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"SOMETHING NEW UNDER THE SUN, Satellites and the Beginning of the Space Age"
Copyright:Copernicus/Springer Verlag (New York)
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Book description.
Harold Rosen told me the anecdote of how the meeting came to be set up (page 212).
July 26, 1960, Puckett confirms a meeting requested by Abe Silverstein for Hughes to present its satellite proposal to Keith Glennan.
Technical memos in the meantime show Williams's preoccupation with dynamics studies and his involvement with NASA's Langley field center.
Memo from John Richardson to C. G. Murphy of August 12, 1960, talks of GT&E's evaluation of the Hughes satellite. Richardson believed that the GT&E reaction was quite good. GT&E asked Hughes for justification of the life expected for the TWT; how the telemetry system could be protected from disruptive tampering and how the Hughes assertion that ten launches would be needed for one successful satellite could be reconciled with the company's plans for three launches.
An internal memo from Ralph B. Reade to Roy Wendahl raised concern about internal conflicts in the field of satellite communication and the company's fragmented approach to military customers.
September 14, 1960: preliminary cost estimates of a commercial communication satellite. Total: $15.75 million, including $4 million for the Jarvis Island launch site.
A letter from John Rubel to A. S. Jerrems dated September 22, 1960, refers to a visit he had made a few weeks earlier to Hughes.
On October 25, 1960, Rosen wrote back to Witting refuting all the specific criticisms that Witting made of the HAC proposals. Rosen concluded, "In our opinion, the Hughes proposal, if implemented, would achieve all the objectives of the present program, but at an earlier date and lower cost."
Memos in September, October, and November show that HAC held meetings with GT&E, The Rand Corporation, Bell Telephone Laboratories (November 2, 1960), ITT, and British Telecommunications.
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