During its maiden voyage in May 1962, a Centaur upper stage rocket,
mated to an Atlas booster, exploded 54 seconds after launch,
engulfing the rocket in a huge fireball. Investigation revealed
that Centaur's light, stainless-steel tank had split open, spilling
its liquid-hydrogen fuel down its sides, where the flame of the
rocket exhaust immediately ignited it. Coming less than a year
after President Kennedy had made landing human beings on the Moon a
national priority, the loss of Centaur was regarded as a serious
setback for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA). During the failure investigation, Homer Newell, Director of
Space Sciences, ruefully declared: "Taming liquid hydrogen to the
point where expensive operational space missions can be committed
to it has turned out to be more difficult than anyone supposed at
the outset." .After this failure, Centaur critics, led by Wernher
von Braun, mounted a campaign to cancel the program. In addition to
the unknowns associated with liquid hydrogen, he objected to the
unusual design of Centaur. Like the Atlas rocket, Centaur depended
on pressure to keep its paper thin, stainless-steel shell from
collapsing. It was literally inflated with its propellants like a
football or balloon and needed no internal structure to give it
added strength and stability. The so-called "pressure-stabilized
structure" of Centaur, coupled with the light weight of its
high-energy cryogenic propellants, made Centaur lighter and more
powerful than upper stages that used conventional fuel. But, the
critics argued, it would never become the reliable rocket that the
United States needed. Others, especially military proponents of
Centaur, believed that accepting the challenge of developing
liquid-hydrogen technology was an important risk to take. Despite
criticism and early technical failures, the taming of liquid
hydrogen proved to be one of NASA's most significant technical
accomplishments. Centaur not only succeeded in demonstrating the
feasibility of liquid hydrogen as a rocket fuel, but it also went
on to a brilliant career as an upper stage for a series of
spectacular planetary missions in the 1970s. Ironically, this
success did little to ensure the future of the Centaur rocket. Once
the Shuttle became operational in the early 1980s, all expendable
launch vehicles like Centaur were slated for termination. Centaur
advocates fought to keep the program alive.
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