Chapter five: Polaris and Transit

Information about Polaris (pp. 49 and 51-53), its purpose and develop­ment, emerged during many hours of interviews with members of the Transit team.

Books that provided background for chapter five include The Polaris Sys­tem Development: Bureaucratic and Programmatic Success in Government, by Harvey M. Sapolsky (Harvard University Press, 1972); Forged in War: The Naval—Industrial Complex and American Submarine Construction, 1940—1961, by Gary Weir (The Naval Historical Center, 1993).

The potted history of navigation in this chapter (pages 50 and 51) draws on interviews with Commander William Craft and Group Captain David

Broughton, and on From Sails to Satellites:The Origin and Development of Navigational Science, by J. E.D. Williams (Oxford University Press, 1992).

Transit’s status as brickbat-01 and the meaning of this terminology (page 53) emerged during interviews with Transit team members.

The fact that radars capable of detecting a periscope’s wake were being developed at the end of the 1950s and in the early 1960s (page 54) comes from George Weiffenbach.

How the technology of the Transit receivers evolved (page 55) comes from Tom Stansill and from papers and old sale brochures that he sent to me.

The history of APL (page 56) comes from The First 40 Years, JHU APL (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983).

Notes about Frank McClure’s and Richard Kershner’s previous careers (page 56) come from The First 40 Years, JHU APL and from press releases and briefing papers sent to me by Helen Worth, the APL’s press officer.

The fact that Ralph Gibson was sounded out as a potential first director of the Defense Research Establishment is mentioned by Admiral William Raborn, head of the Fleet Ballistic Missile program until 1962, in an oral history at the Naval Historical Center, in Washington, DC (page 57).