Robert Truax was one of the great originals of American rocketry and a major proponent and inventor of ultra-low-cost rocket engine and vehicle concepts.
Scope and Contents:
This collection consists of material relating to the career of Robert Collins Truax including correspondence, photographic material, technical drawings, technical manuals and reports, presentation and conference materials, papers by Truax, news clippings, published materials and business records for Truax Engineering, Inc.
Projects and programs referenced in this collection include the Knievel Rocket Car (Truax X-2 Sky-Cycle); X-3 Volksrocket; amphibious launchers, including the "Sea Dragon," "Sea Horse," and SEALAR (Sea Launched Rocket); the Space Shuttle program; the Gemini and Apollo programs; Rocketdyne LR89 Liquid-Fuel Motors; Rand Project; the Corona Reconnaissance Satellite; and Project Private Enterprise.
The researcher should note that the collection also contains audio-visual material. These items are not included in the finding aid but the NASM audio-visual archivist can assist you regarding access.
Arrangement:
This collection was arranged into series by the processing archivist. There was no original order when the collection was received.
Series 1: Personal & Business Papers
Series 2: Papers Authored by R.C. Truax
Series 3: Drawings
Series 4: Images
4:1 - Slides
4:2 - Photos, Negatives & Floppy Discs
Acronyms:
Numerous acronyms were used by the creator when labeling his file units. Some will be obvious to the researcher but the archivist has identified some acronyms that might be more unclear. Not all acronyms were able to be identified.
AFRL - Air Force Research Lab
ATD - Advanced Technology Development
BAA - possibly Broad Agency Announcement
BMDO - Ballistic Missile Defense Organization
CDRL - Contract Data Requirements List?
CPAI - Chemical Propulsion Information Agency
ITAR - International Traffic in Arms Regulations
KACST - King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology
MSFC - Marshall Space Flight Center
PMRF - Pacific Missile Range Facility
RSLP - Rocket Systems Launch Program
SEALAR - Sea Launch & Recovery
TEI - Truax Engineering Inc.
TPIPT - Technology Planning Integrated Product Teams
Biographical / Historical:
Robert Truax (1917-2010) was one of the great originals of American rocketry and a major proponent and inventor of ultra-low-cost rocket engine and vehicle concepts. A longtime member of the American Rocket Society (serving as its president in 1957,) He received the Robert H. Goddard award for outstanding work in liquid propellant rockets as well as the Legion of Merit citation for his conceptual work on making the "Polaris" guided-missile submarine a primary naval weapon. Truax was also inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame in 2003.
Inspired by Robert Goddard, Truax began building rockets when he was a teenager in California. From 1936 to 1939, while enrolled at the United States Naval Academy, he tested liquid-fueled rocket motors. During the late 1940s, he organized the US Naval Missile Test Center's propulsion laboratory at Point Mugu, California, and headed rocket development within the Navy's Bureau of Aeronotics where he advanced the concept of a staged combustion system upon which the Space Shuttle's main engines would eventually rely. In 1946, Truax led a team that interrogated the rocket engineer for Nazi Germany, Wernher von Braun.
By 1955, however, his proposal for a submarine-launched ballistic missile had failed to win Navy approval and he joined the Air Force's newly established Western Development Division (WDD) From 1955 to 1958, Captain Truax headed the Thor intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) development program. Truax studied the sea launching of rockets, such as the Sea Bee and Sea Horse projects. In 1959 he retired as a Captain, and headed the Aerojet-General Advanced Development Division and Aerojet's Sea Dragon project in the Advanced Development Division until leaving in 1967. In 1966 Robert Truax founded Truax Engineering Inc. (TEI,) which studied sea launch concepts similar to the earlier Sea Dragon—the Excalibur, the SEALAR (Sea Launched Rocket,) and the Excalibur S. Here his low-cost booster program plan was elaborated and further studied, but he was again unable to interest NASA or the USAF in the concept of cheap access to space.
In the 70's and early 80's, Truax, heretofore prominent in scientific communities, emerged in popular culture. Literally building rockets from his own backyard in Saratoga, Truax built both of Evel Knievel's "Skycycles" for his 1974 for attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon. He later competed in the original X-prize competition to send a private astronaut into suborbital flight.
Robert Truax, died on September 17 aged 93, as a key figure in the rocket research that took America into the space age, while also being an inspiration to the do-it-yourself, back-yard amateur.
This collection contains numerous articles and papers on rocketry, as well as drawings and photographs of rockets and rocket systems. The material was collected by Sutton in the course of this work.
Biographical / Historical:
George Paul Sutton (1920- ) was an aerospace engineer and manager. He received degrees from Los Angeles City College (AA, 1940) and the California Institute of Technology (BS, 1942; MS (ME), 1943) before going to work as a development engineer for the Rocketdyne Division of North American Aviation [now Rockwell International]. He remained at Rocketdyne into the late 1960s, while also sitting as Hunsaker Professor of Aeronautical Engineering at MIT (1958-59) and serving as Chief Scientist, Advanced Research Projects Agency and Division Director, Institute of Defense Analysis for the Department of Defense (1959-60). Following his work at Rocketdyne he joined the technical staff at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
General:
NASMrev
Provenance:
No donor information, gift, unknown, XXXX-0009, unknown
Restrictions:
No restrictions on access
Rights:
Material is subject to Smithsonian Terms of Use. Should you wish to use NASM material in any medium, please submit an Application for Permission to Reproduce NASM Material, available at Permissions Requests
