Global Positioning System Reference
In-Depth Information
announcing that the United States planned to launch a satellite. On July 29 his
press secretary, James Hagerty, met with reporters to confirm plans to launch
“small earth-circling satellites” as part of igy. His statement included this
confident prediction: “This program will for the first time in history enable
scientists throughout the world to make sustained observations in the regions
beyond the earth's atmosphere.” 57 The Soviets announced their igy satellite
plans four days later.
The Stewart Committee set aside the Air Force proposal, a pro forma effort
that lacked a delivery date, seeing no way it could be accomplished without
setting back progress on the Atlas icbm. By July 1 the Army had revised its
original proposal, modifying the upper-stage rockets and adding electronic
tracking of the satellite. Faced with two alternatives, committee members split
over which rocket held the most promise, while agreeing that the nrl's instru-
mentation and tracking were superior. 58 Committee member Clifford C. Fur-
nas, a chemical engineer and guided missile expert who later succeeded
Quarles as assistant secretary of defense, wrote about the deliberations in a
Life magazine article, published October 21, 1957. Furnas said that the group
wished it could have recommended using the Army's rocket with the Navy's
instrumentation but realized from past experience with joint military programs
that rivalry, jealousy, and unwillingness to share information, funding, and
credit would so slow the process that getting a satellite into orbit by the end of
igy would be unlikely. “We finally decided that breaking the space barrier
would be an easier task than breaking the interservice barrier,” he wrote. 59
In a ive-to-two vote, with one member absent, the Stewart Committee
selected Project Vanguard on August 3, 1955. The Army demanded, and got, a
second hearing, as did the nrl. Vanguard's chief, Milton Rosen, offered revi-
sions incorporating suggestions the committee had made—more tests of the
new rocket and a lighter satellite—and provided written assurances from his
four contractors that the schedule could be accelerated to launch the first sat-
ellite in eighteen months. 60 Rosen's original time frame would later prove far
more accurate, as the program encountered numerous problems and launch
dates slipped. However, the original committee decision stood, Quarles upheld
the recommendation, and the Army was ordered to suspend satellite develop-
ment. After Vanguard was selected, the Army's rocket men couldn't believe
they had lost, and their counterparts at the Navy admitted surprise that they
had won.
Considerable historical debate has focused on the Stewart Committee's
 
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