AFSC HISTORICAL 10/CA-5 z4Auesy) PUBLIC OHS SERIES

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ORIGINS OF THE USAF

PlitE PROGRAM 1945-1956

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VOLUME V TO

HISTORY OF OCAS 1961

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ORIGINS OF THE USAF SPACE PROGRAM - 1945-1956

• • Prepared under the provisions of Air Force Regulation 210-1 and Air Force

Systems Command Supplement No. 1 thereto as a part of the United States

Air Force Historical Program.

This document contains information affecting the national defense of the

United States within the meaning of the Espionage Laws, Title 18, U. S. C.,

Sections 793 and 794. Its transmission or the revelation of its contents

in any manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.

THIS DOCUMENT MAY NOT BE RELEASED TO ANY INDIVIDUAL OR

AGENCY OUTSIDE THE DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE WITHOUT THE

PRIOR APPROVAL OF THE ORIGINATING ORGANIZATION OR A HIGHER

AUTHORITY IN THE DIRECT LINE OF COMMAND.

UICLASSIFIE0

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•

SSER-2

UNCLASSIFIED

M. ESTES, JR

eutenant General,

Commander 1AFSC)

for Aerospace Systems

Chief, DCAS Historical ce Col •

Aegis - rfor Administration

APPROVED:

MELASSFIEll

ORIGINS OF THE USAF SPACE PRCGRAN

1945-1956

by

Robert L. Perry

prepared as

Volume V

(Space Systems Division Supplement)

HISTORY OF DCAS

1961
ICIASSFIE0

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

TWO QUOTATIONS: Viewpoints on Space Technology ' iii

FOREWORD iv

CHRONOLOGY vi

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 - THE BEGINNINGS 1

NOTES 7

CHAPTER. 2 - THE EVOLUTION OF A POLICY 8

NOTES 25

CHAPTER 3 - THE EVOLUTION OF A PROGRAM 29

NOTES 38

CHAPTER 4 THE TRANSITION FROM PROGRAM TO SYSTEM . 40

NOTES 58 • GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS 62

INDEX 6 5

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ii

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emu
Viewpoints on Space Technology:

Before long, someone will start on the construction of a satellite

vehicle, whether in the United States or elsewhere. History shows that

the human race does not allow physical development to lag very far

behind the mental realization that a step can be taken. This is particularly true of progress which has a direct bearing on man's conquest of

his environment. . . .

Since the United States is far ahead of any other country in both

airplanes and sea power, and since others are abreast of the United

States in rocket applications, we can expect strong competition in the

latter field as being the quickest shortcut for challenging this country's

position. No promising avenues of progress in rockets can be neglected

by the United States without great danger of falling behind in the world

race for armaments.

J.E. Lipp

RAND Report RA-15032

"Reference Papers Relating

to a Satellite Study,"

1 February 1947

The type of pyramidal totalitarian regime that the Communists have

centered in Moscow . . . is not adapted for effective performance in

pioneering fields, either•in basic science or in involved and novel

applications . . . Hence it is likely to produce great mistakes and

great abortions.

No other nation will have the atomic bomb tomorrow, .. .

It [the ballistic missile] would never stand the test of cost analysis.

If we employed it in quantity; we would be economically exhausted long

before the enemy.

Vannevar Bush

Modern Arms and Free Men,

1949

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FOREWORD

The United States did not have a space program of any sort until 1954,

when the Air Force finally secured permission to begin preliminary work on

a satellite reconnaissance systeni. About one year later, in the spring of

1955, the National:Security Council's decision to permit development of a

relatively simple "scientific satellite" marked the start of another approach

to space activity. In both instances, it was 1956 before much in the way of

funds was available to support either activity.

The background of American space interest before the 1954-1955 period

remains comparatively obscure, even to specialists. During the epidemic

of space fever that swept the nationfollowing the Soviet successes of late 1957,

the general public became rather hazily aware of such earlier related

activities as the experiments of Robert H. Goddard, the development of the

German V-2, and the security-shrouded intercontinental ballistic missile

program. But perhaps because the years between 1945 and 1957 had seen

slight American space enterprise, and perhaps because Americans little like

to be told of their failings, the details' received no significant attention.

The purpose of this brief study is to gather some of the threads of space

enterprise in the 1946-1956 period. For obvious reasons, attention is

concentrated on the American scene and, still more narrowly, on the role of

the United States Air Force. Nevertheless, an attempt has been made to

provide some perspective on other activities related to that general theme.

Available sources are few. H. Lee Bowen's Threshold of Space,

1945-1959 devotes only portions of its first 18 pages to the pre-1957 years.

He had completed the draft of a more detailed treatment of Air Force space

programs by the middle of 1962, but its publication date remained uncertain.

No other Air Force history deals with the period in any depth. Of course,

a phalanx of popular writers of variable talent and uncertain knowledge had

flooded the market with pseudo sciencetreati space flight by 1960, but

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none of these writers made much use of official documents and moat were

more concerned with dramatics than with the relatively prosaic background

to the Sputnik years.

In the interest of early publication, research for this history was limited

largely to sources available within the Space Systems Division (Air Force

Systems Command) at the time of writing. Dr. Bowen, in Air Force

headquarters, provided both advice and specific information from his own

research, while cheerfully acceding to the use of some material he had

laboriously gathered for his own work. Bits and pieces of data came from

the office of the command historian and from a skimpy lot of documents

collected by the author during an earlier assignment to the Aeronautical

Systems Division. Advice, guidance, and invaluable information were also

provided by several individuals assigned to both the Space Systems Division

and its sibling, the Ballistic Systems Division. Major General R. E. Greet,

Colonels P. E. Worthman and Ray Soper, and Lieutenant. Colonel V. M. Genez

were particularly helpful. Individual acknowledgements are provided in

citations of the information as it appears in the narrative.

It is to be hoped that additional information bearing on the formative

years of the space program will appear as a result of continuing research.

Much that is critical to an adequate understanding has been forgotten, or the

records have disappeared. Comments on the accuracy and completeness of

this account are, therefore; openly solicited, and any contributions individual

readers can make either to the fund of facts or to their interpretation will be

most welcome. A continuation of the history of Air Force space programs,

probably covering the period from 1955 through 1959, is presently in the

research stage with publication scheduled, hopefully, for late 1962 or early

1963. Revision of this manuscript to reflect the product of reader commentary

and additional research may then be attempted.

RLP

August 1962

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SPACE FLIGHT CHRONOLOGY - 1890-1956

1890 Hermann Ganswindt proposes a reaction-powered space ship

1895-1898 First publication of Konstatin Tsiolkovski articles on the

mechanics and theory of space flight

1906-1908 Robert H. Goddard begins experiments with powder rockets

1914 Goddard patents liquid rocket engine

1919 Jan Publication of Goddard's "A Method of Reaching Extreme

Altitudes"

1923 Hermann Oberth publishes his doctoral thesis on space flight

Nov Goddard successfully static tests the world's first liquid fuel

rocket engine

1927 Jul German Society for Space Flight is formed

1929 Oberth's book, Wege zur Raurnschiffshrt, 'containing engineering

details df a satellite rendezvous proposal, is published

1933 Jan Wehrraacht assumes control of German rocket experimentation;

Captain Walter Dornberger is assigned to monitor program for

the eventual development of a bombardment rocket

1935 May Goddard fires a liquid-fuel test rocket to an altitude of 7,000

feet

1938

1942 Oct 2

1944 Sep 8

Formal development of A-4 (V-2) missile begins at Peenemunde

V-2, on third attempt, successfully completes its initial field

trial

The first V-2 hits London

1945 Oct 3 U S Navy Bureau of Aeronautics proposes development of an

American satellite

1945 Nov General of the Armies H H Arnold urges that the air service

start the development of long range ballistic missiles and

space vehicles

1945 Dec Dr Vannevar Bush r ..ityvT•

testimony before S€ r r‘ 2 commendations in

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1946 Mar 7 U S Navy proposes interservice space program

Apr 9 Aeronautical Board of Research and Development Committee

first discusses proposal for American satellite program

May 12 U S Army Air Forces receive the RAND study proposing early

development of an American satellite and attesting to the

feasibility of the undertaking

May 14 Major General C E LeMay presents AAF-RAND study to the

Aeronautics Board of the Research and Development Committee;

board fails to take any action

1947 Jan U S Navy asks Research and Development Board for authority

over United States satellite development

Jun Aeronautical Board requests authority to fund satellite studies

Sep 18 United States Air Force officially created and activated

Sep 25 USAF headquarters directed Air Materiel Command Engineering

Division to evaluate RAND satellite studies received the previous February

(Fall) White Sands Proving Ground designs and proposes Army space

flight experiment

Dec Navy claims satellite jurisdiction; USAF rocket programs

dropped

Dec 8 Engineering Division completes evaluation of RAND satellite

proposals

Dec 19 Joint Research and Development Board Committee on Guided

Missiles acquires Department of Defense responsibility for

coordination and control of Earth Satellite Vehicle programs

1948 Jan 15 General H S Vandenberg issues policy statement on primacy of

USAF space interest

Jan 16 Navy withdraws claim for control of satellite development

Oct "Grimminger Report" is published, starting United States

interest in a scientific satellite

The Artificial Satellite, first published work on scientific

space experimentation, appears

USAF headquarters directs the Air Research and Development

Command to investigate the feasibility of starting development

of an auxiliary nuclear power source for satellites

Defense Secretary C E Wilson directs review of all guided

missile programs with the objective of eliminating duplicative

effort

RAND recommends that the USAF let a contract for development

of a satellite system with a reconnaissance miarginn • 

Weapon System 117L, Advanced Reconnaissance System, is

documented by ARDC as first step toward securing approval for

a system program

1951

1953 May 22

Jun 16

Sep 8

Dec 3

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ONCLASSINT

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1954 Mar 1 RAND formilly recommends early start on the development of a

reconnaissance satellite

Aug Congress approves United States participation in the International Geophysical Year program

Sep 15 Army Ordnance proposes development of a minimum satellite

under the name "Project Orbiter"

Oct USAF Assistant Secretary Trevor Gardner asks the Scientific

Advisory Group to study and report on the interaction of

current satellite proposals with the recently accelerated intercontinental ballistic missile program

rl g

reconnaissance satellite

Army representatiires approach the other services with proposals for cooperative development of Project Orbiter

1955 Mar General Operational Requirement Number 80 is issued,

coverin development of a reconigicsanceLsatellite 

The a oaa ecurity Council rules that military rockets may

not be used in the United States scientific satellite program

The Stewart Committee selects the Navy Vanguard proposal as

the United States scientific satellite program

Aug 31 USAF headquarters directs ARDC to establish a scientirc—

satellite auxiliary to the Weapon System 117L program

Responsibility for Weapon System 117L is transferred from

Wright Air Development Center to the Western Development

Division of ARDC

v Oct 14 USAF cancels the requirement for a scientific satellite version

of Weapon System 117L

Nov 1 USAF directs re-establishment of scientific satellite program

and submission of development plan

v 1956 Jan 14 Preliminary development plan covering a scientific satellite

version of Weapon System 117L is published; Western

Development Division emphasizes urgency of support requirements if program is to have any chance of success 

Jan 16 ARDC headquarters approves preliminary development plan

Feb Presentation of ARDC plan to Stewart Committee 

Apr 2 Western Development Division publishes full development plan

for Weapon Systeixt 117L

Jul 24 USAF approves • development plan for Weapon System 117L 

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Dec 14

Aug

Oct 10
UNCLASSIFIED

INTRODUCTION

If there is a theme to the following narrative, it is that the United States

did not exploit its initial postwar advantage over Soviet technology. There is

significant evidence to support the conclusion that American science could

have pushed the nation into the space age in advance of the Russians. The

key event was the successful launch of a satellite, and here the United States

clearly failed to take the initiative.

The enormous advantages of such an undertaking have often been stated

in retrospect, hindsight being one of the most highly perfected human

characteristics. Enhanced national prestige, a significant lead in the space

race, and substantial benefits to national security would certainly have

resulted from the launching of a successful American satellite at any time

between 1946 and 1956. It is little known that precisely' such benefits were

foreseen on the occasion of the first serious engineering proposal that the

United States sponsor a satellite program. Ten years before Sputnik, in

February 1947, a RAND report prepared for the air forces predicted : 1

. . . Although trips around the moon and to neighboring planets may seem

a long way off, the United States is probably in a better position at

present to progress in this direction than any other nation. Since

mastery of the elements is a reliable index of material progress, the

nation which first makes significant achievements in space travel will

be acknowledged as the world leader in both military and scientific

techniques. To visualize the impact on the world one can imagine the

consternation and admiration that would be felt here if the United States

were to discover suddenly that some other nation had already put up a

successful satellite.

Rarely has a forecast been so accurate:

By 1946 it was apparent to many that the United States then had sufficient

technical competence to embark on a realistic space program with attainable

objectives. Contemporary studies and related correspondence clearly show

that both technical specialists and Air Force managers had an abundance of

vision. In the early years, before e *poster problem in particular

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would have been troublesome, but the difficulties were probably no more

formidable than those overcome in developing and operating the X-1., the first

supersonic aircraft. And from the level of the Air Force chief of staff down

to project engineers, virtually everyone exposed to the potential of the space

proposals became an enthusiast. What happened, then, to delay for a decade

the nation's decision to enter the space age?

Lack of real progress between 1945 and 1955 was attributable chiefly to

a sequence of circumstances stemming from the extreme conservatism of

national goals. Like the "experts" who early denied that aircraft could ever

play a useful military role, critics of the embryonic space proposals

questioned both the feasibility and the utility of a space program—and sometimes slighted the good sense of its supporters. The dominant attitude

paralleled that of Secretary of Defense. Charles E. Wilson, who in the late

months of 1954 told reporters he had never heard of an American satellite

program and when informed that the Soviets might orbit a vehicle earlier

than the Americans responded publicly that he "wouldn't care if they did."

Most Americans, secure in their transitory nuclear dominance and thinking

of national strategy in terms of World War II concepts, probably would have

agreed with him.

There were other difficulties and problems in the early space effort.

Interservice rivalry certainly was one. Austere budgets, without "frills" .

like missiles and satellites, constituted another. The space effort certainly

was not the sole victim; over the same decade relatively little progress was

made in the development of ballistic missiles, nuclear propulsion for both

aircraft and submarines remained sludgebound, and experimental aerodynamics

was so thoroughly'stifled that some operational prototype aircraft of 1958

were superior in performance to contemporary research aircraft.

It should be remembered, nonetheless, that the decade before 1956 was

marked by the emergence of thi first intercontinental bombers (produced

over the violent protests of many who decried the practicality of intercontinental bombardment), the first turbojet aircraft, the first hydrogen bomb,

and a host of other major advancesit-' • • e recalled that

notwithstanding national folklore, r sm has never looked

OICLASSIFIED "41.7'

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x
"RAND Rpt RA-15032, "Reference

1 Feb 1947, p 48; see also Douglas

Design of an Experimental W

(commonly cited as a RAND:

1

with particular favor on revolutionary military technology--as witness the

fate of General Mitchell—and that the results of World War II had reinforced

a national faith in rapid mobilization (the "minuteman syndrome") and an

unmatched production potential as panaceas for disabilities arising from lack

of preparedness. It is an historical cliche that the United States has entered

every war superbly prepared to win the previous war. In this context, the

struggles of space program advocates to obtain recognition, and their success

in advancing basic technology to the point where a 1955 start on a space

program could be realistically scheduled, probably deserve more praise than

they have been accorded.

Papers Relating to a Satellite Study,"

Airc Co Rpt SM-11827, "Preliminary

4 Is la

1 41 11 

e Ship," 2 May 1946

-'tle and date).

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MEN

CHAPTER. 1

THE BEGINNINGS

In the conception of the United States Air Force, "space" is part of an

operationally indivisible medium called "aerospace," a continuum from the

surface of the earth through the atmosphere to the limits of the solar system--

or the universe. In the year. preceding that October 1957 day when the first

Sputnik radioed from orbit, and in the furor following that day, a great many

specialized definitions of "apace" were foisted on a confused public. Such

terms as cis-lunar space, trans-lunar space, interplanetary space, near

space, deep space, and cosmic space were employed loosely, each defined by

its employer. Subsequently there emerged a better understanding of such

terminology, and "space" came to mean that near-airless regime above which

vehicles could not maneuver by aerodynamic processes. As time passed,

that altitude was informally defined as 25 to 50 miles above the earth. A

different working formula derived from experience with early satellites, and

in that context "space" came to mean the height above which it was possible

for an object to remain in orbit for significant periods without catastrophic

degradation of performance because of aerodynamic drag. The minimum

height for such performance was informally defined as being about 100 miles

above the earth's surface. Between, in the altitudes from 50 miles to

100 miles above the surface, there existed insufficient atmosphere to support

aerodynamic flight and too much to permit orbital flight.

None of these considerations was of any moment when the first technical

discussions of space flight began to appear at the start of the twentieth

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century. * Such discussions Oreceded by many years the first consideration

of rockets as long-range bombardment devices:

The earliest serious proposal for a space ship emerged from the raind of

Hermann Ganswindt, a German dabbler in science and invention, who in 1890

contributed the notion of a reaction-powered vehicle based on reasonably

sound theory but impossibly impractical engineering details. Ganswindt

apparently preferred to argue the theory rather than improve the details, and

apart from stimulating some heated but skeptical discussion in minor technical journals had no lasting influence.

Konstantin Tsiolkovski (also Ziolkovsky) was a Russian, a teacher largely

self-educated in physics and mathematics, who first mentioned the possibility

of space flight in an 1895 article which, somewhat to his surprise, was

accepted and published. By 1898 he had carefully refined his ideas on the

subject--which had fascinated him for perhaps 20 years—and had arrived at

a workable rocket theory involving liquid fuels based on kerosene, the only

then-apparent means of producing the exhaust velocities he knew to be

essential. He devoted another 25 years to further studies, with little or no

experimentation, before receiving any general recognition. Even then, that

recognition came because the Soviet state was interested in demonstrating

that a native Russian had been the first to propound mathematical formulae

for rocketry.

Tsiolkovskiknewnothing of Ganswindt, and neither of the two pioneers who

followed Tsiolkovski heard of him before their own work became rather well

advanced. The creation of useful interest in rocketry--and in space flight--

was the achievement of a German—Hermann Oberth—and an American--

Robert H. Goddard--whose work was for practical purposes entirely

Consideration of non-technical (fictional) or pseudo-science (fanciful)

treatments of space flight has .been excluded from this volume for two

reasons: apart froth stimulating interest in adolescent minds such

science-fiction had no influence on later events, and the subject has been

exhausted to the point of ennui Waxppyanber of tudents and connoisseurs of the literature of scien4e • •

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independent of outside influences. Oberth was a theoretician and Goddard

an experimenter. Oberth had space flight in mind from the start; Goddard

was interested in rocketry almost as an end in itself. Oberth never succeeded in transforming his entirely sound concepts into a functioning rocket

engine; Goddard did virtually no public theorizing until he had proven the

validity of his concepts by demonstration. Goddard was a proponent and

practitioner of pure research; with Oberth, the object of space flight far

overbore considerations of science in the abstract. Goddard published only

two significant items, and one of these was a 1919 paper which evoked enough

public ridicule (because it gently suggested the theoretical feasibility of

hitting the moon with a payload of flash powder) to cause its author deliberately

. -

to seek obscurity for 16 years. Oberth was more interested in obtaining

support for. his ideas than in proving or trying them, and he was entirely

willing to employ such unprofessional media as pseudo-science motion

pictures in the process. Goddard was the first man to build and successfully

test a liquid-fuel rocket (November 1923), and by May 1935 had succeeded in

sending a gyroscope-stabilized rocket to an altitude of 7,000 feet. (The best

of the pre-Peenemunde rockets created by the German research group that

eventually developed the V-2 was much heavier but attained an altitude of

only 6,500 feet in about the same time period. ) Oberth's efforts resulted in

the formation, in July 1927, of a German Society for Space Flight which

promptly set about recruiting enthusiasts, seeking publicity, and collecting

funds to support experimental work. Goddard carried his objections to

publicity so far as to refuse to answer letters from such groups. In 1929

Oberth reworked his 1923 book, which had started the enthusiasm in Germany,

and produced as a result the most authoritative of the early treatises on

experimental rocketry. Goddard made no effort to circulate the results of his

work until 1936, when it was largely complete (at least he carried it little

further).

Indirectly, Goddard's work led to the formation of the Aerojet Engineering Company through the Guggenheim Foundation (Jet Propulsion Laboratory

of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at California Institute of Tech-

__ nology), the intereet of Dr. Theodorit.iyon Karman,.and Army Ordnance

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eliminated serious work on space research.

(Tsiolkovski, Oberth, Goddard,

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At least four people

hniann of Hamburg) had

Department desires to use high altitude rockets to prove-out missile designs.

Very much the same thing came from Oberth's efforts, which led with similar

indirection to German Army sponsorship of the experimental work being conducted by the "Society for Space Flight." The Wehrraacht, of course, was not

interested in space flight but was very much interested in long range artillery

that did not come under the ban of the Treaty of Versailles. As it happened,

that treaty became inconsequential shortly after the German Society for Space

Flight did the same; Hitler's seizure of power in January 1933 coincided with

the start of Army-funded rocket research, and the indifferently concealed

rearmament of Germany thereafter obviated the need for any particular disguise. By that time, however, the well financed experiments had been transferred to Peenemunde, on the Baltic coast, and had produced results which

encouraged the Wehrmacht to continue research toward the objective of a long

range bombardment rocket. Wernher von Braun, a boyish latecomer to the

Society for Space Flight, became the principal civilian manager of the

Peenemunde work and converted to his way of thinking—that missiles were a

step toward space flight, not an end in themselves--the unlikely figure of the

military chief, Captain (later Lieutenant General) Walter Dornberger. With

resources that at one time accounted for at least one third of Germany's

entire aerodynamic and technological research establishment, they moved

with relative rapidity frcim the primitive rockets of 1933 to the operationally

ready V-2 bombardment missiles of 1943. Development of the V-2, or

properly the A-4, began during the winter of 1938-1939 as the climax of five

years of • applied research. The first successful operational prototype, and

the third test vehicle in the series, completed a field trial on 2 October 1942;

more than 100 production versions were tested in Poland in the early months

of 1943. The first combat firing at London came on 8 September 1944, and

by March of the following year more than 1,300 V-2's had followed the first

to England.

Unfortunately, from the standpoint of the scientist and the space flight

enthusiast, concentration of attention on bombardment missiles neatly

1111CLASSIFIED
E... worked out perfectly valid data on exhaust velocities, mass ratios, and

trajectories before 1930; the decade of the 30's was spent in carrying rocket

technology to the point of practical application, and during the first half of

the 40's rocket technology was applied to the art of war. There were some

few exceptions--concentrated largely in Germany, where the only propulsion

systems with sufficiently high thrust to promise eventual space applications

were being perfected. Walter Dornberger recalled several years after the

fact that "our aim from the beginning was to reach infinite space, and for this

we needed speeds hitherto undreamed of. Range and velocity -were the great

landmarks that guided our thoughts and actions."* In another context he

remarked, "With our big rocket motors and step rockets we could build space

ships which would circle the earth like moons . . . Space stations . . . could

be put into orbit around the earth. An expedition to the moon was a popular

topic too." He also conceded, however, that most German scientists were

not interested in anything beyond the atmosphere. I

In point of fact, Oberth was the first practicing scientist to have a clear

concept of a useful artificial satellite, although his theorizing, carried to the

point of detailed formulae, was concentrated about the notion of man-carrying

satellites. and space ships. Lacking any appreciationfor the probable growth of

guidance and control technologyto match what he anticipated for rocketry, Oberth

largely ignored the possibility of robot vehicles. He saw specific applications

Dornberger wrote the quoted words in 1952, seven years after the collapse of Nazi Germany but five years before the first Sputnik. When he

put them on paper, he was principally engaged in work on a boost-glide

vehicle for military uses--a vehicle of semi-orbital character based on

the Sanger-Bredt thesis. It may reasonably be assumed, however, that

his memory was precise. It is certain that most military organizations

developing large rocket engines contained a noticeable sprinkling of space

flight advocates, and in a group built around the core of Oberth disciples

the probability was impressively high.

001111111116

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in observation, mapping, and communications--among other fields. T Interestingly enough, he clearly foresaw, in 1924, the probable need for rendezvous

satellite stations to carry additional fuel for true extra-terrestrial expeditions.

In the immediate postwar years, only two serious mentions of satellite

programs received much public notice. Defense Secretary James V. Forre stal s

brief mention of the possibility of military satellite applications in his 1948 report

on the state of the National Military Establishment drew slight—and sometimes

condescending—attention. The publication of a short article (later called the

Grimminger Report) in the October 1948 issue of the Journal of Applied Physic s 

drew notice to the concept of a scientific satellite, but except among devotees of

space flight it had little lasting influence. Popularization of the space flight thesis

had its start in the early 1950's, with Wernher von Braun's impassioned advocacy

of the need for manned space stations for military purposes- -an obvious outgrowth

of the Oberth thesis- - and with a gradual growth of interest in instrumented

satellites- -an evolution of the Goddard theme—among physical scientists in

general. A slim 1951 volume entitled The Artificial Satellite constituted the first

public circulation of an entire book devoted to discussion of the subject. Its

emphasis was on a "minimum space vehicle, " a favorite 1953-1955 project of

several prominent British and American scientists. At that point, the "open"

aspects of satellite work began to merge again with the military aspects. The

"minimum" satellite became the core of a classified Army-Navy project,

Project Orbiter, and the whole blended imperceptibly with International Geo-

.

physical Year proposals then gaining adherents. Almost inevitably, the

feasibility of experimentation with satellites and space vehicles became as sociated with the only available launch vehicles: the military rockets then under

development. Private enterprise had neither the means nor the motivation to

support multi-million dollar space research. 2

In a fashion that was reminiscent of Goddard' s brief excursion into the

feasibility of a moon rocket, Oberth touched in passing on the notion of an

orbiting mirror that could focus the sun's rays on an area of the earth- -

for heat and light. In the circus atmosphere of the immediate postwar

world, the pseudo-science publications seized upon his vagrant (and most

impractical) thougnt and emions of a deadly space

mirror focusing intense hea untry side.

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UNCLASSIFIED
UNCLASSIFIED

NOTES - CHAPTER 1

Walter Dornberger, V-2, New York Viking Press, 1958 (copyright 1952

in German edition); I6Tnberger testimony before Select Committee on

Astronautics and Space Exploration, 85th Cong, 2nd Session, 30 Apr 1958,

in Hearings Before the Select Committee... , on HR. 11881.

Except where specifically noted, the foregoing summary is based principally on Willy Ley, Rockets, Missiles, and Space Travel (New York,

Viking Press, 1957 edition), and Arthur C. Clarke, The Makin] of a

Moon, (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1957). Ley was personally

associated with the early German experiments and knew virtually all of

the participants. He remained on friendly terms with both von Braun

and Dornberger in later years. Clarke is, next to Ley, the most

popular and the most proficient of those who write on space flight topics

and has the additional qualification of being both a practicing and a

preaching space scientist. The literature on early space work is relatively sparse, but there is a considerable fund of related material on

early missile and rocket experiments. Robert H. Goddard, A Method of 

Reaching Extreme Altitudes (Smithsonian Institute, 1919), and Li uidPropellant Rocket Development (Smithsonian, 1936), are the o yoriginal

products of America's rocket pioneer, although his wife presented major

excerpts from his notebooks in the posthumous Rocket Development

(New York, Prentice Hall 1948). E.G. Pendray, The Coming Age of 

Rocket Power (New York. Harpers, 1945), is the earliest reliable

summary of the work of the American Rocket (Interplanetary) Society,

but had virtually no emphasis on space flight. Hermann Oberth, Wage 

zur Ritumschiffahrt (Munich, 1929) (Road to Space Travel), lacks adequate

translation but is essentially the core of Man Into Space (New York,

Whittsley House, 1953), even though the English language version carries

heavy evidence of hindsight and popularization. K.W. Gotland, Pro'ect

Satellite (New York, British Book Centre, 1958) provides almost e only

Tia-al:Taidily available source on early origins of space research. Anything resembling a definitive history of the subject remains to be written.

dempitotz

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amisik

L.

CHAPTER 2

THE EVOLUTION OF A POLICY

The jetsam strewn over the face of Europe in the process of dismembering the Third Reich included vast quantities of technical data and a respect-

.

able assemblage of practicing rocket scientists. Within reasonable limits,

the western allies cooperated with one another in the collection and disposition of such esoteric war booty; the scavengers of the Soviet Union competed

hotly with the West for equipment, records, and personnel of the defunct

German missile programs. In the scramble, the United States fared rather

well, emerging with missiles and rocket engines sufficient for several

dozen teat shots and with personnel and records sufficient to keep intelligence specialists and scientists busy for months--or years.*

All three services promptly set to work on missiles and rockets based

on the German originals as well as a few of the more advanced products of

domestic wartime research and development. Something -more thin.

academic interest was displayed in the question of whether ballistic missiles

constituted an extension of air warfare, a variant of long range artillery, or

a possible extension of the technique of a naval strike force.

The concept of long range ballistic missiles was sufficiently foreign to

the United States experience to require a considerable revision of established

theories there. The exploitation of loosely defined space vehicle research

Because of the fact that the ground and air arms of the Army were competing with one another, and both with the Navy, in the "liberation"

process, it was impossible to specify with accuracy how much each

service accumulated. An indicator may be found, however, in the

experience of the Department of State, the only agency officially interested in collecting German diplomatic records. Material transported to

the United States for examination and utilization was Wm bulky to permit

page counts; the total of diplo rrespond ' ce and records came to

more than 450 tons. -

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conducted by the Germans required :hill more vision than was common to the

postwar years. The first prominent American with courage to speak

forthrightly about the future of warfare in such a context was General of the

Armies H. H. Arnold. In his "War Report," a summary of achievements and

an anticipation of needs, he stated the problem baldly:'

. . . we should be ready with a weapon of the general type of the German

V-2 rocket, having greatly improved range and precision, and launched

from great distances.

If defenses which can cope even with such a 3, 000-mile-per-hour projectile are developed, we must be ready to launch such projectiles nearer

the target, to give them a shorter time of flight and make them harder

to detect and destroy. We must be ready to launch them from unexpected directions. This can be done from true space ships, capable of

operating outside the earth's atmosphere. The design of such a ship is

all but practicable today; research will unquestionably bring it into

being within the foreseeable future. *

The first identifiable interest in a specific American space program was

expressed by a group of Bureau of Aeronautics planners under Commander

Harvey Hall By the fall of 1945 they had sifted through enough of the

Peenemunde refuse to acquire enthusiasm for the vague satellite proposals

that had emerged from the final years of the German programs. In the

course of a 3 October 1945 meeting, Hall and his fellows in the Electronics

Division of the bureau suggested the need for a satellite test program to

determine the basic feasibility of the concept. With some support from a

Navy that was willing to investigate virtually any foreseeable future mission

(Bureau of Aeronautics created a Committee for Evaluation of the Feasibility

of Space Rocketry), the Hall group opened a series of discussions with the

General Arnold's forecast was promptly ridiculed as "more or less

fantastic" and as the sort of thing that ". . . is impossible today and

will be impossible for man years" in official testimony by the wartime

head of American research programs, Vannevar Bush—which may help

to explain why only two offici sEitements on ,space research reached

the public in the years betwe •

tititS464.0.

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9

UNCLASSIFIED
CLASSIFIED

MOHO

1)0,.

Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratories at California Institute of Technology,

with Glenn L. Martin Company, with North American Aviation, Incorporated,

and with the Douglas Aircraft Company. By early 1946, all four establishments had made preliminary analyses of requirements for the design of

spacecraft and had concluded that a satellite could be placed in orbit in the

relatively near future if the attempt were adequately supported.

Initial estimates visualized the expenditure of $5 million to $8 million

for the development and construction of a 2,000-pound satellite to be boosted

into orbit by a rocket vehicle possessing between 100,000 and 200,000 pounds

of thrust. Upon consideration, the Navy decided it was unable to finance

such a program unassisted, so on 7 March 1946 Hall and his associates met

with Army Air Forces members of the Aeronautical Board (jointly staffed

by Bureau of Aeronautics and Army Air Forces representatives) to consider

his suggestion that the two services undertake a cooperative space program.

(Captain W. P. Cogswell and Hall represented the Navy; Major General

H. J. Knerr, Major General H. W. McClellan, and Brigadier General

W. L. Richardson were the principal Army attendees.) The results of the

meeting were summarized in a memorandum which said, in part,

". . . the general advantages to be derived from pursuing the satellite development appear to be sufficient to justify a major program, in spite of the

fact that the obvious military, or purely naval applications, in themselves

may not appear at this time to warrant the expenditure. On this basis, the

Army representatives agree to investigate the extent of Army interest by

discussions with (Major] General [ C. E.] LeMay [ director of research and

development] . . . . "

By 9 April, the satellite proposal had found a place on the agenda of the

Aeronautical Board's Research and Development Committee. A formal

discussion was scheduled for the 14 May meeting of the committee, at which

time an official response to the Navy proposal was to be presented. 2

11.

SSEH-2 10
MICIASSIE

In the interval between the 9 April discussion and the 14 May meeting,

the matter came to the attention of the Office of the Commanding General,

Army Air Forces. * That office decided that the position of the air forces

in any interservice conference would be compromised unless its representatives could produce a paper demonstrating equal competence with the

Navy--and equal interest--in space research. Air staff authorities also

felt that the Army Air Forces should have primary responsibility for any

military satellite vehicles, considering such activity be essentially an

extension of strategic air power. Thus was shaped perhaps the first expression of a viewpoint that became a significant issue in interservice rivalries

for the next 15 years.

Whether General Carl Spaatz, newly succeeded to the post, actually had

custody of the affair is uncertain. Some 15 years later he had no memory of the incident, suggesting that General LeMay, his deputy chief of

air staff for research and development, probably handled the details.

LeMay, although diligent in his efforts to rebuild the air forces into a

postwar effective striking arm, was rather less interested in far

advanced projects than in more immediate problems. The possibility

that Spaatz set the resultant policy can not be eliminated, although it is

also possible that LeMay seized the opportunity to assert air force

prerogatives in space as an extension of strategic air power. Both

LeMay and Spaatz, in any event, were fully conversant with General

Arnold's views, and Arnold had taken pains to see that his opinions

were circulated. In words that were somewhat bitter and probably

aphoristic, one of the "young Turks" wrote a brief memoir of those days.

He recalled that, "In 1945, General Arnold called a meeting of 250 of

the key officers of the Air Force. . . He told them he was about to

retire and he had some advice to give them. He said that if they didn't

quit operating and get to thinking, they would find themselves in the

Service Forces where they belonged. . . He said he was pretty well

convinced that an airplane was not a good device to wage war in, and

the boys ('you colonels and little buck-generals, ' he said) should quit

the throttle bending and learn something else while there was still time.

And he recommended that the Air Force employ all the scientific brains

they could find, and make their own careers out of thinking up ways of

turning the weird and •vondrous facts the scientists unearthed into useful

channels." In such circumstances, it is probable that one of the

"colonels and little buck generals" secured approvals from both Spaatz

and LeMay for the actions • tf Ad, 3

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KIM

General LeMay, charges with disposing of the problem, asked the

Douglas Aircraft Company to have its Project RAND group undertake a satellite feasibility study for the air forces--on a three-week deadline "to meet a

pressing responsibility." Douglas sidetracked other current work and ordered

50 of the company's best scientists and engineers to work on the LeMay assignment. The study was ready, in approved draft, on 2 May; after minor

revision it was actually forwarded to the Pentagon on 12 May 1946, barely in

time for use during the 14 May meeting.4

The RAND report was, in the simplest terms, a rapid but thorough

engineering analysis of satellite feasibility. Its conclusions were entirely

straightforward:". . . modern technology has advanced to a point where it

now appears feasible to undertake the design of a satellite vehicle. " An

abstract of the original 321 page study appeared the following month with

an equally forthright statement of conclusions: 5

The Douglas Aircraft Company, Inc. , . . . has undertaken a constructive, realistic, engineering appraisal of the possibilities of building a

space ship which will circle the earth as a satellite. Report SM-11827, '

here abstracted, shows it possible today to build such a vehicle which

will take off from the surface of the earth and return thereto without

destroying itself--this on the basis of our present state of technological

advancement and without dependence on future developments such as

atomic energy. The particular space ship studied is one designed to

obtain scientific data in the upper reaches. of the atmosphere and beyond.

once this qbjective is reached, the feasibility of designing a missile

Isatellite?) for direct military use will have been demonstrated and

then design can be undertaken with confidence.

The arguments, and indeed the basic calculations, were remarkably

similar to those exposed to the American public in the period immediately

following the 4 October 1957 circuit of Sputnik I. Although considering the

feasibility and need for a military vehicle, the initial reports dealtmostly

with the problem of orbiting a 500-pound instrumented packet designed to

collect information on "cosmic rays, gravitation, geophysics, terrestial

magnetism, astronomy, metorology, and properties of the upper

atmosphere. "

The vehicle was conceived of as a multi-stage rocket, using either

alcohol-oxygen (the propellants of e Ge ) or hydrogen-oxygen.

SSEH-2 12 iliftegaral

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111CLASSIFEll

A four-stage alcohol-oxygen rocket and a two or three.stage hydrogenoxygen rocket received detailed consideration. The gross weight of the

alcohol-oxygen version was computed at 302, 055 pounds.

The operating mode proposed in RAND's study was remarkably like

that actually adopted when the United States began launching satellites 12

years later--even to the suggestion that the vehicle be permitted to stabilize in an extended elliptic arc immediately before firing of the final stage.

Calculations (or estimates) of meteorite frequency and re-entry heating

were carefully done, prompting the blunt statement "that the maximum •

acceleration and internal temperatures can be kept within limits safely

withstood by a human being. Since the vehicle is not likely to be damaged

by meteorites and can be safely brought back to earth, there is good reason

to hope that future satellite vehicles will be built to carry human beings. "6

Although earlier considerations of a "satellite" had been either admit-

.

tedly theoretical (that is, generally feasible only in the minds of fanatic

space flight devotees) or entirely implausible, the RAND study of mid-1946

was nearly as much concerned with engineering as with basic theory and

was based on technology then attainable. However, the importance of the

report lay not in the precision of its calculations (both Tsiolkovski and

Oberth had provided specifics), but in the methods. The figures used in

the report, moreover, represented "a reasonable compromise between the

extremes which are possible with the data now in hand. " One point seemed

vitally important to the authors:". . . a satellite vehicle can be made. . .

in the present state of the art. " In an editorial aside, as if anticipating the

emergence of an anti-missile, anti-satellite faction, they emphasized that

imempaift

gatagium

UNCLASSIFIED

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13
"even our more conservative engineers agree that it is definitely possible

to undertake design and construction now of a vehicle which would become

a satellite of the earth."*

One of the moat important viewpoints of the RAND study was contained

in a cogent preface on the significance of a satellite: 7

Attempting in early 1946 to estimate the values to be derived from a

development program aimed at the establishment of a satellite circling

the earth above the atmosphere is as difficult as it would have been,

some years before the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, to visualize

the current uses of aviation in war and in peace. Some of the fields in

which important results are to be expected are obvious; others, which

may include some of the most important, will certainly be overlooked

because of the novelty of the undertaking.

The RAND study made one other point that was largely disregarded in

subsequent years: ". . . the development of a satellite will be directly

applicable to the development of an intercontinental rocket missile. "**

The viewpoint of Douglas Aircraft Company engineers (not theoretical

scientists) and of the Army Air Forces Scientific Advisory Group (which

in the December 1945 report prepared at General Arnold's urging noted

the feasibility of developing a long-range ballistic missile based on

Peenexnunde group work) may profitably be contrasted with the December

1945 testimony of Vannevar Bush, then chief of the Office of Scientific

Research and Development. Bush, who had been and still was for

practical purposes the "czar" of military research and development,

told a special Senate Committee on Atomic Energy: " . . . We have

plenty to think about that is very definite and very realistic—enough so

that we don't need to step out into some of these borderlines which seem

to be, to me, more or less fantastic. " He added, ". . . there has been

a great deal said about a 3, 000-mile high-angle rocket. In my opinion,

such a thing is impossible today and will be impossible for many years. "

Eight years later, conversatives in the Department of Defense would

detour the entire space program by insisting that a satellite program

must not be allowed to interfere in any fashion with any missile program.

During the post-Sputnik congressional hearings of late 1957 and early

1958, the most outspoken advocate of satellite work, Wernher von Braun

(then directing technical effort at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency)

noted that satellite experiments certainly could be of as great advantage

to the missile program as the missile program could be to satellite

research. That viewpoint, first expressed by RAND 12 years earlier,

apparently was acceptable only to the von Braun group (Army Ballistic

Missile Agency) and to a few Air Force officers. Administration

officials rejected it in their 1958 testimony. 8

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OICIASSIFIEll

**
MICUSSIFIE0

Awassfilli

More particularly and more immediately, RAND anticipated military

requirements for both a satellite to aid in missile guidance and another with

a reconnaissance and weather surveillance assignment. Scientific information of immense significance could certainly be obtained, with particular

benefits probable in the fields of gravitation research, astronomy, weather

. •

forecasting, ionospheric studies, and bio-astronautics. Communications

satellites were specifically anticipated; the 25, 000-mile orbit "stationary

satellite" received detailed consideration. Finally, in what probably lent

the final touch of fantasy for conservative readers, the RAND studies briefly

touched on the potential of the satellite as a forerunner of true space flight:9

The most fascinating aspect of successfully launching a satellite

would be the pulse quickening stimulation it would give to considerations

of interplanetary travel. Whose imagination is not fired by the possibility of voyaging out beyond the limits of our earth, traveling to the Moon,

to Venus and Mars? But a man-made satellite, circling our globe

beyond the limits of the atmosphere is a first step. The other necessary

steps would surely follow in rapid succession. Who would be so bold as

to say that this might not come within our time?

Descending to the more prosaic, the engineering study considered in

detail the Several ingredients of a successful satellite program: dynamics

of orbital motion, power plants and fuels, structural weights, design

proportions, size and trajectory factors, guidance, orbital problems,

descent and landing, general vehicle design, the requirements for a mancarrying vehicle, an estimation of time and cost, and an evaluation of

research and development requirements. *

Although the entire concept was startling in its implications, in the

opinion of those experts who looked at it 15 yeff.rs later one of its most

important contributions—largely unrecognized at the time--was its penetrating analysis of the advantages of and obstacles to the use of hydrogen as

a propellant. 10 Perhaps less significant but certainly of considerable

It seems neither necessary to discuss in detail these elements of the

RAND studies nor (in view of t pPepdy)feasible to do so. Copies

survived, and with a bit of scr SASstill be located 16 years later.

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interest in that it represented the basic technical conservatism of the

approach, was the general estimate of research and development cost--$150

millions—and time requirements: "approximately five years time. " Except

that the eventual payload was appreciably less, both the cost and the time

were remarkably close to the actuals of the Vanguard program--which

finally succeeded in March 1958. In May of 1946, therefore, the best

engineering talent the Army Air Forces could employ had concluded that: 12

Technology and experience have now reached the point where it is

possible to design and construct craft which can. . . become satellites

of the earth. This statement is documented in this report, which is a

design study for a satellite vehicle judiciously based on German experience with V-2, and which relies for its success only on sound engineering development which can logically be expected as a consequence

of intensive application to this effort. The craft which would result

from such an undertaking would almost certainly do the job of becoming

.a satellite, but it would clearly be bulky, expensive, and inefficient in

terms of the spaceship we shall be able to design after twenty years of

intensive work in this field. In, making the decision as to whether or

not to undertake construction of such a craft now, it is not inappropriate

to view our present situation as similar to that in airplanes prior to the

flight of the Wright Brothers. We can see no more clearly all the utility

and implications of spaceships than the Wright brothers could see fleets

of B-29's bombing Japan and air transports circling the globe.

Unhappily for the prospect of immediate approval and a venturesome

approach to the space flight problem, the obvious expensive nature of the

program, its tenuous justification and the lack of either obvious or immediate

benefits, and the complete absence of . any motivation that seemed salable to

the general public combined to keep enthusiasm well within bounds.

*

It must be remembered that the immediate postwar years were characterized by attitudes peculiar to such periods. Congress, the accepted

sounding board for public opinion, was set on reducing taxes, cutting

federal expenses, and satisfying pent-up consumer demand. There was

no apparent threat to the security of the United States; indeed, with

exclusive possession of the atomic bomb it seemed the wildest of fancies

to conjecture an attack of any sort, from any quarter. Moreover, to

many it seemed fanciful enough to work toward an all-jet Air Force,

(Continued) r •

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1,14ASSIFIEll

Although the satellite proposals were discussed during the 14 May 1946

Research and Development Committee meeting, nothing approaching a decision resulted. The committee merely forwarded its summary to the

Aeronautical Board with a notation that there was no agreement between the

air and navy factions, and the Aeronautical Board characteristically decided

to await receipt of a high level definition of responsibilities for the military

space mis sion. 14

much less a space force. Finally, the chauvinism characteristic of

wartime public opinion in every democracy had convinced all but a few

that the United States possessed the world's finest aircraft and a supporting technology second to none. With Germany crushed, Russia trodden

to bits by invasion and counterassault, France a shell filled with

political unrest, and Britain nearly bankrupt, there seemed no conceivable

competitor in the technical fields. The sense of realism, the urgency

inherent in the Navy satellite proposal, the Arnold philosophy, and the

RAND study was unique.

A much less expensive proposal for space experimentation, one having

"no obvious scientific value" but possessing a "propaganda value" rated

as "considerable," reached the desk of W. Stuart Symington, then

'civilian chief of the air arm, the day before the 14 May 1946 Research

and Development Board meeting. Symington, who was scarcely timid

in his support of advanced developments, suggested to one of the air staff

chiefs (Lieutenant General I. C. Eaker) that a proposal to shoot a cloud

of luminous particles at the moon might be "sticking our neck out as

regards careless use of taxpayers money. . . " One of Eaker's aides,

who was convinced that the air forces should make some start on space

research, nevertheless cautioned his chief, "The newspapers would

have a field day if they learned that we were spending a big sum of

money to send a cloud of dust to the moon." The project in question,

which would--if successful--have constituted a "scientific first" of

enormous influence on public opinion, required little more than one of

the many surplus V-2 rockets plus a modified nose cone.13

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UNCLASSIFIED
Impatient of the delay, the Navy in January 1947 appealed to the

Joint Research and Development Board to create a special ad hoc committee

on astronautics to determine which of the services should have cognizance

over space programs. 15 Each branch obviously recognized the vital character of such a decision (which was not finally reached until March 1961).

No ruling at all was forthcoming immediately, with the result that the

Aeronautical Board and its Research and Development Committee undertook

to defend its own primacy. Inasmuch as the Aeronautical Board was equally

composed of Army Air Force and Navy Bureau of Aeronautics delegates, that

was no more than a temporizing solution. The absence of any firm policy on

which to base the assignment of actual projects or programs continued to

dilute whatever useful results happened to emerge from studies.

In June 1947 the Aeronautical Board asked that its innate authority to

coordinate special studies and research projects be confirmed but before

agreement and a binding decision could be obtained, new developments had

overtaken the old. The Joint Research and Development Board on

19 December 1947 directed that its own Committee on Guided Missiles

"assume responsibility for the coordination of the Earth Satellite Vehicle. "16

By that time the muddled organizational squabble had grown more acrimonious through the separation of the air service from the Army and its

appearance as an independent Air Force. In the process of creating the new

Department of Defense, the Joint Research and Development Board was

transformed from a coordinating body into a policy body with Authority

derived from its status as part of the defense department. Moreover,

continuing indecision and the implications of Aeronautical Board recommendations had combined to make space policy a matter of defense department

concern rather than a joint service problem .

There was one further obstacle, defined later by a keen student of the

period, which arose from the fact that the board and its various committees

were strongly influenced by civilian members who frequently exhibited "the

conservative judgement that has often characterized leading academic

r.

scientists, and for a long time they diemissed 0 c s as 'military

dreams'. "17

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18

UNCLASSIFIED
technology--or at least it seemed

IIKASSIFIE0

During the 1940-1948 period the most highly respected spokesman of

American science, the individual who had ultimate wartime authority over

virtually all applied science and research used by the armed forces,

Vannevar Bush, exposed the American people to his opinions on the future

of the military arts. His influence could scarcely be questioned; his patronizing distrust of General Arnold (and military scientists in general) was all

too obvious.

We are . . . decidedly interested [he wrote] in the question of

whether there are soon to be high-trajectory guided missiles. . .

spanning thousands of miles and precisely hitting chosen targets. The

question is particularly pertinent because some eminent military men,

exhilarated perhaps by a short immersion in matters scientific,. have

publicly asserted that there are. We have been regaled by scary articles, complete with maps and diagrams, implying that soon we are

thus all to be exterminated, or that we are to employ these devilish

devices to exterminate someone else. We even have the exposition of

missiles fired so fast that they leave the earth and proceed about it

indefinitely as satellites, like the moon, for some vaguely specified

military purposes. All sorts of prognostications of doom have been

pulled from the Pandora's box of science, often by those whose scientific

qualifications are a bit limited, and often in such vague and general

terms that they are hard to fasten upon. These have had influence on

the resolution and steadiness with which we face a hard future, and

they have done much harm, vague as they are. But this one is explicit,

and we can treat it.

And treat it he did. In essence, Bush ridiculed notions of ballistic

missiles on grounds of "astronomical" costs and impossible inaccuracies

complicated by the obvious impossibility of creating an effective warhead.

The man who thus cavalierly dismissed the ballistic missile as entirely

impractical and satellites as the vaporing. of military incompetents was,

during the critical years 1946 through 1948, chairman of the Research and

Development Board. 18

As was probably inevitable in the climate of the times, the Research and

Development Board ultimately rejected the satellite proposal as not supported

by a military requirement. That did not end the matter, however, the Navy in

particular was extremely interested in using a cluster of available rockets to

orbit "a small payload. " The prof easible in terms of available

ed back on it several

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19

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•

MICIASSIltil

years later. 19 But the key decision was that of the Research and

Development Board, and its Guided Missile Committee allowed the proposal

to die of funds starvation. The reason: no evidence of military utility. A

great many promising missile programs also disappeared from the funding

schedules in 1947 and 1948, most because they were too theoretical or too

far removed from operational utility to satisfy existing requirements during

a period of financial retrenchment. There was no ready means of appeal;

the position of the Research and Development Board, interposed between the

researchers and the upper levels of the defense department, gave that

organization something like a final word. 20

Irretrievably tied to the missile program, and being controlled essentially by the missile program managers, space and satellite proposals could

not avoid being affected by far-reaching policy decisions aimed principally

at missiles. The progression was principally in financial austerity. In

December 1946, the guided missile budget for fiscal year 1947 (then halfway to completion) was reduced from $29 million to about $13 million. In

consequence 11 of the 28 surviving missile projects had to be eliminated.

The 17 remaining projects decreased to a total .of 12 in May 1947--and

shortly thereafter to 8 programs. The residuils did not include the

Consolidated-Vultee long-range ballistic missile project. Apart from the

ill-defined requirement for a rocket-boosted, ramjet-cruise missile (eventually the Navaho), no "big rocket" programs remained in the "funded" category. Nor was this situation transitory; not until 1950 did funds appear to

support the resumption of "big rocket" work,• and even then the program was

restricted to research and general design activity. 21

Thus proposals for an active development program leading toward a

specific satellite launching failed of approval. Indeed, it may safely be

said that such proposals did not even receive serious consideration. The

advisory committees which controlled the decision process were themselves

dominated by individuals who considered ballistic missiles and satellites to

be inconceivable for practical use in the decades immediately ahead. The

uncertain state of technology obvio a.arRthe factof, although engineers

and scientists who studied the sp skis had no doubt of the

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20

UNCLASSIFIED
and the completion of the Engineerip^.

number of critical events had affectk..

Lysis of those studies, a

' Uri. Probably most

SSEH-2

21

UNCLASSIFIED

411111a_

nation's ability to overcome whatever technological obstacles there were.

The urgent need of the late 1940' a to modernize the military and naval

machine that had won the war did much to direct attention toward new but

relatively conventional weapons rather than missiles and related devices that

seemed far in the future. Moreover, in the financial climate of the late

1940's, before the Soviets had demonstrated their ability to construct a

nuclear bomb and before the onset of the Korean affair, an economy move

was inevitable. The Department of Defense as a whole suffered cutbacks

in operational forces as well as research and development--although in

proportion the impact was undoubtedly greater for the latter. In 1947 the

Air Force lost its only ballistic missile program (the Navy retained the

Viking project and the Army continued working toward the Redstone) and

Air Force rocket research barely limped along on a slender thread of

financial support derived from booster rocket requirements. Nevertheless,

the flavor of subtle irresponsibility that missile and space programs acquired

through the actions of the major advisory committees probably was at least

as important as any other single factor in halting moves to begin development.

In the meantime, the Army Air Forces, with the approval'of the

Aeronautical Board (and later of the Joint Research and Development Board)

continued to support study effortis in the regime of space operations. On

1 February 1947, RAND forwarded a multi-volume expansion of earlier

satellite work which contained detailed analyses of satellites in general and

specialized aspects of the space vehicle in particular.

For six months, the new submissions had no discernible effects. Then

on 18 September, the United States Air Force offically came into being.

Precisely one week later, on 25 September, Air Force headquarters asked

the materiel command's Engineering Division to study and evaluate the RAND

satellite reports of the previous February from the standpoints of technical

and operational feasibility. 22

The Engineering Division response left Wright Field on 8 December 1947.

In the interval between the submission of the RAND studies (February 1947)

UNCLASSIFIED
MEM

important was the continuingidecline in the level of missile program funding

and, for that matter, in the total of research and development funds. The

fact that a considerable quantity of air staff time was consumed in the process of obtaining approval for an independent Air Force ( summer 1947)

undoubtedly influenced the handling of sensitive topics like the satellite.

Additionally, the control of Congress had passed from the administration to

the opposition party, which set about eliminating residual wartime controls,

reducing taxes in general, and markedly limiting federal expenditures. The

general expectation of spokesmen on the new defense establishment was that

"unification" would promptly eliminate redundant projects and programs in

the three services with a consequent reduction in the cost of national defense.

The new defense department was in itself expected to institute immediate .

reforms which would promptly lower departmental budget requirements. In

total, therefore, the prospects for approval of radically new and probably

expensive development programs of unproven military worth were no brighter

in December than in February, even though the inhibitions of operation under

restrictive policies based on extreme scientific conservatism tended to disappear with the establishment of an autonomous Air Force. .

It was in this enviroment that the Engineering Division response to

General -Spaatz was composed. As a beginning, the division certified the

technical feasibility of both development and operation of "a satisfactory

satellite vehicle. " However, the chief of the division wrote, "Insufficient

data is available at this time to determine whether the complexity and cost

will in time permit practical utilization of such a vehicle. " Conceding that

"an appropriate development program" could solve apparent technical difficulties, the Engineering Division nevertheless had serious misgivings about

the feasibility of funding the necessary program at an appropriate level. The

temporizing solution, then, was to recommend establishment of a satellite

project, but to limit its scope to the preparation of specifications and the

collection of information on requirements ("time, manpower and money"),

function ("what useful purposes could be served by the construction and

operation of a satellite vehicle"), and scheduling ("the optimum time to

begin actual construction of a ciimp4etViiiff "Waii weed to component

SSEH-2

22
UNCLASSIFIED

development"). The key phrases came late in the comment letter: "It is

recognized that there is an urgent need of developing guided missiles and

allied equipments already called for by military characteristics and that

scarce funds and limited component scientific talent must first be used in

this field. "23

The Air Force deputy chief of staff for materiel, Lieutenant General

H. A. Craig, decided that although the financial obstacles to full satellite

development program were formidable; the time had come to take a stand

on the general issue. His conclusion was that "the passage of time, with

accompanying technical progress, will gradually bring the cost of such a

vehicle within feasible bounds. " He therefore advised the vice chief of staff,

General H. S. Vandenberg, that the proper course was to incorporate the

crux of the Engineering Division recommendations in a formal Air Force

policy statement. General Craig said, in so many words, that the satellite

could and probably should be built, but that at the moment the Air Force

was in no position to finance the undertaking.

If the February 1946 decision to have RAND analyze satellite feasibility

was the first turning point in the evolution of an Air Force space program,

General Vandenberg's San'uary 1948 policy statement was the second. Signed

on 15 January and communicated to the Engineering Division one day later,

it unilaterally but nonetheless effectively constituted the first clear statement of space program interest by any service: 24

The USAF, as the service dealing primarily with air weapons--

especially strategic--has logical responsibility for the satellite.

Research and Development will be pursued as rapidly as prOgress

in the guided missiles art justifies and requirements dictate. To this

end, the program will be continually studied with a view to keeping an

optimum design abreast of the art, to determine the military worth of

the vehicle--considering its utility and probable cost--to insure development in critical components, if indicated, and to recommend initiation

of the development phases of the project at the proper time.

In forwarding that policy to the Engineering Division, the Air Force

director of research and development authorized the Wright Field agency to

SSEH -2

23

UNCLASSIFIED
Chief; Engineering Division, eriel C

to major general. *.

and, recently promoted

)1121till

•

10.

put it into effect "by action under the RAND contract." General Crawford, *

at Wright Field, thereupon instructed RAND to establish a satellite project

with the objective of furthering the development of vital components and

techniques needed "for the eventual construction and operation of a satellite

vehicle. " The remainder of his instructions paralleled the Engineering

Division recommendation of 8 December. RAND received specific authorization to let research and study sub-contracts, though "subject to the

approval of the Air Materiel Command and availability of funds. "25

One of the most discouraging elements of the correspondence was

common both to the original Engineering Division comments of December

and to the Crawford letter to RAND, in February. It was contained in the

injunction that RAND should advise the Air Force "on request or at appropriate intervals" on the question of "what purpose could be served by the

construction and operation of a satellite vehicle." It was obvious, quite

apart from the matter of funding competition between long range programs

and the immediate needs of the Air Force, that higher echelons had no firm

conviction of the military worth of satellite proposals. Incredulity that the

space age--or even the missile age--was actually dawning typified reaction

to both ballistic missile and satellite proposals. The immediate effect of

the Vandenberg dictum, then, was little more than to encourage the continuation of RAND-conducted studies of a future satellite and its prospective

uses. For the next three years, the critical problem of the air staff--and

of the materiel people at lower echelons--was to shelter a minimum research

and development effort from the consequences of fund limitations that threatened not merely the "fantastic" elements of the program, but actually such

"bread and butter" projects as were involved in the first generation of turbojet-propelled strategic bombers and interceptors.

OICLASSIMED
IMCLASSIFIED

411IMINIR

NOTES - CHAPTER 2

The War Re orts of General Geor e C. Marshall, General H. H. Arnold,

Admiral .M_1iTeNery o vrcI, aiiirC7:4171747), 452-436.—

Memo, Ch, BuAer to JRDB, subj: Earth Satellite Vehicles, 24 Jan 1947,

cited in H L Bowen's unpublished mss on the evolution of space research

policy, in Hq USAF Hist Liaison Ofc files; see also H L Bowen,

Threshold of Space, USAF Hist Div monogrigi,Thlrej3 1960; brief mention

is found in the Dec 1954 chronology "Project 1115 Background, " apparently based on WADC corresp files, cy in SSD Hist Div files: ARS/WS

117L thru 1955; confirming details, and the quotation from the memo

following the 7 Mar 1946 mtg, are contained in D Pearson and J

J Anderson articles in Los Angeles Mirror, 28 Apr 1961, and in the

Pearson and Anderson book: U. S. A. , Second Class Power? Although

Pearson's contributions to history frequently manage to warp the facts

rather thoroughly, it is apparent that in this instance he had unofficial

access to certain Navy Department documents. It goes without saying

that the Pearson version has both a hero (BuAer) and villains (LeMay

and MajGen L C Craigie). For this narrative, the Pearson account has

been accepted to the extent of considering his direct quotations and his

citations of names, dates, and specific items to be correct if supported

by other reliable sources.

• The precise source of the quotation is unknown. It was given to the

present author in 1954 by a Pentagon returnee who had first removed

the signature lines. The section quoted is relatively innocuous; other

paragraphs contain rather harsh comments on flight pay, the Navy's •

carrier program, and Air Force "complacency" . concerning missiles.

Information on the Spaatz recollections was drawn from ltr, H L Bowen,

Hq USAF Hist Liaison0fc, to W D Putnam, SSD Hist Div, subj: Review

of Manuscript, 18 Jun 1962, which notes that A L Goldberg of the Hist

Liaison Ofc had asked Spaatz about the incident. Bowen, who has studied

the era more intensively than any other researcher, believed that Spaatz

made the subsequent decisions, a judgement in which the present author

concurrs. In the absence of conclusive evidence, however, the matter

must be considered uncertain.

Memo, Ch, BuAer to 5RDB, 24 Jan 1947; Bowen mss; "Project 1115

Background, " Dec 1954; Douglas Airc Co Rpt SM-11827, see note below; /".

ltr, Bowen to Putnam, 18 June 1962.

5. At some point over the later years, most copies of the original report

received "Project RAND" covers, although the original was Douglas Airc

Co Rpt No SM-11827, "Prelim' lb Desi n-of an Experimental WorldCircling Spaceship, " Contract 

IL.. ,

, : inroa4 2 May 1946 (in SSD se ., ra Hist Div Files); the subsequent:.-t ,, ., :Oa as Project RAND

401111/0 L..

• UNCLASSIFIED

SSICH-7

25
actilsasti

First Quarterly Rpt, App II, "World-Circling Space Ship, " RA-15001,

Jun 1946. They are hereafter cited by their report numbers. Both

reports became rarities of a sort, going out of print in relatively short

order. The May report, assembled so hurriedly at Gen LeMay's

insistence, was reproduced and circulated in oslid, so great was the

rush and so slight the time for final polishing. It is interesting that in

all of the testimony taken following the first two Sputnik successes and

the several United States space flight failures, there was not a single

public reference to the RAND studies of early 1946.

RA-15001, Jun 1946.

SM-11827, 2 May 1946, p 9.

Hearings Before the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee of the

Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, 85th Cong, 1st and

2nd Seas (Parts I and II): "Inquiry into Satellite and Missile Programs"

(hereafter cited as Johnson Committee hearin s); Hearings Before the

Select Committee ornii •onautics and ace loration, 85th Cong,

2nd Seas, on H. R. 11881 (hereafter cited as Stennis hearin s); particularly testimony by Undersecy of Def D A Quer es, o nson ommittee 

hearings, p 305. . .

SM-11827, 2 May 1946, pp. 10-16.

Bowen msg.

Johnson Committee hearings, Dr John Hagan (Dir, Vanguard Proj)

testimoni7EITO71957; Stennis hearings, MajGen B A Schriever

(Cmdr AFBMD) testimonF=Apr 1958; Staff Rpt of the Select

Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration, 85th Cong, 2nd Seas,

"The International. Geophysical Year and Space Research, " 22 Dec 1958.

SM 11827, 2 May 1946, p 1.

Memo, W S Symington, Asst Secy War for Air, to LtGen I C Eaker, Vice

ChAir Staff, 13 May 1946; memo, Col T A Sims, Air Staff, to

LtGen I C Eaker, 14 May 1946; both in Histo of the Development of

Guided Missiles, 1946-1950, AMC Hist c R Self), Dec 1951, I,

128; the proposal itself, called "Shooting the Moon, " is described in

RAND Rpt RA 15000, June 1946, p 8. Designed by Dr Luis Alvarez. a

RAND consultant, it was considered "relatively simple and

inexpensive. . "

14. Memo, R/Amd Stevens, Chm R and D Comm, Aero Bd, to Aero Bd, subj:

Case No 244 - High Altitude tairth Satellite, 15 May 1946, cited in Bowen

mss; Bowen interviews with Pentagon staff.

SSEH-2

26 twin
111CLEN11

Memo, Ch BuAer to JRDB, subj: Earth Satellite Vehicle, 24 Jan 1947,

with 1nel A: Ad Hoc Panel on Astronautics, and Incl B: Preliminary

Statement of Problem for Ad Hoc Panel, cited in Bowen =mss.

Memo, F. H. Richardson, Admin Secy to JRDB, to Exec Dir, GM

Comm, subj: Earth Satellite.7 Feb 1947; memo, LtGen H S Vandenberg,

Sr Army Mbr of Aero Bd, to JRDB, subj: Satellite Agency, 13 Jun 1947;

Memo, R and D Comm, Aero Bd. to Aero Bd for transmission to JRDB,

subj: High Altitude Earth Satellite Test Vehicle, 13 Jun 1947; Memo,

JRDB to Aero Bd, subj: Earth Satellite Vehicle, 9 Jan 1948; all cited

in Bowen mos.

Bowen mss.

Vanevar Bush, Modern Arms and Free Men (New York, Simon and

Schuster), 19497-17047467SliVEZEtiiMiid other absurdities in a

volume that had enormous circulation through the nation's leading book

club and obviously influenced the research and development climate of

the Pentagon. In a single volume he demonstrated the perils of prophecy

by an ill-informed amateur whose viewpoint proved to be considerably

more limited than that of the " parochial military experts" upon whom he

heaped scorn. Perhaps the best illustration of his unbelievable lack of

foresight was his prediction that "years of effort" lay ahead of any

foreign power attempting to develop an atomic bomb. Between the time

he wrote that unfortunate paragraph and the time his book was circulated,

the Russians had exploded their first nuclear weapon!

EtAchn J T Hayward, Asst Ch. Naval Opa(R and D), testifying before

Select Committee on Astronautics and Space Exploration, 85th Gong, 2nd

Session, 18 Apr 1958, in Hearings Before the Select Committee. . , on

H. R. 11881; draft article for NavarMitiluTfrriTeisedings Magazine,

prep by Capt C W Steyer Jr. erir7cirerni owen miss.

Remarks by Sen W S Symington, 16 Jan 1958, during Johnson Committee

hearings (p 1876).

Ltr, LtGen N R Twining, CG, AMC, to CG, AAF, 25 Mar 1947; ltr,

MajGen B W Chidlaw, DCG, AMC (Eng), to CG AAF, 6 May 1947; memo

BrigGen T S Power,Dep Asia Ch, Air Staff (-3), to CG AAF, 16 Jun 1947;

all reproduced as does in Vol II, Histo of the Development of Guided

Missiles 1946-1950, AMC Hist Cc Dec 1951; see also-Vol

of the Self Hist pp 38-46.

Ltr, BrigGen A R Crawford, Ch, Eng Div, AMC, to C/S USAF, subj:

Project RAND, Satellite Vehicle, 8 Dec 1947, in SSD Hist Div files:

Feedback Project.

23. Ibid.

' *.

MOSS

10.1.4.9f2r4

SSEH-2

27
•

011,146,0Aillij

r

24. Ltr, MajGen L C Craigie, Dir/R and D, DCS/Mat, USAF, to

BrigGen A R Crawford, Ch, Eng Div, AMC, subj: Satellite Vehicles,

16 Jan 1948, with policy stmt of 15 Jan 1948: "Statement of Policy for

a Satellite Vehicle, " signed by Gen H S Vandenberg, Vice C/S, USAF,

in SSD Hist Div files; Bowen mss.

25. Ltr, Craigie to Crawford, 16 Jan 1948; ltr, MajGen A R Crawford, Ch,

Eng Div, AMC, to Douglas Aire Co (RAND), subj: Satellite Project,

17 Feb 1948, in SSD Hist Div files.

SSEH-2

28
11RASSIFIEll

CHAPTER 3

THE EVOLUTION OF A PROGRAM

The character of the space effort of the late 1940's, in all the services,

was best described by a section in the Brat annual report of the new defense

department, issued at the close of 1948: 1

The Earth Satellite Vehicle Program, which was being carried out

independently by each military service, was assigned to the Committee

on Guided Missiles r of the Research and Development Board] for coordination. To provide an integrated program with resultant eliminatiOn of

duplication, the committee recommended that current efforts in this field

be limited to studies and component designs; well-defined areas of such

research have been allocated to each of the three military departments.

The limitation "to studies and component designs" was particularly galling

to the Air Force. In December 1947, in the letter which had ultimately led

to the Vandenberg policy statement, the Engineering Division had specifically

recommended—on the basis of the earlier RAND studies--that a satellite

project should be established and a start made on component development.

the minds of Air Force engineers and scientists there was no doubt of the

feasibility of the RAND approach and of the satellite itself. 2 The problem was

essentially that other and more critical programs were suffering from

monetary anemia, and in such an environment there was slight chance of

obtaining funding support needed for an active space program. In an era of

relative abundance, the Air Force might have been able to overcome the

skepticism of the civilian scientists who advised the defense department or

the enthusiastic support of a group of recognized scientists might have served

to loosen departmental purse strings. But in the absence of one or the other,

nothing could be done. The key factor, it was early apparent, was the absence

of a clearly recognizable military requirement. In so many words, the

skeptics could ask "what can a satellite do that an airplane can not do? " The

answer of the time was 'that the satellite could do many things beyond the

capacity of an airplane, but none seeineeto se,rirei any demonstrable military 4.14iiiji,,Z) lipI

purpose.

1111111V'7

UNCLASSIFIED

SSEI4-229
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In point of fact, it was precisely toward a proof of military utility that the

Air Force had begun moving in 1947. Although disappointed in the fact that no

specific development program had been approved, the Air Force was making

reasonably steady progress through the studies to which it was essentially

limited. The basic feasibility of satellites, from the standpoint of rocket

performance, had been examined and accepted. By virtue of the . 1946 and 1947

studies (and the subsequent Engineering Division analysis of their findings),

engineers and scientists had gained assurance that a useful rocket vehicle to

launch a satellite could be developed with but minor and entirely attainable

advances over existing technology. Second, they had decided that the payload

would have to be relatively s/ight--probably less than 2,000 pounds--until

better rockets were available. Third, it was apparent that a recoverable

vehicle would be a complication of the basic problem.

With this indication that a payload would be restricted to instrumentation

and communications equipment, the question became one of what equipment,

and with what utility. Between 1947 and 1951, RAND devoted considerable

effort to an analysis of military usefulness, 'particularly to reconnaissance--

a field "in which a satellite may well show advantages over other types of

vehicles."

In those same years, the Air Force continued its tenuous progress

toward acquiring authority to conduct a development program as opposed to a

study effort. The subdued controversy between Navy and Air Force interests

had flared into an open conflict in December 1947, when the Navy formally

submitted to the Research and Development Board a claim for exclusive

possession of rights to satellite development. After several weeks of acrimony, the Navy on 16 January 1948 (the day after the Vandenberg "position

paper" on Air Force space interests) withdrew its claim, and the two services

again set about their separate approaches. For the Air Force, all that could

immediately mean was continuation of the RAND work. In February 1943

Air Force headquarters, through the Engineering Division, had asked RAND

to undertake further detailed studies, and shortly thereafter obtained the

concurrence of Research and Development Board in that approach. 4

SSEH- 2

30

swop

111CLASSIFIED
OREM

BMW

For practical purposes, the Navy discontinued satellite studies at that

point. Under contract to the Navy, the Glenn L. Martin Company had been

doing work similar to that of RAND since early 1946. The Martin efforts had

resulted in a proposal for a 1,450-pound satellite that, said the researchers,

could be orbited in the near future.. (Much later, in the aftermath of the Sputnik affair, the then-president of the Martin Company told a group of reporters

that the Navy-Martin program could have put a satellite into orbit "before the

Korean War. 95

Army ordnance was in roughly the same situation, a group at White Sands

Proving Ground having designed a space flight experiment in the fall of 1947. 6

By virtue of a general agreement with the Research and Development Board,

however, the Air Force became the only service authorized to expend defense

department funds on studies of satellite vehicles. The Air Force assigned the

work to RAND under its regular contract, and the Research and Development

Board subsequently (mid-1948) confirmed that RAND was solely responsible

for such studies. 7

In November 1950,• RAND submitted definitive recommendations to

Air Force headquarters covering extension of research into specific aspects

f--. of the reconnaissance mission for satellites Major General D. L. Putt,

Air Force director of research and development, endorsed the proposal and

saw that it received necessary support. Its product was a pair of brief reports

submitted in April 1951--reports which for the first time categorically and in

considerable detail stated the engineering feasibility of a military-purpose

satellite. 8

In the most important of the April 1951 studies, RAND reported that

"pioneer reconnaissance (general location and determination of appropriate

targets) and weather reconnaissance are suitable with the resolving power

presently available to a satellite television system." In the interval between

1947 and 1951, of course, it was precisely that sort of intelligence which had

become vitally important to the Air Force; the obvious prospective foe was the

Soviet Union, its vast spaces and totalitarian political structure giving it

relative security from conventionil -"iffarkericIti 

r 

pacheis. Moreover, in .

that interval the Soviet Union had deinopsti•ated'a gely unsuspected

1111111k. . • SSEH-131

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UNCLASSIFIED
4:114r.,Irr 1;11'7 .‘ 4

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scientific competence by detonating atomic weapons years before experts

anticipated that event, the Soviet sphere of influence had extended over the

whole of continental China, and for thefirst time since 1939 the Soviet world

had attempted armed assault on a bordering state--the Republic of Korea.

In the case of robot reconnaissance, the researchers considered the

basic problems involved in developing, assembling, launching, operating and

profiting from the device. The analysis certainly was more comprehensive

than anything previously attempted. And the conclusions were quite

encouraging, though not markedly different from those of 1946:9

The various components constituting a satellite vehicle to be

utilised for reconnaissance . . . [are] individually feasible to various

degrees. To combine these parts into a reliable operating whole will

require considerable basic scientific and engineering effort. No radically

new developments are indicated, however; rather, a reconstitution of

known theory and art in rocketry, electronics, engines, and nuclear

physics.

Specifically, the researchers concluded that a two-stage rocket (as

opposed to the three- or four-stage vehicle originally considered in 1946)

weighing about 74,000 pounds and carrying a 1,000-pound payload could satisfactorily conduct general reconnaissance, resolving objects with a maximum

dimension of ZOO feet. Reliability—largely a matter of refining electronic

components—would generally determine the duration of useful activity. With

improvements in television components to a stage then attained under laboratory conditions, it seemed entirely possible to reduce the resolvable dimension requirement to 100 feet while still providing continuous coverage from a

single satellite on a basis of every target surveyed every other day. A further

improvement (to a resolvable dimension of 40 feet) would theoretically permit

virtually all military reconnaissance to be performed by satellite. I Obviously, useful weather information could be obtained by even less demanding

Specifically, individual consideration was devoted to (1) orbits and ground

coverage, (2) the problems of television reconnaissance, (3) attitude control in the orbiting vehicle, (4) requirements of an auxiliary powerplant

and (5) an analysis of the anti* • i— • .litxpf the system. The basic

requirements of the launch v- A Cy se rate considerations' .

SSEH-2 32 isomivow

UNCLASSIFIED
NUSSIFIED

techniques; resolution on the order of 500-foot dimensions probably would

prove entirely adequate. On the basis of sketchy experience with interpretation of weather trends from photographs taken from probe rockets, weather

prediction also seemed feasible. 11

As was sometimes done for particularly significant or potentially sensitive subjects, RAND both preceded and followed the formal published studies

and reports by presenting data to specialized groups, particularly at Wright

Field and in the Pentagon. Among a great many experts who had been

desperately puzzling with the reconnaissance problem, there resulted considerable enthusiasm for RAND's findings. 12 The Research and Development

Board, which had only recently rejected another Navy proposal for a smallpackage scientific satellite, fully sanctioned further studies. In the wake of

the 1951 studies, the Air Force authorized RAND to make specific recommendations for the start of development work in the reconnaissance satellite

program- -then called Project Feed Back. •13vSubmission and consideration of the April 1951 RAND studies coincided,

quite by accident, with the activation of an autonomous Air Research and

Development Corrunruld and with increased stature for the recently created

headquarters Air Force staff agency, the Deputy Chief of Staff, Development

Both organizations were guided by officers who were firmly convinced that

far too much emphasis had been placed on procurement and production aspects

of the materiel function in postwar years. They proposed to re-emphasize

the research and development aspects of the Air Force mission, and they

promptly set about their task. *

The lower-echelon organizations, principally the Air Materiel Command's

Engineering Division, had for the most part been entirely sympathetic to

"advanced ideas" but had achieved no notable success in securing their

acceptance at higher levels. Competition between proposals for radically

new techniques and requirements for improved weapons to employ in the

immediate future (the Kore affair was then in full flower) tended to

decrease the effectivenesc , tid,A it Division, nonetheless.

mom

ISSIFIFfi

SSEH-233
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By November 1951, the Air Force had arranged for the Atomic Energy

Commission to begin work on small reactors suitable for use as power sources

in satellite vehicles. RAND planned to subcontract major portions of the next

phase of basic research, starting with the study of an orbital sensing and control subsystem (subcontracted to North American Aviation in March 1952).

By June of that year, preliminary results of the reactor analyses were availcontract between

RAND and the Radio Corporation of America followed, in mid-June; the

electronics firm was to study optical systems, television cameras, radiation,

recording devices, presentation techniques, and reliability aspects of a

reconnaissance subsystem for a satellite. Concurrently the Communication

and Navigation Laboratory at Wright Air Development Center contracted with

North American Aviation for a study of a pre-orbital guidance system for a

satellite (July 1953).

Most of this work was financed under a special supplement to the existing

contract with RAND, effective for fiscal year 1953 and specifically designed

to support the satellite research. The Atomic Energy Commission acceded to

an Air Force proposal that it fund the study aspects of the reactor work, at

least to the point of proving theoretical feasibility.

In the first two years following the establishment of an autonomous

Air Research and Development Command, a minor difference of opinion

involving RAND and the new organization occurred. The command decided

early in its existence that the Air Force rather than the corporation should

have management responsibility for the several subcontract studies being

monitored by RAND. Nothing came of the proposal initially, and RAND continued to control study efforts ("the research phase") under the philosophy of

turning the work over to the Air Force "as soon as development work can be

started."

In May 1953, this process went one step farther. Air Force headquarters

first directed the research and development command to investigate the

feasibility of starting development work on an auxiliary nuclear power plant

for the satellite, and then added e agency was to begin

"active direction" of the entire F am lay 1 June. One of the

SSEH 2

34 allOPIP

UNCLASSIFIED
program received new direction; hea

Development Command ordered Wr ' 

the Air Research and "V • 7*

opment Center to redocument

stspomo

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prime motives was the obvious fact that the reconnaissance satellite program

had to be carefully integrated with the recently re-activated Atlas ballistic

missile effort. Staff planners clearly foresaw that Atlas was the logical boost

vehicle for the satellite. (At the time, the Air Force was also specifying

reconnaissance versions of its major development systems, including Snark

and Matador missiles. The reconnaissance package seemed to offer potential

for a similar reconnaissance payload for the Atlas. ) 141-

Air Research and Development Command representatives who began

arranging a transfer of custody emerged from their initial contact with the

RAND group in a state of high enthusiasm. Lieutenant Colonel V. L. Genez

returned from his initial visit to the RAND satellite office with the firm

conviction that an immediate effort should be made to orbit a satellite,

"regardless of the availability of the reconnaissance subsystem. He considered

the psychological advantages of such a program to far outweigh any disability

arising from limited operational utilitIr One month later, in September 1953,

RAND itself flatly recommended letting a system design contract within a year

and proceeding to a full system development program "perhaps immediately

following the completion of experimental component tests."15

Endorsement of the RAND recommendation by the research command

headquarters and preliminary steps toward the start of component . development marked the closing months of 1953. Although there were objections to

the proposed acceleration of work (notably from the command's atomic energy

program manager, who felt that at least another nine months of study should

be devoted to the auxiliary power source before development began), the

threads gradually began to draw together once more. 16

At that point, the Air Research and Development Command decided to

pull together the proliferating aspects of the satellite work into a single

project, thus making its unified management more feasible. Tentatively

identified as Project 409-40, "Satellite Component Study," the program was

also given unofficial possession of a system number (Weapon System 117 L)

to cover the ultimate system development effort. On 3 December 1953, the
undertake "the earliest possible

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the effort under newly adopted management procedure It (80-4) and to direct

activity toward a demonstration of the feasibility of major satellite components. The television-optical reconnaissance subsystem, attitude and

guidance control equipment, and the auxiliary power plant were specific goals.

By the end of the year, the entire satellite "program" had made a semiofficial transition from a planning project to a proposed system. Given a new

project number, it was transferred to the custody of the Bombardment

Missiles Branch in Wright Air Development Center's systems rnanagement

organization. 17

In January 1954, while RAND was in the final stages of preparing a

summary report on Project Feed Back, Project 1115 acquired the unclassified

title "Advanced Reconnaissance System" and an lvfX (engineering project)

number: MX-2226. Apart from the fact that the new names and codes were

rather more prosaic than the "Feed Back" nomenclature earlier used, their

adoption served to distinguish the proposed Air Force program from the

RAND studies, which were rather well known throughout the services. However, the several items of code numbering, system number, and project

number had not yet received confirmation or approval from Air Force

headquarters. Although the work was progressing, it still lacked the

authorization required for a fully effective prograrn. 18 Such authorization

was to come in the trail of the long-awaited summary report from RAND on

Project Feed Back.

Refinement of engineering data., intensive investigations of individual

aspects of the reconnaissance satellite proposal, and highly detailed analysis

of technical, fiscal and political (international) requirements and

repercussions were complete by early 1954. Over a period of more than two

years, RAND had subcontracted studies to a variety of highly qualified

research and industry groups. Several hundred scientists and engineers had

a part in the contributory studies and in the final report. In consequence,

that report (dated 1 March 1954) contained the validated findings of some of

the most highly regarded individuals and organizations in the nation. On the

basis of such work, RAND specifically recommended that the Air Force

• , tr ?of an efficient satellite
1115121tti

reconnaissance vehicle" as a matter of "vital strategic interest to the

United States." Additionally, RAND urged that the satellite project be

"considered and planned" at a high policy level and that it be conducted under

elaborate secrecy wraps to prevent dangerous international repercussions.

On such a basis, it seemed possible to RAND that the development and initial

operation of the satellite' could be completed in about seven years and at a

total cost "on the order of $165 million"--although the researchers cautioned

that uncertainties inherent in the prediction of development trends might

double or treble that cost. (RAND also remarked, with considerable foresight, that "it may be possible to attain the end goal of the program from one

to two years earlier at a considerable increase in cost.") 19

There was an element of finality to the concluding paragraph of the

summary: 20

RAND has been working on the satellite vehicle for 8 years. During

this period the metamorphosis from a feasibility concept to a useful

reconnaissance purpose has occurred. Cognizance is now being turned

over to the Air Force with the recommendation that the program be

continued on a full-scale basisr"

sairnahe

UNCLASSIFIED

SSEH-2

37
siEH-2

UNCLASSIFIED

I( 12. The author attended a Project Feed Back briefing at Wright Field early

in 1952 and clearly recalled, 10 years later, the general excitement that

gripped the audience during much of the presentation. The animated

discussion that followed was marked by' a complete absence of "it can't

be done" sentiment and by free expressions of hope for the success of the

RAND program during later presentations at the decision level in Air

Force headquarters.

13. Memo, Col J A Dunning, Asst Ch, War Plans Div, Dir/Plans, to

Dir/Plans; DCS/Plans and Prog; USAF, subj: USAF Satellite Program,

28 Oct 1957, cited in Bowen mass. 

01111.10bItItU.

7.. •

•

•

NOTES - CHAPTER 3

Rpt, National Military Establishment, "First Report of the Secretary of

Defense, 1948" (29 Dec), p 129.

Ltr, BrigGen A R Crawford, Ch, Eng Div, AMC, to DCS/Mat, USAF,

Subj: Project RAND Satellite Vehicle, 8 Dec 1947

RAND Rpt R-217, Utility of a Satellite Vehicle for Reconnaissance,

Apr 1951,. p 1.

Project 1115 Background, Dec 1954. 

'bid; Denver Post, 25 Sep 1959.

Washington Star interview of Dr. H.A. Zahl, Res Div, Sig Corps

US Army, Z7 Oct 1960.

Memo, C G Habley, Dayton rep, RAND, to J E Lipp, Missiles Div,

RAND, subj: Feed Back History, 28 May 1952, cy in SSD His Div File:

ARS/WS 117L thru 1955.

Ibid; RAND Rpt R-217, Apr 1951; RAND Rpt R-218, Inquiry into the 

of Weather Reconnaissance from a Satellite Vehicle, Apr 1951.

RAND Rpt R-217, Apr 1951, p 80.

Ibid.

11. RAND Rpt R-218, Apr 1951.
r. 14. History of the Air Research and Development Command, 1 July31 December 1955, pp 349-353, including citations of: itz7--

F. R. Collbohn, RAND Corp, to MajGen D N Yates, Dir R and D,

DCS/D, USAF, 10 Feb 1953; ltr, MajGen D N Yates, Dir R and D,

DCS/D, USAF, to CG, ARDC, subj: Project FEEDBACK, 22 May 1953,

and 1st Ind, Col J D Kay, Dir/Intel, Dep/Dev, ARDC, to Gen Yates,

12 Jun 1953.

15. Memo "For the Record, " prep by LtCol V M Genez, Dir/Intel, Dep/Dev,

ARDC, subj: Conference with RAND Corporation re FEEDBACK Program, 13 Aug 1953; ltr, J E Lipp, RAND, to CG ARDC, subj: Interim

Recommendations for Project FEEDBACK, 8 Sep 1953, cited in History

of ARDC Jul-Dec 1955, p 359g.

16. DF, BrigGen D J Kiern, Asst for ANP, to Asst for Weap Sys, ARDC,

subj: Phase II Investigations of Nuclear Auxiliary Power Plant in

Feedback Project, 3 Nov 53; Status Rpt, Proj Feedback, prep by LtCol

M Genez, 14 Dec 1953; History of ARDC, Jul-Dec 1955, p 356.

17. Memo, Habley to Lipp, 28 May 1952; "Project 1115 Background, "

Dec 1954.

"Project 1115 Background, " Dec 1954; Bowen msg.

RAND Rpt R-262, Project Feed Back Summary Report, 1 Mar 1954,

pp vii, 3-4, 149-150, 164-166.

Ibid, vii; appreciation of the enormous amount of data contained in

arch 1954 study can only be gained by reading it. (It is well worth

the time: RLP)

ammo 4111NIL SSE H-2, 39
CHAPTER 4

THE TRANSITION FROM PROGRAM TO SYSTEM

A combination of circumstances had contributed to the new course of

space-program activity. One of the key elements certainly was the emergence

of a group of scientific advisors who both appreciated the gravity of the

Soviet threat and seemed willing to consider "unconventional" approaches

to the United States response. Oddly enough, it was a new "economy drive"

in the defense department that provided the final impetus. Determined that

defense expenditures could and should be reduced, the department created a

Guided Missiles Study Group (under its Armed Forces Policy Council) to

recoinmend means for cutting the cost of the missile program. (Secretary of

Defense Charles E. Wilson in his 16 June 1953 directive creating the review

committee specified that "a continuous effort should be made to standardize

on one missile for production and use by all military departments, wherever,

within the employment limitations of each type of missile, standardization

appears to be practicable. ") The original group encountered evidence of a

significant change in the status of the long-delayed intercontinental ballistic

missile program, created a special subcommittee (Strategic Missile Evaluation Committee) to delve more deeply into the subject, and passed on to other

topics. Under the leadership of Professor John von Neumann, the Strategic

Missile Evaluation Committee reviewed the status of the rocket missile

program and concluded that new warhead developments plus advances in

rocket technology made an intercontinental missile Munediately feasible.

That conclusion, and a series of implementation recommendations, reached

Trevor Gardner, Air Force Assistant Secretary for Research and Development,

in the first quarter of 1954. Enthused about the potential of the proposal,

Gardner and von Neumann secured the active support of the Air Force chief

of staff, General N. F. Twining, and Secretary of the Air Force Harold E.

Talbott. Together, they succeeded in obtaining funds and directives needed

SSEH-2

40

UNCLASSIFIED
In May 1954, concurrent with'key decisions in the ballistic missile area,

Air Force headquarters directed the Air Research and Development Command

to assume responsibility for a study of the applications of RAND'. Feed Back

concept. The research command promptly "documented" Project 1115, .

obtaining final approval from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Coordinating Committee on Guided Missiles) in July. In August, Pentagon authorization to proceed with actual work reached the field command, and that

command set about issuing more comprehensive directives. The appearance

of System Requirement Number 5 on 27 November 1954 signaled approval of

a clearly defined effort to develop a reconnaissance satellite system, even

though the general operational requirement (GOR No 80) did not emerge from

Pentagon channels until 16 March of the following year. 2

A number of presentations of the FeedBack proposal, largely as defined

by RAND, marked the summer and early fall of 1954. Following the Air

Research and Development Command's assumption of project responsibility

in May, that command began a determined attempt to obtain approval for an

expanded industry study effort. Among those who heard and in some degree

endorsed the Feed Back approach\vere the acting chairman of the Scientific

Advisory Board, J. A. Doolittle

N. F. Twining, and the heads of

of of Staff, General

;Land and the Air Research

41

IMCIASSIFIED

4111111POPI

to start work. By July, a field organization had been created, a supporting

contractor engaged, and the broad outlines of .a massive ballistic missile

development program sketched in.

The creation of a substantial ballistic missile program in the Air Force

had significance far beyond immediate consequences--though these were

important enough. It meant, first, that . the eight-year struggle to obtain

acknowledgement of the feasibility of long range rockets had been won. The

Bush thesis had finally succumbed to the von Neumann thesis. Second, it

implied the availability, in the foreseeable future, of rocket vehicles

sufficiently powerful to thrust a satellite into orbit. Finally, by confirming

that space-age weapons would shortly be operational, it testified to the need

for developing a useful military competence in space; to a great many Air

Force planners it seemed obvious that only a military space capability could

provide an effective counterweight to an intercontinental ballistic missile

force.'
114SSEHED

31111.1111k1Av .i 1.1.7:6... and Development Command--Generals LeMay and Power. General LeMay

was quite responsive to the presentation, urging preparatioh of a formal

Strategic Air Command requirements document covering the satellite, but other

of the command's officials, notably in its operations analysis staff, urged the

greater need for improved refueling techniques and manned bombers. General

Putt, who immediately preceded Power as research and development command

chief, strongly supported the satellite program--as did Power himself.3

While such presentations were being made at various levels, work began

on a number of additional elements, or proposed elements, of the reconnaissance

satellite: attitude guidance and control, a solar-electrical energy converter,

intelligence processing methods, the auxiliary power plant, and the effects of

nuclear radiation on electronic components.4

In October 1954, Trevor Gardner asked the "ICBM Scientific Advisory

Group" (which included many of the earlier von Neumann committee) to

consider the possible interaction of satellite proposals and other missile

propOsals of the moment with the intercontinental ballistic missile effort then

rapidly unfolding. The committee decided that the review should be undertaken directly by the Air Force; it was ultimately completed by the Western

Development Division and recommended, in effect, that bicause of the

necessity for coordinating the several large rocket-vehicle programs the

reconnaissance satellite should be assigned to the Western Development

Division for management.5

In that a system requirement generally called for the submission of data

needed to prepare a formal development plan, while a general operational

requirement specified objectives and time goals, the 16 March 1955 require-

=tents document issued by Air Force headquarters actually constituted the

first full and formal statement of the reconnaissance satellite program. In

many respects, as might have been anticipated, it paralleled the earlier

RAND studies. It defined as the Air Force objective a means of providing

continuous surveillance of "preselected areas of the earth" in order "to

determine the status of a potential enemy's warmaking capability." Intended

for launch from fixed bases, the reconnaissance satellite was to provide

daylight visual coverage in sufficient detail to permit identification of air-

.

field runaways, and intercontinentali iitet l', 204 sii .616; dons. Additionally,

SSEH-2

42

[CLASSIFIED
the notion that the WS 117L progr

ammo

MICLASSIFI

,-**,'"1.1*.. •

UNCLASSIFIED

an alternate ability to collect electronic intelligence and to provide weather

forcasting data was also specified. Although the "ultimate" required

definition (". . . capability to detect objects no more than 20 , on a side. . . ")

was somewhat optimistic in terms of RAND's earlier findings, the required

operational availability date (1965) seemed basically sound.6

Initial management of the project was assigned to Wright Air Development

Center, the project officers being Lieutenant Colonel Q. A. Riepe and (after

August 1955) Lieutenant Colonel W. G. King, Jr. By November 1955, 14

basic "in house" technical tasks had been defined, approved, and assigned

to project officers for control purposes. The Air Force had also contracted

with Radio Corporation of America, Glenn L. Martin, and Lockheed Aircraft

for design studies intended to establish more specifically the time and

technology requirements of the undertaking. Industry investigations were

conducted under the nickname "Pied Piper. "7

As early as January 1955, the von Neumann group had decided that it

would be possible--and preferable--to work initially on the satellite vehicle

and its contents rather than on a total reconnaissance system which would

include the booster elements. In this fashion, contended the committee,

there would arise no need for interference with the ballistic missile program.

The commander and vice commander of the Air Research and Development

Command, Lieutenant General T. S. Power and Major General J. R. Sea sums,

'- agreed that this was their understanding of program objectives.8

In general terms, it was the wish of the Western Development Division

and its commander, General Schriever, to devote their principal attention

to the intercontinental ballistic missile. The introduction of non-germane

tasks such as tactical-range ballistic missiles and satellites promised to

interfere with the main assignment unless additional resources were concurrently provided. Nevertheless, it was early apparent than no serious

military satellite program could be undertaken by the United States without

imposing additional requirements on the ballistic missile development agency.

Of the possible launch vehicles that would be available within the years of

satellite development and test, only the Atlas-Thor-Titan family promised

fully satisfactory thrust character/ tie e not specifically rejecting

d to the Western'.

SSEH-2

43
..4..:4:1/1.t •

Development Division, thosi concerned tended to express hope that some

alternative could be devised. In one of the early discussions of the

reconnaissance satellite during a meeting of the "ICBM Scientific Advisory

Committee" in June 1955, the group chiefly considered the topic in a context

of "steps which could be taken to prevent the TBM [ Tactical Ballistic Missile]

and Scientific Satellite programs from interfering with the ICBM

[ Intercontinental Ballistic Missile] program. " After evaluating the question

in some detail, the group decided on a course of action?

. . . The committee unanimously agreed that any Satellite program,

Scientific or Reconnaissance, which is dependent on components

being developed under the ICBM pro'gram, would interfere with the

earliest attainment of an ICBM operational capability and requested

the Chairman to write a letter to the Secretary of the Air Force 3 advising the Secretary of the Committee's .concern in this matter.

INIASSIFIE0

There was no question of lack of foresight in such a decision. The group

was overwhelmingly concerned with keeping the infant ballistic missile

program alive and satisfying the critical need for an operational ballistic

missile. There seemed slight prospect that the materiel and personnel

resources then available to the Western Development Division could accommodate a major satellite program without diluting the effectiveness of its

missile effort; by the same token, in the climate of June 1955, the prospects

for obtaining additional resources commensurate with the expanded require-

. mentos were so slight as to be unworthy of notice.

The basic question of who should manage WS 117L was resolved in

Gordian-knot fashion on.100ctober 1955, when General Power ruled that the

entire program would be transferred from the custody of Wright Air Development Center to the Western Development Division. The formal notification

did not come for another month, and final details of the transfer were not

settled until 1956 had begun. Nevertheless, the broad outlines of the

The committee members included, among 13 attending, Professor John

von Neuman, Professor G. B.. listiakowsky, Dr. C. B. Millikan,

Professor J. B. Wiesner, mut': • . .4,• . . Yorrall concerned in the

decision which had resulted, ..etT i 

1

r-i1 pstablishment of an . .

accelerated ballistic missile U l WU- Li

44SSEH-2

OICLASSIFIED
IMISSIBB

undertaking, the scope of the task, and the obvious difficulty of the program

were made clearly apparent in the revised system requirement which

formally assigned the reconnaissance satellite to General Schriever's

keeping. 10,

The Scientific Satellite and WS 117L 

'Although much remained before the WS 117L program could complete

the transition from system proposal to system development, the first steps

had been taken. Unhappily for the sitriplicity of program management, however, the years between 1953 and 1956 were also marked by the commingling

of military space vehicle programs with "alternative" or "scientific"

satellite proposals. The basic requirement originated in United States

agreement to participate in the International Geophysical Year activities,

became attached to independent satellite proposals originia' ted in both Army

and Navy rocket research establishments, and eventually affected the

WS 117L-program as it was assigned to the Western Development Division.

Although the original Navy approach of 1945 and the RAND studies'of

early 1946 both contemplated prototype satellites with more "scientific"

than military application, it was not until October 1948 that the general

scientific community was exposed to such notions. In that month, the

Journal of Applied Physics published the "Grinaminger Report," a brief

article based on unclassified elements of the earlier RAND studies. Its

principal effect Wa 11 to stir up enthusiasm among the various national rocket

societies and those relatively small and isolated groups of specialists whose

interests were affected by the prospect of apace exploration.

The second major impulse for the creation of a scientific satellite came

from the space flight enthusiasts and their allies in astronautics. Both

formal and informal discussions of the feasibility of and the need for scientiiic satellites marked the proceedings of the Second Congress of the

International Astronautical Federation, in London, and the First Symposium

on Space flight, in New York, dur' Publ'ication of the

"8"111CLASSIFIEll
Then chief of the Guided Mis

Missile Laboratory, at Re

SSEH-2

46

relegt (Division, Ordnance

Ina6Isville, Alabama.

11 1.1SSIFIN

proceedings of the London meeting as The Artificial Satellite gave the

British Interplanetary Society the distinction of having prepared and circulated

the first published work to be devoted exclusively to space vehicles.

Wernher von Braun was by that time conducting his own campaign for

sponsorship of an experimental satellite program but as yet had not secured

support from the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. The "MOUSE" (Miniumtun

Orbital Unmanned Satellite, Earth) proposal originated by Dr. Fred Singer

was attracting some attention by 1953. (Singer, Arthur C. Clarke, and

A. V. Cleaver of the British Interplanetary Society chose the name and

blocked out a public relations program for "MOUSE" during an informal

meeting in London. ) After being rather extensively discussed during the

May 1954 Symposium on Space, in New YOrk, the Singer scheme proceeded

to gain considerable support in conventional scientific circles.

Concurrent with the "MOUSE" proposal, von Braun

*

 formally recommended that the Army fabricate and launch "a minimum satellite vehicle

based upon components available from missile developments of the Army

Ordnance Corps." Specifically, he urged that the Army use a Redstone

missile. as the first-stage booster for a satellite. Deciding that the partici-

.

pation of all three services would be necessary to acceptance and funding of

such a program, the Army invited both the Air Force and the Navy to

cooperate. The plan then being considered involved orbiting a five-pound

inert "slug" about two feet in diameter, using clusters of solid-fuel Loki

rockets as the upper three stages of the four-stage launch vehicle.

The Navy expressed rather more than mild interest, but the Air Force

declined participation because of its concern for long range efforts leading

to heavier satellites with military utility. The key Army report was issued

on 15 September 1954, while the formal approach to the Navy (following

preliminary informal inquiries) was embodied in a memorandum of

14 December. Project costs, at that point, were estimated at $17 million.

Some $500, 000 actually were made available to support initial studies. 11

UNCLASSIFIED
1111111111111111111

Although the Air Force was not particularly attracted by the von Braun

approach, continued Air Force. interest in the general topic was indicated by

the appearance of a February 1954 RAND study dealing with the uses of a

scientific satellite. In both the 1954 study and a supplemental report of

June 1955, RAND emphasized the need for an instrumented test vehicle to

provide useful data for later space research; the concept of an "inert slug"

then being considered by the Army and the Navy was quite ignored. As had

been true since 1946, Air Force concern for space exploration was much

more closely concerned with useful scientific experimentation than with the

general prospect of orbiting "something." 21

Among scientists, the notion of satellite research gained additional

impetus from published reports of Soviet interest in "an artificial satellite

of the earth" (November 1953) and from the Soviet creation in September 1954

of a, special Tsiolkovald gold medal for work in the field of space flight. The

Russians announced that such awards would be made starting in 1957. Concurrently, in 1954, several leading Soviet scientists were named to a

permanent commission on astronautics. 13

By August 1954, Congress had sanctioned United States participation in

the activities of the International Geophysical Year. Shortly thereafter, a

special committee of the geophysical yezir agency had recommended

". . . that thought be given to the launching of small satellite vehicles" and _

the House of Representatives had begun consideration of a formal appropriation of $10 million to support American participation in the scientific

activities of the international group. (At about the same time, Secretary of

Defense Charles E. Wilson told a press conference that he had no knowledge

of any American satellite program.) 14

In the early months of 1955, the Army and the Navy worked out the

details of their proposed joint satellite effort--dubbed Project Orbiter. At

that point, the National Security Council had to decide what, if any, relationship should prevail between the existing military missile programs and the

requirement for a scientific satellite to support the International Geophysical

Year. The decision was formally inscribed in a council directive of

26 May 1955--a document which o iliiTs!the President's doctrine

Ir

SSEH-2

47

UNCLASSIFIED
takssivith ..,"• .:41"

•

on the "peaceful uses of space" and which decreed that the American

satellite for the International Geophysical Year could not employ any missile

intended for military purposes. 15

The selection of a satellite program was entrusted to Donald A. Quarles,

then assistant secretary of defense for research and development. Quarles

named an "Ad Hoc Advisory Group on Special Capabilities," with

Dr. H. J. Stewart as chairman, to make specific recommendations on the

scientific satellite.

When the Stewart Committee began its investigations, the possible

choices had been reduced to three--and two of these were clearly dependent

on the use of vehicles drawn from the missile programs of the services.

The Army and the Navy proposed Project Orbiter, using the Redstone missile

plus upper stages of Loki rockets. In June, the von Neumatin group discussed

a rather general proposal to employ an early test-version Atlas (Series A)

missile to boost a scientific satellite into orbit. The general reaction was

that the required Atlas prototypes could be more usefully employed elsewhere. Nevertheless, the Air Force proposed a combination called

"World Series" based on an Atlas carrying as its upper stage the wellproven Aerobee-Hi space probe rocket. The third alternate was the Navy's

Project Vanguard, a program hinging on use of. modified Viking rocket and

available upper stages (four stages in all).

Although the Army concluded, on the basis of such developments, that

both the Air Force and the Navy were sponsoring firm alternatives to the

Orbiter program, and that interservice rivalry was at the core of the

situation, such was not the case. Looking at requirements in the light of

the 26 May National Security Council directive, the Navy quite logically

concluded that neither Orbiter nor "World Series" could receive Stewart

Committee approval. The "Viking proposal," which became Vanguard, made

its appearance as a backup to the primary Navy submission (jointly with the

Army)--Project Orbiter. 16

Apart from the discussion of an Atlas-launched satellite in the

von Neumann group, relatively„,t. emerged from Air Force

SSEH-2

48

UNCLASSIFIED
MOHO

.1717 111114

quarters during the period when the Stewart. Conunittee was considering a

recommendation. The committee visited the Western Development Division

and heard briefings on the Atlas program, its applicability to the general

area of scientific satellites, and the prospect of interference between the

scientific satellite and the ballistic missile program, but Air Force spokes -

men were quite reserved in their advocacy of the Atlas approach. Although

taking a conciliatory approach, division representatives did not disguise

their conviction that the directed creation of a special relationship between

Atlas and the scientific satellite could easily cause interference with the

military effort. They emphasized that a most careful management effort

would be required to overcome the effects of such interference if the Atlas

and the scientific satellite were tied together.

Shortly after the departure of the Stewart group, the Los Angeles complex

considered Convair's presentation of an Atlas-boosted scientific satellite

called ORTV—Orbital Research and Test Vehicle--a 500-pound satellite to

be tied to an Atlas C missile for launch. In many respects, it was remar -

ably similar to the RAND concept of early 1947. 17

Late in August, the Stewart Committee ruled that Vanguard was more

acceptable than Orbiter, principally because the latter would require the

use of military "hardware"--Redstone rockets. The chief of Army ordnance

research and development promptly protested, pointing out technical shortcomings in the Vanguard approach and emphasizing the danger to United

States prestige if the nation failed to be first into space--but the Vanguard

decision was reaffirmed. Those responsible both for confirming the original

Stewart Committee recommendation and for rejecting subsequent appeals

later told. Congress that the Vanguard offered "greater promise" than its

alternatives. The explanation that under the existing ground rules oz9y

Vanguard could be selected was not publicly offered. Indeed, at least one

of the services which offered alternatives to the Vanguard approach was

not even aware of the prohibition on the use, of a military rocket as the boost

vehicle; the Air Force presentation team continued to support World Series

without the least intimation that it had been vetoed in advance. 18

1 4A1.,

heafri, - nw*Vnn••• 1

NCLASSIFIED

SSEH-2

49
DIRER-1W

Subsequent Air Force participation in the affair of the scientific satellite

was not germane to the main course of events there. On 31 August 1955,

after the Vanguard decision had been made big apparently before it had become

general knowledge, Air Force headquarters directed the Air Research and

Development command to establish a separate scientific satellite project CO

be integrated with the WS 117L program. The directive implied that a

prototype reconnaissance satellite vehicle should be used to satisfy requirements of the International Geophysical Year.

One month later, on 31 September, Major General Albert Boyd, the

command's deputy commander for weapon systems, advised the Pentagon

that substantial increases in fiscal 1956-1958 funding were essential before

any progress could be attempted. This response and the impact of the

Vanguard rulizig prompted Air Force headquarters to issue, on 14 October,

further instructions that the Air Research and Development Command should

take no additional action on a scientific satellite program until Air Force

responsibilities in that area had been clarified.

On 1 November 1955 the "hold order" of mid-October was cancelled

and the research and development command received teletyped instructions

to submit a plan for the use of WS 117L prototypes in the scientific satellite

program. Command headquarters, within two weeks, had assigned responsibility for preparing such a plan to the Western Development Division. That

organization, in rather less than two months, produced a detailed development plan covering a scientific satellite derived from the basic WS 117L

program. 19,

In retrospect, the real translation point between studies, proposals,

reports, and component programs with limited objectives on the one hand,

and a system development phase on the other, was publication of the

14 January 1956 development plan for a prototype, scientific-satellite

Variant of the WS.117L reconnaissance satellite'. Although the preliminary

development plan obviously was a somewhat hastily composed proposal for

satisfying an Air Force headquarters desire to participate in the scientific

satellite program then beginning s it nevertheless represented the first

positive proposal for orbiting an Aya ".laitegi+='cle within a given

SSEH-2

50 eismoi

IIKASSIFIEll
time period. In forwarding the preliminary development plan,

General Schriever clearly indicated that his division was principally

attempting to satisfy the Pentagon requirement for a demonstration of

"orbital capability" using major elements of the Advanced Reconnaissance

System—WS 117L. The crux of the January 1956 proposal was feasibility

demonstration "within the International Geophysical Year . . . " Thus the

initial proposal, deliberately "tentative" in nature, encompassed only that

portion of the WS 117L program which could influence plans for the geophysical year activities. In General Schriever's words: 20

r •

It appears perfectly feasible to provide an orbiting vehicle of considerable

payload capacity within tide IGY period, provided implementing action is

taken at an early date. This vehicle development can be carried out as

a coherent part of the overall Advanced Reconnaissance System Program

without significant compromise to the latter': Further, if current

schedules can be maintained, no hardware interference with the ICBM

program is foreseen. Some interference from a personnel dilution

standpoint will necessarily exist. ' This can be minimized by advanced

planning if a consistent program is pursued.

In polite terms, the general was stating that his organization could

indeed orbit a scientific satellite if certain conditions were satisfied: adequate financial support, appropriate personnel reinforcements, and.

resolution to proceed with the program once it had been approved—without

frequent halts and starts.

The January 1956 proposal conceived of an initial orbital flight, using

an Atlas Series C missile as the boost vehicle, by 19 August 1958. The

satellite itself, to weigh about 3, 500 pounds, was to contain " a propulsion

system, guidance and control equipments, beacons and other items being

developed for the ARS [Advanced Reconnaissance System] and essential for

these testa."

In many respects the proposed vehicle resembled the Thor-Agena

combinations actually used in the Discoverer program more than five years

later--with Atlas substituted for Thor. Specific scientific measurements

which the planning group felt could be taken by the proposed vehicle included

atmosphereic density, frequency and mass of micrometeorites, thermal flux

effects in orbit, solar radiation in thA ultraviolet and X-ray regions, and

effects of the ionosphere and trophosp ksoniziatmications. Additional

SSEH-2

IMPS. 51
SSEH -2

52

data that could be obtained from the proposed satellite, it appeared, could

include information on cosmic radiation, the earth's magnetic field, and

solar high frequency radio noise.

Success in the effort, the Western Development Division carefully

explained, would be dependent on four basic circumstances: maintenance of

the ballistic missile program schedules, a prompt decision to proceed with

the "preliminary" satellite proposal, early selection of a suitable contractor,

and "the provision of adequate funds." Planners anticipated that the results

of the satellite experiments would be beneficial to progress in ballistic

missile development, but specified that missile contractors should not be

called upon to participate in the satellite program if that participation would

"detract in any way" from their primary concern: missiles.

.Estimated program cost totalled $95.5 million, of which $13 million had

to be made available by 1 April 1956 if the proposed schedule was to be

maintained. 21

On 16 January 1956, General Power accepted and forwarded the preliminary plan. Two days later, the Air Force Research and Development Policy

Council completed a rapid review of the proposal and sent it to the Stewart

Committee. Early in February, a composite team from several Air Research

and Development Command centers and divisions supported the written

proposal through the medium of a special presentation. The Air Force

group did not in all respects stand firm behind the Western Development

Division plan, however. On instructions from General Putt, newly named

deputy chief of staff, development, in Air Force headquarters, the presentation team refrained from emphasizing the need for total program approval

and indicated general willingness to "accept approval of a portion of the

program. 2„ 2

As far as the Air Force was concerned, nothing particularly significant

came from the January 1956 development plan or the later presentation to

the Stewart Committee. Notwithstanding the fact that the committee had been

far from unanimous in endorsing the Vanguard a proach as the most prom.-

ising of the several alternativ decision in favor of

UNCLASSIFIED
Vanguard was allowed to stand. Putt's decision not to press the issue

probably made no difference. A more forceful course presumably would

have ended, in time, as did the action of the chief of Army research and

development, Lieutenant General M. Gavin, who in the spring of 1956,

again vigorously argued for approval of a modified Orbiter program as a

much more promising approach than Vanguard. On 15 May he received

orders "telling me in specific terms [he later testified] that the Army

would not prepare to launch a satellite using its Jupiter or Redstone

missiles." Whatever the consequences, the May 1955 National Security

Council decision to separate the scientific satellite from military programs

prevailed. the instance of both the Army Orbiter and the Air Force

WS 117C, the key factor in the decision not to proceed with an alternative

or accessory scientific satellite approach was the strong possibility that the

close association of such a satellite with a specific military weapon might

delay the scheduled delivery of that weapon. General Schriever and his

staff had consistently emphasized that the earliest possible operational

availability of an intercontinental ballistic missile was the key objective

of the Air Force program and that an Atlas-launched satellite effort had to

hinge on success in that effort. The Army frankly conceded that acceptance

of its plan to launch a Redstone Arsenal satellite by January 1957 would

delay the Jupiter missile program by about three months. The delicacy of

development, test, and delivery schedules for the Atlas was even more

pronounced than was true of Jupiter. Even while proposing a plan for using

the Atlas Series C missile to orbit a prototype satellite, the Air Force

repeatedly emphasized that no more than a slight slippage in Atlas development would be needed to delay availability of Atlas boosters past the point

where they could be used to satisfy International Geophysical Year require -

ments. Thus the uncertainty of success in meeting geophysical year deadlines and the general prejudice against interfering in any way with the

progress of ballistic missile development essentially caused the demise of

the 1956 proposal to orbit an Air Force scientific satellite. 23

SSEH-2

53

,t111;;SIFIED
11101416

Something in the nature of an epilogue to the January-February 1956

episode occured one year later. On 1 February 1957

*

 the development staff

in Air Force headquarters, at the request of the Department of Defense,

asked General Schriever's group to submit a current estimate of the ability

of the Air Force to build a "back-up" scientific satellite that could be launched

during the International Geophysical Year. The West Coast agency replied

on 8 February, in a message that was forwarded from command headquarters

three days later, that no Air Force scientific satellite launchings could be

scheduled with any assurance of success before mid-1959, but that if the

Atlas program continued to make excellent progress it might be possible to

schedule one or two maximum risk launchings during 1958--that is, during

the final months of the International Geophysical Year. In either event, some

$91 million in additional funds would be • needed to support such an effort,

exclusive of base operation and maintenance costs. 24

The Department of Defense, which again was considering variants of

tlie Vanguard and Orbiter proposals as well as a scientific satellite based

on the WS 117L, decided again that no justification existed for tying the

WS 117L program to International Geophysical Year Prograuis. The

Stewart Committee unanimously endorsed the Validity of the current

Air Force approach and, by implication, the need for a military satellite.

Nevertheless air staff members in the Pentagon remained conscious of the

continued presence of anti- satellite sentiment in the defense department.

Some officials in the defense establishment openly questioned the feasibility

of a reconnaissance satellite, much less the existence of a valid military

**-

requirement for such a system. Perhaps equally troublesome, concern for

a variety of. other programs which, in the climate of the early 1950's,

Precisely ten years earlier, on 2 February 1947, RAND had submitted

the first technically detailed scientific satellite proposal to the (then)

Army Air Forces.

. f3SEH-2

54

The attitude was scarcely unprecedented, one of the most notorious

examples being Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy's flat refusal to

believe in the feasibility or F .

til the very day of the

Almagordo test in July 19

soma

HICIASSIFIE0
UNCLASSIFIED

appeared to be far more significant to the Air Force than military satellites,

frequently caused even those who were officially supporting the space effort

to be somewhat tepid in their support. Thus Air Force planners convinced

of the urgency of a space program and working to secure its approval too

often found their audiences at higher levels to be either indifferent or actively

hostile to their proposals. 25

Nevertheless, work went doggedly ahead. Even though the "crash effort"

to prepare a development plan for a scientific satellite to orbit by the fall of

1958 took precedence, work on a military system with a more realistic deadline continued. Indeed, considerable urgency attached to the preparation of

a full development plan. On 10 February 1956, before anything was known

about the Stewart Committee's decision on the proposed "prototype" scientific

satellite, the project officer for WS 117L (Colonel O. J. Glasser) outlined a

schedule calling for the completion of all basic planning by 1 April. The

project office met that deadline, forwarding on 2 April a formal development

plan that established a May 1959 target date for first orbit. (However, as

late as March 1956 Glasser's group still was giving thoUght to meeting the

time requirements of the geophylical year program, and as much as a year

later it did not seem entirely impossible to launch some sort of a satellite by

the end of the geophysical year )26

The full-scope system development plan for WS 117L received General

Schriever's approval on 2 April 1956 and General Power's endorsement

three weeks later. Designed to satisfy the requirements of the March and

October 1955 operational requirement and system requirement documents,

it was almost exclusively concerned with the purely military reconnaissance

aspects of the satellite prograni. In the sense of providing that early flights

would have the "additional objective" of collecting "geophysical data of

interest to the scientific community in general," it conformed roughly to

some of the details of the preliminary plan of 14 January. That was the only

significant concession to the scientific satellite, however. The orbital

element was essentially a refined reconnaissance satellite tied to an Atlas

launch vehicle. The complete system, including vital ground installations

CON for analyzing and disseminating th ation, was intended to be

SSEH-2

55
ii

vs 7' ri

ko owe*

fully operational by the third quarter of 1963. Exclusive of facilities, the

research and development cost was expected to be about $114.7 million. 27

Air Force headquarters approved the 2 April plan, essentially as submitted, on 24 July 1956. A development directive covering the system

appeared on 3 August. It contained only one important qualification—but

that was all important: development was authorized within a funding limitation of $3 million for fiscal 1957. The Air Research and Development

Command system development directive (actually prepared in the Pentagon)

which appeared on 17 August expanded on that qualification by citing "severe

limitations on FY 1957 funds available to this command," and conceding that

this was "inadequate initial funding."28 

Nevertheless, almost precisely 10 years after its first appearance in

the guise of a RAND study, the military satellite had achieved system status.

But whereas conservative estimates of program costs had indicated an initial

need of at least $39.1 million through fiscal 1957, the WS 117L program

approved in August 1956 was funded at rather less than 10 percent of the

requirements level. It was not a particularly auspicious start, but

considering the obstacles of funding stringency, skepticism and "policy

considerations" that had been overcome in progressing that far, the achievement was not unremarkable.

Yet the obstacles that had appeared as early as 1946 still were trouble-

,

some. Through the whole of the period when the supporters of WS 117L were

seeking program approval and adequate funding, the general attitude of the

Department of Defense remained hostile toward satellites. Although not

openly proclaimed, it was departmental opinion that satellite vehicles were

not feasible and further, that until Vanguard experiments confirmed feasibility

itself the WS 117L program should be funded at the "study level."

•Another obstacle to careful and detailed planning effort was a severe

restriction on the circulation of information concerning the WS 117L proposals.

The obviously critical political implications of a reconnaissance satellite

designed to operate in peacetime served to inhibitl

program itself. The extent to

discussion of the

ty classification:-

SSEH-2

56 aroiciaa

lICIESIFIEB
•••••.,:1Fr.

111ClitSSIFIEll

.• . WOW

":1-fri.

hampered thorough planning and prevented a more effective presentation of

WS 117L realities was difficult to assess, but in the opinion of one key

participant, it certainly had "an adverse irnpact."29'

At the point of initial program approval and funding, in 1956, the

Air Force space effort gave every indication of being on a sound technical

foundation. Unhappily, adequate funding still was lacking, and perhaps more

important, high level understanding of the vital need for a realistic military

space effort was scant. There lay the real problem.

elk

•

57

SSEH-2

UNCIASSIFIED
Memo, MajGen J B Carey, D/Plans, DCS/Plans and Progs, to D/Ops,

DCS/Ops, subj: Policy on Earth Satellite, 18 Nov 1957, with incls:

Position Paper and Chronology, cited in Bowen miss.

Interview, LtCol V M Genes, SAFSP, by R L Perry, SSD Hist Div,

23 Jul 1962. Col Genes later concluded that high SAC officers tended

to see more value in a reconnaissance satellite than most ARDC general

officers, though Generals Putt, Power, and F B Wood .were notable

sponsors and supporters of Feed•Back.

"Project 1115 Background," Dec 1954; DF, Maj Q A Riepe, Weap Sys

Officer, MX-2226, Dir/Weap Sys Ops, WADC, to Security Div, IG,

WADC subj: Project Nickname, 14 Dec 1954, and cmt 2, IG to

Dir/Weap Sys Ops, 17 Dec 1954.

Minutes of ICBM Scientific Advisory Committee Mtg, 15 Oct 1954,

prep by LtCol B L Boatman, secy, in SSD Hist Div Basic Docs; memo,

BrigGen B A Schriever, Cmdr, WDD, to Col C H Terhune, D/Cmdr

Weap Sys, subj: Satellite Development Plan 15 Apr 1955, in.SSD Hist

Div files , Space-Gen.

GOR No 80, 16 Mar 1955: "General Operational Requirement for a

Strategic Reconnaissance Satellite Weapon System," in SSD Hist Div

file: ARS/WS 117L thru 1955.

ARDC S R No 5, 29 Nov 1954 and Amend No 1, 8 Aug 1955, authorized

design studies by industry; Hist Rpt,. WS 117L, Jan-Dec 1956 (WDD),

in SSD Hist Div file; Genez interview, 23 Jul 1962; preen: ARS

Presentation, LtCol W G King, Ch, MX-2226 WSPO, to

BrigGen B A Schriever, Cmdr WDD, and staff, 7 Nov 1955, cy in SSD

WS 117L files, R. and D Center.

Minutes of the ICBM Scientific Advisory Committee Mtg, 4 Jan 1955,

Basic Docs file. •

INLASSIFIEY

vogimmos

4

NOTES - CHAPTER 4

The background of the ballistic missile decision of 1954 is perhaps the

best documented event in Air Force history. The "most officiil" version

is probably that summarized in Congressional Record (Appendix),

2 Sep 1960, extension of remarks of Rep L C Ae— pp A6642-6645.

Most of the key documents, too numerous to cite, are included in

"Basic Documents Collection" in SSD Hist Div files.

58

SSEH-2

g

el ASSIFIED
SSEH-2

• :.14. ' • 59

iNCIASSIFIED maima int 'WO n

Minutes of the ICBM Scientific Advisory Committee, mtg of 16-17.

Jun 1955, prep by LtCol B L Boatman, WDD, in SSD Hist Div files.

Ltr, MajGen. A Boyd, D/Cmdr Weep Sys, ARDC, to

BrigGen B A Schriever, Cmdr WDD, no subj, 7 Nov 1957; Memo of

Understanding, MajGen B A Schriever, Cmdr WDD, and

BrigGen H M Estes Jr, Dir/Sys Mgt, ARDC (Det 1, W-PAFB), subj;

Transfer of Responsibility for ARS Program, 13 Jan 1956; ARDC SR

No 5, 17 Nov 1955, in SSD Hist Div ARS/WS 117L file.

Testimony of MajGen J B Medaris, Cmdr, ABMA, Johnson Committee

hearings, I4 Dec 1957; testimony of LtGen J M Gavin, Ch R. and D (DCS),

y, Johnson Committee hearings, 13 Dec 1957; Spec Rpt, RP-1,

"Project OrlriZEIr prep y eese, ABMA Dev Ops Div, 14 Sep 1956,

cited in D S Akens, Historical Origins of the George C Marshall Space 

Flight Center, NASA Mists Dec 1960; ltr,Ch CMDD, :Ord Mel Lab,

Redstoz17-Ailienal, to Ch. Aeromed Br, (Aeromed Lab.) ARDC (WADC.)

23 Dec 1954, in ABMA Hist Div files, cited in Akens: Originss . .. ;

S B Medaris, Countdown for Decision (New York, Putnam, 60);

A C Clarke, The Making FrA Moon (New York, Harper, 1957).

RAND Apt RM-1194, Scientific Uses for a Satellite Vehicle (R R Carhart),

12 Feb 1954; RAND Rpt RM-150-T—gcleitginrigrof an Artifical Satellite

(H K Kallmann), 8 Jun 1955.

Johnson Committee hearings, I, 606, reprint of portion of special RAND

memo;FJ Krieger, Behind the Sputniks, A Survey of Soviet Space

Science (Washington,15USITE7ilfairs Press, 1958), 374:—

Supplemental Appropriation Act, 1955, P L 663. 68 Stat 818; Aeronautics

and Astronautics, NASA chronology (E E Enune) (Govt Print Otc, 1Yb 1 ),

p—r/b, 77; New York Times, 17 Nov 1954, 22 Dec 1954.

NSC Dir 5520, Z6 May 1955, cited in Bowen mss. In his 18 Jun 1962

letter to Putnam (SSD), Bowen calls this "the decisive document" in the

subsequent progress of the American scientific satellite effort. Although

it is difficult to discover what alternatives were considered before the

NSC made its ruling, it is abundantly clear that the effect of the ruling

was to eliminate from consideration both the ABMA (Redstone-Jupiter)

and the WDD- (Atlas -Thor) vehicles, although these were the only highthrust rockets that could conceivably be made available during the course'

of the geophysical year.

Minutes of ICBM Sci Adv Comm Mtg, 16-17 Jun 1955, p 6; Akens:

Origins . . . , citing Rpt of the Ad Hoc Adv Gp on Spec Capabilities, Ofc

o

f

 Asst Srai/Def, Aug 1955, pp A-/, 1-17; ltr, Bowen to Putnam,

18 Jun 1962.
tiseig

• *: •

SSEH-2 wpso,-,ret

60

Memo, Worthman to Anderson, S

61161141111

, 17. Memo, Col C H Terhune, D/Cmdr Tech Ops, to BrigGen B A Schriever,

Cmdr, WDD, subj; Visit of DOD Satellite Committee, 28 June 1955;

memo by WDD Histn,subj: Convair Presentation, 29 Aug 1955, 30 Aug

1955, both in SSD Hist Div files, ARS/WS 117L thru 1955.

18. Johnson Committee hearings, testimony of D A Quarles, Secy AF,

27 Nov 1957, pp 284-286, LtGen J M Gavin, DCS/R and D, Army,

13 Dec 1957, pp 505-510, and MajGen J B Medaris, Cmdr, ABMA,

14 Dec 1957, pp 540-547; Genez interview, 23 Jul 1962. Genez, who

made the AF presentations to the Stewart Committee and to Quarles,

was not aware of the NSC directive at the. time and actually did not learn

of its details for another six years. As he recalled events, there was

no evidence that the Army had any knowledge of the NSC directive, and

the fact that both Von Braun and Medaris continued to endorse the use

of a Redstone launch vehicle would tend to support such an observation.

Memo, Col P E Worthman, Ch, Ballistic Div, Asst D/Cmdr Weap Sys

(Missiles and Mil Space Sys), to LtGen S E Anderson, Cmdr, ARDC,

subj: Chronology of Scientific Satellite Programs, Sept 1959, cy

retained by Col Worthman, Ch, SSD Plans and Progs Ofc, and extracted

for SSD Hist Div, June 1962, in SSD Hist Div files; interview of

Col P E Worthman, Ch, SSD Plans and Progs Ofc, by R L Perry,

SSD Hist Div, 1 June 1962.

Rpt, WDD (ARDC) Development Plan, "Weapon System 117L Preliminary

Development Plan (Initial Test Phase), Advanced Reconnaissance System

14 Jan 1956,(probable date, not specifically marked on rpt), p ii, in

SSD Hist Div files.

Rpt, WDD Dev Plan, WS 117L (Preliminary), 14 Jan 1956.

Memo, Col C H Terhune, D/Cmdr Tech Ops, to BrigGen B A Schriever,

Cmdr, WDD, subj: ARS, 16 Jan 1956; memo, Col 0 H Glasser, Rost for

Sys Mgt, to Col C H Terhune, D/Cnidr Tech Ops, WDD, subj:

Presentation to the Stewart Committee on WS-177L, 7 Feb 1956, both

in SSD Hist Div files: ARS/WS 117L 1955-1956; TWX, AFORD-RE54733, Hq USAF to Cmdr, WDD., 22 Jan 1956; DF, LtCol F C E Oder,

Ofc of Asst to Cmdr, ARDC, to Exec WDD, subj.: RDGE Diary Items

for Week ending 27 January 1956, 31 Jan 1956, in SSD Hist Div files:

WAR; memo, Worthman to Anderson, Sept 1959; Worthman interview,

1 June 1962.

Worthman interview, 1. June 1962; Memo, to Worthrnan. to Anderson,

Sep 1959; Johnson Committee hearings, II, 1474, testimony of

LtGen J M Gavin, LICS/R and D, Army, 6 Jan 1958, and I, 509,

13 Dec 1957.

111CLASSIFIE0
25. Interview, Col Ray Soper, ruiritirProgs Ofc, BSD, by R L Perry,

SSD Hist Div, 29 May 1962; Johnson Committee hearings, 1, 1116,

testimony of R E Gross, Clux3=73 ad, Lockheed Airc Corp,

15 Jan 1958; Worthman interviews. 1 Jun, 25 Jun 1962; ltr (1st ind),

R E Soper, Ch, Plans and Progs Ofc, BSD, to SSD Hist Div, subj;

Request for Comments on Manuscript, 6 Aug 1962, in SSD Hist Div files.

Menlo, Col 0 J Glasser, Asst for WS 117L, to Col C H Terhune,

D/Crndr Tech Ops, WDD, subj: ARS Activities, 10 Feb 1956; ltr,

Col C H Terhune, D/Cmdr Tech Ops for BrigGen B ASchriever, Cmdr,

WDD, to Cmdr, ARDC, subj: WS 117L Contractor Selection Board,

17 Feb 1956; memo, Cmdr R C Truax, Asa Dep, WS 117L Weapon

System Ofc, to BrigGen B A Schriever, Cn3dr, WDD, subj: 117L

Activities at AFMTC, 30 Mar 1956; all in SSD Hist Div files: Terhune

read files, Feb, Mar 1956; rpt, WDD Dev Plan, "WS 117L Advanced

Reconnaissance System, " 2 Apr 1956.

Rpt, WDD, Llev Plan, WS 117L, 2 Apr 1956.

USAF Dev Dir No 85, Weapon System 117L Advanced Reconnaissance

System, 3 Aug 1956; ARDC Sys Dev Dir No. 117L, 17 Aug 1956.

Ltr (1st ind), Soper to SSD Hist Div, 6 Aug 1962.

',CUSSED

SSEH-2

61

• .1% .1 •
GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS

AAF Army Air Forces

ABMA Army Ballistic Missile Agency

Admin Administration

Adv Advisory

Aero Aeronautical

Aeromed Aeromediaal

AF Air Force

Air c Aircraft

AMC Air Materiel Command

ANP Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion

Asst Assistant

ARDC Air Research and Development Command

ARS Advanced Reconnaissance System

Bd Board

Br Branch

BrigGen Brigadier General

BSD Ballistic Systems Division

BuAer Bureau of Aeronautics

Capt Captain

CG Commanding General

Ch Chief

Chm Chairman

Cmdr Commander

Co Company

Col Colonel

Comm Communication(s)

Cong Congress

Cy Copy

DCG Deputy Commanding General

DCS Deputy Chief of Staff .

DCS /13 Deputy Chief of Staff, Development

DCS/Mat Deputy Chief of Staff, Materiel

Def Def ens

Dep Deputy

Dev Development

DF Disposition Form

Dir Director; Directive

Div Division

Docs Docur4entar.-.

SSEH- 2

62

ASSIRED
Of c

Ops

Ord

Office

Operations

Ordnance •

UNCLASSIFIED

SSEH-3

RICLAS1 1E11

Gen . GM

GMDD

GOR

Govt

' Hist

Hq

. •

Engineering

General

Guided Missile(s)

Guided Missile Development Division

General Operational Requirement

Government

History; Historical

Headquarters

ICBM • Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

IG Inspector General

Incl Inclosure

Ind Indorsement

Incl Inclosure

Intel Intelligence

JRDB Joint Research and Development Board

Lab Laboratory

14Col • Lieutenant Colonel

LtGen Lieutenant General

Ltr Letter

Maj Major

• MajGen Major General

Mbr Member

Memo Memorandum

Mgt Management

Mal Missile

Mae Manuscript

Mtg Meeting

NASA

No

NSC

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Number

National Security Council
INLASSIFIEll

somP aallaun

Prep Prepared

Preen Presentation

Progs Progr ams

Proj Project

R/Adm Rear Admiral

R and D Research and Development

Rep Representative

Res Research

Rpt Report

- roiect

Sci

Secy

Sen

Sees

Spec

SR

Sr

SSD

Stat

Subj

Sys

Tech

ecretarv o e Aar orce

Science; Scientific

Secretary

Senator

Ses sion

Special

System. Requirement

Senior

Space Systems Division

Statute

Subject

System

Technical; Technology

Undersecretary

United States Air Force

United States Navy

Wright Air Development Center

Western Development Division

Weapon.( s ) Weapon System Project Office

Undersecy

USAF

USN

WADC

WDD

Weap

WSPO

SSEH-2 11111.11 MEM

UNCLASSIFIED
UNCLASSIFIED

assom 411111011

INDEX

ADVANCED RECONNAISSANCE SYSTEM, 36, 51; see also Project Feed

Back and Weapon System 117I: 

Aerobee-Hi (rocket), 48

Aerojet Engineering Company, 3

Aeronautics Board, 10; see also Joint Research and Development Board

Air Force Research ancrINverrprnent Policy Council, 52

Air Materiel Commands 24

Air Research and Development Command, 33, 34, 36, 41, 50, 56

Armed Forces Policy Council, 40

Army Air Forces Scientific Advisory Group, 13n

Army Ballistic Missiles Agency, 14n

Army Ordnance Corps, 46

Arnold, General of the Armies H. H., 9, 11, 13n, 19

Artificial Satellite, The, 6, 46

Atlas (missile), 35, 43, 48, 49, 53

Atomic Energy Commission, 34

B-29 AIRCRAFT, 16

Bombardment Missiles Branch (Wright Air Development Center), 36

Bowen, Dr. H. Lee, iv, v

Boyd, Major General Albert, 50

British Interplanetary Society, 46

Bureau of Aeronautics (Navy), 9

Bush, Vannevar, iii, 9n, 13n, 19, 41

CHINA, 32

Clarke, Arthur C., 46

Cleaver, A. L., 46

Cogswell, Captain W. P. (Navy), 10

Committee on Guided Missiles (Joint Research and Development Board), 18

Communication and Navigation Laboratory (Wright Air Development Center), 34

Congress of the United States, 47, 49 '

Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft Company, 20

Craig, Lieutenant General H. A., 23

Crawford, Major General A.R., 24

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 19, 54, 56

Department of State, 8

Deputy Chief of Staff, Development (Air Force), 33

Discoverer (satellite), 51

Doolittle, J. A., 42

Dornberger, Walter, 4, 5

Douglas Aircraft Corporation,

n

IIIRUSSIFIED

SSEH-2

65
ri?

ICHSSIFID

ING.1116

EAKER, LIEUTENANT GENERAL I.C. , 17n

I FEED BACK, see Prsject Feed Baia 1 

First Symposium on Space Flight, 45

Forrestal, J.V. , Secretary of Defense, 6

GANSWINDT, HERMANN, 2

Gardner, Trevor, 40, 42

Gavin, Lieutenant General J.M. , 53

General Operational Requirement (GOR) No. 80, 42

Genes, Lieutenant Colonel V.M. , v, 36

German Society for Space Flight, 3

Glasser, Colonel O.J. , 55

Goddard, Professor Robert H. , iv, 2-3

Greer, Major General R.E. , v

Grimminger Report, 6, 45

Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratories, 10

•Guided Missile Development Division (Army Ballistic Missiles Agency), 46

Guided Missiles Study Group (Department of Defense), 40

HALL, COMMANDER HARVEY (NAVY), 9

Hohmann, Dr. Walter, 4

House of Representatives, 47

Huntsville, Alabama, 46

INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILE SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY GROUP, 42,44

International Geophysical Year, 6, 45-55

JET PROPULSION LABORATORY, 3

Joint Research and Development Board, 18

Journal of Applied Physics, 6, 45

KING, LIEUTENANT COLONEL W.G. , JR. , 43

Kistiakowsky, Professor G.B. , 44

Knerr, Major General H.J. , 10

Korea, Republic of, 32

LEAHY, FLEET ADMIRAL W.D. , 55n

LeMay, General C.E. , 10, 11, 12, 42

Lipp, J.E.

Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, 43

Loki (rocket), 48

London (England), 4, 45

MARTIN (GLENN L. MARTIN COMPANY), 10, 31, 43

Matador (missile), 35

McClellan, Major General H.W. , 10

Millikan, Dr. C.B. , 44

Mitchell, Major General Will

"MOUSE" satellite 46

SSEH-2

66

INIP110111.11
utON'ti3

MEM

NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL, iv, 47-48, 54

Navaho (missile), 20

New York, 46 • North American Aviation, Incorporated, 10, 34

OBERTH, HERMANN, 2, 5, 13

Ordnance Missiles Laboratory (Army), 46

ORTV (Orbital Research and Test Vehicle), 49

PEENEMUNDE (ROCKET TEST STATION, GERMANY), 4

Pentagon (building), 33, 50

Poland, 4

Power, Lieutenant General T.S.. 42-4 , 51, 52

I:

 Project Feed Back, 33, 35, 36

Project 1115. 41. 47-55 

Pro'ect Orbiter, 6

ro e ll't1:114rrillitt11111111111111111111111111111111

Putt, Lieutenant General D.L. , 31, 42, 52

QUARLES, D. A. , 49

RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA (RCA), 34, 43

RAND Corporation, original program, 12; first satellite study, 13-16; 1947

satellite proposals, 21; expansion of studies, 25; satellite utility

studies, 31; April 1951 proposals, 31-33; contracts for subsystem

analyses, 34; urges system development program, 36-37

Redstone Arsenal, 46, 53

Redstone (missile), 21, 46, 48, 49

Research and Development Board, 19, 30, 33

Research and Development Committee, 17

Richardson, Brigadier General W.L. , 10

Riepe, Lieutenant Colonel Q.A., 43

SANGER-BREDT -THEORY, 5n

Schriever, Brigadier General B.A. , 43, 45, 51,53, 55

Scientific Advisory Board, 41-42

Scientific Advisory Committee, 42

Scientific satellite, 45-55

Second Congress of International Astronautical Federation, 45

Seasums, Major General J.W. , 44

Senate Committee on Atomic Energy, 14n

Singer, Dr. Fred, 46

Snark (missile), 35

Soper, Colonel Ray, v

Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), 8, 31, 47

Spaatz, General Carl, 11, 22

Space (definition), 1

41401.44MhMeen****CIAR-INPOWftetS;

011011111SIONEPIPP.011•441Ase*ItS.

-41111111110111001011040

CAOR

111111111111"1111411 . ... - .. .!..".' -'. 47-"ALA 

• .c.; •. .'

SSEH67

UNCLASSIFIED
IIKASSIFIE1

Sputnik, 1, 12

Stewart Committee, 48-49, 51-52, 54

Stewart, Dr. H.J. , 48

Strategic Missiles Evaluation Committee, 40

Symington, W.S. , 17n

TALBOTT, H.E. (SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE), 40

Thor (missile), 43

Thor-Agena (space vehicle), 51

Titan (missile), 43

Tsiolkovski, Konstatin, 2, 13

Tsiolkovski Medal, 47

Twining, General N.F. , 40, 42

UNITED STATES AIR FORCE (CREATION), 21

United States Navy, 30, 46

V-Z (MISSILE), iv, 4, 12, 16, 17n

Vandenberg, General H.S. , 23

Vanguard (satellite program), 16, 48-50, 52

Viking (rocket missile), 21, 48

von Braun, Wernher, 4, 14n, 46, 47

von Karman, Dr. Theodore, 3

von Neumann, Professor John, 40-44, 48

WEAPON SYSTEM 117L, 35, 43, 50, 54

Wehrmacht, 4

Western Development Division, 42, 43-44, 50-52

White Sands Proving Ground (Army), 32

Wiesner, Professor J.B. , 44

Wilson, C.E. (Secretary of Defense), vii, 40, 47

"World Series" (satellite proposal), 48-49

Worthman, Colonel P.E. , v

Wright Air Development Center, 35, 43

Wright Brothers, 16

Wright Field, 21, 33, 34

X-1 (RESEARCH AIRCRAFT), viii

YORK, DR. H. F. , 44

ZIOLKOVSKY, see Tsiolkovski, Konstatin

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