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On September 12, 1962 president John F. Kennedy in a speech to a joint session of Congress underscored the excitement so many had of the country's nascent space program when he said: "The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space."
For the nation's big three automakers Kennedy's call to action resonated with a resounding enthusiasm that proved to be the backbone of the country's most successful extraterrestrial accomplishments. From the research that led to earliest Gemini projects, to the Apollo program that put man on the moon and the construction of the state of the art Mission Control Center in Houston, Ford, GM and Chrysler have made vital contributions that made these amazing technological endeavors possible.
Ford began its foray into the space exploration business way back in 1956 when its Aeronutronic division was established - full two years before NASA was created. But its commitment to the space program began in earnest when they acquired electronics pioneer Philco in 1961. It was in 1963 through its Philco arm that Ford was able to win the much sought after project to design NASA's Mission Control Center at the Manned Spacecraft Center.
Completed in 1965, Mission Control (located at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston) played a key role in the Gemini and Apollo manned spacecraft exploration programs, including the historic moon landings. Today Mission Control's role includes the coordination of everything from rocket launch control, planetary vehicle systems, flight dynamics, life systems, flight crew activities, recovery support and ground network operations. In addition, Mission Control houses several Flight Control Rooms, from which flight controllers coordinate and monitor the spaceflights.
Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas
Over the years, Ford Aerospace continued to provide the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA with satellite control systems and ground terminals, which are the basic communication links for space missions. In 1976, it was awarded a $235 million contract to build seven satellites for a 95-nation satellite organization. Many live television transmissions between continents, and many telephone calls, are relayed today via these satellites.
By 1986, Ford Aerospace & Communications Corporation was an international leader in satellite communications, high-speed information systems, and communications and environmental satellites. In October 1990, what was then known as Ford Aerospace, was sold to Loral Corporation, ending the company's involvement in space technology.
General Motors has also made important contributions to U.S. space exploration. The company's Space and Communications Group built the world's first geosynchronous communications satellite, Syncom, in 1963 and followed it with the first geosynchronous weather satellite, ATS-1, in 1966.
Later that year the GM designed Surveyor 1 made the first soft landing on the Moon as part of the lead-up to the moon landings of Project Apollo. The Space and Communications Group also built Pioneer Venus in 1978, which performed the first extensive radar mapping of Venus, and the Galileo probe that flew to Jupiter in the 1990s. The company built nearly 40 percent of commercial satellites in service worldwide by 2000.
Today GM continues to support the space program primarily through funding efforts. For instance, the company is a major supporter of a new program established at Purdue University whose aim it is to improve the NASA Moon Rocket Engine. With the help of donors like GM, Purdue engineers are conducting experiments using a new hydrogen facility to help NASA create designs to improve the cooling efficiency and performance of the J-2X rocket engine critical for future missions to Mars and the moon.
Despite being known as the little brother of the big three Detroit automakers, Chrysler had proved time and again it was up to the design tasks the space program demanded. Of its many successes in celestial endeavors three of these are most lauded - the Redstone Rocket, the Saturn I and Saturn IB ventures.
Saturn I Launch
As the cold war heated up in the mid-fifties, President Dwight Eisenhower and others in Washington were looking long and hard for a manufacturer to tool a design of a delivery system capable of carrying a warhead that would reach the Soviet Union in the event of increased hostilities between the two superpowers.
Chrysler's Space Division answered the call with the development of the Redstone Rocket. By all measures the quality of the Redstone was outstanding, earning its nickname as "Old Reliable" and the "Army Workhorse." In fact, of the 20 launches the Redstone Rocket attempted in the late 50's and early 60's all performed flawlessly.
Two of these more memorable missions took place in 1960 when in March the Chrysler-built Redstone transmitted the first picture-taking TV station into space. It was so advanced that Chrysler's aerodynamic TV station zeroed in images of the Redstone warhead hitting the target. In December of the same year, an unmanned Mercury spacecraft was successfully launched on the first sub-orbital flight test of a Chrysler-built Redstone booster.
1958 Redstone
A milestone date in the storied history of the Space Division occurred on May 25, 1965. In a rare nighttime firing at Cape Kennedy, the first Chrysler-built Saturn I booster successfully launched a payload which placed a Pegasus Meteoroid Detection Satellite in earth orbit to gather and transmit scientific data for the used in the Apollo program. The 2:30 a.m. liftoff could be seen over 130 miles away.
The NASA/Chrysler partnership would last well into the 1970s. In 1971, Chrysler prepared a Saturn 1B launch vehicle that would serve to lift NASA's 58-foot-long laboratory into orbit around Earth, and another that would carry three astronauts on a mission to rendezvous with Skylab in 1973. The 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission would be the Chrysler Space Division's final rocket launch. During this project, another Saturn 1B carried three American astronauts in an Apollo spacecraft, eventually meeting up with a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in Earth orbit.
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