"SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN, Satellites and the Beginning of the Space Age"
Copyright for the book:Copernicus/Springer Verlag (New York)
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Notes and Sources, page 272.
They include:
Memorandum for the Record, October 31, 1960, by Robert G. Nunn,
special assistant to the administrator. This summarizes a meeting between
NASA officials and James Fisk, president of Bell Telephone laboratories, and George Best, vice president of AT&T. The purpose was to discuss Bell's plans for "Transoceanic Communication via satellite." It opened with T. Keith Glennan, NASA's administrator, saying that Bell had not considered the "facts of life" with respect to vehicle availability. The meeting discussed policy issues in some depth, including finance and whether or why public money should be spent on communication satellites.
Memorandum for program directors, February 24, 1961. Subject: Guidelines for preparation of preliminary Fiscal Year 1963 budget. On the subject of communication satellites, it said to assume no funding of operational systems; adequate provision should be made for back-up vehicles: and no development of passive communication systems.
Minutes of the administrator's staff meeting: November 30, 1960; December 1, 1960; December 8, 1960; January 18, 1961; January 26,1961; February 2, 1961; March 2, 1961; May 25, 1961; June 1, 1961; June 12,1961; June 15, 1961; June 22, 1961; June 29, 1961.
Technical details about Telstar and the attitudes and opinions of the Bell engineers were gleaned from the following:
"Project Telstar, Preliminary report Telstar 1 July-September 1962." (AT&T archives).
Telstar-The Management Story, by A. C. Dickieson (unpublished manuscript,July 1970). Dickieson was the project manager for Telstar (AT&T archives).
Extracts from a manuscript by D. E Hoth. Chapter on Telstar Planning: January-May 1960 (AT&T Archives 84-0902).
Each quotes extensively from memos that the writers had access to.
272
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