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Overview

North American Aviation erected the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) just after World War II, initially to examine and re-engineer captured Nazi V-2 rocket engines salvaged from across Europe during the war. The site, operated by NAA's Rocketdyne Division, became critical for testing new liquid-fueled rocket engines for nuclear missile systems and NASA missions during the 1950s and 1960s. At the same time, the site became important for research into nuclear power generation, supervised by NAA's Atomics International Division. In both cases, the site became contaminated by industrial wastes and research by-products making the area uninhabitable.

Building History

North American Aviation (NAA) formed its Rocketdyne subsidiary to study a captured V-2 rocket brought from Peenemunde, Nordhausen or another secret missile facility in Nazi Germany in 1945. NAA's Rocketdyne division became a central research and manufacturing facility for early US liquid-fuel rockets in the late 1940s-early 1950s, most notably the various missiles created for the Navaho Program. With the inception of the Korean War, rocket-delivered weapons became more important to the Pentagon, and money was directed to Rocketdyne to develop longer-range rocket technology derived from the V-2. To determine the best rocket engine design, an internal arms race was fostered within the US between scientists employed at Rocketdyne and those working with Wernher Von Braun at Fort Bliss,TX, and Huntsville, AL. Rocketdyne had some success with its A-5 rocket during the early 1950s and began receiving orders for it by 1955. The company required new manufacturing plants to fulfill new Pentagon orders. Rockwell Standard, which later purchased NAA and Rocketdyne (becoming North American Rockwell in 1967) expanded the sprawling facility to develop liquid-fuel propulsion technologies for the Apollo Space Program. More recently, the Boeing Company purchased Rockwell's Aerospace and Defense assets in 08/1996; Boeing closed the SSFL thereafter. Boeing sold its Rocketdyne Propulsion and Power division to Pratt and Whitney of East Hartford, CT, on 08/02/2005.

Building Notes

This multi-purpose research facility covered 2,668 acres in the Simi Hills area of Ventura County. The land was carved into Areas I-IV doing various kinds of research; shielding these four core zones were buffer areas located on the north and south. What became known as the Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) grew into a large research complex where rocket researchers (taking up most of Areas I-III) shared space with nuclear scientists building reactors (working in Area IV from1953-1980) and those doing US Government experiments in liquid metals research (1966-1998 at the Energy Technology Engineering Center [ETEC]). Important research in nuclear energy occurred here, with the first commercial nuclear reactor in the US operating on site in 1957. A test reactor within the ETEC's Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE) underwent a partial meltdown during the 07/12/1959-07/26/1959 period gradually releasing large amounts of radioactive material into the air. During the 1980s, some laser research for Ronald Reagan's costly Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) also occurred in Area IV. Federal government projects to clean up the SSFL contamination have been on-going since the mid-2000s.

PCAD id: 2639