One System, Two Narratives - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 58

They tell a great story about Dr. [A. Hoyt] Taylor [an electrical engineer who
made important contributions to the development of radar] back in the early
days of World War II. There was a rule at the laboratory that if you were the
last person out of the laboratory you had to sweep up, and this applied to
everybody. Dr. Taylor was sweeping up the laboratory one night in the early
days of World War II when a young fellow came in. . . . He went in and saw
this fellow sweeping out the place and asked him what kind of projects were
done there. Then Dr. Taylor started telling him about the interferometers
and various radar devices and things like that. He spent quite a bit of time
explaining all these things. The young man went out talking to himself and
saying, as he told the story later, “I certainly can't contribute to a place like
that. Even the janitor knows more than I'll ever learn!” The young man's
name was Arthur Godfrey [who later became a prominent radio and televi-
sion broadcaster]. 16
Holmes, along with Easton, was a Navy representative to the tri-service
meetings discussing the dnss and had the contacts to convince the Navy to
agree with the solution reached. A two-day meeting was held in June 1973 at
the Space and Missile Systems Organization in California. Four alternatives
were discussed for the dnss (Defense Navigation Satellite System) and a draft
decision coordinating paper (dcp 121) was written, dated June 7, 1973. Alter-
native I called for the Air Force to launch one nes satellite and the Navy to
launch nts-1. Alternative II was the same as the instructions in Deputy Sec-
retary Clements's April 17 memorandum. During 1977 the Air Force would
design and deploy a single constellation of four synchronous nes satellites
and in 1974 the Navy would deploy nts-1, a midaltitude satellite testing the
Timation approach. Alternative III was similar to the second alternative, except
that the Navy was to launch another satellite, nts- 2. nts-1 would be launched
in calendar year 1976 with a crystal oscillator to test signal processing in a
subsynchronous eight-hour orbit. nts-2 would be launched in 1977 with a
cesium atomic clock. The fourth alternative was to proceed directly with a
global, operational dnss. No additional testing would be conducted prior to
developing the satellites for launch in calendar year 1978. nts-1 would be
launched in 1974 to provide limited information on propagation effects (radio
signal variability) and ephemeris (orbital variability), prediction methods
required for the dnss.