Book For Sale Here.

Go to ePage selector for the notes and sources.

Notes and Sources, page 256.

Soviets might launch a satellite in 1956 and agreed to make formal enquiries through the CSAGI, the international organizing body for the IGY.

During the third meeting of the TPESP, the chair, Richard Porter, appointed James Van Allen to head a working group on internal instrumentation. The panel's job was to review the proposals for experiments submitted to the panel.

At the fifth meeting of the TPESP on April 20, 1956, Homer Newell said that a master schedule for the development of Vanguard was being drawn up and would be circulated to the TPESP as soon as it was ready. He described several satellite configurations and reported on development of the rocket's first stage. During the same meeting there was discussion of budget overruns.

During the meeting, Richard Porter also discussed the concerns that there might be only one satellite launched. He said, " ...if the plan really is to stop after you get one good one, then we had best discontinue most of the work of this panel. In fact, my own feeling is that the program would not be worth doing if this were the intent." The DOD observer replied, "It is the feeling of the executive branch of government that our present job is to get one up there, and it is most unlikely... that we will answer in any other way than to say it is a future not present decision [how many satellites are launched] (page 124).

The meeting went on to question whether they had a right to spend taxpayers' money on a tracking system when there might only be one satellite.

In an attempt to justify six launch attempts, Dr. Porter said, "Actually, the six rides was determined by another group headed by Dr. Stewart as being the minimum that ought to be fired to get one good one. This is the best guess of some guided missile experts."

Porter argued that there should be more ideas put forward for satellite experiments because he believed there would be an extended program of satellite launches and that once in place, the tracking system would be cheaper to operate than it was to set up.

Meteorology section

During two trips to Wisconsin in the summer of 1992, I spent many hours interviewing Verner Suomi. He provided a lot of background and

256

Go to the top of the page