Blue Streak

Just finished reading "De Havilland Blue Streak", by Charles H. Martin,
published by the BIS (recently, I think, although it carries a 2002
copyright date). Blue Streak was Britain's IRBM, canceled as a missile
before first flight, but reincarnated as the first stage of the ill-fated
Europa launcher.

Although Europa was plagued by upper-stage problems, never reached orbit,
and ended up canceled, Blue Streak's record was excellent -- 11 flights,
all successful with the borderline exception of the first (which pretty
much met its test objectives, but would have been a failure if it had been
carrying upper stages, because the autopilot lost control about ten
seconds before planned engine cutoff due to a LOX slosh problem).

The author was one of the Blue Streak engineers, and it shows. Coverage
of the program history is weak -- see Nicholas Hill's "A Vertical Empire"
for a better view of that -- but there is a lot of technical detail, and
perhaps half the book is photographs and diagrams (including some very
detailed plumbing diagrams that practically have to be read with a
magnifying glass!). The one major omission is the engines proper, which
are described only very briefly. This is unfortunate, especially since
Martin alludes to a privately-published book by Ray Hancock (of the engine
team) which could presumably provide suitable material. That aside, the
book is hard to beat as an illustrated technical description of Blue
Streak and its supporting facilities.

As a technical *history*, though, the book rather falls flat.

For one thing, it has a failing shared by a lot of such histories: there
is a lot of description of how things worked, but very little discussion
of *why* those approaches were chosen. For example, Blue Streak's odd
tank configuration -- oxidizer tank an Atlas-style balloon tank, but fuel
tank reinforced to be self-supporting -- is described, diagrammed, and
photographed, but one looks in vain for a discussion of why it was done
that way. One of the most valuable things a participant's history can do
is to describe the rationale behind the design, and assess how well the
decisions hold up in hindsight. The design rationale seldom gets written
down very well, let alone published and evaluated, so any attempt to do
this is valuable. Alas, Martin doesn't try.

Similarly, a discussion of what problems were encountered and how they
were solved is of great interest, and a participant has a much easier time
putting such a thing together, because he already knows the big picture.
But there is oddly little here along those lines. A look at the Table of
Contents reveals a "Static Firings and Flight Trials" chapter 50+ pages
long... but it's almost all photographs and drawings, with only about four
pages of text, and most of that descriptions of facilities. The only
actual description of Blue Streak's firing and flight history is a table
with terse, sometimes somewhat mysterious, comments on some of the lines.
Hill's description of the flight history is actually considerably better.
For a book written by someone who was there, who could speak from
firsthand knowledge about what went wrong and how it was handled, this is
really disappointing.

Bottom line: the book is well worth having if you're a rocket engineer
wanting to study how one of the early big rockets worked, or if you're a
space historian who would would value a collection of photographs and
documents on Blue Streak as a *supplementary* source. If what you want is
a history of Blue Streak, though, buy Hill's book first.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

Why, thank you for that, Henry. [form a queue for signed copies.]

I knew Chartles fairly well: I suppose we met about six or seven years
ago. Sadly, he died about a year ago during a trip to China, and his
widow finished the book off. It was almost complete by then.

I think Charles came into the programme at about the time it moved from
military to civil, and that shows in the book. It seems to have sprung
fully fledged from nowhere. The vehicle was built by de Havilland, but
the motors and engine bay came from Rolls Royce - which is probably why
there was a good deal less on that.

Charles and I often disagreed about what might be called policy. One of
the things that I discovered early on whilst researching the book was
that the engineers in the firms had no real idea of why the Government
was doing whatever it was doing, and were baffled by a lot of the
decisions.

'But we made them a super rocket!' 'Yes, but they didn't want a
rocket.' 'Why not? It was a jolly good rocket.'

That might be something of a caricature, but not too far off.

I gave a talk after having visited the ELDO archives in Florence, and
we almost ended up arguing. 'I don't remember it being like that.' 'But
that's what the documents say.'

Having said all that, as Henry points out, it has soon excellent
pictures and illustrations. It also gives something of a feel for what
it must have been like to work on a project like that. Too often we
treat these things as rather abstract entities, forgetting that they
involved a lot of work by a lot of people. If you can get a copy, do.
It's worth it.

Nicholas Hill.


Henry Spencer wrote:
Just finished reading "De Havilland Blue Streak", by Charles H.
Martin,
published by the BIS (recently, I think, although it carries a 2002
copyright date). Blue Streak was Britain's IRBM, canceled as a
missile
before first flight, but reincarnated as the first stage of the
ill-fated
Europa launcher.

Although Europa was plagued by upper-stage problems, never reached
orbit,
and ended up canceled, Blue Streak's record was excellent -- 11
flights,
all successful with the borderline exception of the first (which
pretty
much met its test objectives, but would have been a failure if it had
been
carrying upper stages, because the autopilot lost control about ten
seconds before planned engine cutoff due to a LOX slosh problem).

The author was one of the Blue Streak engineers, and it shows.
Coverage
of the program history is weak -- see Nicholas Hill's "A Vertical
Empire"
for a better view of that -- but there is a lot of technical detail,
and
perhaps half the book is photographs and diagrams (including some
very
detailed plumbing diagrams that practically have to be read with a
magnifying glass!). The one major omission is the engines proper,
which
are described only very briefly. This is unfortunate, especially
since
Martin alludes to a privately-published book by Ray Hancock (of the
engine
team) which could presumably provide suitable material. That aside,
the
book is hard to beat as an illustrated technical description of Blue
Streak and its supporting facilities.

As a technical *history*, though, the book rather falls flat.

For one thing, it has a failing shared by a lot of such histories:
there
is a lot of description of how things worked, but very little
discussion
of *why* those approaches were chosen. For example, Blue Streak's
odd
tank configuration -- oxidizer tank an Atlas-style balloon tank, but
fuel
tank reinforced to be self-supporting -- is described, diagrammed,
and
photographed, but one looks in vain for a discussion of why it was
done
that way. One of the most valuable things a participant's history
can do
is to describe the rationale behind the design, and assess how well
the
decisions hold up in hindsight. The design rationale seldom gets
written
down very well, let alone published and evaluated, so any attempt to
do
this is valuable. Alas, Martin doesn't try.

Similarly, a discussion of what problems were encountered and how
they
were solved is of great interest, and a participant has a much easier
time
putting such a thing together, because he already knows the big
picture.
But there is oddly little here along those lines. A look at the
Table of
Contents reveals a "Static Firings and Flight Trials" chapter 50+
pages
long... but it's almost all photographs and drawings, with only about
four
pages of text, and most of that descriptions of facilities. The only
actual description of Blue Streak's firing and flight history is a
table
with terse, sometimes somewhat mysterious, comments on some of the
lines.
Hill's description of the flight history is actually considerably
better.
For a book written by someone who was there, who could speak from
firsthand knowledge about what went wrong and how it was handled,
this is
really disappointing.

Bottom line: the book is well worth having if you're a rocket
engineer
wanting to study how one of the early big rockets worked, or if
you're a
space historian who would would value a collection of photographs and
documents on Blue Streak as a *supplementary* source. If what you
want is
a history of Blue Streak, though, buy Hill's book first.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry
Spencer
-- George Herbert |

Henry Spencer wrote:

For example, Blue Streak's odd
tank configuration -- oxidizer tank an Atlas-style balloon tank, but fuel
tank reinforced to be self-supporting -- is described, diagrammed, and
photographed, but one looks in vain for a discussion of why it was done
that way.


That explains it! I've always wondered why the exterior of the first stage looked so odd:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...luestreak4.jpg
Was the intention to keep the kerosene on board at all times when the missile was deployed, with the missile stored horizontally? If that were the case, the kerosene tankage would need a fair amount of structural strength. You'd fill up the LOX tank after it was elevated, and it wouldn't need as much strength. Atlas had both its propellants put on board just before launch and after it was elevated (in the case of the "coffin" deployment method) to the launch position, didn't it?

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:


That explains it! I've always wondered why the exterior of the first
stage looked so odd:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...luestreak4.jpg

I thought about this some more, and I think I've figured it out. The
tankage for the LOX storage tank is different out of necessity.
Here's why: if you look at the photo of the vehicle, you'll note that
the missile's body with the exception of the LOX area uses _external
ribs_ for strengthening (looks kind of like the rocket equivalent of the
JU-52 or Ford Trimoter), the ribs will work fine in areas of the rocket
where both the ribs and underlying skin maintain the same temperature,
but in the case of the LOX tank, the ribs are going to stick out from
the rocket's body like cooling fins on a motor cylinder- when you tank
it up with LOX , the ribs are going to be slower to cool than the
underlying skin, as they are primarily surrounded by air and can only
cool by conductivity through the part that is welded to the LOX tank
skin; this means they won't contract at the same rate as the underlying
skin, and will either distort themselves or tear the underlying skin
apart as it contracts and tears free of them.
It would have made more sense to put them internally, which would have
cut down the vehicle's drag during ascent, eliminated the differential
cooling problem in the LOX tank area, and allowed them to work as
anti-vortex baffles inside the propellant tanks to aid in smooth
propellant flow.
Have there been cases of "bathtub drain" vortices forming in rocket
propellant tanks during flight? The cylindrical shape of the tankage
would aid in their formation, particularly if the rocket rolled on its
axis during ascent, and given its high propellant feed rate.

Pat

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...
Have there been cases of "bathtub drain" vortices forming in rocket
propellant tanks during flight? The cylindrical shape of the tankage
would aid in their formation, particularly if the rocket rolled on its
axis during ascent, and given its high propellant feed rate.

Since the Blue Streak was designed in the Northern Hemisphere but tested in
the Southern, the design and actual vortices would cancel each other out and
none would form.

..
..
..

Possibly.

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
Was the intention to keep the kerosene on board at all times when the
missile was deployed, with the missile stored horizontally?

No, the planned Blue Streak deployment was in vertical silos, with the
missile climbing out under its own power. (This scheme appears to have
been devised well before the US ICBM builders started thinking in similar
terms, and there may have been some flow of silo technology west across
the Atlantic in return for the engine and structure technology that went
east for Blue Streak.) Neither propellant was stored on board.

At least, that was the *final* version. It's just possible that ideas may
have differed early on.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:
but in the case of the LOX tank, the ribs are going to stick out from
the rocket's body like cooling fins on a motor cylinder- when you tank
it up with LOX , the ribs are going to be slower to cool than the
underlying skin, as they are primarily surrounded by air and can only
cool by conductivity through the part that is welded to the LOX tank
skin...

However, I would think that said conductive cooling is likely to be pretty
effective, with a cryogenic fluid just the other side of the skin...

It would have made more sense to put them internally, which would have
cut down the vehicle's drag during ascent, eliminated the differential
cooling problem in the LOX tank area...

Manufacturing would have been significantly more difficult, though,
especially given the need to rigorously exclude dirt and contaminants of
all kinds from areas exposed to LOX.

and allowed them to work as
anti-vortex baffles inside the propellant tanks...

Not well, though. Vortex baffles want to be in the middle, not on the
walls.

Have there been cases of "bathtub drain" vortices forming in rocket
propellant tanks during flight?

Yes, and it's fairly routine to put a vortex baffle at the tank outlet.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 14:10:55 +0800, "Neil Gerace"
wrote:

Since the Blue Streak was designed in the Northern Hemisphere but tested in
the Southern, the design and actual vortices would cancel each other out and
none would form.

....Dammit, he beat me to it :-(

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

The stringers.

They were there mainly as belts and braces to stiffen the structure.
The idea was that if for any reason the kerosene tank had to be drained
with the LOX still in place, then the missile would still be
structurally safe [the missile was intended to be silo based].

In practice they did seem to be redundant, but as far as I know, no one
ever bothered to do any subsequent investigation as to whether they
were still necessary.

There were 48 of them: what that came to in terms of weight I have no
idea.

Only Blue Streak and Atlas ever used the stainless steel balloon
concept. Structurally, they were both very efficient. Ayone any idea
why it was never used again [except that von Braun didn't like it]?

The other feature that gives Blue Streak its distinctive appearance was
the engine bay, which was narrower than the tank (9ft vs 10 ft), with
two large panniers. These held nitrogen to pressurise the kerosene
tank. The lox tank was pressurised by oxygen obtained from the lox via
a heat exchanger.

Nicholas Hill

OM wrote:
On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 14:10:55 +0800, "Neil Gerace"
wrote:

Since the Blue Streak was designed in the Northern Hemisphere but
tested in
the Southern, the design and actual vortices would cancel each other
out and
none would form.

...Dammit, he beat me to it :-(

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

Henry is, of course, right again!

The intention was always to launch Blue Streak from underground;
trouble was, no one knew how. The launcher design ['silo' was not then
in use] evolved from research at the Rocket Propulsion Establishment at
Westcott, in Buckinghamshire. Scans from the architect's drawings can
be found on my website.

After cancellation, a lot of this was passed to the US: Similarities
with the Titan II silo are obvious. Both have a hexagonal cross section
tube with acoustic linings. Titan II was suspended on springs; I think
a hydraulic system was proposed for Blue Streak. The major difference
was that the Blue Streak design was a U tube; Titan II a Y shape.
Westcott did a lot of studies on the gas flow, and again you can see
the carry over from one design to the other.

A chap called Barrie Ricketson was in charge of the work: he is still
around. He went over to the US after cancellation for a debrief, and
later, to watch an in silo launch. His publications on the launcher are
available in the National Archives [new fancy name for the Public
Record Office].

Nicholas