Two months after signing the NSC directive, on July 21, 1955, Eisenhower proposed his “Open Skies ” Treaty under which the United States and Soviet Union would have permitted reciprocal aerial reconnaissance flights.65 He hoped to reduce the temptation to launch a surprise attack and to begin a process toward disarmament, but the Soviets rejected the proposal. Eisenhower authorized secret flights over Soviet territory, in violation of international law, and in 1960 the Soviets shot down Gary Francis Powers in a U-2 spy plane over their soil and a second reconnaissance airplane in international airspace. A few months later, the first CORONA reconnaissance satellite made further overflights unnecessary.66
NSC 5520’s language occasionally reflects the gap between what administration officials said in public and what was said in confidential meetings. The first sentence of paragraph 6 is revealing: “Considerable prestige and psychological benefits will accrue to the nation which first is successful in launching a satellite. The inference of such a demonstration of advanced technology and its unmistakable relationship to intercontinental ballistic missile technology might have important repercussions on the political determination of free world countries to resist Communist threats, especially if the USSR were to be the first to establish a satellite ” (emphasis added).67
President Eisenhower publicly disavowed the idea that the United States was in a “space race ” with the Soviet Union and in the aftermath of Sputnik projected an unworried response, playing golf that weekend (October 4, 1957, was a Friday) and waiting five days before holding a press conference. On the morning of October 9, Eisenhower released a prepared statement before fielding unusually contentious questions from the press corps.68 His statement included these lines: “Speed of progress in the satellite project cannot be taken as an index of our progress in ballistic missile work. Our satellite program has never been conducted as a race with other nations. Rather, it has been carefully scheduled as part of the scientific work of the International Geophysical Year ” (emphasis added).69 Eisenhower defended the decision to keep the IGY satellite effort separate from military programs, asserting that if the United States had used a military rocket, it could have put a satellite into orbit before the Soviets, but doing so would have been “to the detriment of scientific goals and military progress. ”70 Nevertheless, the day before the press conference Eisenhower authorized Army officials to begin preparing the Redstone as a backup for Vanguard.71 They were more than ready.
Since the Stewart Committee’s decision two years earlier, Maj. Gen. John B. Medaris, who commanded the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, and his outspoken chief engineer, Wernher von Braun, had openly sniped at administration policies and covertly found ways to keep their rocket team in position to launch a satellite. When the Pentagon denied earlier requests for Redstone to be named officially as a backup program for Vanguard, they quietly found ways to keep their satellite aspirations alive within the Jupiter C rocket program, a successor to Redstone that played a critical role in developing warheads capable of surviving reentry.72 Jupiter C soared 682 miles in altitude at a speed of 12,800 miles per hour for a distance of 3,355 miles on September 20, 1956, and could have placed a satellite into orbit if its fourth stage had been filled with fuel rather than sand.73 Pentagon officials suspected von Braun might try to leapfrog Vanguard, and prior to launch they explicitly forbade Medaris from launching an unauthorized satellite into orbit. Some in Huntsville became convinced that Eisenhower wanted the Soviets to achieve orbit first.74
In late 1956 Vanguard director John P. Hagen and deputy director J. Paul Walsh were set to visit Huntsville to discuss placing the Vanguard satellite aboard an Army rocket.75 Von Braun had made known he was not particular about which satellite his rocket carried. As Roger Easton remembered the episode, Hagen was about to leave for the supposedly confidential trip when a reporter called and asked if he was going to meet von Braun. A startled Hagen told the reporter no and canceled the discussions.
Medaris and von Braun maintained their readiness to launch a satellite as their warhead reentry program advanced.76 Jupiter C achieved a milestone by launching the first object into space that was recovered intact, when a nose cone dropped by parachute into the Atlantic Ocean on August 8, 1957.
When the Army successfully launched America’s first satellite, Explorer I, into orbit on January 31, 1958, on the first try, it was not the result of a miraculous 115-day crash program. Explorer I rode into orbit aboard a Jupiter C rocket renamed Juno I to reflect its nonmilitary purpose. And it was no coincidence that the satellite itself was not spherical but rather a bullet-shaped, eighty-inch-long, six-inch-diameter cylinder—a fourth-stage rocket casing. More than eighteen pounds of scientific instruments filled its upper half.77 The gear included a spare radio transmitter built by the Naval Research Laboratory for use in a Vanguard satellite and scientific instruments provided by astrophysicist James Van Allen of the University of Iowa.78 His equipment was originally slated for the Vanguard satellite, though it was also designed to fit in a satellite launched by von Braun’s team. After Sputnik, it was officially transferred to the Army’s program, and Explorer I detected the radiation belts surrounding Earth, which are named for Van Allen.
The lingering indignation over the Stewart Committee’s decision is apparent in remarks Medaris made on the twentieth anniversary of the Explorer launch. Speaking to the Huntsville–Madison County Chamber of Commerce on January 31, 1978, the Reverend J. Bruce Medaris—he was ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1970, ten years after retiring from the military—called Vanguard “an ill-conceived, expensive, idealistic project which caused the United States to pay out a pretty penny to help that project reinvent the wheel. ”79
Cold War realities probably doomed Eisenhower’s approach from the start. While he pursued a strategy of following dual military and civilian paths into space, reflecting the society he led, Khrushchev was under no similar constraints and saw the satellite effort as merely part of the arms race. His son, Sergei, later recalled that Khrushchev did not fully grasp the historic and scientific significance of the Sputnik feat until reading worldwide press coverage.80 If Khrushchev initially failed to appreciate the propaganda value of being first into orbit, he lost no time capitalizing on it afterward. Soviet claims to have successfully tested an ICBM in August 1957 had drawn skeptical and dismissive responses, but Sputnik’s radio signal, beeping on and off every three-tenths of a second at a much lower frequency than agreed upon for the IGY, had been heard by amateur radio operators worldwide. In the days following the launch, most Americans listened to the sound on radio and TV, and many watched the night sky trying to catch a glimpse of it. As an exclamation point, the Soviets announced what they called a new and “mighty ” hydrogen weapon three days after Sputnik.81 Fears surged that if Soviet missiles could deliver a satellite into orbit, they would soon be capable of carrying atomic bombs. When the news broke, Vanguard’s technical chief Milton Rosen was in France with his wife, Sally. She later recalled that their French friends were worried about a Soviet attack.82 Such fears were not unfounded, given implied Soviet threats against London and Paris the year before, when Britain and France supported Israel’s invasion of Egypt following nationalization of the Suez Canal.83 In the weeks following Sputnik, Nikita Khrushchev conducted a virtual victory lap and wound up as Time magazine’s “Man of the Year ” in the January 1958 issue, for having the biggest impact on world events.84
Raising Expectations
In the days following Sputnik, not only was Eisenhower grilled in public, he was getting an earful in private. C. D. Jackson, a former campaign aide and special assistant who served two stints as the president’s speechwriter, offered a blunt assessment in a confidential memo dated October 8: “Within the past thirty days we have been treated to as skillfully executed an example of psychological warfare orchestration as I have ever seen. ”85 Jackson was a psychological warfare expert, having helped craft Allied propaga
nda campaigns during World War II. He later led the organization that broadcast Radio Free Europe, served as a delegate to the UN, and held executive positions at Time, Fortune, and Life magazines.86 He cautioned the administration to avoid the appearance of instituting a crash program to catch up. “If we are indeed geared to the IGY and have a schedule, the important thing is to stick to the schedule but make sure that when our satellite goes up, it goes all the way—and if not bigger than the Russians’ let it be unmistakably better ,” he counseled.87
Unfortunately, in trying to implement this advice, Eisenhower publicly committed Project Vanguard to a decision made months before Sputnik, at a time when American scientists and politicians still assumed the United States would achieve orbit first and when the prospect of a launch failure did not carry the same risk of becoming a public relations fiasco. At Eisenhower’s October 9 press conference, his prepared statement included the following: “In May of 1957, those charged with the United States satellite program determined that small satellite spheres would be launched as test vehicles during 1957 to check the rocketry, instrumentation, and ground stations and that the first fully-instrumented satellite vehicle would be launched in March of 1958. The first of these test vehicles is planned to be launched in December of this year. ”88
Five days after Sputnik, neither the press corps nor the American public seemed inclined to focus much attention on the distinction between a 6.44-inch “test ” satellite and a “fully-instrumented ” 20-inch satellite. Whichever satellite came first would be the satellite, New York Times reporter Milton Bracker observed to another journalist.89 After the second Sputnik (carrying a dog named Laika, which died from heat exhaustion and was doomed in any case without a reentry vehicle), pressure to catch up with the Soviets increased, and the distinction undoubtedly blurred further.90 Vanguard’s Milton Rosen later told an interviewer, “If we were going to launch any rocket, it was going to have a satellite on it. ”91
Soon after Vanguard was selected for the IGY satellite effort, project officials added the two remaining Viking rockets to the Vanguard launch schedule, for a total of twelve launches. Recall that Rosen had promised the Stewart Committee additional test flights. Six, rather than three, were designated as tests and six were designated as space launch vehicles (SLVS)—meaning they would carry satellites. A chart in Project Vanguard Report No. 1, from January 1956, shows the first satellite launch, SLV-1, scheduled for sometime in October 1957.92
To test tracking and guidance systems, the upper stage of the final test flight would include instrumentation but no satellite. Project Vanguard Report No. 9, published nine months later, specifies October 31, 1957, as the first satellite launch date, but over the following year, a variety of problems forced delays.93 Project Vanguard Report No. 20, published in September 1957, reveals the launch date had slipped six months.94 Offsetting the bad news is this optimistic note: “As a result of a successful test of the third-stage rocket aboard TV-1, it has become possible to revise the test program to provide complete Vanguard vehicle configurations earlier in the program. The test program heretofore called for a heavy instrumented nose cone on the third stage of TV-3; it is now planned to replace this with one of the 6.44-inch 6-antenna satellite packages and make TV-3 identical with TV-4. ”95
The first test launch, TV-0, was essentially a leftover Viking rocket whose primary purpose was to check out the launch facilities and tracking system, while TV-1 was a Viking rocket with a prototype of the new third-stage motor.96 As stated earlier, TV-2 had a live first stage but dummy second and third stages, so TV-3 marked the first test of all new stages together. According to the NRL’S Roger Easton, Air Force colonel Asa B. Gibbs, who worked with the Navy on Vanguard, gets credit for suggesting that small satellites be placed on the test vehicles. “If we are going to all this trouble, why don’t we put a satellite up? ” Gibbs asked.97 He proposed the change and got it approved—months before Sputnik, rather than in response to it. Two additional test flights, using backup rockets for TV-3 and TV-4, were added to the launch plan. This created four potential opportunities to put a smaller test satellite into orbit before attempting the full-size version, but Project Vanguard Report No. 20 assigns a “small probability ” to achieving orbit and appears more focused on getting a good check of the Minitrack tracking system.98
It would be Sputnik, however, that provided the acid test for Minitrack. Martin Votaw recalled working long hours on paid overtime from the beginning of the Vanguard program—a pace dictated by the IGY schedule rather than competition with the Soviets. On the Wednesday before Sputnik’s launch, the over-budget program circulated a memo barring additional overtime after that workweek ended. Votaw went home Friday looking forward to some rest and was having dinner when Easton called.
“They launched Sputnik ,” Easton said.
“Good, now we know it can be done ,” Votaw replied.
“You don’t understand. We’ve got to track it. ”
“Can I eat supper first? ”
“Well, yeah, but come back right afterwards. ”99
Votaw and other engineers worked around the clock for three days installing new antennas and modifying Minitrack to the lower frequencies the Soviets used. The overtime issue never came up again.100
Easton, Votaw, and others at the NRL spent months fabricating the 6.44-inch satellites, which had capabilities beyond the basic telemetry needed to test Minitrack. Transistors, still a novelty, were essential elements of what were then termed “subminiature ” transmitters, but Easton had to send the first batch back to Bell Labs for replacement due to manufacturing defects.101 An aluminum sphere was selected for its light weight, strength, reflectivity, and what they hoped would be uniform temperature. No one was sure what temperature a satellite in space would reach in direct sunlight. A glassy coating developed for the test satellites was later applied to the full-size ones as well. Easton came up with a method to detect the temperatures on the skin of the sphere and inside it by using separate transmitters centered on different frequencies, which varied slightly as the temperatures changed. One transmitter was powered by batteries, while the other was powered by solar cells attached to the outside. Easton carried a model of the sphere home to ponder how it could be secured under the nose cone and then released at the proper time. His result was a “chin strap ,” which encircled the orb and was attached by retractable pegs to a can-shaped device bolted to the top of the third stage.
Transistors and solar cells, highlighted in news stories generated during the launch delays, must have seemed quite advanced to the public—indistinguishable from a “fully-instrumented ” satellite. And as we have seen, it was not the satellite but the rocket that failed on December 6, 1957. Unlike the Soviets, who kept their launch failures secret, the United States lacked the option suggested by the Detroit Times, which said after TV-3, “We should have kept mum until success had been attained. ”102 With a free press and Project Vanguard funds flowing through the National Science Foundation, the administration foreclosed the option of total secrecy with its decision to launch the first satellite as part of the IGY program.
In retrospect, with these factors in mind, it would have been preferable in the wake of Sputnik to pull the small satellite from TV-3 and conduct additional rocket tests without satellite payloads to improve the odds of success under the glare of public scrutiny. Pressure to put a satellite in orbit seems to have blinded those in authority to the implications of any failure being so well publicized—precisely the concern C. D. Jackson expressed in his memo.
Vanguard’s Legacy
Project Vanguard experienced another letdown when the TV-3BU backup rocket broke up fifty-seven seconds into its flight, on February 5, 1958.103 Coming on the heels of the triumphant Explorer I launch five days earlier, the rocket failure brought a less intense public reaction. Success finally came on March 17, 1958, when Vanguard I, a “test ”-size satellite, soared into orbit aboard the TV-4 launch vehicle. Altogether, over a period
of about four years, Project Vanguard developed a new three-stage rocket, designed and built an accurate worldwide tracking system, and placed three satellites, weighing three, twenty-one, and fifty pounds, respectively, into orbit in fourteen launch attempts, eleven of which carried satellites. While the public’s memory is forever tied to the TV-3 fireball, the program surpassed its original goals: to place a scientific satellite in an orbit around the earth, to prove that it was in orbit, and to use the satellite to conduct a scientific experiment in the upper atmosphere.
Although Vanguard I was not first into orbit, it exceeded expectations, starting with longevity. Sputnik I succumbed to orbital decay and burned up on reentry after three months.104 Sputnik II lasted 162 days.105 Explorer I transmitted signals for almost four months and orbited until 1970.106 Vanguard I transmitted signals for more than six years and is still orbiting Earth in a highly stable orbit.107 Predictions for how long it will remain in orbit range from two hundred to two thousand years. The satellite’s long life, combined with Mini-track’s accuracy, yielded surprisingly significant scientific findings, given its modest instrumentation. Orbital studies revealed, among other things, that Earth is not a perfect sphere but ever so slightly pear-shaped and that the upper atmosphere is far denser than previously thought.108
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