Edited sentence: 'I simply wanted to do research, but events wouldn't allow me to.'It was known only to a very few people that I had been approached by the Chief of the Air Staff, who told me we had the only instrument in the world that could detect a Soviet missile.From 1958 to 1963, the radio telescope was used to give early warning of a Soviet attack.Lovell was angry at this arrangement, saying:.Plainclothes Royal Air Force officers even worked alongside scientists, engineers and undergraduates with only the director, Bernard Lovell, and the Air Ministry knowing who they were