"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.
frequency and developed computational and statistical techniques that at the time seemed to be coming from "left field."
Their boss, Frank McClure, adapted their techniques to form the basis for the Transit navigation satellites. In turn, Transit severed links With millennia of esoteric navigational rituals by providing mariners with computer readouts of latitude and longitude. Transit was developed because the Special Projects Office of the Navy needed some way to locate its Polaris nuclear submarines with greater accuracy than possible with methods. But the system went on to serve surface fleets, merchant vessels, the oil industry, fishing fleets, and international mapping agencies.
In the Midwest,Verner Suomi, of the University of Wisconsin, heard a lecture about the IGY and proposed flying an experiment to measure the radiation balance of the earth, a value of fundamental imponance to meteorologists. The experiment set him on the path to earning the honorary title of father of weather satellites. These satellites took twenty satellites to find widespread acceptance among meteorologists. Because they rely on similar technology to that of reconnaissance satellites, they have a murjier history than that of satellite navigation.
In New Jersey, John Pierce (known in science fiction circles at time as JJ. Coupling), of Bell Telephone Laboratories, played the pivotal role in the early days of the development of commercial communication satellites. He was swiftly challenged by Harold Rosen, of the Hughes Aircraft Company. On the title page of his book How the World was One, Arthur C. Clarke calls Pierce and Rosen the "fathers of communication satellites."
Guier, Weiffenbach, McClure, Suomi, Pierce, and Rosen - these were the Edisons and Marconis of satellites for navigation, meteorololgy, and communications. Pierce and Rosen were rivals; Weiffenbach heard Pierce lecture and learned some things about satellite design; Suomi sought Rosen's help when he was trying to persuade NASA to fly another of his experiments; Weiffenbach met Suomi in India. They were not all close friends, but the American space community of the late 1950s was small and intimately connected. The same mysteries faced them all: the unimagined complexity of the earth's gravitational field, the unknown space environment and the radiation belts. All but Rosen benefited directly from the IGY All were involved in projects that ultimately became the work hundreds.
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