Talk:Martin Summerfield

Encyclopedia Astronautica reference questionable

The Martin Summerfield biography referenced from astronautix.com contains a great deal of misinformation crediting Summerfield with developments first made by engineers at other companies. This includes regenerative cooling which was demonstrated by James Hart Wyld in 1938 and which was the basis of Reaction Motors, Inc business model when it was founded in 1941. The biography also incorrectly states the date of the founding of Aerojet which was in March 1942, not 1943. It also incorrectly credits von Braun and Sanger for early rocket engine advances in Germany that first went beyond the work of Goddard when in fact the leading developer of liquid rocket engines in Germany at the time was Hellmuth Walter. (http://www.walterwerke.co.uk/ato/500.htm) In short, the bulk of "information" and the descriptions of the significance of Martin Summerfield's work given in the astronautix.com reference are inaccurate. Summerfield's work at Caltech was primarily significant for the introduction and development of hypergolic storable liquid bipropellants, initially nitric acid and aniline. (Sailors, Scientists, and Rockets. Origins of the Navy Rocket Program and of the Naval Ordnance Test Station, Inyokern, by Albert B. Christman, part of a series of books on Caltech rocket programs from the Caltech bookstore) The storable hypergolic liquid propellants and some important advances in solid propellants were key to the founding of Aerojet. Strangely, while astronautix.com gives Summerfield credit for things he was not responsible for, they have claimed German programs were responsible for our choice of hypergolic liquid propellants for missiles developed after the war---a field that has been dominated by Aerojet in the U.S. since its founding in 1942. Encyclpedia Astronautica has a lot of good information not easily found elsewhere and Martin Summerfield was an important contributor to modern rocketry, but this is just not a good reference. I believe the astronautix.com reference and the information taken from it should be dropped regardless of whether the creative history writing comes from Summerfields over-reached self-promotion or an agenda on the part of a contributor at astronautix.com. Garbage in, garbage out. Magneticlifeform (talk) 06:50, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

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