Milton Rosen

Milton William Rosen (July 25, 1915 – December 30, 2014) was a United States Navy engineer and project manager in the US space program between the end of World War II and the early days of the Apollo Program. He led development of the Viking and Vanguard rockets, and was influential in the critical decisions early in NASA's history that led to the definition of the Saturn rockets, which were central to the eventual success of the American Moon landing program. He died of prostate cancer in 2014.

Milton William Rosen was born in Philadelphia, on July 15, 1915. He earned a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1937. In 1940, he began work at the Naval Research Laboratory, and during World War II, he worked on missile guidance systems.

After the end of WWII, Rosen worked at the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), where he was involved in the definition of alternative designs for high-altitude sounding rockets, both for scientific research on the upper atmosphere, and for development of liquid rocket technology for military purposes, following the German introduction of the large V-2 rocket weapon.

He became NRL project manager for the Viking rocket, which was the first large US liquid-fueled rocket. Roughly half the size, in terms of mass and power, of the V-2, the Viking improved upon it in several important respects. Both were actively guided, and fueled with the same propellants (alcohol and liquid oxygen [LOX]), which were fed to a single rocket engine by turbine-driven pumps. The Viking airframe was designed and built under contract to NRL by the Glenn L. Martin Company. The engine, built by Reaction Motors Inc (RMI) of New Jersey, was the largest liquid-fueled rocket engine developed in the United States up to that time. It produced 89 kN (20000 lbf) of thrust. As was also the case for the V-2, hydrogen peroxide was converted to steam to drive the turbo-pump that fed fuel and LOX into the engine.

...
Wikipedia