Global Positioning System Reference
In-Depth Information
logical warfare expert, having helped craft Allied propaganda campaigns
during World War II. He later led the organization that broadcast Radio Free
Europe, served as a delegate to the un, and held executive positions at Time ,
Fortune , and Life magazines. 86 He cautioned the administration to avoid the
appearance of instituting a crash program to catch up. “If we are indeed geared
to the igy and have a schedule, the important thing is to stick to the schedule
but make sure that when our satellite goes up, it goes all the way—and if not
bigger than the Russians' let it be unmistakably better,” he counseled. 87
Unfortunately, in trying to implement this advice, Eisenhower publicly com-
mitted Project Vanguard to a decision made months before Sputnik, at a time
when American scientists and politicians still assumed the United States would
achieve orbit first and when the prospect of a launch failure did not carry the
same risk of becoming a public relations fiasco. At Eisenhower's October 9
press conference, his prepared statement included the following: “In May of
1957, those charged with the United States satellite program determined that
small satellite spheres would be launched as test vehicles during 1957 to check
the rocketry, instrumentation, and ground stations and that the first fully-
instrumented satellite vehicle would be launched in March of 1958. The first
of these test vehicles is planned to be launched in December of this year.” 88
Five days after Sputnik, neither the press corps nor the American public
seemed inclined to focus much attention on the distinction between a 6.44-
inch “test” satellite and a “fully-instrumented” 20-inch satellite. Whichever
satellite came first would be the satellite, New York Times reporter Milton Bracker
observed to another journalist. 89 After the second Sputnik (carrying a dog
named Laika, which died from heat exhaustion and was doomed in any case
without a reentry vehicle), pressure to catch up with the Soviets increased, and
the distinction undoubtedly blurred further. 90 Vanguard's Milton Rosen later
told an interviewer, “If we were going to launch any rocket, it was going to have
a satellite on it.” 91
Soon after Vanguard was selected for the igy satellite effort, project officials
added the two remaining Viking rockets to the Vanguard launch schedule, for
a total of twelve launches. Recall that Rosen had promised the Stewart Com-
mittee additional test flights. Six, rather than three, were designated as tests
and six were designated as space launch vehicles (slvs)—meaning they would
carry satellites. A chart in Project Vanguard Report No. 1 , from January 1956,
shows the first satellite launch, slv-1, scheduled for sometime in October 1957 . 92
To test tracking and guidance systems, the upper stage of the final test flight
 
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