Edward Whaley Seabrook Hull. Model Maker?

Long-time Townsend Brown inquirer Jan Lundquist – aka 'Rose' in The Before Times – has her own substantial archive to share with readers and visitors to this site. This forum is dedicated to the wealth of material she has compiled: her research, her findings, and her speculations.
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Jan Lundquist
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Edward Whaley Seabrook Hull. Model Maker?

Post by Jan Lundquist »

Linda remembers "Ed Hull" as the man who delivered models to Townsend. I/she have thought of him as the model maker because of that, but perhaps he was only the courier.

I have been searching for that particular Hull. I did find a mention of "an engineer named Hull", who accompanied the "head" of the Army's Jet Propulsion R&D on a post war mission to locate and confiscate German rocket research (See Robert Irving Sarbacher -- WWII mission? posted in this section.

The closest candidate I can find is Edward Whaley Seabrook Hull.
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From his archives at the University of South Carolina: https://d2sw33r0wd4m0d.cloudfront.net/ ... Edward.pdf

His bio places him in the right location, at the right time, with the right interests, to be the recipient of this ten-page letter from Townsend. Page 1 is reproduced here. The entire letter, is for now, to be found at https://jansrose.blogspot.com/search?up ... results=12
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Re: Edward Whaley Seabrook Hull. Author

Post by Jan Lundquist »

Edward Whaley Seabrook Hull wrote and published as E.W. Seabrook Hull. Werner Von Braun, the most famous Operation Paperclip scientist wrote the preface to the 1958, Rocket to the Moon, co-authored by Eric Bergaust.

Whaley's book, The Atom and the Ocean, was published by the Atomic Energy Commission in OakRidge, Tennessee, in 1968. Note the first two sentences:
Historians of the future will record that man almost simultaneously unlocked the secret of atomic energy and ventured into new domains beneath the closed doors of the world ocean, in one of the greatest exploration endeavors of all time.

History may also show how these two efforts to benefit mankind became closely interthreaded—how nuclear energy, in its many forms and applications, played a major role in the efforts to explore and exploit “the other three-quarters” of our planet, and moreover, how the very development of a nuclear technology enforced our need to know more about the sea around us.
His writing is very clear and accessible:
In the waters of the seven seas are enough deuterium and tritium to power tomorrow’s thermonuclear power plants[1] for millions of years. These rare, heavy varieties of hydrogen, enormously abundant in the vastness of the sea, comprise an energy source without limit for all nations, which need only develop the technological ability to extract them and put them to work.
Energy for Exploration

For this exploration, men need to put instruments, navigation beacons (see figures on pages 46 and 47), and other devices on the deep ocean floor, where they must operate for long periods of time unattended and with no external source of power. Radioisotope-powered generators, capitalizing on the energy of disintegrating radioactive atoms, are almost the only devices capable of fulfilling these requirements.[2] Man also wants to do productive work under the ocean, such as drilling seafloor oil wells, mining, and salvaging for profit some of the tens of thousands of cargoes lost at sea during thousands of years of ocean commerce. Eventually, he even wants to farm the ocean floor.
The entire document is online at Project Gutenberg:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6 ... mages.html
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Re: Edward Whaley Seabrook Hull. Model Maker?

Post by natecull »

Thanks Jan.

For reference, "The Atom and the Ocean" title page begins:
The ATOM and the OCEAN

by E. W. Seabrook Hull

U.S. ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
Division of Technical Information
Understanding the Atom Series

The Understanding the Atom Series

Nuclear energy is playing a vital role in the life of every man, woman, and child in the United States today. In the years ahead it will affect increasingly all the peoples of the earth. It is essential that all Americans gain an understanding of this vital force if they are to discharge thoughtfully their responsibilities as citizens and if they are to realize fully the myriad benefits that nuclear energy offers them.

The United States Atomic Energy Commission provides this booklet to help you achieve such understanding.

Edward J. Brunenkant, Director
Division of Technical Information

UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Chairman
James T. Ramey
Wilfrid E. Johnson
Dr. Theos J. Thompson
Dr. Clarence E. Larson

United States Atomic Energy Commission
Division of Technical Information
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 67-62476

1968
And here's a link to Rocket to the Moon: (From Archive.org's library collection , it requires creating a free account and logging in to "borrow" it for an hour). https://archive.org/details/rockettomoon0000berg

Title page:
Rocket to the Moon

by Erik Bergaust and Seabrook Hull

with an introduction by Dr Wernher von Braun

D. Van Nostrand Company Inc ...

Library of Congress Catalog Card No 58-59739

First published November 1958
Reprinted February 1959
Who was Erik Bergaust? Probably Hull's boss at the time. A 1978 Washington Post obituary:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... bd4d3d45c/
Erik Bergaust, Author on Space, Dies
By Richard Pearson
March 4, 1978

Erik Bergaust, 52, author of more than 50 books on aviation, space sciences and nuclear energy, as well as the offical biographer of Dr. Wernher von Braun, died of cancer Wednesday at his home in McLean.

Mr. Bergaust was born in Oslo, Norway, and served as aviation editor of Aftenposten, a Norweigian daily newspaper, before coming to this country in 1949.

He worked here as a freelance writer of aviation articles and wrote books for children on such subjects as helicopters, rocketry and histories of various branches by our armed forces, and nuclear energy. Over the years he lectured on scientific topics at a number of schools in the Washington area.

Mr. Bergaust was the author of two biographies of Dr. von Braun. The first was "Reaching for the Stars," published in 1960, and the second was "Werhner von Braun, " published by the National Space Institute here in 1976.

He also was the author of "Murder of Pad 34," published in 1968. This was a critical examination of the causes of the accident that took the lives of three astronauts, Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee, on Jan. 27, 1967. He used the specific accident as a springboard for an examination of safety procedures and performance of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

He also worked for a number of trade and specialized journals. He was editor of Aero Digest from 1955 to 1956 and of American Aviation, then worked on the staff of the NATO Journal from 1960 to 1962.

He was the founder and first editor of Missiles and Rockets, the first American trade magazine devoted exclusively to rocketry and space flight.

Mr. Bergaust served as consultant to a number of aerospace companies, including Lear-Siegler and Fairchild Industries, as well as a consultant to NASA.

He was a member of the Information Advisory Group to the Presidnt's Committee on Scientists and Engineers in 1957.

Mr. Bergaust was a founder and first president of the National Space Club of Washington and a past president of the national capital section of the American Rocket Society. He was a director of the Aviation and Space Writers Association and a member of the National Press Club.

He is survived by his wife, Jean, two sons, Erik R. and Paul, and a daughter, Jane, all of the home; another daughter, Christine, of Memphis, Tenn, and a brother, Ragnar, and his mother, Tullik Bergaust, both of Oslo.

The family suggest s that expressions of sympathy be in the form of contributions to the Stuart Trust Cancer Fund at Washington Hospital Center.
Going on a journey, somewhere far out east
We'll find the time to show you, wonders never cease
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