Revolutionary Atmosphere: The Story Of The Altitude Wind Tunnel And The Space Power Chambers (Nasa Sp-2010-4319)

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A massive, but little-known, facility in Cleveland, Ohio, played a vital role in the U.S. development of jets, in the training of NASA’s first astronauts, and in making NASA’s first missions beyond Earth orbit possible. Revolutionary Atmosphere tells the story of this obscure giant. Starting life in 1944 as the Altitude Wind Tunnel, it was the first wind tunnel that could study aircraft engines under realistic flight conditions; and it was enormous—in its original configuration, it could even accommodate full-size aircraft. The tunnel could not only simulate the high speeds of jet aircraft, like other wind tunnels, but could simulate the pressures and temperatures of higher elevation flight. Creating the frigid temperatures required the world’s largest refrigeration system, which the Carrier Corporation designed with innovative accordion-like cooling coils. At the military’s request, nearly every type of aircraft engine was tested in the Altitude Wind Tunnel during the 1940s and 1950s. In the late 1950s, when the flight of Sputnik I spurred the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to become the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and change its primary mission to aerospace, the facility changed too.

The tunnel was divided into two sealed vacuum chambers, with one chamber completely rewelded to withstand the higher pressures of simulating the vacuum of space. A liquid-nitrogen cold wall was added to simulate the extreme cold of space, and special lamps were added to simulate the intense heat and light of solar radiation outside of Earth’s atmosphere. It was renamed the Space Power Chambers and began its second life as two gigantic environmental chambers, or space tanks.After the mid-1970s the facility was no longer used to simulate the environments of space or the upper atmosphere. Parts of it were used for storage, a shop area was used to test electric automobiles, and the Exhauster Building (which had created the vacuum environment for the facility) had a lengthy second career as a visitor center. In 2005 NASA decided to tear the facility down rather than continue the expense of maintaining it. The Altitude Wind Tunnel/Space Power Chambers’ 65-year history came to an end in 2009 as its last pieces were dismantled and hauled away.

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