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Beyond the Atmosphere:
Early Years of Space Science
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- CHAPTER 18
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- COOPERATION WITH WESTERN
COUNTRIES
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- [307] A sizable
portion of NASA's cooperative
programs in the first decade-that
is, programs with other countries in pursuit of common objectives,
in contrast to activities like the operation of satellite tracking
stations that were purely in support of NASA's own program-was
devoted to space science. The tacit recognition that this would be
true can be seen in the guidelines cited earlier, which were
oriented toward scientific projects. Under those guidelines, which
were sufficiently flexible to admit of a broad range of endeavors,
many different kinds of cooperative projects sprang up. A few
examples will illustrate.
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- Sounding Rockets
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- Sounding rockets were a popular medium for
entering into space science. They were inexpensive, handling and
launching them was simple compared to the large launch vehicles,
and they afforded the means for accomplishing some significant
research. As more than a decade of research in the United States
and the USSR had shown, sounding rockets could be used to attack
problems of the atmosphere and ionosphere, the magnetosphere,
solar physics and astronomy, cosmic rays and interplanetary
physics, and biology. Supplementing the U.S. and Soviet ranges,
including that at Fort Churchill in Canada, throughout the 1960s
new sounding rocket ranges appeared around the world-at Woomera,
Australia; Sardinia in the Mediterranean; Andöya, Norway;
Jokkmokk, Kronogfird, and Kiruna, Sweden; Chamical, Argentina;
Natal, Brazil; Hammaguir, Algeria; Kourou, French Guiana; Thumba,
India; Sonmiani Beach, Pakistan; and Huelva, Spain.
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- At the same time NASA joined with other
countries in a variety of cooperative rocket soundings, some from
U.S. ranges, others from ranges overseas. For example, in
Australia in the fall of 1961 ultraviolet-astronomy experiments
used the British Skylark rocket to obtain data on the southern
[308] skies to compare with northern hemisphere
data. During 1961 and 1962 NASA and the Italian Space Commission
cooperated on a series of rocket firings in Sardinia to measure
upper atmospheric winds by tracking glowing clouds of sodium vapor
released at altitude from the rockets. Through out the 1960s and
into the 1970s launchings at Andöya studied the aurora and
also the ionosphere within and near the auroral zone. From time to
time there were special expeditions, like that to Cassino, Brazil,
in November 1966, in which 17 sounding rockets were fired to
investigate solar x-rays and the effect of the solar eclipse of 12
November 1966 on the earth's upper atmosphere. Occasionally ships
were used, as with the solar eclipse expedition to a spot near
Koroni, Greece, in May 1966. All in all, by the early 1970s some
19 countries spanning the globe had engaged with NASA in a
productive program of sounding rocket research, much of which
required the special geographic locations afforded by the
different ranges.21
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- Ariel
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- Throughout the 1960s the United Kingdom
also cooperated with the United States in conducting sounding
rocket experiments at various locations around the world. But the
scientific satellite exerted an even greater attraction than the
sounding rocket, and the countries that could afford it quickly
approached NASA with ideas for cooperative satellite projects. The
United Kingdom was among the first to seek such cooperation, and
the U.K. satellite Ariel 1
was the first international
satellite that NASA put into orbit-on 26 April
1962.22 Every few years thereafter additional Ariels
followed, the fourth going into orbit from the Western Test Range
in California on 11 December 1971. In addition, British
experimenters were successful in competing for space on U.S.
satellites. By 1973, 13 British scientists had put experiments on
Explorers; on solar, geophysical, and astronomical observatories;
and on Nimbus weather satellites.23
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- NASA's association with the United Kingdom
was typical of many of the international cooperative programs in
that by and large the British experiments were primarily of
interest to British scientists. The mutuality of interest was
there, of course, and NASA considered the U.K. experiments to be a
valuable supplement to U.S. space science. But the ionospheric
research conducted in the Canadian satellites Alouette and Isis
was more intimately related to the NASA program.
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- Alouette and Isis
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- For a time a race was on between Britain's
Ariel and Canada's Alouette to see which would be the first in
orbit. Ariel won, and Alouette 1
followed half a year later, going
into a nearly polar orbit so that its revolution above the earth
would bring it repeatedly in range of Canadian ground
stations.24 Once in orbit Alouette proceeded to establish a
record (for its time) of 10 years of successful operation on
orbit.
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- [309] The major
purpose of the Alouette experiments was to investigate the
ionosphere, particularly by sounding the ionosphere from above.
Following the experiments of Breit and Tuve in
1926,25 ionospheric sounding had been made from the ground
by sending pulsed signals upward and recording the returned signal
on film as a function of time after the initial transmission. The
effect of the ionosphere was to spread the reflected signal out in
time, and from the shape of the returned signal one could estimate
ionospheric heights and ionization intensities. But the uppermost
regions of the ionosphere could not be sounded from the ground.
Also, the complexities of the ionosphere often produced confusing
signals, and experimenters hoped that soundings from above would
help to resolve some of the ambiguities.
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- This important research lay at the heart
of NASA's plans for studying the ionosphere. Since the Canadians
proposed to do it, NASA scientists proceeded to build their own
ionospheric program around that of Canada. The Canadian work thus
not merely supplemented, but actually supplanted research that
NASA scientists would otherwise have done. In monetary terms the
Canadian contribution to the ionospheric program freed some tens
of millions of dollars that could be used on other projects.
Moreover, the Canadian researchers working on Alouette added to
the total competence of the ionospheric team.
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- Following a second Alouette in November of
1965, Canada and the United States moved on to Isis-International
Satellite for Ionospheric Studies-an improved satellite that would
carry the topside ionospheric sounders plus 8 to 10 additional
experiments furnished by both Canadian and American scientists.
The first Isis went aloft on 30 January 1969 into a polar orbit,
the second on 31 March 1971 into a nearly polar orbit.
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- Pencil and Its Descendants
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- Cooperation with Japan was of an entirely
different character from that with European nations. Although
there were many meetings and much discussion about cooperation, it
gradually became apparent that the Japanese were firmly committed,
emotionally as well as politically, to developing a space
capability for themselves. But the realization by NASA scientists
that this commitment existed came only after extensive exchanges
on various possibilities of working together. The first indication
of possible interest in cooperative projects came from some
exploratory discussions of William Nordberg and William Stroud of
the Goddard Space Flight Center with Japanese scientists. The NASA
scientists, who in their previous positions at the Army's Signal
Engineering Laboratories in New Jersey had pioneered the use of
grenade explosions at high altitude to measure upper-atmosphere
temperatures, had aroused the interest of Japanese scientists in
the possibility of a joint program of atmospheric research using
sounding rockets carrying grenades. But they had also left the
[310] impression that NASA might be willing to
furnish funds to the Japanese for the work. NASA Headquarters was
somewhat embarrassed, since the policy not to exchange funds on
cooperative projects had already been established.
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- Since, however, there seemed to be
considerable Japanese interest-above and beyond the grenade-rocket
work-in the possibility of cooperating on space projects, the
author visited Japan in May 1960 for a series of conversations
with scientists and administrators. Professor Hideo Itokawa of the
University of Tokyo showed some of the progress that had been made
in developing Japanese sounding rockets. Starting with Pencil, a
rocket about 30 cm long and 2.5 cm in diameter, and a miniature
tiny roc launching range no bigger than some American back yards,
the engineers had conducted horizontal firings, testing
small-scale launchers, multistage combinations of Pencil, and
techniques for separating stages during flight. From these
exploratory tests engineers had gone on to larger rockets, which
were being flown from a launching pad at Akita on the western
coast facing the Sea of Japan. In step by step fashion, they
planned to work up to the multistage Kappa, Lambda, and Mu
rockets, some of which would eventually be capable of putting
satellites into orbit. The first objective, however, was to
produce a reliable high-altitude sounding
rocket.26
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- On the political side were extensive
conversations with members of the Science and Technics Agency.
Minister Nakasone, head of the agency, was most desirous of
working out some kind of cooperative agreement, and it seemed as
though a great deal of progress were being
made.27 Subsequent conversations with Professor Hatanaka,
astronomer at the University of Tokyo, and other scientists,
however, revealed that Japan was torn by internal strife between
the Science and Technics Agency and the university community,
which accorded its allegiance to the Ministry of
Education.28 It suddenly became apparent that NASA could easily
find itself in the middle, and one wondered what could come of the
talks with Nakasone and his people. As it happened, within weeks
after the author had returned to Washington Prime Minister Kishi's
government fell, Nakasone was out, and negotiations with Japan
were set back momentarily.
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- The talks, however, had cleared the air
and NASA was in a much better position to understand the Japanese
situation when delegations soon thereafter came to Washington. The
groundwork had been laid in Tokyo for cooperating on some sounding
rocket firings to compare results from American and Japanese
ionospheric instruments, and an agreement was soon completed. The
first firings took place at NASA's Wallops Island facility in
Virginia in April and May 1962, and continued in the autumns of
1963 and 1964.29 Every few years thereafter the United States and
Japan cooperated on rocket soundings, joint firings in 1968 and
1969 taking place from the Indian range at Thumba.
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- [311] Although
Japan might have gained something from a joint satellite project
with the United States, Japan preferred to go it alone. Work
continued on a Japanese launch vehicle, and on 11 February 1971 a
Lambda multistage rocket successfully placed the 0hsumi satellite
in orbit, making Japan the fourth nation-France had been the
third-to orbit a satellite with its own launch
vehicle.30 The U.S. assisted in tracking 0hsumi and other
Japanese satellites that followed in 1971 and
1972.31
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- San Marco
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- Italy also wished to launch its own
satellites, but was willing to use an American launch vehicle for
the purpose. Out of this desire Project San Marco was born. The
project was conducted in three phases. In the first phase an
Italian team, under the supervision of NASA engineers, became
familiar with the Scout rocket by conducting suborbital launches
from Wallops Island in April and August 1963. In the second phase
the Italian team launched the satellite San Marco 1 on a
Scout 15 December 1964, also from Wallops Island. For the third
phase, the project moved to the coast of Kenya, where the Italians
had constructed a launching pad on a towable platform of the kind
used in drilling for oil beneath the ocean. Located on the
equator, the San Marco platform was anchored off shore in the
Indian Ocean. Here San Marco 2
went aloft 26 April 1967, and
San Marco 3 24 April 1971, to investigate the atmosphere and
ionosphere above the earth's equator.32
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- The San Marco platform had special value
in making it possible to launch satellites directly into orbits
above the earth's equator. For this reason NASA requested use of
the platform for launching a number of U.S. satellites. With costs
reimbursed by NASA, Explorers
42, 45, and
48
were sent up from the platform in 1970, 1971, and 1972. The first
of these, named Uhuru, the Swahili
word for freedom, produced exciting data on celestial x-ray
sources.33
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- Ground-Based Projects
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- Not all cooperative programs in space
science involved direct participation in sounding rockets or
spacecraft launches. Many countries cooperated in ground-based
projects. A number of nations cooperated in ionospheric research
by making observations from the ground, to be coordinated with
satellite experiments. Twenty-seven foreign stations in 13
countries photographed GEOS and PAGEOS geodetic satellites to help
improve the accuracy of geodetic results. France participated with
NASA in analyzing data obtained by tracking French and U.S.
geodetic satellites with lasers. Such ground-based cooperation was
even more extensive in the applications area, where many countries
undertook ground-based observations or the analysis and use of
satellite data in meteorology, communications, and earth-resource
surveys.34
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- [312] On the
scientific side the outstanding example of this kind of
cooperation has to be that associated with the analysis of samples
of the moon obtained by the Apollo astronauts. In the United
States hundreds of scientists turned their attention to
deciphering from lunar samples and other Apollo data what could be
learned about the moon and its origin and by inference about the
earth. They were joined in these efforts by 89 principal
investigators and more than 260 foreign coinvestigators from 19
different countries. The coinvestigators were associated with both
foreign and American principal investigators. From 24 countries 97
foreign scientists took part in the lunar science conference held
in Houston in January 1970; 90 from 16 countries attended the 1971
conference; and 108 from 15 countries plus the European Space
Research Organization came to the third lunar science conference
in 1972.35
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- For a while the study of the lunar samples
made the investigation of the moon and planets appear like the
hottest field in science. It was a far cry from the 1950s, when a
graduate student in astronomy who confessed to an interest in
studying the planets was inviting disdain. The big change, of
course, was the abundance of new data. Some idea of the extent of
the change can be obtained by looking at the almost overwhelming
mass of results published in the proceedings of the lunar science
conferences.36
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