Category Dreams, Technology, and Scientific Discovery

alloons led the initial forays into near space for scientific research. Victor F.

Hess, during a balloon flight in Austria on 7 August 1912, conclusively showed the extraterrestrial origin of cosmic rays.1 That event marked the beginning of an extraordinary chapter in the history of science, in which balloon-based research played an important role.2

Cosmic rays are nuclear particles that travel at extremely high speed. They originate in extraterrestrial space, probably mostly in supernovae. They consist of protons (hydrogen nuclei), alpha particles (helium nuclei), and lesser numbers of higher – charged atomic nuclei, as well as some electrons and photons. Most of the cosmic rays approaching the Earth collide with atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere to produce showers of secondary radiation. Because few of the primordial cosmic rays ever reach the Earth’s surface, it is necessary to study them from as high above sea level as possible. Balloons remain an important vehicle for their study.

The use of rockets for this purpose was seriously discussed as early as 1929 when, at a meeting in the home of John C. Merriam, then president of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D. C., one of the attendees optimistically asserted that if a rocket went more than 50 miles high, above the ozone layer, it would “settle the nature of cosmic rays.”3 In 1931, Robert Millikan at the California Institute of Technology tried to persuade Robert H. Goddard to use the high-altitude rockets that he was developing in New Mexico for cosmic ray research. However, Goddard, having become by that time apprehensive about collaborative arrangements and, as a result, an inveterate loner in his rocket work, shied away from such joint endeavors.4

Even during the development of the V-2 rocket (Vengeance Weapon Number 2) in Germany during World War II (WWII), serious thought was given by its designers

5

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to using it for high-altitude research and space travel, but those thoughts had to be set aside because of the high wartime priority given to developing the weapon. In fact, project technical leader Wernher von Braun and two other staff members were imprisoned by the German Gestapo for two weeks in March 1944—charged with diverting their full attention from their wartime duties by planning to use rocketry for space travel.

An interesting vignette in that connection was related by Ernst Stuhlinger, one of von Braun’s close associates. In the fall of 1944, he visited his former mentor, Professor Hans Geiger, where he lay near the end of his life in a Berlin hospital. Geiger asked his former student what he was presently doing. Stuhlinger replied, “We are working on a long-range precision rocket which, we hope, will be able one day to fly to the Moon.” Stuhlinger went on to explain that he was working on the guidance system that would make it possible. Geiger’s interest was piqued, and he asked, “Do you think you could put a cosmic ray counter on board? And transmit the pulse signals to the ground? And really measure the cosmic ray intensity at high altitudes, far above the atmosphere?” Stuhlinger replied, “Absolutely, and we will certainly not send any of our rockets into space without some scientific instruments on board!”5

It was not until peace followed WWII that the first scientific instruments were carried aloft by rockets. The vehicles first used for that purpose were the captured German V-2 rockets that had been brought to the United States after the war, along with a cadre of senior German scientists and engineers led by Wernher von Braun. The primary purpose of the U. S. V-2 work was to help jump-start a nascent American rocket program.

Fortunately, the German team, with the support of their U. S. associates, followed through on the promise that the rockets would serve a useful purpose by carrying meaningful scientific instruments. By the end of 1950, approximately 63 V-2s had been launched in the United States, most with an assortment of research instruments. Strong leadership for the developing U. S. research program that employed the V-2s was provided by (in simple alphabetical order) Homer E. Newell Jr. (Naval Research Laboratory, NRL), William H. Pickering (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL), Milton W. Rosen (NRL), Homer Joe Stewart (JPL), John W. Townsend Jr. (NRL), and James A. Van Allen (Applied Physics Laboratory, APL). Those individuals all went on to figure prominently in developing the follow-on research rockets and the first U. S. satellites.

New vehicles for high-altitude research were soon developed in the United States, most notably, the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) Corporal by the JPL in California; the Aerobee, developed jointly by the APL and the NRL; and the Viking, developed by the NRL. By the end of 1950, approximately 10 of the WAC Corporals, 50 of the Aerobees, and 7 of the Vikings had been launched.

A more complete discussion of those rocket developments is contained in Chapter 7.

CHAPTER 1 • SETTING THE STAGE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA 7

Serious thinking about reaching farther from the Earth’s surface for scientific research began immediately after the cessation of hostilities at the end of World War II. As

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stated earlier, atmospheric sounding rockets were widely employed throughout the post-1945 era. But the need for much longer-term observations at higher altitudes was widely recognized.

Early U. S. thinking about satellites In May 1945, soon after his surrender to Allied troops in Germany, Wernher von Braun summarized his views on the potential of rocket-launched satellites for his U. S. Army captors.12 Discussions of satellite possi­bilities within the Army stimulated Navy interest, where the primary initial emphasis was on the observation of ship movements at sea. In October of that year, the Navy became the first U. S. agency to take a major formal step to evaluate the prospects. Its Bureau of Aeronautics set up a Committee for Evaluating the Feasibility of Space Rocketry. That group soon recommended that the design of an instrumented Earth satellite be started.

In December 1945, the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory (later renamed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory) at the California Institute of Technology was given a con­tract to investigate the relationship between carrier vehicle performance, the weight of a satellite, and the height of its orbit. The first result of the Guggenheim study was to point out that the system initially envisioned was too expensive to be supported by then-extant Navy budgets. At that point, the Navy tried to enlist help from the other services. A meeting was held on 7 March 1946 between Navy and Army officials, but the U. S. Army Air Corps declined the invitation to participate. What the Air Corps neglected to mention was that they were starting their own investigation, and they had no intention of sharing their efforts with the Navy.

In a November 1945 report, Air Corps general Henry H. (Hap) Arnold expressed his belief that a spaceship “is all but practicable today.” The next month, an air corps scientific advisory group stated that long-range rockets were feasible, and satellites were a “definite possibility.” In early 1946, the Air Corps commissioned a very highly classified independent study, partly to demonstrate that they, in addition to the Army Ordnance group and the Office of Naval Research, possessed competence in this arena and were qualified to assume responsibility for military satellite missions. Project RAND (standing for “Research ANd Development”) was set up by the air corps within the Douglas Aircraft Company at its El Segundo, California, plant to undertake that study.

That group achieved the remarkable feat of producing its first (classified) report, Preliminary Design of an Experimental World Circling Spaceship, by 2 May 1946.13 That 324 page report envisioned a 500 pound satellite to be launched by a booster that would use the technology obtained from V-2 experience. In addition to its technical assessments, the report identified a number of potential military missions for such a spacecraft, including observation, attack assessment, communications, weather recon­naissance, weapons delivery, and the technological development of missile guidance. There was also a strong focus in the report on the gathering of scientific information

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about the Earth and its near-environment. The report made the following prescient observation:

Though the crystal ball is cloudy, two things seem clear:

(1) A satellite vehicle with appropriate instrumentation can be expected to be one of the most potent scientific tools of the Twentieth Century.

(2) The achievement of a satellite craft by the United States would inflame the imagination of mankind, and would probably produce repercussions in the world comparable to the explosion of the atomic bomb.

The problem outlined in the report was that the cost was expected to be $150 million, a prohibitive amount for that era. A year later, RAND presented a new plan for a smaller satellite that it claimed could be launched for $82 million. But a technical evaluation by a Department of Defense group under Clark B. Millikan reviewed both the Air Corps and Navy plans and reported that the identification of some specific military uses would be required before a military development project could be justified. The final nail was driven in the coffin of those earliest efforts to develop an actual military Earth satellite on 15 January 1948, with Vice Chief of Staff Hoyt S. Vandenberg’s delaying statement that “satellites should be developed at the proper time.”14

Thus, by the opening of the 1950s, there was a strong agreement within military circles that satellite launches were possible. Although many of the suggested jus­tifications for launching military satellites did not appear to warrant the high cost, there was an additional factor. Throughout the cold war era, there was an urgent need for intelligence information to assist in assessing USSR military capabilities. U. S. aircraft photoreconnaissance overflights were made, but the Soviets strongly objected to them, the aircraft were detectable by radar, and they were vulnerable to antiaircraft fire from the ground. But, although satellites offered the possibil­ity of reconnaissance from above the range of ground fire and aircraft, U. S. policy makers were seriously concerned that the Soviets would object to them as a sim­ple extension of what they viewed as the warlike lower-level aircraft flights. The Soviets might then be expected to develop an antisatellite capability, and Earth orbit would become just another battlefront, rather than an outpost for a broad range of uses, including peaceful scientific exploration of the universe and the application of space technology to Earth resource management, communications, and other practical uses.

Within the nonmilitary arena, concrete thinking about space flight was also evident immediately following the war. In 1946, staff researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) discussed the use of Earth satellites for unclassified high-altitude research. The idea was set aside at that time as being premature—they concluded that the state of the technology was simply not yet available.

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The scientist’s hopes for research in space remained only a dream into the early 1950s. The popular press began to help in spreading the word. Although many of the concepts discussed openly did not benefit directly from the military studies because of the latter’s high security classification, an expectant culture of serious space en­thusiasts slowly emerged. The American Rocket Society began pressing the case for the scientific and peaceful conquest of space in the opening years of the 1950s. It established a Space Flight Committee in 1952, with Milton W. Rosen of the NRL as chairman. The following year, that committee, after being provided with at least some of the sensitive military information, issued a classified report with details about the kinds of actions that would be required to promote space flight. They suggested that the “National Science Foundation study the utility of an unmanned satellite vehicle to science, commerce and industry, and national defense.” They went on to state that “examples of these research uses might be: for a superior astronomical observatory site; for biological and chemical research utilizing non-gravity conditions; for elec­tronic research utilizing a more perfect vacuum of unlimited volume for microwave research in free space; cosmic ray studies; and sophisticated nuclear research; etc.”

A year later (1954), the Space Flight Committee followed its earlier report with an unclassified report to the National Science Foundation titled “On the Utility of an Artificial Unmanned Earth Satellite.” It stated that a satellite would be one of the most important steps toward advancing the cause of space flight, and that it would also increase the country’s scientific knowledge.

Since the IGY was undertaken as a completely open, purely scientific international effort, its planning involved a huge body of scientists, many of whom were unaware of most of the classified military activity. Those who did know about it were constrained from discussing it in the unclassified IGY planning arena.

The possibility of using satellites for scientific research became much more openly discussed following an event that occurred in 1952. Fred Singer began presenting and publishing a series of unclassified papers that espoused the use of small artificial Earth satellites for scientific investigations.15>16>17>18>19>20 As summarized later by Singer:

Partly stimulated by lectures I gave to the British Interplanetary Society in London in 1951,1 developed ideas for an instrumented earth satellite to carry on the kinds of measurements we hadbeendoinginrockets…. It was quitearadical ideaat the time, whichoffendedthosewho pooh-poohed any notion about working in space as well as those who had already set their aim on manned exploration of the solar system. What I brought to the discussion, mainly, was the notion that instrumentation could be miniaturized and that useful research could be done with a satellite weighing only a few kilograms—even if it survived only for days or weeks….

So was born the MOUSE—the Minimum Orbiting Unmanned Satellite of the Earth—with the help of futurist Arthur C. Clarke and rocket engineer Val Cleaver and some alcoholic conviviality at the Players’ Club near Trafalgar Square. For the next few years, I would try to think of all kinds of experiments that could be done by such a satellite: meteorological observations, including worldwide measurements of ozone; ultraviolet measurements of the

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Sun and other stars; measurements of incoming interplanetary dust as well as the zodiacal light/solar dust corona; magnetic measurements of ionospheric currents; the use of the satellite lifetime to measure the density of the upper atmosphere; primary cosmic rays, and finally, geomagnetically trapped particles. All these ideas were duly worked out and published in some detail.21

Singer’s implied claim to have originated the idea of a small, instrumented satellite was greeted with discomfort by much of the scientific community. As related by Homer E. Newell in his book on the early history of space science:

Members of the Upper Atmosphere Rocket Research Panel were aware of these [early military satellite] 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 [for the IGY]. 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 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.22

Singer continued to press his ideas for the MOUSE. His next step was also chron­icled by Newell:

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.

The International Scientific Radio Union, at its 11th General Assembly in The Hague, gave support to Singer’s proposal. At the urging of both Singer and Lloyd Berkner, on 2 September 1954 the Radio Union [International Scientific Radio Union, or URSI] 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 [IUGG] 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. 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.23

The URSI resolution recognized “the extreme importance of continuous obser­vations from above the E-region of extra-terrestrial radiations, especially during the forthcoming IGY.” It went on to state, “URSI therefore draws attention to the fact that an extension of present isolated rocket observations by means of instrumented

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Earth satellite vehicles would allow the continuous monitoring of solar ultra-violet and X-radiation intensity and its effects on the ionosphere, particularly during solar flares, thereby greatly enhancing our scientific knowledge of the outer atmosphere.”24

The CSAGI satellite challenge The IUGG quickly followed that resolution with an even stronger formal resolution. It was presented to the CSAGI for action, and on 4 October 1954, the CSAGI passed a very slightly edited version of the IUGG resolution. It read:

In view of the great importance of observations during extended periods of time of extra­terrestrial radiations and geophysical phenomena in the upper atmosphere, and in view of the advanced state of present rocket techniques, the 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.25

That resolution officially introduced the prospect of artificial Earth satellites into the planning for the IGY program. Exactly three years later, the first satellite was launched.

The U. S. response to the challenge The U. S. response to the CSAGI challenge took some time. Homer Newell’s excellent account of this history reads:

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.26

Eventually, the National Academy of Sciences (as sponsor of the U. S. IGY program) and the National Science Foundation (which provided the money) sought approval of a U. S. Earth satellite program. On 29 July 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the decision to launch “small, unmanned, Earth-circling satellites as a part of the U. S. participation in the IGY.” That announcement was made simultaneously in Washington, D. C.; in Brussels, Belgium, at a meeting of the CSAGI in the marble great hall of the Academy Palace; and in the 40 countries participating in the IGY.27 With that announcement, organizing the U. S. program shifted into high gear.

The three U. S. armed forces vied for the assignment to plan and execute the satellite technical program. Through a process described in detail in Chapter 7,

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that responsibility was ultimately assigned by the Secretary of Defense to the Navy Department on 9 September 1955. In turn, the navy secretary assigned it to the Chief of Naval Research on 27 September, and the director of the NRL was given the task of executing it on 6 October.

The National Academy of Sciences retained the responsibility for policy guidance and for interfacing with the various individuals and organizations of the IGY. That responsibility included the prioritization and selection of the experiments.

In early October 1955, the U. S. National Committee for the IGY established a Technical Panel on the Earth Satellite Program, with Richard W. Porter as chairman. It held its first meeting on 20 October. In late January 1956, Porter asked Van Allen to chair a new Working Group on Internal Instrumentation (WGII). At the same time, he asked William H. Pickering to set up a companion Working Group on External Instrumentation (WGEI). The WGII was concerned with the scientific instruments to be flown, while the WGEI dealt with telemetry and tracking. All three groups undertook their work with great alacrity.

In the final analysis, it is virtually certain that the perceived need to develop a U. S. satellite for military needs served as a significant factor in gaining administration support for the IGY satellite effort. The IGY provided a convenient “open, pure science” cover that helped to ensure that U. S. satellites would be accepted in the international political arena.

Initial official soviet actions Although Soviet interest in space flight was also long­standing, the Soviets were slower to reveal their thinking to the outside world in any formal sense. As mentioned earlier, by the time of the 20 September 1954 meeting of the IUGG, the USSR had not even officially committed to participating in the IGY. By early 1956, that commitment had been made, and their IGY Committee was invited by a special letter from the CSAGI secretary-general, Marcel Nicolet, to consider participating in the rockets and satellites program.

Although the invitation was apparently received with great interest in the Soviet Union, no formal announcement of Soviet plans to launch an Earth satellite was made to the outside world until that fall. On 11 September 1956, Academician Ivan P. Bardin announced to the delegates at the Fourth General Assembly of the CSAGI in Barcelona that the USSR would have a rocket program in the IGY and “would use satellites for pressure, temperature, cosmic ray, micrometeor, and solar radiation measurements.”

It was not until 10 June 1957 that Bardin revealed any further details about the Soviet program to the IGY planners. This was done via letter to the CSAGI Reporter on Rockets and Satellites. In that letter, he mentioned that 125 meteorological rockets would be launched from the Arctic, central USSR, and Antarctic. He also mentioned

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the satellites again, stating that all of the rocket and satellite launches would study “the structure of the atmosphere, cosmic rays, the ionosphere, micrometeors and meteorites, the physical and chemical properties of the upper astrosphere, and more.” But other details, such as the number of planned satellite launches and their sizes, were not revealed.

Although I did not attend the CSAGI and other early international IGY planning meetings, I did observe and participate in much of the detailed planning for the U. S. IGY satellite program throughout 1956 and 1957. The information above was the limit of my knowledge about the Soviet intentions, and I believe that was true for the majority of civilian scientists involved in the U. S. program. We were largely unaware of the many other indicators of Soviet space activity that are detailed in Chapter 6.

The U. S. Vanguard Satellite Program Once the NRL received the assignment for developing the U. S. satellite in early October 1955, work quickly accelerated. The first substantive outline of the form of the U. S. satellite (by that time known as Vanguard) was presented in late November by Homer Newell to the Technical Panel on the Earth Satellite Program.28 He stated that the NRL concept employed two concentric spheres: an outer one, to be 20 or 30 inches in diameter, and an internal, 12 inch diameter sphere to house most of the scientific instruments. The shape of the outer sphere was chosen to optimize optical tracking and the conduct of scientific experiments related to atmospheric drag. Although it was thought then that the inner container should be spherical to help in controlling the temperature of the internal instruments, later study allowed it to be changed to a cylindrical form that permitted more efficient packaging.29

In that early concept, each of the two spheres was to be pressurized independently with helium, although the satellite was to be able to operate even if pressure in the outer sphere was lost due to punctures by small particles (micrometeorites) that were expected to be present in orbit.

That early design posited a total satellite weight of about 22 pounds, with about 2.2 pounds available for scientific instruments, exclusive of telemetry and batteries. It was stated that the data would be recovered by the Minitrack tracking and telemetry system then being developed at NRL under John T. Mengel’s leadership. The antici­pated periods of usable data reception during passage over each ground station were expected to be from eight seconds to as long as a minute for transits that passed directly overhead.

Some of the U. S. scientists were greatly troubled by the small instrument weight allocation. Van Allen suggested during January 1956 that the project consider making some of the satellites cylindrical in shape, with a length of about 18 inches and a diameter of 6 inches. He referred to this as the Mark II configuration.30 The intent of his recommendation was to make more of the total satellite weight available for

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scientific instrumentation. It should be noted that the Mark II configuration was similar to the satellites that were ultimately launched as the early Explorers.

Some of Van Allen’s preference for the six inch diameter, no doubt, resulted from our group’s experience with that size for the Deacon-based rockoon instruments. And, although he could not discuss it in the unclassified sessions, it is likely that his preference was also strongly influenced by his knowledge of the highly classified Jupiter C developments then under way at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency at Huntsville, Alabama. Van Allen became aware of those developments as early as 1954, when Ernst Stuhlinger, from the Huntsville team, told him of the possibility that the Army might be able to launch a satellite with its rockets. It had been, in fact, that knowledge that most directly motivated Van Allen to prepare his first (November 1954) proposal for a satellite-borne cosmic ray instrument. That background is described in greater detail in Chapter 7.

Major progress had been made in the Vanguard planning by early February 1956. The diameter of the outer shell was set at about 20 inches, in order that it would fall within the envelope of the third stage of the proposed Vanguard launch vehicle. In addition, the configuration for the inner instrument package was changed to a 3.5 inch diameter cylinder with a variable length, depending on the instruments. The satellite maximum weight had been set at 21.5 pounds, with 2 pounds allocated for the experimenters’ instruments (again, exclusive of telemetry and batteries).31

The issue of the satellite configuration remained open for some time. As late as 30 May 1956, two weight breakdowns were still being carried: one for the spherical form favored by NRL and the other for the cylindrical form preferred by Van Allen and several others.32

The issue was finally settled by a compromise of sorts. The outer shell for all the satellites would remain spherical with a diameter of 20 inches, but the specifications for the inner package were amended to permit either a 3.5 inch or a 6 inch diameter instrument cylinder. Although that did not make as much weight available for the scientific instruments as the Mark II configuration would have provided, the 6 inch instrument configuration did permit more efficient packaging.

The Vanguard satellite hardware Upon receiving approval of the Vanguard project in early October 1955, NRL began working diligently to develop the satellite’s shells, thermal control systems, transistor circuitry, telemetry and tracking systems, and other capabilities that would be required. Progress on those fronts (as well as on the launch vehicle and other Vanguard components) is recorded in a series of 36 detailed reports, the first one dated 13 January 1956. In their third report, dated 29 March 1956, they outlined three satellite designs. They were described as follows:

(1) A minimum-weight satellite containing only Minitrack equipment—the size and

shape would be consistent with the equipment and weight requirements. From a weight

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standpoint, it would be preferable to attach the sphere solidly to the third-stage shell and omit spin-isolation bearings and separating devices. The temperature and acceleration effects on the structure and equipment are being investigated. The weight of this satellite might be as little as eight pounds; it would not be more than eleven pounds.

(2) A 20-inch spherical satellite weighting 21.5 pounds—it would contain a Minitrack and telemetering transmitter; temperature, pressure, and erosion gauges; and equipment for the measurement of variations in solar Lyman-alpha radiation. It would be mounted on a bearing to reduce the spin rate, and a separating mechanism would cause the satellite to leave the third-stage case at about five feet per second after burnout.

(3) A satellite which would contain the same instrumentation as (2), but might remain attached to the third-stage case and would have an optimum configuration which has not yet been established.

The final choice of the satellite type will be made at a future date.33

The planning, then, was that the first small (six inch) satellites would be built for test vehicle developmental launches, while either the second or third configuration would serve as the full IGY scientific instrument-carrying satellite.

The small satellite was, in fact, placed atop test vehicles (TVs) TV-3 (unsuccessfully attempted on 6 December 1957), TV-3BU (unsuccessfully attempted on 5 February 1958), and TV-4 (successfully launched as Vanguard I on 17 March 1958).34 The third design listed above was dropped fairly early in the program.

The second design evolved into the configuration that was ultimately used for six all-up IGY launch attempts, beginning with the (unsuccessful) launch of TV-5 on 28 April 1958. The one successfully launched on 17 February 1959 atop Satellite Launch Vehicle 4 (SLV-4) was Vanguard II. Vanguard III, launched on 18 September 1959, employed a more powerful third stage, permitting a heavier satellite.

It has been reported from time to time that the small satellites included in the failed launch attempts in December 1957 and February 1958, and successfully launched as Vanguard I in March 1958, were the result of a last-minute crash effort to get a payload into orbit as quickly as possible after the Sputnik 1 launch. In fact, as stated above, the 6.44 inch diameter satellite was always planned as a part of the Vanguard launch vehicle development program.

The number of failed Vanguard vehicle launch attempts may seem excessive at first reading. But it was not so by the standards of rocket development at that time. The Vanguard, during its full development and operational period, made a total of 14 launch attempts, including both early rocket developmental tests and all-up satellite launch attempts, of which there were eight failures.

By comparison, the V-2 rockets assembled in the United States following World War II experienced 20 failures out of 64 attempts, even though thousands of the operational rockets had been launched from Germany by that time, and the U. S. operations were overseen by the German scientists who had helped design them. The development of the Redstone rocket up to its elevation to operational status included 37 test flights, of which 10 were failures. The Thor IRBM, during its developmental

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TABLE 3.1 Early U. S. Launching Scorecard

testing period, made 10 launch attempts, of which 6 were failures. The first version of the Atlas, designated Atlas-A and consisting of only the main sustainer stage with a planned range of 600 miles, experienced five failures out of eight attempts.

Table 3.1 shows the total number of U. S. space launch attempts during the first 10 years of the Space Era, and the percentage of those attempts that succeeded.

Of the eight satellite instruments that I developed at Iowa before my departure in September 1960, only half were successfully launched into orbit. The success-to – failure ratio improved slowly during the next few years. It was only in 1965 that the space launch success rate reached 90 percent.

The Soviets fared no better. The public perception of their success was better, as they hid their failures until much later. In actual fact, during the years 1957 through 1960, they made 19 launch attempts, of which only 9, or 47 percent, were successful.

Experiment selection Long before the announcement in July 1955 of a plan to launch a U. S. satellite, ideas for space-based investigations had been gestating in many minds. The president’s decision and announcement provided a great stimulus for further thinking. The first concrete experiment proposal was Van Allen’s, dated 28 September 1955, to study cosmic rays.35 It was followed a few weeks later by a proposal by Fred Singer at the University of Maryland to measure the erosion of the satellite’s skin by meteoric dust.36 And the competition for real estate on the enthusiastically anticipated satellite was off and running.

The UARRP, mentioned earlier as being formed during the V-2 rocket-launching era, had continued its activity into the IGY planning period. Following the president’s July announcement, that body quickly made concrete plans for examining potential satellite experiments. They ended their meeting on 27 October 1955 at the Ballistics Research Laboratories in Aberdeen, Maryland, with a decision to hold a symposium to discuss ideas for such experiments. The guidelines that they established for that symposium stipulated that attendance would be limited to panel members and their

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invitees, that only unclassified materials would be considered, and that the subject matter would be highly constrained to be specific, critically considered, and pertinent within the constraints of the present and near-term projection of technologies. The meeting was open for “plans for physical experiments and observations, theoretical and interpretative matters, and techniques and components of a novel nature, but not space medicine, or the legal and political aspects of the satellite program, or essays dealing with vehicle propulsion and guidance.”37

That symposium took place on the campus of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor on 26-27 January 1956. The forty-third meeting of the UARRP, it was also billed as their Tenth Anniversary Meeting. It provided an opportunity for scientists to present their ideas for space research in an informal, collegial environment. The proposals for both passive and active satellite-based experiments encompassed a wide span of disciplines, including meteor and interplanetary dust characteristics, air pres­sure and density, hydrogen distribution, meteorological measurements, ionospheric structure, temperature, electron density, electromagnetic propagation, auroral radia­tion, magnetic field, Earth heat transfer, solar Lyman-alpha emission, solar stream particles, ultraviolet stellar magnitudes, and, of course, cosmic rays. Thirty-three of those proposals were later published in book form.38

I accompanied Van Allen to that Ann Arbor symposium. It was a watershed experience for me, as it greatly broadened my perspective of scientific research in general, and of the up-and-coming space program in particular. After that meeting (and my concurrent undergraduate graduation), and in advance of official action to select the scientific experiments to be funded by the IGY program, I began substantive work on developing Van Allen’s instrument, as related in detail in Chapter 5.

Immediately after that meeting, at the beginning of February 1956, the newly formed WGII, under Van Allen’s chairmanship, took over the responsibility for all aspects of the instrumentation to be carried on the IGY satellites, including appraising the many proposals being suggested. Initial members of that group were Leroy R. Alldredge (Johns Hopkins Operations Research Office), M. Ference (Ford Motor Company), Herbert Friedman (NRL), William (Bill) W. Kellogg (RAND), Richard Porter (General Electric), Lyman Spitzer (Princeton University), and Van Allen (as chairman).39,40

Thirty serious proposals were initially considered by the WGII. By the time of its first actual meeting on 2 March 1956, the list to be evaluated stood at 11, with 4 more needing additional clarification. They set about energetically to reduce that list to a priority-ordered list that could be flown on the six launch vehicles being procured. The four criteria on which they settled for ranking the proposals were as follows:

(a) Scientific Importance. This aspect was taken to be measured by the extent to which the proposed observations, if successful, would contribute to the clarification and understanding

OPENING SPACE RESEARCH

of large bodies of phenomena and/or by the extent to which the proposed observations would be likely to lead to the discovery of new phenomena.

(b) Technical Feasibility. This criterion encompassed evidence for previous successful use of the proposed technique in rockets (or otherwise), apparent adaptability of the instru­mentation to the physical conditions and data transmission potentialities of presently planned satellites, nature of data to be expected, and feasibility of interpretation of observations into fundamental data.

(c) Competence. An assessment of competence of persons and agencies making pro­posals was attempted. The principal foundation for such assessment was previous record of achievement in work of the general nature proposed.

(d) Importance of a Satellite Vehicle to Proposed Work. The nature of each proposal was analyzed with respect to the questions: Is a satellite essential or very strongly desirable as a vehicle for the observing equipment proposed? Or could the observations be made nearly as well or better with balloons or conventional rockets as vehicles?41

Van Allen’s Geiger-Muller (GM) counter cosmic ray proposal was accepted on 12 May 1956 by the U. S. National Committee for the 1957-1958 IGY (see the comments in the foreword). It was placed on the short list of potential payloads for early satellite missions, and initial funding was arranged.

At its second full meeting on 1 June 1956, the WGII produced an initial constel­lation of priority-ordered Earth Satellite Proposals (ESPs) out of those that had been submitted. They were as follows:

ESP-8, Satellite Environmental Measurements, H. E. LaGow, Naval Research Laboratory.

ESP-9, Solar Lyman-Alpha Intensity, H. Friedman, Naval Research Laboratory.

ESP-11, Proposal for Cosmic Ray Observations in Earth Satellites, J. A. Van Allen, University of Iowa.

ESP-4, Proposal for the Measurement of Interplanetary Matter from the Earth Satellite,

M. Dubin, Air Force Cambridge Research Center.42

At a meeting in early December 1956, the WGII converted that list into a somewhat modified group in which some of the initial proposals were combined and several others were added. The complete list included studies in meteorology, geomagnetism, ionospheric physics, cosmic rays, meteorites, and astrophysics. They identified that list as a “hard-core program” of onboard experiments, designated them as priority-A experiments, and set the stage for their funding.

The first priority-A package included the instrument proposed by Herbert Friedman of the NRL to monitor the intensity of the solar Lyman-alpha ultraviolet emission line at 1215.7 angstroms. It employed a straightforward ionization chamber covering the range 1100 to 1400 angstroms. That primary experiment was to be accompanied by a group of measurements to determine the effectiveness of the provisions for controlling the temperature within the satellite and to measure the density of the field of micrometeorites and their effect on the outer satellite surface.

Unsuccessful attempts were made to launch that instrument on 28 April 1958 (Vanguard TV-5), 27 May 1958 (Vanguard SLV-1), and 26 June 1958 (Vanguard

CHAPTER 3 • THE INTERNATIONAL GEOPHYSICAL YEAR 83

SLV-2). That set of instruments was ultimately launched on 18 September 1959 as part of a substantially expanded Vanguard III payload.

The second approved package included Van Allen’s cosmic ray instrument, con­sisting of a single GM counter coupled with onboard data storage to provide coverage over the entire geographic area covered by the satellite. The observation of cosmic ray intensity above the atmosphere was expected to reveal the geographical symmetry of the cosmic ray intensity, and the deviations of that symmetry from that of the Earth’s magnetic field. The instrument was also expected to provide a first measurement of fluctuations in the intensity of the primary cosmic rays in order to study their possi­ble sources and the process by which they reached the Earth. It was envisioned that the satellite information would supplement and extend the ground-based cosmic ray observations also being planned for the IGY. A second instrument on that package was a set of sensitive gauges on the outer skin of the satellite for determining the order of magnitude of erosion due to meteoric impacts. That instrument was proposed by Edward Manring and his group at the Air Force Cambridge Research Center in Massachusetts.

The development of the second Vanguard experiment package is the primary subject of Chapter 5.

The third priority-A package consisted of a proton precessional magnetometer to measure the Earth’s magnetic field at high altitudes and over an extended geographical area. The basic instrument, in a 13-inch diameter sphere, was reduced to flight form under James P. Heppner’s leadership at NRL. That third payload also included a 30 inch diameter inflatable sphere proposed by William J. O’Sullivan at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics laboratory at Langley Field, Virginia. That sphere was to be separated from the primary satellite and tracked from the ground to provide a sensitive measurement of the density of the Earth’s atmosphere at much greater heights than hitherto possible.

An unsuccessful attempt was made to launch that two-instrument package on 13 April 1959 (SLV-5). The magnetometer flew later as part of the instrument com­plement on the expanded Vanguard III on 18 September 1959. The inflatable sphere was never flown successfully in that form. A somewhat similar sphere, focused on the original objectives, was eventually launched on 16 February 1961 as Explorer 9. Two Echo satellites, launched on 12 August 1960 and 25 January 1964, used technology developed in that program.

The fourth Vanguard launch vehicle was reserved for a meteorological experiment. Two packages were developed, of which one was to be selected for flight. The first instrument was for the observation of cloud cover over a substantial portion of the Earth’s surface. Developed by William G. Stroud, William Nordberg, and their group at the U. S. Army Corps Signal Engineering Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, it employed two photoelectric telescopes to scan the Earth’s surface as the

OPENING SPACE RESEARCH

satellite spun, coupled with an onboard tape recorder for data storage over the entire orbit.

An unsuccessful attempt was made to launch that package on 26 September 1958 (Vanguard SLV-3), and it was successfully orbited on 17 February 1959 as Vanguard II. Unfortunately, its scientific value was limited due to an unplanned wobble in the satellite’s spin due to tipoff by the final rocket stage.

The other meteorological experiment was developed by Verner E. Suomi, engineer Robert (Bob) Parent, and their group at the University of Wisconsin. It employed four specially prepared small spheres supported by rods around the outer equator of the satellite. Those sensors were sensitive to radiation at several different wavelengths to provide a measure of the Earth’s radiation balance, i. e., the net effect of radiation arriving from the Sun and of radiation being emitted from the Earth.

An unsuccessful attempt was made to launch the Wisconsin instrument on 22 June 1959 (Vanguard SLV-6). Although that instrument was never successfully launched as a part of the Vanguard program, it was adapted for the Explorer 7 payload that was successfully launched on 13 October 1959.

Six backup experiments were designated by the WGII, in case problems arose with the development of the primary instruments described above. Those packages were never assigned flight space as part of the Vanguard program, although many of their objectives were ultimately achieved by instruments in different forms on later spacecraft.

It was customary at those conferences for receptions to be hosted to provide fur­ther opportunities for social interaction and technical exchange. The U. S. National

CHAPTER 6 • SPUTNIK! 167

Academy of Sciences started this off with a cocktail party on the opening day. This was a grand and glorious affair, with most of the official delegates and other con­ference participants in attendance. The Americans were unusually gregarious, in no small way a result of the growing publicity accompanying the U. S. satellite program and the expectations of a Vanguard launch within the next few months.

During the week, the official delegates and a scattering of newsmen received invitations for a Friday evening cocktail party at the Soviet Embassy. Those invita­tions read, “The USSR Delegation to CSAGO [sic] Rocket & Satellite Conference request the pleasure of the company of [name] at cocktails on Friday, October 4, 1957 at 6:00 o’clock, [at] 1125 16 Street, NW.” Since Van Allen had initially been expected as one of the formally designated U. S. delegates, an invitation had been made out to “Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Van Allen.” As he was busy launching rockoons in the south Pacific and I was attending the conference as the sole University of Iowa representative, the embassy staff had lined out his name and substituted mine. There­fore, purely by an accident of circumstances, I was able to witness that momentous event.

After the technical meetings for that day ended, I freshened up in my hotel room and walked the short distance to the old Soviet Embassy near Scott Circle. I was warmly greeted and escorted to the grand ballroom on the second floor. During the next half hour or so, most of the other guests arrived. As the assembly gathered, the babble of mingled voices swelled, as small, animated groups formed and reformed around the tables of elaborate hors d’oeuvres and the abundantly stocked bars. Most of the discussions centered on the IGY planning and technical information at the conference, and the three Soviet delegates and many of the embassy senior staff mingled freely with the knots of guests.

Just as the party was reaching full swing—as if upon cue from an unseen master of ceremonies—there was an interruption. Not six feet away from where I stood, Lloyd V. Berkner, CSAGI vice president, and reporter for rockets and satellites, climbed onto a chair and clapped his hands loudly to get our attention. The crowd hushed, and he declared13:

The JPL had the overall responsibility for designing, building, and testing the Deal I instrument package that became Explorer I. Of course, they also built the upper rocket stages and the Microlock ground network.

My direct responsibility in that first satellite was for the circuit design and perfor­mance of the GM counter, its high-voltage power supply, and the associated scaler circuits. It included the full responsibility for calibrating the GM counters and for verifying the satisfactory overall performance of the scientific instrument.

Edward Manring and Maurice Dubin at the AFCRC near Boston provided the fine wire grids and microphones for detecting micrometeorites, and Temple University in Philadelphia provided the tuned microphone amplifiers for them.

The U. S. Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, un­der the arrangement that I had made with them earlier, delivered flight-qualified component kits for the high-voltage power supplies for our Geiger counters. They also provided quartz crystals for the JPL-built transmitters.

CHAPTER 8 • GO! JUPITER C, JUNO, AND DEAL I 235

By late November, JPL had set up the entire organizational structure for both the Deal I and II projects.22 It was quite a readjustment for me to shift from the environment at SUI, where I was in full control of all satellite technical activities, to that at JPL, where I was a junior engineer enmeshed in a huge organization with no clear line of authority. I had lost most of my control over what was happening to “my graduate research project.”

In actual fact, I was involved in one way or another with most of the decisions involving our instruments. As with most rush projects of this nature, a lively in­formal process operated behind the scenes, and it was usually possible for me to work directly with whomever I thought necessary. On the senior management level, I enjoyed a very pleasant and effective working relationship with JPL di­rector Bill Pickering, project director Jack Froehlich, consultant Eb Rechtin, head of satellite instrumentation Walter (Walt) Victor, head of satellite observations Al Hibbs, head of satellite and Microlock antennas Bob Stevens, and, of course, Henry Richter.

My contacts with engineers and technicians on the working level were especially memorable, and I remember many of those friends with great fondness. In addition to Henry Richter, John Collins, and Dean Slaughter, they included Bill Pilkington, Lee Randolph, and Lee Zanteson.

A tabulation of station passes and data received for the first day of the satellite’s life shows the general pattern of initial operations, during which time the ground stations were working out the operational and equipment problems associated with the use of a new network.7,8 That tabulation is shown as Table 11.1.

A comprehensive assessment of the complete data acquisition history was assem­bled from the final Explorer I data tabulation.9 In that assessment, recordings were counted if the signal quality was good enough that beginning and ending times could be ascribed for the reception of a recognizable modulation of the signal. From 1 through 11 February, that is, until the high-power transmitter began to fail on 12 February, there were 394 such recordings. After 11 February, the recordings totaled 234, nearly all from the low-power transmitter. A summary of the recording history is as follows: [8]

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were reactivated as soon as the high-power signal was again observed, there were fewer stations on line during that period, and they appear not to have been scheduled as heavily. It is also possible that the high-power system was not transmitting at full power.

CHAPTER 11 • OPERATIONS AND DATA HANDLING 293

• Low-Power System

о From 1 through 13 February, a daily average of 12.7 recordings of the low – power signal was obtained. The lower recovery rate for the low-power system (compared with that for the high-power system) was due to the fact that the high-power signal could be read by all 17 Microlock and Minitrack ground stations, whereas only 7 (the six Microlock stations and the Minitrack sta­tion at Woomera, Australia) were equipped to receive the low-power signal. Furthermore, the low-power signal, being weaker, was intrinsically harder to read.

о From 14 February through cessation of the low-power signal on 14 April, the data recovery rate averaged 9.8 passes per day. The lower recovery rate for the low-power signal during that period, compared with that in the earlier period, is ascribed to the difficulty in acquiring and tracking the low-power signal in the absence of the high-power signal. When both signals were present, the common practice was to do the initial antenna pointing using the high – power signal. After the demise of the high-power system, that had to be done exclusively with the weaker signal.

о The distribution of successful recordings during that period ranged from 4 to 15 per day, with a peak recovery rate around 20 March. That pattern probably reflected the changing position of the satellite’s apogee relative to the ground station locations.

Not all of the cases reported above resulted in scientifically useful data. Frequently, when the signals were weak due to attempts to acquire the data at very low elevation angles, the modulation of the signal caused by the combination of the antenna pattern and satellite motion resulted in additional degradation. Of the total number of cases where the carrier was detected, about half of them produced data sufficiently clear to be useful in the scientific analyses.

The forum for the public announcement of the discovery of the region of high-intensity radiation was a special meeting in the Great Hall of the National Academy of Sciences at 9:45 AM on Thursday, 1 May 1958. The meeting had been publicized within a large circle of members of the scientific community and media by two letters from Hugh Odishaw, executive director of the U. S. National Committee for the IGY. His first letter, dated 22 April and addressed to members of the U. S. National Committee and its Technical Panels, was headed “Experimental Results for 1958 Alpha.” It read:

Brief papers have been scheduled for the presentation of preliminary data obtained from US-IGY satellite 1958 Alpha. Cosmic ray, micrometeorite, temperature, and orbital data will be described by representatives of the State University of Iowa, the Geophysical Research Di­rectorate, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Naval Research Laboratory and Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. The papers will be presented in the Great Hall of the National Academy of Sciences, 2101 Constitution Avenue, N. W., at 9:45 a. m., Thursday, May 1. The meeting is expected to last about one hour.46

Odishaw followed that letter with a second one six days later that transmitted preliminary copies of the papers (including ours). His transmittal letter read:

As you know from my notice dated April 22, 1958, the President of the Academy has made arrangements to have briefreports on experimental results of1958 Alpha presented to members of the Academy, the American Physical Society, and the local scientific community at a special meeting in the Great Hall of the Academy at 9:45 a. m., Thursday, May 1, 1958…. The enclosures are advance copies of these preliminary reports. They are marked “Not for Release” inasmuch as the Academy is making provision for the orderly public release of the reports at the time of the special meeting noted above.47

As indicated, the session had been precipitated by Van Allen’s disclosure of our radiation belt discovery to Richard Porter and other program officials in mid-April. It

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was arranged initially to provide a forum for the exchange of all experimental results obtained thus far from Explorer I, but the agenda was expanded to include some results from Explorers II and III.

Van Allen and Frank McDonald represented our Iowa group at the session. The session was chaired by Porter, in his capacity as chairman of the Technical Panel on the Earth Satellite Program (TPESP), U. S. National Committee for the IGY. The papers were titled as follows48:

Status Reports on Optical Observations of Satellites 1958 Alpha [Explorer I] and 1958 Beta [Explorer II], by J. Allen Hynek and Fred L. Whipple

Scientific Results: The Orbit and Variable Acceleration of Satellite 1958 Alpha, by Charles A. Whitney

The Density of the Upper Atmosphere, by Theodore E. Sterne

The Determination of the Orbit of 1958 Alpha at the Vanguard Computing Center, by Joseph W. Siry

Satellite Micrometeorite Measurements, by E. Manring and M. Dubin Satellite Temperature Measurements for 1958 Alpha—Explorer I, by E. P. Buwalda and A. R. Hibbs

Observation of High Intensity Radiation by Satellites 1958 Alpha and Gamma, by James A. Van Allen, G. H. Ludwig, E. C. Ray, and C. E. McIlwain

The last paper received the most attention—our paper disclosing the discovery of the region of high-intensity radiation. In his oral presentation, Van Allen followed the general structure of our written report, but with substantial elaboration. At the end, he added a discussion of the possible relationship between the radiation seen by the satellites and that detected earlier on Iowa’s Davis Strait rockoon expeditions, on Carl McIlwain’s Fort Churchill rocket flights, and on high-altitude balloon flights. Specifically, paraphrasing his spoken word, Van asserted that the effect must be due to charged particles (as opposed to neutral particles or photons), that it was likely to be bremsstrahlung from electrons confined by the Earth’s magnetic field, and that those electrons were rather closely related to the soft radiation that had earlier been observed in the polar regions.

He sketched some numbers on the blackboard, from which he made a further speculation that, if the particle identification were correct, the flux of electrons must be of the order of 109 per square centimeter per second, that the average energy was of the order of 40 kilovolts, and that the energy flux was of the order of 10 ergs per square centimeter per second.

In his wrap-up, Van Allen discussed the probable relationship of those results with the general theoretical concepts of Chapman and Ferraro, including the prob­ability that the particles were trapped in Stormer-Treiman lunes about the Earth. He mentioned that the observed intensity of radiation should be a source of radio noise (probably not detectable from the ground but possibly by a vehicle above

CHAPTER 12 • DISCOVERY OF THE TRAPPED RADIATION 347

the ionosphere). He suggested that there was most likely an intimate connection between this observed radiation and the occurrence of visible aurorae, and that the radiation intensity above 1000 kilometers probably exceeded 60 milliroentgens per hour.

Van Allen’s presentation was followed by a spirited question-and-answer period that focused primarily on arguments against the observations being due to protons or gamma radiation.

Van Allen’s handwritten speaking notes are preserved in the University of Iowa Libraries.49 His entire lecture and the ensuing discussion were captured on magnetic tape by a reporter from the Voice of America, and later transcribed through the efforts of Hugh Odishaw, Ross Peavey, and John Truesdale of the U. S. IGY staff. That transcription was published as a University of Iowa Physics Department research report,50 and shortly thereafter as a National Academy of Sciences IGY Satellite Report.51

That initial announcement of the belt discovery was quickly followed by presentations in other forums. For example, Van Allen repeated his presentation at the 9-12 June 1958 semiannual meeting of the American Rocket Society in Los Angeles. Ernie Ray represented our group at the Fifth Meeting of the Special Committee for the International Geophysical Year in Moscow, held on 29 July to 9 August 1958. There, a telegram from Van Allen, McIlwain, and me conveyed an early report of Explorer IV results. He reported to the attendees that the new data confirmed our radiation belt findings from Explorers I and III.52

Other authors have published their own accounts of the Iowa radiation belt discovery over the ensuing years, of which some of the most interesting and authoritative are identified in the bibliography and in an endnote.53 Although they are in reasonably good agreement on the general sequence of events, the careful reader will note some differences. A special effort was made in this book to resolve those differences, using primary references as well as personal records and exchanges with Van Allen, McIlwain, and others.

he Physics Department at the University of Iowa was a beehive of activity during those early years of the Space Age. James Van Allen provided inspired leader­ship. In addition to his own research, he worked diligently at the task of attracting outstanding faculty, staff members, and graduate students. He had the full support of the greater university, starting at its top with President Virgil Hancher, who gave him constant encouragement and support. During Van Allen’s tenure, he worked tirelessly to improve the department’s facilities, including, ultimately, the addition of a modern new physics building.

The Cosmic Ray Laboratory

Van Allen established the Cosmic Ray Laboratory immediately upon his arrival in 1951 in the old Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics Building. The center of the campus, the Pentacrest, is anchored by the old capital building in the center, as shown in Figure 15.1. The Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics Building is to the lower right in that picture.

The Cosmic Ray Laboratory occupied the basement of the south end of that building (to the right in the figure). Although that space served the purpose adequately at the beginning of the balloon and rockoon era, it quickly became overcrowded. By the end of the 1950s, although several other nearby rooms had been commandeered by the laboratory, it became necessary to go so far as to add a floor to the pit of the never-before-used elevator shaft for one of our environmental test chambers and to wall off part of the basement hallway for additional bench space (Figure 15.2).

With Van Allen’s well-established Navy connections, he was able to build an initial capability at very low cost by heavy reliance on military surplus equipment.

421

That included everything from basic electronics components, such as resistors and capacitors, to balloons, radiosonde altimeters, machine tools for the instrument shop, Deacon and Loki rockets, and surplus gun mounts used as antenna mounts. It was common in those early days to see students unsoldering components and sorting nuts and screws from old military radio equipment for use in their instruments.

The laboratory’s capabilities grew rapidly after its modest beginning. The Interna­tional Geophysical Year provided a substantial infusion of funds. The Argus-related high-priority Explorer IV and V effort, including the decision to assemble those satellites in our laboratory, brought about a further substantial expansion.

Van Allen, of course, directed the laboratory, including the ever-present burden of assuring its financial support. After their arrival, Frank McDonald and Kinsey Anderson helped in managing the work of the laboratory. During my graduate years, I did much of the ordering and setting up of equipment and oversaw much of the

laboratory’s day-to-day operation. By the end of 1960, it had become a full-fledged Space Sciences Laboratory, including all of the capabilities for developing, building, and testing spacecraft and for processing and interpreting their data.

During that period, the laboratory produced the first university-built satellites. During the next decade, it established a complete satellite data acquisition and com­manding station at nearby North Liberty and a satellite control center on the campus. With those capabilities, the laboratory was able to provide unique student experiences covering the entire gamut of space-related research, from conception of experiments; through development, building, and launching of the instruments; to operating them and deriving and publishing the scientific results.

The laboratory’s early successes, buoyed by pictures in the Iowa newspapers of the cramped laboratory, provided fuel for vastly improving the facilities. In 1964, the laboratory moved into a completely new Physics Building funded substantially by the U. S. space program. That building, shown under construction in Figure 15.1, has been known from its beginning as Van Allen Hall.

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For a time, Van Allen considered establishing a more formally constituted institute. In July 1958, he prepared a four-part memorandum proposing such an institute, addressed to the National Academy’s Space Science Board.1 The four parts of the proposal were titled (1) “Future Satellite and Lunar-Flight Experiments Already Being Prepared at S. U.I.,” (2) “Specific Additional Experiments (1958-1961),” (3) “General Remarks on Other Additional Work (1958-1961),” and (4) “A Proposed INSTITUTE OF SPACE SCIENCE at the State University of Iowa.”

The document was designed to show the overall record of competence and achieve­ment and used that and the promise of continuing leadership as the basis for establish­ing such an institute. It argued the case for shifting from operating on a short range, ad hoc basis to a longer-term structure to provide greater continuity. He proposed that it be organized as an integral part of the academic establishment of the university solely for the conduct of pure research, that its activities be intimately related to the graduate and undergraduate work of the Department of Physics, and that senior persons hold joint appointments on the teaching faculty of the department and on the research staff of the institute. The institute’s primary emphasis would be on research related to primary cosmic radiation, the geomagnetic field, interplanetary plasma, and aurorae. Proposed institute divisions were experimental, theoretical, components and envi­ronmental testing, field operations, and shop. The proposal named eight individuals (including this author) who would form an initial staffing cadre.

Van Allen discussed the establishment of such an institute with several of us from time to time. It was clear that he was weighing the advantages of such a formal long­term arrangement against the added administrative responsibility for sustaining the funding. According to author Abigail Foerstner, one of his additional concerns was the problem of recruiting and retaining a critical mass of key staff members in such a rapidly evolving environment.2 He also harbored some doubts about whether it was really a necessary step in achieving what he wanted to do. After his initial proposal resulted in no response from Washington, Van decided not to push it further.

Although abandoning the concept of a formal institute, he did follow up with a proposal to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) soon after its formation for a continuing program of research with satellites and space probes.3 That proposal asked for support on a broad and long-term basis for a substantial body of work. Specifically, it asked for support for (1) data reduction and analysis on a continuing basis, (2) identification of the components of the great radiation belt, (3) recovery flights of nuclear emulsions, (4) long-term temporal and spatial monitoring of intensity in the radiation belt, (5) lunar probe radiation measurements, (6) pole-to – pole orbits, (7) composition and energy spectra of components of the primary cosmic radiation, (8) magnetic field measurements, (9) deep space probes, (10) facilities, and (11) environmental and other test equipment. That proposal was also not funded.

Although NASA did eventually establish institute-like organizations at several other campuses, it adopted the general practice, by and large, of funding university

CHAPTER 15 • PIONEERING IN CAMPUS SPACE RESEARCH 425

research on a mission-by-mission basis through announcements of opportunity for specific missions.4

It is interesting to note that seven of the eight cadre members for the initially pro­posed institute (all of those other than Van Allen himself) moved to work at other insti­tutions during the next several years. Whether the formation of the institute would have anchored some of those individuals in Iowa is one of those unanswerable questions.

Nevertheless, the failure to form an institute, or to obtain funding on a broad sustaining basis, does not appear to have impeded the program at the University of Iowa. The Physics Department has continued to conduct a vigorous program of space research until the present day.

Professor James A. Van Allen served as the instigator and leader of the cosmic ray research program at the University of Iowa.

James A. Van Allen

James Alfred Van Allen (“Van” or “Jim” to his friends) was born and grew up in the small midwestern town of Mount Pleasant, Iowa. The second of four sons of Alfred Morris and Alma Olney Van Allen, he credits C. A. Cottrell, a science teacher at Mount Pleasant High School, with awakening the enthusiasm for science that suffused his entire adult life.

Upon high school graduation in June 1931 as his class valedictorian, he immediately entered Mount Pleasant’s Iowa Wesleyan College, graduating there summa cum laude in June 1935. As a Wesleyan student, he learned of the excitement of hands-on research through his association with his highly esteemed physics professor, Thomas C. Poulter. For his graduate studies, Van Allen went to his “family university,” the University of Iowa, where he received his M. S. degree in 1936 and his physics Ph. D. in June 1939.

Van Allen’s first postgraduation job was as a Research Fellow at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism in Washington, D. C. That work focused on laboratory nuclear physics but also piqued a growing interest in geophysics that would become his life’s focus. As WWII was intensifying in Europe in 1939, his group switched to development of the then-evolving proximity fuse. Among other tasks, Van Allen oversaw the development of special very rugged miniature vacuum tubes that made such devices feasible (and that later facilitated postwar rocket research). Development of the fuse progressed rapidly, and his group set up the Applied Physics Laboratory of the Johns Hopkins University in mid-1942 to facilitate that work. In late 1942, he was commissioned by the navy to help in deploying the new, highly secret devices into action in the South Pacific and in evaluating their performance.

After the war, Van Allen returned to the APL, where he set up and headed its High Altitude Research Group from then until late 1950. During that period, his group conducted a highly successful research program that included studies of the primary cosmic rays, the solar ultraviolet spectrum, the geomagnetic field in the ionosphere, and the altitude distribution of ozone in the upper atmosphere. In addition to managing the activities of his group, he conducted a vigorous research program of his own. From 1947 on, his record of published papers reflects his growing involvement in cosmic ray research. His studies included the use of the V-2 rockets that were brought to the United States following the war. The first three live firings of the V-2s carried his cosmic radiation instruments, and by the end of the V-2 program, his APL group served as the principal instrumenting agency for 12 of the 63 V-2s that were launched. All 12 of those carried cosmic ray instruments from his laboratory, in addition to instruments to study the other phenomena mentioned above.

As already mentioned, Van Allen was instrumental in the development of the Aerobee high-altitude research rocket. This started with his leading a study of U. S. efforts that might have resulted in new rockets suitable for high-altitude research. His APL work, combined with a similar interest at the NRL, led to a rocket development proposal from the Aerojet Engineering Corporation, a company spawned by the West Coast’s JPL. That resulted in contracts in early 1947 with Aerojet and the Douglas Aircraft Company. Van Allen provided the technical supervision, serving as the agent of the Navy’s Bureau of Ordinance, which provided the financial support for the work.

Thus, by the end of 1950, Van Allen had already established a reputation as a highly skilled researcher and manager. By his direct involvement in the miniaturization and ruggedization efforts involved in producing the proximity fuse and the early rocket instruments, he was a leading instrumentation expert. His publication list from 1947 through 1950 includes eight

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papers dealing with technical aspects of rocketry and instrumentation. Fourteen of his papers deal with results from the cosmic ray research. In addition to his personal research, he had provided strong overall leadership in establishing a vigorous research program in the United States. He was poised to play a key role in the development of space research as the second half of the twentieth century opened.

Van Allen and the Iowa Physics Department came together by a wonderfully fortuitous set of circumstances. By 1950, he was at a point in his career where a change of scene seemed desirable. The leadership at the APL seemed to him to be shifting its focus away from pure science research toward research more directly related to defense. At just that time, a vacancy occurred in Van Allen’s alma mater, the University of Iowa’s Department of Physics. Van Allen was offered the position as department head with the rank of full professor, and he arrived on the scene on the first day in January 1951.

His primary research aspiration was to extend his earlier observations of primary cosmic rays to above the substantial atmosphere and to conduct them over a wider range in latitude. He was especially interested in establishing that type of research in a teaching university’s academic environment.

Van Allen remained at the university throughout the rest of his professional career, during which time he and his progression of outstanding students sent instruments to the Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and beyond. During this distinguished career, he served as principal investigator on more than 25 space science missions.

Van Allen especially enjoyed his role as a teacher, both in the classroom and the laboratory. He always treated his students with great respect, learning from them and guiding them with wisdom and kindness.

James Van Allen died on 9 August 2006 at the age of 91 of heart failure after a 10- week period of declining health. He remained actively involved in his research until his last few days.

When Van Allen arrived in Iowa City in 1951, no cosmic ray research program existed there. But the nuclear physics research program in which he had participated for his graduate studies in the late 1930s was still active. The department had a modest electronics laboratory and a small but excellent machine shop.

One of Van Allen’s first actions was to obtain a grant from the private Research Corporation to help get the cosmic ray program started. The objective of that grant was to loft cosmic ray instruments with clusters of small balloons. He also moved rapidly to draw others into the new research effort. He hired Melvin (Mel) B. Gottlieb, then a recent University of Chicago graduate, as a member of the faculty.

The team of Van Allen, Gottlieb, and his first graduate student, Leslie H. Meredith, developed, tested, and flew the initial balloon-borne instruments.

The International Geophysical Year—1957-1958 turned out to be an unqualified success. Nature cooperated, and the Sun went through a particularly active period. Balloons, rockets, and combinations of the two were used to extend observations well into the atmosphere. Earth satellites and space probes permitted in situ measurements above the atmosphere for the first time. Sixty-seven countries participated through the initiative of active scientists in those countries. Those individuals, the world’s most respected researchers, employing the most modern technological equipment of the time, greatly expanded humankind’s understanding of the aurora and airglow, cosmic rays, geomagnetism, glaciology, gravity, ionospheric physics, surveying of longitudes and latitudes, meteorology, nuclear radiation, oceanography, seismology, solar activity, and the upper atmosphere.

The IGY had many lasting effects.43 Many scientific instruments installed on the ground for the endeavor became permanent and provided, over the intervening years, a long timeline of data critically important in understanding long-term global changes. Scientific institutions expanded and new ones were formed, many of which have endured to this day. A whole generation of scientists received their initial training

CHAPTER 3 • THE INTERNATIONAL GEOPHYSICAL YEAR 85

during that period and went on to populate the worldwide Earth and space research endeavors.

As the largest and most successful international scientific cooperative program ever undertaken, the IGY worked out a methodology for a new form of large-scale science to attack problems of global concern. That pattern was followed in conducting more recent cooperative endeavors through such bodies such as the Special Committee on Oceanic Research, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, the International Geophysical Cooperation, the Inter-Union Committee on Contamination by Extrater­restrial Exploration, the Committee on Space Research, the Scientific Committee of Solar Terrestrial Physics, and the International World Days Service, to name only some of them.

The IGY advanced the sharing of data through the creation of a set of World Data Centers that are still playing an important role today. In addition, the vigorous inter­national scientist exchange programs of today are an outgrowth of the success of the IGY in getting researchers to work together across national boundaries. The endeavor fostered a general sense of goodwill and scientific achievement among nations.

In the public arena, the IGY had a positive impact on people’s understanding of scientific research and its importance to society. It expanded their concept of the nature of the universe.

In short, the IGY was a major factor in opening a new era of large-scale, global, collaborative scientific research.

There was a short, stunned silence, and then applause gradually swelled as we began to grasp the reality and immensity of the moment. Reporters rushed out of the room for telephones to contact their papers. The Soviets beamed with obvious pleasure as the first of the many toasts with excellent Russian vodka was offered (Figure 6.2).

Walter Sullivan, science writer for the New York Times, was one of the guests that evening. Moments before, as he had stood in one of the small groups, an embassy

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official informed him that he was wanted on the telephone on the ground floor. It was his paper’s Washington Bureau, and they informed him of their receipt of the news from Moscow. With great excitement, he had bounded up the grand staircase and threaded his way across the ballroom to pass the news to Berkner.

The Soviet conduit for breaking this news to the world was via an Associated Press wire story from Moscow at 6:30 PM EST, Friday, 4 October 1957. According to that account, the satellite had been launched on the first try of a new vehicle, the SL-1 (A) derived from the R-7 ICBM. The satellite was described as a 184 pound sphere measuring 22.5 inches in diameter, with an initial orbital height of 569 miles, inclination of 65 degrees, and orbital period of 96.2 minutes. Its official Soviet name before launch, as mentioned above, was PS-1, standing for Prosteishiy Sputnik, translated “Simple Satellite.” After launch, they referred to it as Iskustvennyi Sputnik Zemli, translated “Fellow Traveler of the Earth.” That was immediately abbreviated for all time as, simply, Sputnik. The satellite transmitted for 23 days. Its orbit decayed on 4 January 1958, after three months of flight.

A RCA receiving station at Riverhead, New York, was the first to hear the satellite’s signal in the United States. There was some initial confusion about the nature of the satellite. Some assumed that the satellite was making many scientific measurements. Others ascribed various sinister purposes to its mission. That confusion need not have occurred, as the Soviets had been quite open about its characteristics from the beginning. The delegates’ comments at the end of the conference on Saturday provided a general description. The most authoritative, more detailed account of the

CHAPTER 6 • SPUTNIK!

satellite’s physical form was provided later by the USSR Participating Committee for the IGY. That description read:

The satellite had a spherical form. Its diameter was 58 cm [22.8 inches] and its weight 83.6 kg [183.9 pounds]. The airtight casing of the satellite was made of aluminum alloy. The surface of the satellite was polished and specially treated. The casing contained all the instruments and sources of power. Before launching, the satellite was filled with gaseous nitrogen.

Moving along its orbit, the satellite periodically experienced widely differing thermal influences; i. e. warming in the Sun’s rays when passing over the sunlit half of the Earth, cooling in the Earth’s shadow, thermal friction of the atmosphere, etc. Moreover, a certain amount of heat was due to the functioning of instruments in the satellite. Thermally, the satellite is an independent stellar body, which maintains a radiant heat exchange with the surrounding space. To provide the normal thermal regime necessary to allow the satellite’s equipment to function during a long period of time was, therefore, in general a new and complex task. The maintenance of the necessary thermal regime in the first satellite was effected by giving its surface suitable values for the coefficients of emission and of absorp­tion of solar radiation, and by regulation of the thermal exchange between the satellite’s casing and the instruments inserted in the satellite by forced circulation of nitrogen in the satellite.

Two radio transmitters installed in the satellite continuously emitted signals on frequencies 20,005 and 40,002 MHz (the wavelengths being 15 and 7.5 m respectively). It should be added that, owing to its relatively large weight, the first satellite was able to house rather powerful radio transmitters. This made it possible for signals from the satellite to be received at great distances and made possible the participation of a large number of radio amateurs all over the globe in the observations of the satellite.

The observations of the satellite’s flight affirmed the possibility of satisfactory reception of its signals by average amateur radio installations at a distance of several thousand km. There were cases when the satellite’s signals were received at a distance of 10,000 km.

The signals of the first satellite’s radio transmitters on both frequencies were in the form of telegraphic messages. The signal on one frequency was sent during the pause in the signal on the other frequency. The duration of each signal was about 0.3 sec. These signals were used for orbital observations [satellite tracking for orbit determination] and for the solution of several scientific problems. In order to register the processes taking place in the satellite, the satellite had sensitive elements that changed the frequencies of the telegraphic messages and the correlation between the duration of messages and pauses with the change of some parameters (temperature and pressure [within the satellite]). During reception, the satellite’s signals were registered for further deciphering and analysis.14

At the cocktail party, the Soviets took full advantage of the ebullience of the moment to extol their country’s technical prowess, and their role in the history of rocketry. One of their staff members detailed to me with obvious pride the accomplishments of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, their great rocket pioneer. The conversation and toasts continued for a while, but many of the attendees soon faded away, some of them to return to their offices or hotel rooms to ponder the meaning of the event, or to receiving stations to pick up the satellite’s signal.

Homer E. Newell later reported an especially significant postparty gathering. Hugh Odishaw, executive director of the U. S. National Committee for the IGY, who had attended the cocktail party, called Newell, who had chaired the Conference’s Working Group on Internal Instrumentation in Van Allen’s absence, but who had not attended

OPENING SPACE RESEARCH

the cocktail party, to convey the news to him and to see if several of them should get together to discuss the turn of events. Odishaw, Newell, Richard Porter, who had chaired the Working Group on Satellite Launching, Tracking, and Computation, and several others met at the U. S. IGY Headquarters in Washington at 1145 19th Street, Northwest. There, into the night, they followed Sputnik’s course by plotting its ground track on a map as reports were obtained from receiving stations around the world. In a few hours, a good idea emerged of the satellite’s orbit. Newell later reported:

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.15

There was another notable cocktail party that Friday evening. At Huntsville, Alabama, Wernher von Braun and Major General John Medaris were hosting Neil H. McElroy, the incoming secretary of defense. As McElroy was chatting with von Braun and Medaris, they were interrupted by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency’s press secretary, Gordon Harris, who dashed in to exclaim, “General, it has just been announced over the radio that the Russians have put up a successful satellite.”

After a stunned moment, Von Braun erupted, “We knew they were going to do it! Vanguard will never make it. We have the hardware on the shelf. For God’s sake! Turn us loose and let us do something. We can put up a satellite in sixty days, Mr. McElroy! Just give us the green light and sixty days!” A somewhat more cautious Medaris, upon thinking of all the things that had to be done to prepare for the launch, interjected, “No, Wernher, ninety days.”16,17,18

Thus was begun, in the very hour of the announcement of the Soviet achievement, a frenzied effort to complete the preparation of the Jupiter C launch vehicle to launch a U. S. satellite. It culminated in the launch of Explorer I about four months later.

In another part of the world, James Van Allen and Larry Cahill were on the USS Glacier for their equatorial and Antarctic rockoon launching expedition. On that momentous date, they were near the Galapagos Islands after transiting the Panama Canal and steaming toward the Christmas Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Van Allen’s account of the receipt of the news was related in Chapter 4.