New Moons Rising - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 6

warning to editors and readers—as briefing officers warned them—that they
were there for a test shoot, and that one of three missile tests turn out to be a
flop- nik.” 28 Scientists working on the Vanguard project had warned that the
odds were against successfully placing a satellite into orbit on the first try. One
told reporters it would be “a real miracle.” 29 J. Paul Walsh, deputy director of
Project Vanguard, said in a press conference before the launch, “We will be
pleased people if it establishes an orbit, but we will not be despondent if it
doesn't.” 30 Those cautionary words did not cut through the swirl of anxiety
and wishful thinking.
Lost in the coverage, in the hand wringing that followed, and in some his-
torical accounts of the era is the fact that the original plans did not call for the
rocket that burned to carry a satellite. Dubbed tv-3 for its status as a “test
vehicle,” it was a new rocket design, and the launch was the first attempt using
three “live” stages, meaning all three contained fuel and would undergo a
“burn” during flight.31 31 Its predecessor, tv-2, used a live first stage but dummy
second and third stages. 32 tv-2 was launched successfully October 23, but only
after months of delays due to manufacturing problems and seven “static”
(bolted down to prevent liftoff ) test firings.33 33 That the United States attempted
to put its first satellite into orbit by placing it atop an unproven launch vehicle,
with the eyes of the world watching, is a historical oddity that appears differ-
ent in hindsight than it must have seemed at the time. Although the tv- 3 explo-
sion dominated public perceptions, the Vanguard program was an unqualified
success; in a record thirty months it developed an entirely new space launch
vehicle and successfully placed three satellites into orbit. 34
Competing Programs
Project Vanguard began as a scientific initiative to launch a satellite as part of
the International Geophysical Year (igy). Proposed in 1950 and sponsored by
the International Council of Scientific Unions, the igy program was modeled
after the International Polar Years, held in 1882-83 and 1932-33. 35 Astronomers
were forecasting a period of increased solar activity from mid-1957 to the end
of 1958, so the “year” of research actually spanned those eighteen months. 36
In addition to studying solar activity, scientists in sixty-seven countries par-
ticipated in coordinated research in such fields as geodesy, geomagnetism,
gravity, meteorology, oceanography, rocketry, and seismology. 37
In the years leading up to its start, the United States and the Soviet Union
proposed launching satellites during igy, and by agreement, these “man-made