Posted on 01/30/2008 5:44:50 PM PST by NormsRevenge
LOS ANGELES – After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the United States gave a 90-day deadline to the Army and a little-known research lab in California to send up its own satellite.
Seemingly against all odds, the project was completed in 84 days. On Jan. 31, 1958, a knot of rocket scientists and engineers waited anxiously as the satellite, Explorer 1, blasted into orbit, launching the U.S. into the space race.
Historians see the 50th anniversary of Explorer 1 Thursday as a chance to go beyond the Reader's Digest version of events.
“It's been cemented in all the popular accounts,” JPL historian Erik Conway said of the three-month turnaround. “It created the image of a superhuman effort.”
By the time the Army and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory received the White House's blessing to fly Explorer 1, more than half of the parts were already in storage. To meet the deadline, they dusted off a rocket that had been built for a classified project, added a new fourth-stage motor and designed the bullet-shaped satellite from scratch.
The launch of Explorer 1 set in motion a series of milestones that led to the Apollo moon landings a decade later. It also transformed JPL from a military weapons lab to a civilian robotics center whose spacecraft have visited the sun, moon, eight planets and even the edge of the solar system. JPL is now part of NASA and run by the California Institute of Technology.
The Explorer program traces its origins to Project Orbiter, an Army venture that was canceled in 1955 after losing a competition to the Navy to fly a satellite into orbit. The Army and JPL redirected their efforts to a secret project to develop an intermediate-range ballistic missile named Jupiter.
One of the biggest misconceptions of that period was that the Americans were unprepared after the Sputnik launch, said Carl Raggio, a JPL employee who worked on the classified project and later on the Explorer design team.
In fact, Raggio and others were convinced they could have beaten the Russians to space if engineers had been allowed to tweak the Jupiter rocket by adding on a fourth-stage motor. But the team got turned down by the secretary of defense.
“We knew we were ready,” said Raggio, who at 79 is among the last survivors of the program. “The fourth stage would have put it into orbit.”
Yet the Army's efforts continued to be the backup to the Navy. Two months after Sputnik and a month after Sputnik 2 carried a dog into space, the Americans' first try to catch up with the Russians failed when the Navy's rocket engine lost power in flight and exploded on the way down. Newspapers dubbed it “flopnik.”
Meanwhile, the Army and JPL pulled a backup Jupiter rocket out of storage and began work on Explorer 1 after the Navy's failure. The project, completed in 84 days, was headed by the triumvirate William Pickering, James Van Allen and the German Wernher von Braun. The Army modified the rocket while JPL designed the payload complete with an instrument to detect cosmic rays.
“There was a major push to do things,” said Henry Richter, Explorer's radio engineer. “But it didn't happen nearly that fast.”
Richter, now 80, was among a throng of scientists and engineers who waited nervously in coastal Florida on launch day as Explorer 1 sailed into space. He recalled feeling tense when the satellite failed to return a signal at the expected time.
“There's not much to do, but sit there and watch the clock go around,” he said.
The delay occurred because Explorer 1 picked up speed as it rocketed out of the atmosphere and was lofted to a higher orbit. It finally beamed back a signal – eight minutes later. The crowd breathed a sigh of relief. The U.S. officially entered the space race.
Besides being the first American satellite launch, Explorer 1 also discovered the radiation belt around the Earth. It sent back its last signal in 1958. In 1970, it re-entered the atmosphere and burned up after more than 58,000 loops around Earth.
Roger Lanius, senior curator for space history at the National Air and Space Museum, wants people to remember that the Americans' success “just didn't come out of nowhere.”
Jet Propulsion Laboratory: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
Explorer 1: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/explorer
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/explorer/history/
Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States when it was sent into space on January 31, 1958. Following the launch of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency was directed to launch a satellite using its Jupiter C rocket developed under the direction of Dr. Wernher von Braun. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory received the assignment to design, build and operate the artificial satellite that would serve as the rocket’s payload. JPL completed this job in less than three months.
The primary science instrument on Explorer 1 was a cosmic ray detector designed to measure the radiation environment in Earth orbit. Once in space this experiment, provided by Dr. James Van Allen of the State University of Iowa, revealed a much lower cosmic ray count than expected. Van Allen theorized that the instrument may have been saturated by very strong radiation from a belt of charged particles trapped in space by Earth’s magnetic field. The existence of these radiation belts was confirmed by another U.S. satellite launched two months later, and they became known as the Van Allen Belts in honor of their discoverer.
What was interesting was that if it weren’t for official interference, von Braun’s team at the Redstone Arsenal could have launched a satellite by the middle of 1957! The US Army’s Jupiter rocket was powerful enough to launch a small satellite, and could have launch a very small satellite by the time I mentioned.
My father would keep me out of school when any rocket was launched, because he believe firmly that watching history actually happening, was much more important.
Today, I am so ashamed of our space program, that it is beyond my ability to express.
Sputnik II
Beep beep, beep beep
Beep beep, beep beep
Beep beep, beep beep
Beep
You’re just a flying Sputnik
Floating on air
The way you fly about
You don’t seem to care
I bet my love for you you’re not in view
You’re havin’ fun playin’ peek-a-boo
Leave the outer space
And join our lovin’ race
And start your spinnin’, spinnin’ ‘round my heart
You’re just a flying Sputnik
Losin’ your speed
Unless you change your ways
How can you succeed
Baby soon the fire will be gettin’ low, uh
Your heart becomes weak and the beat is slow
Leave the outer space
And join our lovin’ race
And start your spinnin’
Spinnin’ ‘round my heart
You’re just a flying Sputnik
Losin’ your speed
Unless you change your ways
How can you succeed
Baby soon the fire will be gettin’ low, uh
Your heart becomes weak and the beat is slow
Leave the outer space
And join our lovin’ race
And start your spinnin’
Spinnin’ ‘round my heart
Al Barkle with the Tri-Tones [1958]
Sputnik II
(Les Kangas)
Vita Records-45-173
A lot of people feel the same as you FRiend, but would also use the word 'disgust'. So far the mighty have fallen.
When people use the term "a rocket scientist" to imply that someone is very smart, I just laugh.
I have known many "rocket scientists" personally, and consider the term as almost an insult.
You know what I LOVE about FR?
A thread like this comes up and you can almost count on someone who was part of it to chime in.
If not, then someone who knows something about the subject.
If not, then someone who is at least knowledgeable about it.
“I have known many “rocket scientists” personally, and consider the term as almost an insult.”
Sounds like you have some good stories, please share!
I still have a copy of the LA Times which announced the Explorer I shot. Later that same day, (February 1, 1958), two Navy planes collided over Norwalk, Calif., about three miles from my home, killing more than two dozen sailors, if I remember correctly.
Correction: 50th anniversary in space.
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