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The Viking rocket series of sounding rockets were designed and built by the Glenn L. Martin Company (now Lockheed-Martin) under the direction of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). Twelve Viking rockets flew from 1949 to 1955.〔"The Viking Rocket Story", by Milton W. Rosen, Harper & Brothers, NY, 1955. Rosen, the NRL project manager for ''Viking'', describes the project's context, history, design, and includes chapters on all flights through Viking 11, with an outline of basic design issues for large liquid rockets, together with much interesting detail about the countless problems that inevitably arose in such an ambitious and innovative program.〕 == Origins== After World War II, the United States experimented with captured German V-2 rockets as part of the Hermes project. Based on these experiments the U.S. decided in 1946 to develop its own large liquid-fueled rocket design, to be called ''Neptune'' but changed to ''Viking.'' The intent was both to provide an independent U.S. capability in rocketry, to continue the Hermes project after the V-2's were expended, and to provide a vehicle better suited to scientific research. The Navy, in particular, needed a vehicle to study the atmosphere and learn how to predict bad weather which would affect the fleet. The V-2 would tumble in the rare atmosphere at high altitudes. Having been designed as a weapon, the V-2 carried a large payload, approximately one ton of high explosive. This was more than was considered necessary for the scientific instrument payload of a high-altitude research rocket, but in the case of the V-2, used for research, most of the payload was lead ballast required for stable flight,〔"Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel", by Willey Ley, 3rd Edition, Viking Press, New York, 1951, p. 250ff.〕 limiting the potential speed and altitude that could be reached with the smaller payloads typically needed for early scientific investigations. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), partly at the instigation of the American Rocket Society (ARS), chose to build the advanced sounding rocket. Milton Rosen, head of the Viking project, credits rocket pioneer Robert Goddard, the ARS, the California Institute of Technology and the V-2 for the "profound influence" they had on the design of the rocket.〔Rosen, p. 28〕 The Viking was the most advanced, large, liquid-fueled rocket being developed in the U.S. at the time.〔"History of Rocketry & Space Travel," revised edition, Wernher von Braun and Frederick I. Ordway III, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York, 1969, p. 151〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Viking (rocket)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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