Abe Silverstein Leads Tour of the 10- by 10-Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel

Abe Silverstein, Associate Director of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory, provides a personal tour of the new 10- by 10-Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel for US Senator George Bender (hat in hand) and General Lemuel Shepherd. Shepherd was Commandant of the Marine Corps and had served in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. The general was accompanied by Admiral Herbert Leary, in dark uniform. Bender was a Republican Senator from Ohio. Behind Bender is President of the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce Curtis Smith. NACA Lewis managers Eugene Manganiello and Wilson Hunter assist with the tour. Abe Silverstein oversaw all research at the laboratory. Upon taking his post in 1952 he reorganized the research staff and began shifting the focus away from airbreathing aircraft engines to new fields such as high energy fuels, electric propulsion, and nuclear power and propulsion. He was an early advocate of the NACA’s involvement in the space program and crucial to the founding of National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1958. Silverstein began his career helping design and conduct research in the Full Scale Tunnel in 1929 at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory. In 1943 he transferred to the Cleveland laboratory to oversee the new Altitude Wind Tunnel which tested many of the nation’s early jet engines. Silverstein advocated a series of increasingly large supersonic wind tunnels after the war, culminating in the 10- by 10. In early 1958 Silverstein was transferred to NACA Headquarters to help formulate the new space agency. He directed mission planning, spacecraft design, launch operations, manned space missions, and unmanned probes. In 1961 Silverstein returned to Cleveland to serve as director of the laboratory for eight years prior to his retirement in 1969.