First Quarterly Report Appendix II World-Circling Space Ship*

Project RAND. (1) First quarterly report: World-circling space ship. RA-15001. Appendix II. Copy no. 67. 15pp. [Santa Monica:] Douglas Aircraft Company, June 1946. Mimeographed distribution list (6ff.) laid in. (2) Second quarterly report. RA-15004. Copy no. 115. 75pp. [Santa Monica:] Douglas Aircraft Company, September 1, 1946. (3) Third quarterly report. RA-15012. Copy no. 97. 34, 122pp. [Santa Monica:] Douglas Aircraft Company, December 1, 1946. (4) Whipple, Fred L. (1906-2004). Possible hazards to a satellite vehicle from meteorites. 61-68pp. [Santa Monica:] Douglas Aircraft Company, September 1, 1946. (5) Serber, Robert (1909-97). The use of atomic power for rockets. 69-70pp. [Santa Monica:] Douglas Aircraft Company, September 1, 1946. Together 5 items, in the original printed soft covers; boxed. 281 x 218 mm. A few minor chips and tears, but very good. From the library of Theodore von Kármán (1881-1963), with his characteristic docketing on the front covers of nos. (1) and (2) and his name inscribed in a secretarial hand on the same covers.

First Editions. Project RAND (now the RAND Corporation), a private think tank providing research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces, began operations in December 1945 as a subsidiary of the Douglas Aircraft Company. Project RAND's first task was to investigate the feasibility of Earth-orbiting space satellites, and in May 1946 it issued its first report on the subject, Preliminary Design of an Experimental World-Circling Spaceship. This was a mimeographed typescript document likely not intended for wide distribution, and we have never seen or heard of a copy for sale.

Project RAND followed its Preliminary Design with more satellite studies, published in four Quarterly Reports issued between June 1946 and March 1947. The reports, all marked "Secret," evaluated various possible rocket configurations and propellants needed to launch a satellite into orbit, favoring "a three-stage rocket using hydrazine and oxygen, with an initial mass of 38,600 kilograms and an orbit altitude of 648 kilometers" (J. Sloop, Liquid Hydrogen as a Propulsion Fuel, p. 42). Project RAND's initial satellite study ended in April 1947; although it bore no immediate fruit, it paved the way for RAND's further work on long-range rockets and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

We are offering the second and third of Project RAND's quarterly reports here (nos. [2] and [3] above), together with two offprints from the second report (nos. [4] and [5]), and Appendix II to the first quarterly report (no. [1]), which summarizes the earlier Preliminary Design. The distribution list laid into Appendix II indicates that only 208 copies of the quarterly reports were printed. The copies offered here are from the library of aviation and aerospace pioneer Theodore von Karman. (offered with 48408, 48409, 48410, 48411)