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Abe Silverstein


When Terre Haute native Abe Silverstein received the prestigious
Guggenheim Medal for "significant contributions to the advancement of
flight" on Aug. 14, 1997, at a special ceremony in Cleveland, he joined
an elite group.Orville Wright, William Boeing, James S. McDonnell,
Donald Douglas, Charles Lindbergh and Jimmy Doolittle are among the
select recipients of the celebrated international award. Joe and Eva
Silverstein's son was a student-athlete and debater at Wiley High
School, graduating in 1925. Upon securing a mechanical engineering
degree from Rose Poly in 1929, he was employed as an aerodynamicist at
the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Langley Field
Research Center to work on the world's first full-scale altitude wind
tunnel.

Relocating to Cleveland in 1943, Silverstein headed research at a new
supersonic altitude wind tunnel later named in his honor. Tests he
supervised led to high speed performances by World War II combat
aircraft. Beginning in 1949 he directed research at Lewis Flight
Propulsion Laboratory, devising supersonic engines and analyzing rocket
fuels. He concluded that liquid hydrogen (LH 2 ) combined with liquid
oxygen was the ideal propellant.

When the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) supplanted
NACA in 1958, Silverstein structured the new agency and administered its
Office of Space Flight Programs, supervising the unmanned Mercury
program. He christened the Apollo program, laying a foundation for
manned flights to the moon, and named, located and became the first
acting director of Goddard Space Flight Center.

In 1959 he convinced NASA's seven-man Saturn Vehicle Team - later known
as "The Silverstein Committee" - that LH 2 would be effective at high
thrust levels, surmounting resistance by esteemed rocket expert Wernher
von Braun. Consistent with Abe's forecast, LH 2 became the Centaur
launch vehicle's chief fuel. He ultimately directed the Centaur
pro-gram, which was responsible for missions which sent Surveyor to the
moon, Viking to Mars and Voyager to Uranus and Neptune.

Rejecting a chance to head the Apollo program to avoid a conflict with
von Braun, who would have been his subordinate, Silverstein returned to
Cleveland in 1961 as director of Lewis Research Center's massive
expansion. He earned the coveted Sylvanus A. Reed Award in 1964, the
Louis W. Hill Space Transportation Award in 1967 and high praise from
von Braun. A year after receiving the Rockefeller Public Service Award
in 1968, Silverstein retired with 40 years of government service. He
continued to serve NASA and the space research industry as a private
consultant. The National Aeronautics Association named him an Elder
Statesman of Aviation in 1984. From 1973 to 1991 he served on
Rose-Hulman's board of managers, having acquired a master's degree there
in 1935 and an honorary doctorate in 1959. Now 89, Dr. Silverstein and
his wife Miriam reside in Fairview Park, Ohio. They are the parents of
Joseph, David and Judith and have five grandchildren.