Adelbert O. (Del) Tischler is an engineer, probably best known for initiating and directing the early development of rocket engines for the nation’s space program. 

He joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1942 at the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory being built at the Cleveland Airport.    Drafted into the U.S. Air Force he was transferred back to the AERL laboratory (now the Glenn Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) to develop fuels of 150-octane rating for wartime aircraft piston engines.

Before the war ended Del began working on combustion problems in jet engines to improve the high-altitude capabilities of these new engines.

In 1950, while turbojet, turbofan and turboprop engine developments continued, Del began work to eliminate “screaming” in liquid rocket combustion chambers.   “Screaming” results in quick destruction of the rocket chamber and failure of the engine.    These investigations led to methods of limiting  the problem in later engines.

Del also worked with other experimenters on design, building and operating rocket combustion chambers using liquid hydrogen as the rocket fuel, with oxygen and fluorine used as oxidizers.  Del was the safety officer at the research test site for these experimental operations.

During that period Del also served a term as President of the Cleveland-Akron Chapter of the American Rocket Society, which later combined with the Institute for Aeronautical Sciences, of which he was also a member, to form the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.   

He found time to play softball in an Ohio industrial league as well as in the laboratory league, race sailboats on the Great Lakes, captain a laboratory basketball team and ski on weather-suitable winter weekends.   He and his wife built their own small home, substantially with their own labor, and expanded the  family with two sons, Craig and Marc, and a daughter, Sandra. 

 In 1958 Del was called on to work with a group of scientists and engineers, primarily from NACA’s  Langley and Lewis research laboratories but with representation from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and participation of the Air Force, Navy and Army.   That ad hoc organization laid out a plan for United States-sponsored exploration of space to be pursued by a new agency that would be established for that purpose.  These working groups set forth most of the missions, equipment requirements and basic plans for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that came into being in October, 1958.   Almost everything that was done in the first decade of the space program hinged from their plan.   Their plan included landing men on the moon.  

Del was appointed Director of (Rocket) Propulsion Developments in the NASA’s Office of Manned Space Flight.  He was charged with initiating and developing the F-1, RL-10 and J-2 engines.  These engines  became the principal engines of the Saturn series of vehicles.   The F-1 produced over 1,500,000 pounds of thrust per engine at sea level.  The RL-10, the world’s first production hydrogen-oxygen engine, produced 15,000 pounds of thrust and is still in use after more than fifty years in production.   The J-2 also used hydrogen-oxygen propellants to produce 240,000 pounds of thrust and was used in the upper stages of the Saturn V vehicle. 

Del’s small group of selected rocket experts also contributed to the design and development of many of the smaller engines used for space maneuvers and controls on space vehicles, both manned and unmanned although management of those engine developments remained with the spacecraft developers. 

Del’s group was responsible for initiating, directing and monitoring launch vehicle engine development progress.   They planned and funded test stands and test equipment and propellant supplies, which required construction of new plants to supply liquid hydrogen.   In parallel his group planned and directed technology investigations.   In 1960 solid propellant rocket technology was also assigned to Del’s supervision.  

In 1962, when the von Braun group of the former Army Ballistic Missile Agency was incorporated into NASA, many of these responsibilities were transferred to what became the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. 

In 1964 Del and much of his staff were assigned to NASA’s Office of Advanced Research and Technology to define improved rocket engines for use beyond the Apollo program.   In cooperation with Air Force technology investigations these new efforts tested the engine equipment designs that would be used for a semi-recoverable launch system that became the Space Shuttle.   His solid motor group demonstrated the feasibility of building a solid propellant booster engine developing nearly three million pounds of thrust.

In 1969 Del was given the additional assignment of Director of Shuttle Technologies to manage an NASA-wide combined OMSF-OART program to examine the feasibility and to demonstrate the applicability of suitable technologies for a recoverable launch vehicle.   That assignment covering all pertinent technical disciplines, including aerodynamics, structures, reentry insulation, dynamic guidance and energy management of powerless high-drag low-lift vehicles, as well as propulsion developments.  The program drew talent from all NASA Centers, with supporting contracts with industry.   The reports and data generated provided a basis for generating specifications for a new semi-recoverable vehicle and confirmed the validity of extrapolated engineering assumptions.

The Space Shuttle development was subsequently initiated in 1972 and managed by the Johnson Space Center.  During this interim Del attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

In 1972 Del, aware that the Shuttle would be capable of launching more payloads than the NASA budget could fund without drastic reduction of their costs, organized a Low Cost Systems Office to tackle this pragmatic problem.    By 1974 he realized that assignment as dead-ended.  NASA personnel were unwilling to accept changes in development procedures and requirements for their payload purposes, and so he elected to resign to pursue other enterprises.

During the late  70’s and early 80’s Del continued at the forefront of space developments as a consultant to the European Space Agency in the construction of the first reusable SpaceLab system to be carried to space by the Shuttle launch vehicle,  and on the follow-on job of generating the first SpaceLab payload.   Those developments were first flown into space by the Shuttle in 1983.

During this same period Del foresaw that energy conservation offered advantages that did not depend on developing new energy sources.   Together with Dr. Dah Yu Cheng, formerly of the Ames research Center of NASA, he formed a company to undertake private-enterprise development of gas turbine systems operating on a new cycle capable of  achieving energy conversion efficiencies of fifty-eight percent -- substantially higher than those being used.    Although the under-capitalized company was later sold about one hundred Cheng-cycle engines are presently in operation generating electrical power around the world.

Del Tischler is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.   He received the James Wyld Propulsion Award in 1967.   For his work on the Shuttle Technologies program he received NASA’s Exceptional Service Award.    He has published over sixty reports and journal articles as well as many notes on several topics related to aerospace endeavors.

Please refer to "Rockets to the Moon" autobiography assembled by his son, Marc Tischler:

https://www.google.com/search?q=adelbert+o.+tischler+rockets+to+the+moon

https://www.amazon.com/Rockets-Moon-Adelbert-Tischler-Autobiography-ebook/dp/B078QTBNWB