The Argus effect and project

Theory fell far short of being able to predict the results of such high-altitude explosions—tests were needed. Major questions for the Argus Project included pos­sible ionospheric effects, whether the nuclear detonations would form detectable charged particle shells, what the trapping efficiency might be, and how long the trapped particle shells might persist.

In late 1957 and early 1958, a special urgency attended the conduct of such tests because of the growing possibility of a nuclear test ban treaty being considered by the United States and USSR. That ban was, in fact, placed in effect by the United States for a limited period beginning on 31 October 1958.

The President’s Science Advisory Committee reviewed Christofilos’ proposal, and on 11 March, the Armed Forces Policy Council charged the LLNL with undertaking further theoretical work and with making recommendations related to the nature of such a possible nuclear test.3

By late April, the decision was made to proceed with the test as a major national undertaking. The operational and technological management of the project was vested in the new Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later renamed Defense Research Projects Agency, or DARPA) of the Department of Defense. ARPA was formed on 7 February 1958 (with Herbert York as its first chief scientist) as a direct consequence of the Soviet launches of the first Sputniks. Its stated mission was simply to keep U. S. military technology ahead of the nation’s enemies (including preventing another event like the Sputnik surprise). Argus was the organization’s first major assignment.

Shortly before the Armed Forces Policy Council’s direction to LLNL, the Jet Propul­sion Laboratory’s (JPL’s) Pickering learned of the Argus thinking and suggested to the Livermore people that Van Allen was the right person to monitor the radiation resulting from the Argus detonations with satellite instruments.4 That suggestion was the real basis for setting up the special meeting at JPL on 11-12 March 1958, as mentioned in Chapter 10.

OPENING SPACE RESEARCH

The attendees, in addition to Van Allen and me, included Bill Pickering, Jack Froehlich, and Henry Richter of JPL, Major General John Mederas from Huntsville, and several others. Most interestingly, Stanford University’s Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky, a figure new to us, was there. Panofsky had been working closely with Christofilos on his ideas for the Argus tests.

Although the meeting was openly billed as a gathering to discuss Explorer I results, those results were still so tentative that, in retrospect, a meeting of such senior personnel for that purpose was certainly premature. No one in our small Iowa team had made any outside hint of our growing suspicion that the Earth might be surrounded by a previously unknown region of high-intensity trapped radiation. The stated meeting objective was certainly a cover for its true purpose—an early examination of the possibility of orbiting a satellite suitable for detecting and quantifying the Argus Effect.

The meeting did include discussions of “techniques for building miniature detec­tors that were suitable for small satellites but capable of particle identification and the measurement of energy spectra and angular distributions,” characteristics not pos­sessed by the single Geiger-Muller (GM) counter that Van Allen and I had adopted for the early measurements.5 Although there were veiled allusions to the possibility of high-altitude nuclear weapons-related experiments, it was not until some time later that Van Allen and the rest of our team learned anything substantive about the Argus planning.

Wolfgang Panofsky, born in 1919, was a very interesting person in his own right.6 His family emigrated from Germany to the United States during the increasingly difficult times there for Jews in 1934. Pief (as he was affectionately known by his close associates) obtained his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1938 and his Ph. D. at CalTech in 1942 (at the tender age of 23). He worked at CalTech during most of World War II on various weapons-related projects. In 1944, he joined Luis Alvarez’s team at Los Alamos as an employee of the University of California at Berkeley to work on nuclear weapons-related testing. In 1951, in the midst of the McCarthy inquisition, he resigned his position there in protest of the loyalty oath being demanded of University of California faculty members. He moved to Stanford University, where, in addition to his faculty position, he assumed leadership of Stan­ford’s High Energy Physics Laboratory, including its high-energy linear accelerator. It was from that environment, drawing upon his working relationships with individuals in the nuclear weapons-testing business, that he became heavily involved in the Argus Project.

By the time of the Argus Project approval in April 1958, the United States had conducted a total of about 120 live nuclear tests. All but one were detonations at

CHAPTER 13 • ARGUS AND EXPLORERS IV AND V 363

or near the Earth’s surface, underwater, or underground. The high-altitude shot in Operation Teapot in April 1955 took place at about eight miles height to study atmospheric effects. Operation Hardtack I was getting under way, and its 35 tests conducted from 28 April through 18 August 1958 included three high-altitude shots: Yucca, Teak, and Orange.

None of those four early detonations, however, was high enough to test Christofilos’ idea. The U. S. Department of Defense organized the Argus Project to test the Argus Effect before the upcoming nuclear weapons test moratorium took effect.

It should be noted in passing that Argus was the only clandestine nuclear weapons testing program ever to be conducted by the United States.

The Argus Project saw the launching of three nuclear devices on modified three-stage solid-fuel Lockheed X-17A rockets from the deck of the Navy’s USS Norton Sound (AVM-1) in the South Atlantic (in the region from 38.5 to 49.5 degrees south, and from 8.2 to 11.5 degrees west). Those three Argus detonations (in the range of one to two kilotons) took place on 27 August, 30 August, and 6 September 1958 at heights of about 124, 159, and 335 miles, respectively.7

Sometimes termed the world’s largest-scale scientific experiment, the Argus oper­ation included the deployment of an entire naval task force (Special Task Force 88) consisting of eight ships and about 4500 men. The flotilla included, in addition to the USS Norton Sound, two destroyers, two destroyer escorts, two oilers, and the aircraft carrier USS Tarawa with a number of VS-32 aircraft.

An extensive observational network was established to detect and measure the detonations’ effects. Information was needed on the formation of charged particle shells, the spectral, spatial, and temporal characteristics of the particles, the extent and duration of visible auroral effects at the north and south magnetic field conjugate points, the spectral characteristics of the emitted light, effects on radar returns, and perturbations of the Earth’s ionosphere and geomagnetic field.

The network included the seaplane tender USS Albemarle, stationed near the magnetic field conjugate point near the Azores, and sounding rockets launched as elements of project Jason from Patrick Air Force Base (PAFB) in Florida, Blossom Point, Maryland, and Ramey Air Force Base in Puerto Rico. Additional monitoring aircraft flew from Lajes Field in the Azores. A special network of ground observatories was established by the Air Force Cambridge Research Center.

It was realized from the beginning that observations from orbit by Earth satellites would be essential in obtaining the required spatial and temporal data coverage. Two satellite programs were established to meet that need. The Explorer IV and V program, described here, was designed to meet the dual objectives of investigating our newly discovered, naturally occurring high-intensity radiation and the Argus Effect. But there was an additional satellite program.

OPENING SPACE RESEARCH