Replies

"As I said before, he had the patent on the 3,4 and 5 stages. I know nothing of propellant or fuel. I do know he had over 150 patents. All for propellants or fuels or whatever. This was documented. The obituary I have from the Sacramento Bee says: "After emigrating to the United States, the Austrian-born chemist became a world-renowned pioneer in rocket propellants, inventing key ingredients to fuel the Polaris, Minuteman, Titan, Gemini, and Apollo engines and achieving most of those breakthroughs at Aerojet in Rancho Cordova."

The obit is simply wrong, and/or the obit writer is sorely confused. Polaris and Minuteman used solids. All of the others used conventional liquid fuels. No 'fuels' had to be 'invented' to run any of NASA's spacecraft. Kerosene, liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen, various nitric acids, such as nitrogen tetroxide, Red Fuming Nitric Acid, Inhibited Red Fuming Nitric Acid. Various versions of hydrazine such as UDMH, MMH, etc. Maybe this guy invented "Aerozine 50"--a mix of UDMH and hydrazine (as I recall). It is no longer in use.

--Boris

Ya didn't read the links did you? Dr. Klager was part of the German contingent that was working on liquid fuels at the end of WWII. He had 16 patents in Germany alone. I'm sure they were all for liquid fuels.

At Aerojet, he used a cast, case bonded polyether-polyester-polyurethane composit with 15 percent aluminum and anunonium (whatever the heck that is) perchlorate.

I know it is unusual for someone to work in both liquid and solid but I assure you he did and if you just researched it you would find that.

"Karl Klager, who is credited with the development of HTPB, was asked how he came to develop this low-cost, low-viscosity propellant that has become an industry standard. He said only that he started development in 1961 but waited until 1969 to propose the propellant to NASA for the Astrobee D and Astrobee F sounding rockets on which it flew successfully. Perhaps, however, Klager's response regarding how he came to discover unsynumetrical dimethythydrazine (UDMH)(whidh is a liquid propellant used on the Bomarc missile, Titan 2 missile, Titan 3 and Titan 4 rockets, and other missiles and rockets) applies equally to HTPB. Klager said that he simply brought his knowledge of the science of chemistry to bear on the need for a propellant. He had earned a PH.D. in chemistry from the University of Vienna in 1934 and had worked for several chemical firms in 1931 to 1948 before moving to the United States and starting work for Aerojet in 1950."

J D Hunley
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center
Edwards, California