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Beyond the Atmosphere:
Early Years of Space Science
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- CHAPTER 5
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- THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES STAKES A
CLAIM
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- [50] In the fall of
1957 the National Academy of Sciences in Washington was hosting an
international conference on rockets and satellites. The mood was
one of anticipation. The International Geophysical Year had begun
officially on 1 July 1957 after several years of careful planning
under the guidance of the Comite Speciale de 1'Annee. Geophysique
Internationale (CSAGI). Now, during the week of 30 September to 5
October 1957, CSAGI was giving special attention to the continued
planning of the rocket and satellite part of the IGY
program.
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- The International Geophysical Year-IGY for
short-grew out of a suggestion made in 1950 by Lloyd V. Berkner to
a small group gathered at the home of James A. Van Allen in Silver
Spring, Maryland, that in the period 1957-1958 there should be a
Third International Polar Year. Two previous International Polar
Years, the first 1882-1883 and the second 1932-1933, had
demonstrated in some measure the value of international
cooperation in earth science investigations.1 The group was heartily in favor of the idea.
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- No better promoter for such a project
could have been found than Lloyd Berkner. A world-renowned
geophysicist, he had long worked with problems of the ionosphere,
the electrified region of the upper atmosphere that is responsible
for reflecting radio signals around the world, making radio
communications beyond the horizon possible. Berkner had been
associated with G. Breit and M. A. Tuve who, at the Carnegie
Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington, had been among
the first to measure the height of the
ionosphere.2 Berkner was interested in the institutional and
international aspects of science, serving as adviser to the
Department of Defense and in the State Department, and becoming
very active in a number of the unions of the International Council
of Scientific Unions. Most notable was his boldness of vision,
which in scientific circles was fully a match for that of von
Braun in rocketry.
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- Immediately swinging into action, Berkner
and Sydney Chapman conveyed the proposal to the joint Commission
on the Ionosphere of the International Scientific Radio Union, the
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, and the
International Astronomical Union. In time the [51] recommendation reached and was adopted by the
International Council of Scientific Unions-parent body of the
various individual unions-which in 1952 appointed a special
committee to oversee the project. In the course of soliciting
participation, the enterprise was enlarged to encompass the
scientific study of the whole earth, a subject more broadly
appealing than polar investigations.
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- Thus the IGY was born.3 The special committee was formally designated the
Special Committee for the IGY, referred to in both speech and
writing as CSAGI (generally pronounced kuh sah jee ), the
acronym of its name in French. Chapman became the president of
CSAGI, Berkner its vice president, and both labored tirelessly and
effectively to make the project go. Eventually 67 countries
joined.
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- Chapman gave some idea of the scope of the
IGY as finally conceived by its planners and organizers in his
general foreword to the first volume of the Annals of the International Geophysical
Year:
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- The main aim is to learn more about the
fluid envelope of our planet-the atmosphere and oceans-over all
the earth and at all heights and depths. The atmosphere,
especially at its upper levels, is much affected by disturbances
on the Sun; hence this also will be observed more closely and
continuously than hitherto. Weather, the ionosphere, the earth's
magnetism, the polar lights, cosmic rays, glaciers all over the
world, the size and form of the earth, natural and man-made
radioactivity in the air and the seas, earthquake waves in remote
places, will be among the subjects studied. These researches
demand widespread simultaneous observation.4
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- Responding to the international call to
countries to join in the IGY project, the National Academy of
Sciences, through its National Research Council, established a
National Committee for the IGY and selected Joseph Kaplan as its
chairman (app.
E). Kaplan, a geophysicist who had
acquired a considerable reputation working in the laboratory on
band emissions from various atmospheric gases, was noted for an
inexhaustible supply of pleasant anecdotes. His genial personality
was ideally suited to working with the difficult, dark, moody,
sometimes abrasive Hugh Odishaw, executive director of the
committee. Odishaw was the guiding genius behind the organization
of the U.S. IGY program, and his influence could be felt in the
international arena as well. He had a remarkable ability to
foresee the future consequences of present actions, and was
invaluable in mapping out strategy and directing tactics for
securing support from the administration and Congress and in
dealing with the inevitable conflicts and politicking on the
international scene.
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- In putting forth his original proposal,
Berkner had cited the great advances in technology and scientific
instrumentation since the early 1930s-much of it generated in the
prosecution of World War II-as a compelling reason for not waiting
out the 50 years that had intervened between the [52] First and
Second Polar Years. Shortening the interval to 25 years would put
the proposed Third Polar Year in the period 1957-1958, which would
afford the added advantage of being a time of maximum sunspots, in
contrast to the sunspot minimum of the Second Polar Year.
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- Among the new technologies that could be
applied to the detailed investigation of the earth and sun were
those of rocketry, whose applications to geophysics had become
patently clear from the work of the Upper Atmosphere Rocket
Research Panel, some of whose meetings Kaplan had attended. When
the panel proposed to conduct rocket soundings as part of the IGY
program, the U.S. National Committee quickly approved. Steps were
taken at once to include a sounding rocket segment in the U.S.
program for the IGY.
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- The National Research Council established
a Technical Panel on Rocketry as part of the IGY machinery, and
the National Academy of Sciences informed the CSAGI of the U.S.
intention to use sounding rockets for geophysical investigations
during the IGY.5 By the time of the IGY planning meeting conducted
by CSAGI in Rome during the week of 30 September 1954, rocket
soundings had become an important element of the program.
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- But plans soon went beyond sounding
rockets. When the U.S. sounding rocket program had begun in 1946,
satellites were still deemed impracticable; now matters were
different. The Navy, the Air Force, and other groups had continued
to study the design and use of artificial satellites launched into
orbit by large, powerful rockets, and by the early 1950s the
feeling had developed that the satellite's time had come. Hidden
by security wraps, some studies had moved fairly far along in the
planning stage.6 Von Braun and his people had convinced themselves
that they could succeed in short order in orbiting a small
satellite, and it rankled that official approve could not be
obtained.
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- Members of the Upper Atmosphere Rocket
Research Panel were aware of these studies, but those who were
employees of the military did not feel free to press the issue. As
has been seen, the panel recommended only a sounding rocket
program to the Academy of Sciences. But geophysicist S. Fred
Singer of the Applied Physics Laboratory, who had been conducting
cosmic ray and magnetic field research in sounding rockets, felt
under no restraints of military security. From some fairly simple
calculations Singer concluded that it should be possible to place
a modest (45-kilogram) satellite in orbit around the earth, and at
every opportunity he urged that the country undertake to do so.
Singer's conclusions were qualitatively correct, but his
outspokenness generated some friction for at least two reasons.
First, Singer's manner gave the impression that the idea for such
a satellite was original with him, whereas behind the scenes many
had already had the idea, and they felt that Singer had to be
aware of this. Muzzled by classification restrictions, they could
not engage Singer in debate. Second, being unable to speak out,
those who had dug into the subject in much [53] greater
depth could not point out that Singer's estimates overshot the
mark somewhat, and that his suggested approach was not as workable
as others that couldn't be mentioned.
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- Nevertheless, Singer did great service to
those he made so unhappy. By making known the present possibility
of placing artificial satellites in orbit, Singer aroused interest
in this kind of device for scientific
research.7 The IGY was to be the first beneficiary.
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- Singer gained international attention for
his proposal when, in August 1953 at the Fourth International
Congress on Astronautics in Zurich, he described his idea for a
Minimum Orbital Unmanned Satellite Experiment-which he called
Mouse. Mouse would weigh 45 kilograms and would be instrumented
for scientific research.
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- The International Scientific Radio Union,
at its 11th General Assembly in the Hague, gave its support to
Singer's proposal. At the urging of both Singer and Lloyd Berkner,
on 2 September 1954 the Radio Union adopted a resolution drawing
attention to the value of instrumented earth satellites for solar
and geophysical observations. Later that month, on 20 September,
the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics at its 10th
General Assembly in Rome adopted an even stronger resolution,
actually recommending that consideration be given to the use of
small scientific satellites for geophysical
research.8 Both the resolution of the Union of Geodesy and
Geophysics and the earlier one of the Radio Union were conveyed to
CSAGI, which held its third general planning meeting in Rome
shortly after the close of the Geodesy and Geophysics Union
meeting. Indeed, it is unlikely that these two resolutions could
have been missed by CSAGI, since many persons attended all three
meetings-radio, geophysics, and CSAGI-and even more attended both
the last two. Also, the CSAGI-membership included representatives
from a number of scientific unions, including radio and geodesy
and geophysics. The combining of forces to promote programs of
mutual interest is traditional among the scientific unions, where
maneuvering has much in common with ordinary politics.
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- At any rate, on 4 October 1954 CSAGI
agreed and issued its challenge to the IGY participants in the
following words, which closely parallel the resolution adopted by
the Union of Geodesy and Geophysics:
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- In view of the great importance of
observations, during extended periods of time, of
extra-terrestrial radiations and geophysical phenomena in the
upper atmosphere, and in view of the advanced state of present
rocket techniques, CSAGI recommends that thought be given to the
launching of small satellite vehicles, to their scientific
instrumentation, and to the new problems associated with satellite
experiments, such as power supply, telemetering, and orientation
of the vehicle.9
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- [54] It remained
for interested countries to respond to the recommendation. The
United States had already announced its intention to conduct
sounding rocket flights as part of the IGY program, but the
complexity and expense of an earth-satellite program needed
careful consideration by the agencies that would be expected to
carry out the necessary development and IGY operations. Moreover,
at the opening session of the Assembly of the Union of Geodesy and
Geophysics Sydney Chapman as president of CSAGI had found it
necessary to point out that the Soviets had not yet seen fit to
join the IGY program. It was the United States and the Soviet
Union, of course, that were expected to respond positively to the
CSAGI proposal.
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- The U.S. National Committee for the IGY
gave careful consideration to the proposal during the spring of
1955. Support was not immediately unanimous. Clearly the
dimensions of this undertaking would be of a different order from
the sounding rockets already a part of the IGY planning. Doubts
were expressed over the wisdom of including the project in the
IGY. Technical aspects were not the only considerations. There was
also the concern about what would be the reaction of people to the
launching of an artificial satellite that could easily be viewed
as an eye in the sky, could well be accorded some sinister import,
perhaps even be equated with some kind of witchcraft. Memories of
Orson Welles's Mars invasion had by no means vanished. Most,
however, favored endorsing the project. Joseph Kaplan, chairman of
the committee, was especially enthusiastic and jokingly coined the
phrase "Long Playing Rocket" for the satellite, by analogy with
the long-playing records newly on the market. He suggested that,
since sounding rockets had become familiar, the idea of a
long-playing rocket would prove less disturbing than the
completely new concept of an artificial satellite.
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- After much thought the National Academy of
Sciences, sponsor of the U.S. IGY program, and the National
Science Foundation, which provided the money, agreed jointly to
seek approval of an IGY scientific earth-satellite program. The
two agencies were successful, and the U.S. intent to launch an
earth satellite during the IGY was announced from the White House
on 29 July 1955.10 A significant factor in administration support was
the perceived need to develop and explore satellite capabilities
for possible military applications. The Pentagon was assigned the
job and, after a review of several possibilities, selected the
Navy's Vanguard for the purpose.11
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- With scientific satellites now in the IGY
program, the IGY committee established a Technical Panel on the
Earth Satellite Program, to do for satellites what the rocketry
panel was doing for sounding rockets. Richard Porter, the General
Electric Company engineer in charge of the V-2 test program at
White Sands, was asked to be chairman.12
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- [55] When the
Fourth Assembly of CSAGI met in Barcelona, 10-15 September 1956,
the Soviet Union had joined the IGY and was prepared to say
something about Soviet rocket and satellite plans. On 11
September, Prof. I. Bardin, speaking in Russian, announced to the
CSAGI delegates that the USSR would have a rocket program in the
IGY, details to be given later, and also would use satellites for
pressure, temperature, cosmic ray, micrometeor, and solar
radiation measurements.13 Whereas the United States undertook to describe in
considerable detail its sounding rocket and earth satellite plans,
to aid those who wished to make correlated measurements by other
techniques, the Soviet Union furnished little advance
information.
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- Thus, when CSAGI convened the conference
on rockets and satellites in Washington in the fall of 1957, there
had been considerable time for work on the rocket and satellite
projects, but it remained to be seen how much cooperative research
could be done in association with those projects.
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- The subdued sense of anticipation that
pervaded the sessions stemmed from the awareness that preparations
had been under way for some time, that the IGY was already in full
swing, and that the first artificial satellite must soon appear
over the horizon. But those expectations did not diminish the
surprise and dismay felt by U.S. scientists when the launching of
Sputnik 1 was announced on the evening of 4 October 1957. At the
time many of the conference attendees were guests at the Soviet
Embassy. The news, which had been broadcast by Moscow Radio, was
brought to Berkner, who shared it at once with those present. His
announcement practically wiped out the party as the U.S.
scientists, in particular, scattered to their home bases to take
stock of what had happened. The author had gone home that evening
from the planning sessions at the academy and was about to call it
a day when Hugh Odishaw called. As executive director of the U.S.
National Committee for IGY, Odishaw wondered if a few people
shouldn't meet at the IGY headquarters-1145 19th Street, N. W -to
discuss the turn of events. Once there, Odishaw, Richard Porter,
the author, and others kept track of the Soviet satellite's
course. From radio sightings as they were reported, the ground
track of Sputnik was plotted on a map in the office, and in a few
hours a pretty good idea emerged of the kind of orbit Sputnik was
following.
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- As the group in imagination followed the
course of the satellite across the heavens, the members tried to
weigh the Soviet accomplishment against the fact that the
launching of the U.S. satellite, Vanguard, was still some months
away. They tried to estimate what the public reaction would be.
Disappointment was to be expected, but they did not anticipate the
degree of anguish and sometimes genuine alarm that would be
expressed over the weeks and months that followed.
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- The next morning, Saturday, 5 October
1957, in the auditorium of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences,
Anatoly Blagonravov took the floor to [56] speak at
length about Sputnik. Understandable pride was evident in
Blagonravov's bearing, but his words also bristled with barbs for
his American listeners. The speaker could not-or at any rate did
not-refrain from chiding the United States for talking so much
about its satellite before having one in orbit, and commended to
his listeners the Soviet approach of doing
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- While there was some measure of justice in
Blagonravov's ungracious comments, his U.S. colleagues couldn't
help feeling that he missed-perhaps intentionally-the point that
much of the advance discussion of the U.S. IGY satellite program
was to provide necessary information for planning by those who
wished to cooperate in the tracking or other operational aspects
of the mission. In view of the fruitlessness of CSAGI's efforts to
elicit any such accommodation from the Soviets, either at
Barcelona in 1956 or at the meetings in Washington, the remarks of
their Russian colleague were doubly
frustrating.14
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- Nevertheless, admiration for the Soviet
achievement was genuine and universal, and his colleagues could
heartily applaud when Blagonravov declared that he hoped that
"this first step" would "serve as an inspiration to scientists
throughout the world to accelerate their efforts to explore and
solve the mysteries and phenomena of nature remaining to be
explored."15
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- Reaction in the United States was strong
and widespread. It was clear albeit intuitively to most, that a
new dimension had been added to man's sphere of thought And
action. Equally clearly, something had to be done about the fact
that the United States had not been the first to put a satellite
in orbit. One read and heard talk about Soviet technological
supremacy, U.S. loss of leadership, the missile gap, and security
and economic implications. In view of the impressively large
weights of Sputnik 1
(80 kg) and 2 (508 kg, 3 Nov.
1957), and the multiton launch vehicles that they implied, the 8
1/2-kg payload of Explorer 1
launched on 31 January 1958 did
little to allay such concerns. President Eisenhower attempted to
downplay the Soviet achievement, but couldn't carry it
off.16 Congress took the matter seriously, largely through
apprehension over military implications, and began to crank up the
machinery to respond to what was viewed as a crisis. On his part,
Eisenhower created the post of science adviser to the president,
elevated his Science Advisory Committee to White House level, and
asked the committee to develop a national policy on space. The
result was to be the National Aeronautics and Space Act of
1958.
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- By now atmospheric and space science had
moved far beyond the narrow confines of the Rocket and Satellite
Research Panel and had established a base from which the space
science program could proceed following the creation of the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the summer and
fall of 1958. From the membership of its technical panels on
rocketry and on the earth satellite program, the academy
established a Space Science Board in June 1958, to advise the
government in what [57] promised to
be a fast-growing and important field. Lloyd Berkner was named
chairman of SSB (app. F).
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- Events of the next three-quarters of a
year after the first Sputnik launching make a fascinating and
educational story as Congress and the administration cooperated
and wrestled with each other to hammer out a legislative response
to the crisis.17 A number of circumstances combined to give
scientists the civilian agency and open space program they
favored. How this came about will be dealt with in chapter 7. But before proceeding to that part of the
narrative, it is appropriate to pause and take stock of the rich
harvest of scientific knowledge that a decade of rocket sounding
had already produced before artificial earth satellites took on an
importance that commanded the attention of the president and the
Congress.
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