Memoirs of a Rocket Scientist: From Apollo to Space Shuttle to Minuteman to UAV/BPI

Dr. Salita has almost 40 years experience modeling phenomena in and around solid-propellant rockets. He obtained a Bachelor degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 1965, a Master of Science degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Penn State University in 1967, and a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the Guggenheim Labs at New York University in 1971. He worked on the Apollo propulsion systems during summer internships at the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center (now JSC) in 1966 and Langley Research Center in 1967. After working in Gas Turbine research for Pratt & Whitney (1972-1976), he joined Thiokol Corporation as Staff Scientist in Fluid Mechanics (1977-1992). From 1993 to 2008 he was a Senior Scientist at TRW/Northrop Grumman Missile Systems. He has developed the first models for many phenomena, including the operation of gas-bag inflators, O-ring erosion in booster joints, O-ring pressurization and activation, slag accumulation, and mathematical description of the size distribution of aluminum oxide droplets formed from the combustion of aluminized solid propellants. He has chaired JANNAF Workshops in Solid Propellant Ignition (1985), SRM performance (1987), Slag Generation (1994), and Vehicle Staging (2002), and has written numerous papers for AIAA and CPIA. He has been an invited lecturer at AIAA short courses, NASA JPL, NAWC (China Lake), Hill AFB (Ogden, UT), Onera (Paris), the von Karmen Institute (Brussels), the Technion (Haifa), and the Redstone Arsenal (Huntsville). He is the director and clarinetist for the Tempe Wind Quintet, and was still playing vigorous ice hockey at age 71.