The Penguin Book of Outer Space Exploration: NASA and the Incredible Story of Human Spaceflight

PROLOGUE

THE DREAM OF CENTURIES

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Though humans have dreamed of voyaging to the stars for thousands of years, this story—in which they finally became a spacefaring species—begins in the early twentieth century, when the concept of using rocket propulsion to accelerate spacecraft to orbital velocity came to the fore. Three pioneers, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in tsarist Russia, Hermann Oberth in post–World War I Germany, and Robert Goddard in the United States, from early in the century on, carried out theoretical work on rocketry; of the three, only Goddard translated theory into experimentation, launching the first liquid-propelled rocket in 1926. Other rocket engineering work was carried out by groups of enthusiasts, using private resources to fund their efforts. One of these groups was the German rocket society Verein für Raumschiffahrt (Society for Spaceship Travel, or VfR), which launched a successful rocket flight in February 1931. One of the early members of the VfR was the young Prussian nobleman Wernher von Braun. In the Soviet Union, the government-sponsored Group for the Study of Reactive Motion (GIRD), created in 1931, was the initial focal point for rocket research, launching its first liquid-fueled vehicle in 1933. One of GIRD’s founders was Sergei Korolev, who would go on to be the chief designer of the Soviet space program. In the United States, the American Interplanetary Society (later called the American Rocket Society), another enthusiast group, carried out rocket research during the 1930s, focusing on ground-based testing of rocket engines. At the California Institute of Technology, the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory (GALCIT) began work on rocket engine development, with funding eventually coming from the War Department.

It was the outbreak of World War II that altered the course of rocket development in the United States and Europe. In the United States, GALCIT was renamed the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1943; its work during the war focused on using small rocket motors to assist airplane takeoffs. In the Soviet Union, from 1938 to 1944 Korolev was either imprisoned or held in gulags (slave labor camps); there was little progress in rocket research during the war. The German government after World War I had been forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles to work on developing military weapons; that prohibition did not extend to rockets, not yet considered tools of war. In 1932 the German army hired the twenty-year-old von Braun to work on military rockets. When Adolf Hitler took over the German government in 1933, von Braun continued to work for the German military. Eventually he led a team that developed the first ballistic missile, the Vengeance Weapon 2 (V-2) rocket. The V-2 was first test launched in October 1942, and from September 1944 until the end of the war in May 1945 more than three thousand V-2 rockets were launched against targets in Europe and England. Even as he worked for the Nazi regime, von Braun insisted that his primary interest was developing the rockets that would someday enable space travel.²

As the end of World War II approached, von Braun and key members of his rocket team, seeking to escape capture by invading Russian forces and preferring to surrender to the American military, made their way across war-torn Germany from the Baltic seacoast, where their secret base was located at Peenemunde, to Bavaria. Their surrender took place on May 3, 1945; by June, arrangements were under way to transfer von Braun and many of his associates to the United States, where they would work for the U.S. Army on rocket research. They were based near El Paso, Texas from 1946 to 1950, when the team was transferred to the Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, home of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. There, von Braun, rehabilitated from his collaboration with the German military and Nazi regime, became head of the agency’s development operations division, and thus in charge of its rocket research.

Von Braun’s work at Huntsville was just one of the postwar U.S. efforts to develop a missile capable of launching a nuclear warhead to a distant target. In the 1950s, both the Navy and the newly created Air Force sponsored research on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). With the emergence of U.S.-Soviet rivalry, the so-called Cold War, the ability to deliver nuclear warheads over long distances was seen by both the United States and the Soviet Union as a key capability in their geopolitical contest. In the Soviet Union, Korolev, who had been freed in 1944 and quickly became a leader in Soviet space research, was also working on a high-priority basis to develop powerful rockets; in fact, because the Soviet nuclear warhead was significantly heavier than its U.S. counterpart, the Soviets needed a more powerful ICBM than those being developed in the United States. In both countries it would be a modified ICBM that would first carry a human into orbit.

With the development of powerful rockets for military purposes, the possibility of launching spacecraft, and soon after, people, into orbit and beyond was becoming technically feasible. In parallel, that possibility was fast becoming part of popular culture. As historian Roger Launius comments, The dreams of Verne and Wells were combined with the pioneering rocketry of Goddard and Oberth and later developments in technology to create the probability of a dawning space age. In the United States, it was Wernher von Braun, just a few years removed from his service to Hitler’s regime, who emerged as a leading spokesman for the future of space travel. Launius writes that von Braun’s background as a serious rocket engineer, a German émigré, a handsome aristocrat, and a charismatic leader made him an effective promoter of spaceflight to the public.

In October 1951 the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City hosted what was billed as the First Annual Symposium on Space Travel. Among those in attendance was Gordon Manning, editor of the weekly newsmagazine Collier’s, which together with similar newsweeklies Life, The Saturday Evening Post, and Look was a major source of information for the general public. Manning and his associates were so impressed by what they heard that they decided to run a series of articles on space travel in their magazine. The series would be edited by journalist Cornelius Ryan and would draw upon top U.S. thinkers on the potentials of space. The eight articles in the series appeared between March 22, 1952, and April 30, 1954. They were dramatically illustrated by several artists, most notably Chesley Bonestell. The initial articles in the series, reflecting the Cold War environment of the early 1950s, were cast in the context of U.S. competition with the Soviet Union for control of space.

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The following two articles, one written by the magazine’s editors to introduce the series and the other by Wernher von Braun, were among the first widely circulated discussions of space exploration. Von Braun’s article, discussing an initial human mission to Mars some one hundred years in the future, is very speculative. The Collier’s articles, combined with a Walt Disney–produced television series based in part on them, by the mid-1950s made von Braun the most well-known spokesman on space issues and created a public expectation that human space travel would soon become reality.

In their alarmist introduction to the series, the editors of Collier’s stressed that it was the urgency of national security and global leadership competition with Cold War rival the Soviet Union, rather than a visionary perspective on the future in space, which made it important to conquer space. Although the visionary aspects of space activity are mentioned, it was clearly the relationship between space capability and national power that had higher priority in the view of the magazine’s editors. Space travel may have been a dream of centuries, but it was rivalry on Earth that made it possible.

Editors, What Are We Waiting For?, Collier’s, March 22, 1952

On the following pages Collier’s presents what may be one of the most important scientific symposiums ever published by a national magazine. It is the story of the inevitability of man’s conquest of space.

What you will read is not science fiction. It is serious fact. Moreover, it is an urgent warning that the U.S. must immediately embark on a long-range development program to secure for the West space superiority. If we do not, somebody else will. That somebody else very probably would be the Soviet Union.

The scientists of the Soviet Union, like those of the U.S., have reached the conclusion that it is now possible to establish an artificial satellite or space station in which man can live and work far beyond the earth’s atmosphere. In the past it has been correctly said that the first nation to do this will control the earth. And it is too much to assume that Moscow’s military planners have overlooked the military potentialities of such an instrument.

A ruthless foe established on a space station could actually subjugate the peoples of the world. Sweeping around the earth in a fixed orbit, like a second moon, this man-made island in the heavens could be used as a platform from which to launch guided missiles. Armed with atomic war heads, radar-controlled projectiles could be aimed at any target on the earth’s surface with devastating accuracy.

Furthermore, because of the enormous speeds and relatively small size, it would be almost impossible to intercept them. In other words: whoever is the first to build a station in space can prevent any other nation from doing likewise.

We know that the Soviet Union, like the U.S., has an extensive guided missile and rocket program under way. Recently, however the Soviets intimated that they were investigating the development of huge rockets capable of leaving the earth’s atmosphere. One of their top scientists, Dr. M. K. Tikhonravov, a member of the Red Army’s Military Academy of Artillery, let it be known that on the basis of Soviet scientific development such rocket ships could be built and, also, that the creation of a space station was not only feasible but definitely probable. Soviet engineers could even now, he declared, calculate precisely the characteristics of such space vehicles; and he added that Soviet developments in this field equaled, if not exceeded, those of the Western World.

We have already learned, to our sorrow, that Soviet scientists and engineers should never be underestimated. They produced the atomic bomb years earlier than was anticipated. Our air superiority over the Korean battlefields is being challenged by their excellent MIG-15 jet fighters, which, at certain altitudes, have proved much faster than ours. And while it is not believed that the Soviet Union has actually begun work on a major project to capture space superiority, U.S. scientists point out that the basic knowledge for such a program has been available for the last 20 years.

What is the U.S. doing, if anything, in this field?

In December 1948, the late James Forrestal, then Secretary of Defense, spoke of the existence of an earth satellite vehicle program. But in the opinion of competent military observers this was little more than a preliminary study. And so far as is known today, little further progress has been made. Collier’s feels justified in asking: What are we waiting for?

We have the scientists and the engineers. We enjoy industrial superiority. We have the inventive genius. Why, therefore, have we not embarked on a major space program equivalent to that which was undertaken in developing the atomic bomb? The issue is virtually the same.

The atomic bomb has enabled the U.S. to buy time since the end of World War II. Speaking in Boston in 1949, Winston Churchill put it this way: Europe would have been communized and London under bombardment sometime ago but for the deterrent of the atomic bomb in the hands of the United States. The same could be said for a space station. In the hands of the West a space station, permanently established beyond the atmosphere, would be the greatest hope for peace the world has ever known. No nation could undertake preparations for war without the certain knowledge that it was being observed by the ever-watching eyes aboard the sentinel in space. It would be the end of Iron Curtains wherever they might be.

Furthermore, the establishment of a space station would mean the dawning of a new era for mankind. For the first time, exploration of the heavens would be possible, and the great secrets of the universe would be revealed.

When the atomic bomb program—the Manhattan Project—was initiated, nobody really knew whether such a weapon could actually be made. The famous Smyth Report on atomic energy tells us that among the scientists were many who had grave and fundamental doubts of the success of the undertaking. It was a two-billion-dollar technical gamble.

Such would not be the case with a space program. The claim that huge rocket ships can be built and a space station created still stands unchallenged by any serious scientist. Our engineers can spell out right now (as you will see) the technical specifications for the rocket ship and space station in cut-and-dried figures. And they detail the design features. All they need is time (about 10 years), money and authority.

Even the cost has been estimated: $4,000,000,000. And when one considers that we have spent nearly $54,000,000,000 on rearmament since the Korean War began, the expenditure of $4,000,000,000 to produce an instrument which would guarantee the peace of the world seems negligible.

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Wernher von Braun’s three essays for the Collier’s series included a concept for a wheel-shaped space station in orbit more than one thousand miles above the Earth, a description of a journey to the Moon, and last, a plan to get to Mars. While von Braun was confident that humans could journey to the Moon, he was well aware of the many unsolved obstacles to successful voyages to Mars. He thus placed his initial Mars mission one hundred years in the future, sometime in the mid-twenty-first century. Von Braun’s 1954 conception of a Mars mission called for a seventy-man crew. (There is no indication he conceived of a mixed-gender crew.) That crew would need a flotilla of ten spacecraft to make the Mars journey. Von Braun was sure that journey would happen . . . someday.

Wernher von Braun with Cornelius Ryan, Can We Get to Mars?, Collier’s, April 30, 1954

The first men who set out for Mars had better make sure they leave everything at home in apple-pie order. They won’t get back to earth for more than two and a half years. The difficulties of a trip to Mars are formidable. The outbound journey, following a huge arc 255,000,000 miles long, will take eight months—even with rocket ships that travel many thousands of miles an hour. For more than a year, the explorers will have to live on the great red planet, waiting for it to swing into a favorable position for the return trip. Another eight months will pass before the 70 members of the pioneer expedition set foot on earth again. All during that time, they will be exposed to a multitude of dangers and strains, some of them impossible to foresee on the basis of today’s knowledge.

Will man ever go to Mars? I am sure he will—but it will be a century or more before he’s ready. In that time scientists and engineers will learn more about the physical and mental rigors of interplanetary flight—and about the known dangers of life on another planet. Some of that information may become available within the next 25 years or so, through the erection of a space station above the earth (where telescope viewings will not be blurred by the earth’s atmosphere) and through the subsequent exploration of the moon, as described in previous issues of Collier’s.

Even now science can detail the technical requirements of a Mars expedition down to the last ton of fuel. Our knowledge of the laws governing the solar system—so accurate that astronomers can predict an eclipse of the sun to within a fraction of a second—enables scientists to determine exactly the speed a space ship must have to reach Mars, the course that will intercept the planet’s orbit at exactly the right moment, the methods to be used for the landing, take-off and other maneuvering. We know, from these calculations, that we already have chemical rocket fuels adequate for the trip.

Better propellants are almost certain to emerge during the next 100 years. In fact, scientific advances will undoubtedly make obsolete many of the engineering concepts on which this article . . . [is] based. Nevertheless, it’s possible to discuss the problems of a flight to Mars in terms of what is known today. We can assume, for example, that such an expedition will involve about 70 scientists and crew members. A force that size would require a flotilla of 10 massive space ships, each weighing more than 4,000 tons—not only because there’s safety in numbers, but because of the tons of fuel, scientific equipment, rations, oxygen, water and the like necessary for the trip and for a stay of about 31 months away from earth.

All that information can be computed scientifically. But science can’t apply a slide rule to man; he’s the unknown quantity, the weak spot that makes a Mars expedition a project for the far distant, rather than the immediate, future. The 70 explorers will endure hazards and stresses the like of which no men before them have ever known. Some of these hardships must be eased—or at least better understood—before the long voyage becomes practical.

For months at a time, during the actual period of travel, the expedition members will be weightless. Can the human body stand prolonged weightlessness? The crews of rocket ships plying between the ground and earth’s space station about 1,000 miles away will soon grow accustomed to the absence of gravity—but they will experience this odd sensation for no more than a few hours at a time. Prolonged weightlessness will be a different story.

Over a period of months in outer space, muscles accustomed to fighting the pull of gravity could shrink from disuse—just as do the muscles of people who are bedridden or encased in plaster casts for a long time. The members of a Mars expedition might be seriously handicapped by such a disability. Faced with a rigorous work schedule on the unexplored planet, they will have to be strong and fit upon arrival.

The problem will have to be solved aboard the space vehicles. Some sort of elaborate spring exercisers may be the answer. Or perhaps synthetic gravity could be produced aboard the rocket ships by designing them to rotate as they coast through space, creating enough centrifugal force to act as a substitute for gravity.

Far worse than the risk of atrophied muscles is the hazard of cosmic rays. An overdose of these deep-penetrating atomic particles, which act like the invisible radiation of an atomic-bomb burst, can cause blindness, cell damage and possibly cancer.

Scientists have measured the intensity of cosmic radiation close to the earth. They have learned that the rays dissipate harmlessly in our atmosphere. They also have deduced that man can safely venture as far as the moon without risking an overdose of radiation. But that’s a comparatively brief trip. What will happen to men who are exposed to rays for months on end? There is no material that offers practical protection against cosmic rays that is practical for space travel. Space engineers could provide a barrier by making the cabin walls of lead several feet thick—but that would add hundreds of tons to the weight of the space vehicle. A more realistic plan might be to surround the cabin with the fuel tanks, thus providing the added safeguard of a two- or three-foot thickness of liquid.

The best bet would seem to be a reliance on man’s ingenuity; by the time an expedition from the earth is ready to take off for Mars, perhaps in the mid-2000s, it is quite likely that researchers will have perfected a drug which will enable men to endure radiation for comparatively long periods. Unmanned rockets, equipped with instruments which send information back to earth, probably will blaze the first trail to our sister planet, helping to clear up many mysteries of the journey.

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Science ultimately will solve the problems posed by cosmic rays, meteors and other natural phenomena of space. But man will still face one great hazard: himself.

Man must breathe. He must guard himself against a great variety of illnesses and ailments. He must be entertained. And he must be protected from many psychological hazards, some of them still obscure.

How will science provide a synthetic atmosphere within the space-ship cabins and Martian dwellings for two and a half years? When men are locked into a confined, airtight area for only a few days or weeks oxygen can be replenished, and exhaled carbon dioxide and other impurities extracted, without difficulty. Submarine engineers solved the problem long ago. But a conventional submarine surfaces after a brief submersion and blows out its stale air. High-altitude pressurized aircraft have mechanisms which automatically introduce fresh air and expel contaminated air.

There’s no breathable air in space or on Mars; the men who visit the red planet will have to carry with them enough oxygen to last many months.

WHEN MEN LIVE TOO CLOSE TOGETHER

During that time they will live, work and perform all bodily functions within the cramped confines of a rocket-ship cabin or a pressurized—and probably mobile—Martian dwelling. (I believe the first men to visit Mars will take along inflatable, spherical cabins, perhaps 30 feet across, which can be mounted atop tractor chassis.) Even with plenty of oxygen, the atmosphere in those living quarters is sure to pose a problem.

Within the small cabins, the expedition members will wash, perform personal functions, sweat, cough, cook, create garbage. Every one of those activities will feed poisons into the synthetic air—just as they do within the earth’s atmosphere.

No less than 29 toxic agents are generated during the daily routine of the average American household. Some of them are body wastes, others come from cooking. When you fry an egg, the burned fat releases a potent irritant called acrolein. Its effect is negligible on earth because the amount is so small that it’s almost instantly dissipated in the air. But that microscopic quantity of acrolein in the personnel quarters of a Mars expedition could prove dangerous; unless there was some way to remove it from the atmosphere it would be circulated again and again through the air-conditioning system.

Besides the poisons resulting from cooking and the like, the engineering equipment—lubricants, hydraulic fluids, plastics, the metals in the vehicles—will give off vapors which could contaminate the atmosphere.

What can be done about this problem? No one has all the answers right now, but there’s little doubt that by using chemical filters, and by cooling and washing the air as it passes through the air-conditioning apparatus, the synthetic atmosphere can be made safe to live in.

Besides removing the impurities from the man-made air, it may be necessary to add a few. Man has lived so long with the impurities in the earth’s atmosphere that no one knows whether he can exist without them. By the time of the Mars expedition, the scientists may decide to add traces of dust, smoke and oil to the synthetic air—and possibly iodine and salt as well.

I am convinced that we have, or will acquire, the basic knowledge to solve all the physical problems of a flight to Mars. But how about the psychological problem? Can a man retain his sanity while cooped up with many other men in a crowded area, perhaps twice the length of your living room, for more than thirty months?

Share a small room with a dozen people completely cut off from the outside world. In a few weeks the irritations begin to pile up. At the end of a few months, particularly if the occupants of the room are chosen haphazardly, someone is likely to go berserk. Little mannerisms—the way a man cracks his knuckles, blows his nose, the way he grins, talks or gestures—create tension and hatred which could lead to murder.

Imagine yourself in a space ship millions of miles from earth. You see the same people every day. The earth, with all it means to you, is just another bright star in the heavens; you aren’t sure you’ll ever get back to it. Every noise about the rocket ship suggests a breakdown, every crash a meteor collision. If somebody does crack, you can’t call off the expedition and return to earth. You’ll have to take him with you.

The psychological problem probably will be at its worst during the two eight-month travel periods. On Mars, there will be plenty to do, plenty to see. To be sure, there will be certain problems on the planet, too. There will be considerable confinement. The scenery is likely to be grindingly monotonous. The threat of danger from some unknown source will hang over the explorers constantly. So will the knowledge that an extremely complicated process, subject to possible breakdown, will be required to get them started on their way back home. Still, Columbus’s crew at sea faced much the same problems the explorers will face on Mars: the fifteenth-century sailors felt the psychological tension, but no one went mad.

But Columbus traveled only ten weeks to reach America; certainly his men would never have stood an eight-month voyage. The travelers to Mars will have to, and psychologists undoubtedly will make careful plans to keep up the morale of the voyagers.

The fleet will be in constant radio communication with the earth (there probably will be no television transmission, owing to the great distance). Radio programs will help relieve the boredom, but it’s possible that the broadcasts will be censored before transmission; there’s no way of telling how a man might react, say, to the news that his home town was the center of a flood disaster. Knowing would do him no good—and it might cause him to crack.

Besides radio broadcasts, each ship will be able to receive (and send) radio pictures. There also will be films which can be circulated among the space ships. Reading matter will probably be carried in the form of microfilms to save space. These activities—plus frequent intership visiting, lectures and crew rotations—will help to relieve the monotony. There is another possibility, seemingly fantastic but worth mentioning briefly because experimentation already has indicated it may be practical. The nonworking members of a Mars expedition may actually hibernate during part of the long voyage. French doctors have induced a kind of artificial hibernation in certain patients for short periods in connection with operations for which they will need all their strength . . . The process involves a lowering of the body temperature, and the subsequent slowing down of all normal physical processes. On a Mars expedition, such a procedure, over a longer period, would solve much of the psychological problem, would cut sharply into the amount of food required for the trip, and would, if successful, leave the expedition members in superb physical condition for the ordeal of exploring the planet.

Certainly if a Mars expedition were planned for the next 10 or 15 years, no one would seriously consider hibernation as a solution for any of the problems of the trip. But we’re talking of a voyage to be made 100 years from now; I believe that if the French experiments bear fruit, hibernation may actually be considered at that time.

Finally, there has been one engineering development which may also simplify both the psychological and physical problems of a Mars voyage. Scientists are on the track of a new fuel, useful only in the vacuum of space, which would be so economical that it would make possible far greater speeds for space journeys. It could be used to shorten the travel time, or to lighten the load of each space ship, or both. Obviously, a four- or six-month Mars flight would create far fewer psychological hazards than a trip lasting eight months. In any case, it seems certain that members of an expedition to Mars will have to be selected with great care. Scientists estimate that only one person in every 6,000 will be qualified, physically, mentally and emotionally, for routine space flight. But can 70 men be found who will have those qualities—and also the scientific background necessary to explore Mars? I’m sure of it.

One day a century or so from now, a fleet of rocket ships will take off for Mars. The trip could be made with 10 ships launched from an orbit 1,000 miles out in space that girdles our globe at its equator. (It would take tremendous power and vast quantities of fuel to leave directly from the earth. Launching a Mars voyage from an orbit about 1,000 miles out, far from the earth’s gravitational pull, will require relatively little fuel.) The Mars-bound vehicles, assembled in the orbit, will look like bulky bundles of girders, with propellant tanks hung on the outside and great passenger cabins perched on top. Three of them will have torpedo-shaped noses and massive wings—dismantled, but strapped to their sides for future use. Those bullet noses will be detached and will serve as landing craft, the only vehicles that will actually land on the neighbor planet. When the 10 ships are 5,700 miles from the earth, they will cut off their rocket motors; from there on, they will coast unpowered toward Mars.

After eight months they will swing into an orbit around Mars, about 600 miles up, and adjust speed to keep from hurtling into space again. The expedition will take this intermediate step, instead of preceding directly to Mars, for two main reasons: first, the ships (except for the three detachable torpedo-shaped noses) will lack the streamlining required for flight in the Martian atmosphere; second, it will be more economical to avoid carrying all the fuel needed for the return to earth (which now comprises the bulk of the cargo) all the way down to Mars and then back up again.

Upon reaching the 600-mile orbit—and after some exploratory probings of Mars’s atmosphere with unmanned rockets—the first of the three landing craft will be assembled. The torpedo nose will be unhooked, to become the fuselage of a rocket plane. The wings and set of landing skis will be attached, and the plane launched toward the surface of Mars.

The landing of the first plane will be made on the planet’s snow-covered polar cap—the only spot where there is any reasonable certainty of finding a smooth surface. Once down, the pioneer landing party will unload its tractors and supplies, inflate its balloonlike living quarters, and start on a 4,000-mile overland journey to the Martian equator, where the expedition’s main base will be set up (it is the most livable part of the planet well within the area that scientists want most to investigate). At the equator, the advance party will construct a landing strip for the other two rocket planes. (The first landing craft will be abandoned at the pole.)

In all, the expedition will remain on the planet 15 months. That’s a long time—but it still will be too short to learn all that science would like to know about Mars.

When, at last, Mars and the earth begin to swing toward each other in the heavens, and it’s time to go back, the two ships that landed on the equator will be stripped of their wings and landing gear, set on their tails and, at the proper moment, rocketed back to the 600-mile orbit on the last leg of the return journey.

What curious information will these first explorers carry back from Mars? Nobody knows—and it’s extremely doubtful that anyone now living will ever know. All that can be said with certainty today is this: the trip can be made, and will be made . . . someday.

CHAPTER 1

GETTING READY FOR SPACE EXPLORATION

While Wernher von Braun and others during the 1950s were helping to create the public expectation that space travel was just around the corner, the U.S. government was taking the initial tentative steps toward making the United States a spacefaring country. With the development of powerful ballistic missiles for launching nuclear weapons getting under way, it was just a matter of time before variants of those missiles were converted into rockets for launching objects, and, soon after, people into orbit.

The United States would not be first to space, however. American prestige took a serious blow when the Soviet Union launched the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957. The event was seen by many, particularly in the media and the Congress, as proof of Soviet superiority in science, technology, engineering, and social organization—with all the implications that had for the growth of Soviet power and prestige. But Sputnik 1 did not cause high levels of alarm within the Eisenhower administration. Dwight D. Eisenhower and his associates had a different space priority. To Eisenhower and many of his associates, who had felt the impact of Pearl Harbor, minimizing the risk of a surprise Soviet attack was an overriding concern. The need to see into the Soviet Union and to learn the location and number of its military bases, nuclear facilities, missile facilities, bomber aircraft, and so forth created the demand for strategic reconnaissance on a continental scale. At that time, aircraft overflight and sending camera-carrying balloons over Soviet territory (the latter of which provided little useful intelligence) were the only means available for strategic reconnaissance, and they were forbidden by international law.

The Eisenhower administration grappled with this problem and took a number of different approaches to solve it, including a high-altitude spy plane, the U-2, thought impervious to antiaircraft attack. Another approach was approving the early development of satellites that could overfly the Soviet Union and return useful information. In 1954 the Air Force began preliminary development of a reconnaissance satellite program, dubbed WS (Weapon System) 117L. This was the first government-approved space program. Although its feasibility was far from certain at the time, it was understood that a satellite could potentially overcome the risks faced by aerial reconnaissance. First, there was no risk of a satellite getting shot down or destroyed in orbit by conventional air defenses. Second, it was not clear under international law if one country’s satellite overflying another country’s territory in outer space was legal or not. There was no precedent. Establishing the principle of freedom of space, that is, the acceptability and legality of satellite overflight of another’s territory, became a crucial national security issue for the United States.

Meanwhile, as these national defense concerns were being discussed inside the government, the U.S. scientific community independently was developing a proposal for a scientific satellite to be launched during the International Geophysical Year (IGY), which was to run from June 1957 to December 1958. The IGY was a major international effort to study the entire Earth, including its lands, seas, atmosphere, and outer space environments. The international scientific community would collaborate on research and share the results. Sixty-seven countries were to participate, including both the United States and the Soviet Union. To U.S. scientists, orbiting a scientific satellite was a natural extension of their post–World War II research in the upper atmosphere using high-altitude balloons and sounding rockets.

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The National Science Foundation approved the National Academy of Sciences’ proposal for a scientific satellite. But because of its implications for national security, the satellite program also required approval at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Thus a National Security Council paper, NSC 5520, Draft Statement of Policy on U.S. Scientific Satellite Program, May 20, 1955, outlined a variety of reasons for approval of the scientific satellite program, including its scientific and technological benefits, its importance for national prestige, and, most important, its use in establishing the international legal precedent of freedom of space. The satellite’s peaceful purposes would be emphasized, since it was to be an unclassified program and the scientific data it acquired would be shared internationally under the sponsorship of the IGY. These factors would increase the chances that no country would protest the overflight of such a satellite. With the legal precedent set, an opening for reconnaissance satellites would be created. Valid scientific interests would provide a convenient screen for equally valid national security concerns. Science would shape the environment for the military to peer behind the Iron Curtain and strengthen U.S. national security. The intentional intertwining of U.S. scientific and national security interests in the U.S. civilian space program was thus part of the U.S. space effort from its inception.

National Security Council, NSC 5520, Draft Statement of Policy on U.S. Scientific Satellite Program, May 20, 1955

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

The U.S. is believed to have the technical capability to establish successfully a small scientific satellite of the earth in the fairly near future. Recent studies by the Department of Defense have indicated that a small scientific satellite weighing 5 to 10 pounds can be launched into an orbit about the earth using adaptations of existing rocket components. If a decision to embark on such a program is made promptly, the U.S. will probably be able to establish and track such a satellite within the period 1957–58.

The report of the Technological Capabilities Panel of the President’s Science Advisory Committee recommended that intelligence applications warrant an immediate program leading to a very small satellite in orbit around the earth, and that re-examination should be made of the principles or practices of international law with regard to Freedom of Space from the standpoint of recent advances in weapon technology.

On April 16, 1955, the Soviet Government announced that a permanent high-level, interdepartmental commission for interplanetary communications has been created in the Astronomic Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences. A group of Russia’s top scientists is now believed to be working on a satellite program. In September 1954 the Soviet Academy of Sciences announced the establishment of the Tsiolkovsky Gold Medal which would be awarded every three years for outstanding work in the field of interplanetary communications.

Some substantial benefits may be derived from establishing small scientific satellites. By careful observation and the analysis of actual orbital decay patterns, much information will be gained about air drag at extreme altitudes and about the fine details of the shape of and the gravitational field of the earth. Such satellites promise to provide direct and continuous determination of the total ion content of the ionosphere. These significant findings will find ready application in defense communication and missile research. When large instrumented satellites are established, a number of other kinds of scientific data may be acquired . . .

From a military standpoint, the Joint Chiefs have stated their belief that intelligence applications strongly warrant the construction of a large surveillance satellite. While a small scientific satellite cannot carry surveillance equipment and therefore will not have any direct intelligence potential, it does represent a technological step toward the achievement of a large surveillance satellite, and will be helpful to this end so long as the small scientific satellite program does not impede the development of the large surveillance satellite.

Considerable prestige and psychological benefits will accrue to the nation which first is successful in launching a satellite. The inference of such a demonstration of advanced technology and its unmistakable relationship to intercontinental ballistic missile technology might have important repercussions on the political determination of free world countries to resist Communist threats, especially if the USSR were to be the first