purely research effort. Never use it as a sales tool. In the long run that is counterproductive, because it leads to tainted conclusions.
There are other ways our enemies could interrupt our vital supplies—such as subverting the governments in the developing countries that supply much of our strategic imports and installing governments sympathetic if not subservient to their own.
Development of sources of basic materials where possible in this country and others in this hemisphere is especially indicated because of these threa
ts to our supply.
The titanium “sponge” from which the sheet and bar were formed for the SR-71s came principally from Australia and Japan which have it in good supply. But the basic materials for the later Blackbirds came also from Russia, which had developed its titanium-producing facilities and decided to undercut the others in price. We discontinued those purchases, however, after an initial one because we did not want to help Russia develop this industry.
The titanium ore found naturally in this country is not the rutile from which the basic sponge has been made to date. It is a different form of titanium oxide—ilmenite. It has been cheaper to buy from foreign sources in the past rather than develop the local product. While it will require more power to process our native ore, it should pay overall to insure availability of the metal. We know how to do it, but the expense of the necessary investment has delayed development so long because importing the product was cheaper.
This comes back to one of my favorite crusades—developing a titanium capability in this country and getting the cost of the metal down to where it is reasonable compared to other materials. This means mining and processing the ore, building rolling mills and sheet metal plants, and, especially, building a big enough press to forge the large submarine plates that give the Russian subs their deep diving capability, and other large production pieces, such as aircraft landing gear.
The initial cost would be tremendous for such a press alone, but the value in availability of the material, time saved in production, quality of the finished product, as well as importance to national defense must be considered to overbalance the dollars involved.
One of the most important things we can do in the battle for technology is to train young engineers, scientists, and technicians who can follow the tremendously complicated and complex new programs. We are short of technicians, especially. And for dealing with the technology of the future, we cannot quickly reassign engineers from conventional aircraft design. Engineers still will be required to design and build our defense systems. But the discipline now that will determine what these are is physics.
The Russians are graduating five times as many engineers each year as the United States. There is no unemployment of them. Here, unfortunately, there is little or no stability in our programs. It’s train, hire, and fire.
The defense of this country and the Free World requires an operations analysis approach—looking at the entire area from scratch, objectively. What would a war be like? Nuclear? Non-nuclear? What weapons will we really need? Expensive nuclear-powered aircraft carriers which might last two or three days? Should we put the carrier underseas—as a submarine? Do we need manned aircraft when a missile can be fired and controlled accurately from the ground? Should we use our old obsolete aircraft as decoys while the new highly-sophisticated and very expensive technologically-advanced models head for target? In the operations analysis approach, no idea is too outlandish to consider—and then evaluate for effectiveness, cost, complexity, flexibility, reliability, manageability, and all the other characteristics that come into play.
In the Skunk Works we have a dozen or so people working at all times in this manner, keeping ourselves educated on what “they” are doing and “we” can do. How good are their surface-to-air missiles? Their radar? Their next airplanes? Their research and development in other fields? How do we penetrate the country in case of war?
This approach as a national policy is basic to defending ourselves.
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Technology and Tomorrow
BY THE YEAR 2000, THE “DEATH RAYS” of the comic strips and science fiction will be a reality. Laser beams and charged-particle weapons will be our defense against enemy missile and rocket attack in any nuclear war. Computer-controlled, they will detonate the incoming warheads in space.
That is the scenario as written today. Accomplishing this will be no small task.
Lasers travel at the speed of light, more than 186,000 miles per second. While there are peaceful uses of the laser—in surgery, manufacturing, and other industrial applications—in lethal weaponry the laser gun will be able to pick off incoming rockets traveling at speeds anticipated to be as high as Mach 24.
First use of the laser in defense is envisioned as space-based, because laser beams in practically any frequency fall off greatly in effectiveness as the atmosphere deepens.
While enormous power will be needed to place and operate a laser weapon in space, it will require even more to fire it from the ground through the atmosphere.
Our first defensive weapon against nuclear missile attack, therefore, should be a very sophisticated ground-launched anti-ballistic missile. This I believe we should develop as soon as possible despite Salt I or Salt II. And concurrently we should develop what I believe will be the most effective defense against incoming enemy missiles—laser or particle-beam weapons located in space.
Not only is this possible, it is necessary.
Our initial efforts at finding a target and aiming a laser gun are very clumsy, but we have succeeded in hitting a target from a C-141 flying at low altitude. The system once developed probably will use a combination of infrared, radar, and electro-optical systems.
Operated from a string of perhaps two dozen satellites in orbit, lasers would provide the capability to detonate from a few to several hundred rockets still in their launch and boost phases. The defense weapon must not only be fast to intercept the incoming charge but able to do it repeatedly and accurately, switching from one to another of a large number of targets fired at once. This will require the world’s best guidance system.
Charged particles are a form of nuclear weaponry, but without contamination. Practically no mass is released, just energy. It employs the science of magnetohydrodynamics—the flow of high-powered rays generated electrically or from nuclear sources. Very high speed electrical energy can be developed with electrons beamed and released from an electrical container. The method of entrapment and release of the charged particles requires temperatures equivalent to that of the electronic activity on the sun—hundreds of millions of degrees centigrade. Generated here on earth. But the period of time involved is so short—a fearful jolt in a nanosecond—that total power is negligible.
We do not know yet what these weapons will look like. Essentially, they will be huge generators that will form an electronic containment. Various gases would be injected to develop electron flow. Releasing this flow is a very difficult development. And it is in this field that the Russians are using that switching gear—capable of transferring tremendous amounts of power—that they obtained from the United States in one of the technology exports that I deplore.
I’ve always liked to think of this force, lasers or particle weapons, as creating an enormous teepee around our own targets—missile sites, large cities, government seats, for example—a teepee rising from earth above the atmosphere so that nothing can fly through it. Any nuclear bomb aimed toward us would be detonated in space without the resultant fallout in the atmosphere. It takes the atom to defeat the atom. We would need to generate a tremendous amount of power, of course, to erect such a ground-based protection. We are working on it.
The role of satellites operating in space will be vital. Especially important are the navigation satellites fundamental to our guidance of submarine-launched missiles, the Polaris and Trident. They will provide the same accuracy for submarine-launched missiles as for firings from a fixed point on earth. Within just a few years, well before the year 2000, we expect to be able to fix a position any place in the world within ten feet. Both lasers and particle weapons will be a necessary defense of these satellites.
What will be the importance of aircraft in the year 2000? For defense? For commerce?
It may seem traitorous from an aircraft designer, but I see a diminished role for the manned military aircraft and more reliance on remotely piloted vehicles and missiles. When you can put 20Gs of maneuverability in a missile while a man can pull only 9Gs at most—nine times the gravity o
f his own weight; when you can provide a missile with the search capability to find its target; and when television and other relay links from a high-flying U-2 or space satellite can give rapid readout in real time to a man at controls in Washington, why send a man over enemy territory at all?
If we do use manned fighters and bombers against ground targets they darned well better be invisible at any flight altitude because of vulnerability to ground-to-air missiles as well as other fighter aircraft.
“Stealth” is the technology that will change the character of aerial warfare. If the enemy can’t see the aircraft with radar he can’t hit it. The capability of fighters and bombers will be enhanced greatly when the flight crews do not have to worry about ground forces except possibly to destroy them.
“Stealth” technology still is being invented daily. We developed and introduced it on the first Blackbird, and the actual shape of that series of aircraft is fundamental to their reduced radar reflection. Also, 20 percent of the surface of the aircraft is made of “stealthy” material. But those planes still rely on other elements of design to avoid detection—altitude, speed, and electronic jamming capability.
The technology no longer is entirely Lockheed proprietary. This industry is no worse nor better than others in competition for business. The number of unsolicited proposals for which the Skunk Works has been awarded sole-source contracts has aroused a good deal of envy. I’m proud of our record, we’ve earned it. And government policy is to maintain competition among aerospace companies. That is understandable, because it keeps us on our toes to try to stay ahead of the others.
So, despite the strict security imposed by the Skunk Works and the military on its employees, recent retirees from our company and certain key agencies now are enjoying exceptional job opportunities elsewhere in the industry; sometimes with as much as 60 percent more salary, stock options, an automobile, or other bonus, for part-time work as consultants. What do these high-paid retirees have in common? They all worked on “Stealth” technology.