4. Lovell, Jodrell Bank, 200.
5. Lovell, Jodrell Bank, 230–34, 235 n.1, 239. The author writes that Vice President Richard Nixon said, “None of us know that it is really on the moon,” and that former President Harry Truman “said the Russian feat was ‘a wonderful thing—if they did it.’ ” He writes further that a US radio telescope recorded the final minute of Luna 2’s signals, but that the “scientists worked in an establishment with military associations and were not allowed to announce their success. I was informed that any such release would have been incompatible with the official American reserve on the success of Lunik II” (235 n.1).
6. Lovell, Jodrell Bank, 209–16. For more discussion of Jodrell Bank’s key role during the early years of the space race, see Graham-Smith and Lovell, “Diversions of a Radio Telescope,” 197–204; Lovell, Jodrell Bank, 230–244, 250–52. Also see, by a Swedish Space Corporation rocket engineer, Sven Grahn, “Jodrell Bank’s Role in Early Space Tracking Activities,” Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, www.jb.man.ac.uk/history/tracking/ (accessed Apr. 20, 2017).
7. Lovell, Jodrell Bank, 240–42.
8. Strangely, not all bursts of gamma rays are equally lethal, nor are they all of cosmic origin. A terrestrial team of investigators found that at least fifty of them pop off daily near the tops of thunderclouds, a split second before ordinary lightning bolts. How did they figure this out? With ground-based detectors tuned to the lowest wavelengths of the radio band. Rebecca E. Kessler, “Flash of Insight,” Natural History 114:7 (Sept. 2005), 16. See also Neil deGrasse Tyson, “Knock ’Em Dead,” in Tyson, Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandaries (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007), 278–81.
9. Two multifaceted discussions of gamma-ray bursts are Jonathan I. Katz, The Biggest Bangs: The Mystery of Gamma-Ray Bursts, the Most Violent Explosions in the Universe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), and Govert Schilling, Flash! The Hunt for the Biggest Explosions in the Universe, trans. Naomi Greenberg-Slovin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Atomic bombs of the fission variety, like those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, did produce gamma radiation as a by-product of uranium atoms breaking apart, but the much more powerful thermonuclear fusion bomb, developed postwar as a “deterrent” and fortunately not dropped anywhere yet, would produce a much more intense explosion of gamma rays.
10. Quoted in The New Quotable Einstein, ed. Alice Calaprice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 173.
11. Karen C. Fox, “NASA’s Van Allen Probes Spot an Impenetrable Barrier in Space,” NASA, Nov. 26, 2014, www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/van-allen-probes-spot-impenetrable-barrier-in-space (accessed Apr. 20, 2017).
12. For an in-agency account of Vela, see Sidney G. Reed, Richard H. Van Atta, and Seymour J. Deitchman, DARPA Technical Accomplishments: An Historical Review of Selected DARPA Projects, vol. 1, IDA paper P-2192, Institute for Defense Analyses, Nov. 1990, 11-1–11-10, www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/Reading_Room/DARPA/301.pdf (accessed Apr. 20, 2017). Besides the Vela Hotel program, which focused on satellite detection of atmospheric and space-based nuclear explosions, there was the Vela Sierra program to develop ground-based methods for detecting those same explosions as well as the Vela Uniform program for detecting underground nuclear explosions (11-1).
13. For the graph, see Schilling, Flash!, 12.
14. Ray W. Klebesadel, Ian B. Strong, and Roy A. Olson, “Observations of Gamma-Ray Bursts of Cosmic Origin,” Astrophysical Journal 182 (June 1, 1973), L86.
15. See Trevor Weekes, “Very High Energy Gamma Ray Astronomy 101,” Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, June 2012, fermi.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/mtgs/summerschool/2012/week2/ACT_Weekes.pdf, for a PowerPoint tutorial/history by one of the field’s pioneers (accessed Apr. 20, 2017).
16. Keith A. Shrock, “Space-Based Infrared Technology Center of Excellence,” fact sheet, AFRL Space Vehicles Directorate, Space Technology Division, Infrared Technologies Center of Excellence Branch, Kirtland AFB and Hanscom AFB, Apr. 3, 2007, www.kirtland.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/826053/space-based-infrared-technology-center-of-excellence/ (accessed Apr. 20, 2017).
17. E. A. Davis, ed., Science in the Making: Scientific Development as Chronicled by Historic Papers in the Philosophical Magazine—With Commentaries and Illustrations, vol. 1: 1798–1850 (London: Taylor & Francis, 1995), 165.
18. “Edison and the Unseen Universe,” Scientific Amer. 39:8, suppl. 138 (Aug. 24, 1878), 112. For a discussion of the tasimeter, see Thomas A. Edison, “On the Use of the Tasimeter for Measuring the Heat of the Stars and of the Sun’s Corona,” Amer. J. Science 17:97 (Jan. 1879), 52–54. Our thanks to librarian Mai Reitmeyer of the American Museum of Natural History for locating these sources.
19. G. Neugebauer and R. B. Leighton, Two-Micron Sky Survey: A Preliminary Catalog, NASA SP-3047 (Washington, DC: NASA, 1969), ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19690028611.pdf (accessed Apr. 20, 2017).
20. Russell G. Walker and Stephan D. Price, AFCRL Infrared Sky Survey, Vol. 1: Catalog of Observations at 4, 11, and 20 Microns, ADA 016397 (Hanscom AFB, MA: Optical Physics Laboratory, Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories, July 1975), www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a016397.pdf (accessed Apr. 20, 2017). A revised version, by Price and Murdock, with the addition of observations at 27 microns, was published in 1983.
21. 2MASS: 2 Micron All Sky Survey, “Introduction: 1. 2MASS Overview,” Dec. 20, 2006, www.ipac.caltech.edu/2mass/releases/allsky/doc/sec1_1.new.html (accessed Apr. 20, 2017).
22. S. D. Price, History of Space-Based Infrared Astronomy and the Air Force Infrared Celestial Backgrounds Program, AFRL-RV-HA-TR-1008-1039 (Hanscom AFB, MA: Air Force Research Laboratory—Space Vehicles Directorate, Apr. 2008), xi, 11ff.
23. “Mansfield Amendment: Research Restriction Diluted,” Science News 98:17 (Oct. 24, 1970), 332; Philip M. Boffey, “Mansfield Amendment Not Yet Dead,” Science 170:3958 (Nov. 6, 1970), 613; “Mansfield Amendment: Defense Research Curbs Eased,” Science News 99:3 (Jan. 16, 1971), 50.
24. Martin Harwit, “The Early Days of Infrared Space Astronomy,” in The Century of Space Science, ed. J. A. Bleeker, J. Geiss, and M. Huber (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2002), 304. Harwit goes on to say that, based on the pattern of expenditures on infrared work during the later 1980s and early 1990s, “infrared astronomers may expect to inherit even more powerful techniques than those currently available provided they patiently stand by the closed door that normally separates military from academic infrared space astronomy. Occasionally that door opens a crack, and an arm hands out some highly desirable piece of technology. [But w]here the military has had no apparent interests . . . , astronomers have had to develop instrumentation on their own and progress has been far slower” (327). Antoni Rogalski, a Polish infrared astronomer, concurs: “After World War II, infrared detector technology development was and continues to be primarily driven by military applications.” A. Rogalski, “History of Infrared Detectors,” Opto-Electronics Review 20:3 (2012), 279.
A brief look at infrared detector technology: The 1930s were an active period for militarily useful advances in infrared detection, including portable detectors. In the United States, for instance, RCA came up with an IR tube that, with the advent of war, turned into the RCA 1P25 image converter, which was used for America’s Sniperscopes and Snooperscopes beginning in 1942. Meanwhile, in Germany in the early 1930s, Edgar Kutzscher, a professor of physics at the University of Berlin, discovered that lead sulphide had excellent photoconductive properties; based on that discovery, the German army undertook a secret wartime program to manufacture infrared detectors beginning in 1943. In January 1945 that factory was captured by the Soviet Union. After the end of hostilities, Kutzscher was sent to Britain and, like so many other valued German scientists, eventually ended up in the United States—in southern California, working for Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. Rogalski, “History,” 283–84. See also D. J. Lovell, “The Thirty-third Anecdote—Wartime Incentive: Robert Jo
seph Cashman,” Optical Anecdotes (Bellingham: SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering, 1981), 115–18.
25. Ronald E. Doel, Solar System Astronomy in America: Communities, Patronage, and Interdisciplinary Science, 1920–1960 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 77.
26. Alexander Szalay, personal communications with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jan. 31, 2018.
27. National Science and Technology Medals Foundation, “2003 National Medal of Science Laureate Biopic: Riccardo Giacconi,” 2003, www.nationalmedals.org/laureates/riccardo-giacconi# (accessed Oct. 30, 2017).
28. Riccardo Giacconi, “The Dawn of X-ray Astronomy,” Nobel lecture, Dec. 8, 2002, 112–14, www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2002/giacconi-lecture.pdf (accessed Oct. 31, 2017).
29. Der-Ann Hsu and Richard E. Quandt, “Statistical Analyses of Aircraft Hijackings and Political Assassinations,” research memo, Econometric Research Program, Princeton University, Feb. 1976, 1–3, 9, 12, 14–16, www.princeton.edu/~erp/ERParchives/archivepdfs/M194.pdf; Aviation Safety Network, “Airliner Hijackings: 1942– ,” aviation-safety.net/statistics/period/stats.php?cat=H2; US Department of Transportation, “Aircraft Hijackings and Other Criminal Acts Against Civil Aviation Statistical and Narrative Reports,” May 1983, www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/91941NCJRS.pdf (accessed Oct. 31, 2017).
30. AS&E, “Company: History,” www.as-e.com/company/history/# (accessed Oct. 31, 2017).
31. 93rd Congress (1973–1974), S.39—An Act to amend the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 to implement the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft; to provide a more effective program to prevent aircraft piracy; and for other purposes, Title II: Air Transportation Security Act, www.congress.gov/bill/93rd-congress/senate-bill/39 (accessed Oct. 31, 2017).
32. Eric J. Chaisson, The Hubble Wars: Astrophysics Meets Astropolitics in the Two-Billion-Dollar Struggle over the Hubble Space Telescope (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), xi.
33. “Classification of TALENT and KEYHOLE Information,” Special Center Notice: Security, No. 6-64, Jan. 16, 1964, nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB225/doc23.pdf (accessed Apr. 20, 2017). See also Burrows, This New Ocean, 241–42.
34. See, e.g., Dwayne A. Day, “The Flight of the Big Bird (parts 1–4),” Space Review, Jan. 17–Mar. 28, 2011, www.thespacereview.com/article/1761/1–www.thespacereview.com/article/1809/2; Roger Guillemette, “Declassified US Spy Satellites Reveal Rare Look at Cold War Space Program,” Space.com, Sept. 18, 2011, www.space.com/12996-secret-spy-satellites-declassified-nro.html (accessed Apr. 21, 2017); Chaisson, Hubble Wars, 208; Philip Chien, “High Spies,” Popular Mechanics 173:2 (Feb. 1996), n.p.; John M. Doyle, “Big Bird, Uncaged,” Air & Space Smithsonian, Dec. 2011/Jan. 2012, 10.
35. Chaisson, Hubble Wars, 88–93.
36. Chaisson, Hubble Wars, 96.
37. National Research Council—Committee for a Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics, New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2010). For an accessible summary of the committee’s issues and priorities, see “2020 Vision: An Overview of New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics,” www.nap.edu/resource/12951/bpa_064932.pdf (accessed Feb. 13, 2018).
38. Dennis Overbye, “Ex-Spy Telescope May Get New Identity as a Space Investigator,” New York Times, June 4, 2012.
39. Office of Management and Budget, An American Budget: Major Savings and Reforms—Fiscal Year 2019 (Washington, DC: US Government Publishing Office, 2018), 92, www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/msar-fy2019.pdf (accessed Feb. 14, 2018). See also, e.g., Amina Khan, “Trump’s Budget Would Kill NASA’s WFIRST Telescope. Astronomers Say That Would Be a Mistake,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 12, 2018; Dennis Overbye, “Astronomers’ Dark Energy Hopes Fade to Gray,” New York Times, Feb. 19, 2018.
7. MAKING WAR, SEEKING PEACE
1. See the UCS Satellite Database, compiled and updated approximately four times per year by the Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/space-weapons/satellite-database# (accessed Mar. 15, 2018).
2. On May 19, 1998, a satellite named Galaxy IV, operated by PanAmSat, suddenly failed, cutting off tens of millions—the vast majority—of the pagers in the United States, as well as local affiliates of National Public Radio, certain kinds of credit-card processing, and other forms of communication. A couple of weeks of coronal mass ejections and solar flares preceded the event; some scientists attribute the failure to the effects of the solar storms, others to peculiarities of the tin solder used in key components. “PanAmSat Satellite Outage Interrupts Pager, Television Service in the U.S.,” Wall Street Journal, May 20, 1998; Lawrence Zuckerman, “Satellite Failure Is Rare, and Therefore Unsettling,” New York Times, May 21, 1998; “A Week of Solar Blasts: The Space Weather Event of May 1998,” pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/outreach/events/98/ (accessed Apr. 22, 2017). As Zuckerman wrote, “Workers around the country who had come to depend on their beepers for everything from emergency calls to the price of soybeans were suddenly in the dark. As in a major electricity blackout or the disruption of telephone service, users suddenly realized how much they had taken technology for granted.”
3. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Space Operations: Joint Publication 3–14, May 29, 2013, www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp3_14.pdf (accessed June 19, 2016). This unclassified document “provides military guidance for use by the Armed Forces in preparing their appropriate plans” but leaves open the possibility for contrary action “when, in the judgment of the commander, exceptional circumstances dictate otherwise” (i).
4. Air Force Space Command, “Commander’s Strategic Intent,” May 6, 2016, 5, www.afspc.af.mil/Portals/3/Commander%20Documents/AFSPC%20Commander%E2%80%99s%202016%20Strategic%20Intent.pdf?ver=2016-05-09-094135-810 (accessed Apr. 22, 2017).
5. Office of the Secretary of Defense, Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2016, 36, www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2016%20China%20Military%20Power%20Report.pdf (accessed June 26, 2016). Per a 2010 amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000, these reports are to be issued annually through 2030.
6. “III. Strategic Guideline of Active Defense” and “Force Development in Critical Security Domains,” in “Full Text: China’s Military Strategy,” China Daily, May 26, 2015, www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-05/26/content_20820628.htm (accessed June 26, 2016). A Chinese defense “white paper” has been issued every two years since 1998 (Secretary of Defense, Military and Security Developments, 3).
7. A 2015 study found that in the context of any confrontation that might arise in or near the South China Sea, US and Chinese counterspace capabilities are now on a par. Eric Heginbotham et al., The U.S.–China Military Scorecard: Forces, Geography, and the Evolving Balance of Power 1996–2017 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2015), 257–58.
8. The foreword to Counterspace Operations: Air Force Doctrine Document 2–2.1 (Aug. 2, 2004), the first US Air Force position paper wholly devoted to counterspace, states: “Counterspace operations have defensive and offensive elements, both of which depend on robust space situation awareness. These operations may be utilized through the spectrum of conflict and may achieve a variety of effects from temporary denial to complete destruction of the adversary’s space capability” (i). Among the document’s statements of foundational doctrine are “defensive counterspace (DCS) operations preserve US/friendly ability to exploit space to its advantage via active and passive actions to protect friendly space-related capabilities from enemy attack or interference” and “offensive counterspace (OCS) preclude an adversary from exploiting space to their advantage” (vii). “Space superiority” is defined in AFDD 2–2.1 as “the degree of control necessary to employ, maneuver, and engage space forces while denying the same capability to an adversary” (55). For “agility” and “resilience capacity,” see Air Force Space Command, “Commander’s Strategic Intent.” For current US and Chinese
counterspace measures, see Heginbotham et al., U.S.–China Military Scorecard, 227–58.
9. David Axe, “The Great Debate: When It Comes to War in Space, U.S. Has the Edge,” Reuters, Aug. 10, 2015, blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/08/09/the-u-s-military-is-preparing-for-the-real-star-wars; Lee Billings, “War in Space May Be Closer Than Ever,” Scientific American, Aug. 10, 2015, www.scientificamerican.com/article/war-in-space-may-be-closer-than-ever (accessed Apr. 22, 2017).
10. See NASA Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science: Orbital Debris Program Office, “Orbital Debris Graphics,” www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/photo-gallery.html (accessed Apr. 22, 2017).
11. Sun Tzu, “The Attack by Fire,” from The Art of War, trans. Lionel Giles, 1910, chap. XII, secs. 1–13, in The Strategy Collection: The Art of War, On War, The Prince (Waxkeep Publishing, 2013), loc. 12219–31.
12. Homer, The Iliad, trans. Caroline Alexander (New York and London: HarperCollins, 2015), introduction, 4.460–62, 5.66–68, 5.301–308.
13. Leonardo da Vinci, “Letter to Il Moro” (1493), in A Documentary History of Art, vol. 1, ed. Elizabeth G. Holt (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor, 1957), 273–75.
14. Carl von Clausewitz, “What Is War?” from On War, trans. Col. James J. Graham, 1873, bk. I, chap. 1, sec. 24, in Strategy Collection, loc. 2501. The longer formulation here is “a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means.”
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