posted 07-06-2007 05:28 PM               

I've heard some disagreement over whether or not Eisenhower opposed Redstone on the basis that it was a derivative of German war machinery.

What's the conventional wisdom on this issue?

Thanks (ahead of time) for the input!

posted 07-06-2007 06:42 PM               

It had to do with Redstone being the first stage of a Jupiter-C.

posted 07-06-2007 07:02 PM               

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At the urging of the U.S.'s IGY committee, the Eisenhower Administration decided, in mid-1955, to undertake a satellite program as part of the nation's IGY effort. The basic top-level decision then to be made was how to run the project. The twofold decision that emerged from the National Security Council: 1) keep the satellite project separate from military ballistic-missile research, and 2) put the Navy in charge.

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The U.S. had committed itself to pass on to the rest of the world, including Russia, scientific information obtained from IGY programs, so it seemed desirable, to the NSC (and to IGY scientists too) to keep Vanguard from getting deeply involved with top-secret military programs. Also, Administration policymakers, in a fit of touchiness about neutralist opinion, wanted to avoid any appearance of using IGY undertakings for military purposes.

But the main reason for putting Vanguard into a separate, low-priority compartment was that the Pentagon wanted to keep the satellite project from interfering with the U.S.'s top-priority program of military ballistic-missile research.

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Later in 1955, President Eisenhower called for proposals for placing a satellite in orbit as part of the International Geophysical Year 1957­58. The Army proposed using a modified Redstone rocket with a solid fuel upper stage. The Air Force proposed using an Atlas ICBM which was still under development. The Navy proposed using a Vanguard rocket which was based on its Viking research rocket. The Eisenhower Administration recognized that, due to the vulnerability of manned reconnaissance aircraft to air defense missiles, reconnaissance satellites would be needed in the future to monitor activities in the vast Soviet interior. At the time, however, there was no international agreement on the right of free passage for satellites over another nation's homeland. The administration was concerned that launching a military sponsored satellite would destabilize the tense cold war political environment. The administration established a policy of "Space for Peace", therefore the first U.S. satellite and the rocket used to launch it would be as non­military as possible. The result was that the Army­Navy Project Orbiter was canceled and the Navy sponsored Vanguard was selected as the first U.S. rocket and satellite because it's background was more closely linked to the research community.

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posted 07-06-2007 11:48 PM               

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
Eisenhower preferred the Navy's Vanguard over the Army's Redstone for a few reasons, including the latter's reliance on German ingenuity...

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No, this is actually wrong. The sources you cite are old and not accurate. The best information on this is an article by Mike Neufeld from a couple of years ago. I don't have the citation on hand. However, it will certainly be mentioned in his von Braun book.

Basically, Eisenhower had no involvement in this decision. The decision was made by a special committee headed by Homer J. Stewart who died a few weeks ago.

What Neufeld discovered is that the issue was not really the rocket (i.e. Vanguard vs. Jupiter), it was the entire proposal, including satellite and tracking system. The Vanguard proposal was superior. The Army proposal was for a satellite that possibly could not even be tracked in orbit. Vanguard was a better overall package.

posted 07-07-2007 04:48 AM               

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
To quote the October 21, 1957 issue of TIME Magazine...

[SNIP]

Army Space Reference Text

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If you want a better source, look at the book Reconsidering Sputnik, particularly my essay. I've obtained even better information on the "Freedom of Space" issue that I will present at a conference in Washington, DC this October. Look also at Mike Neufeld's article in that book.

posted 07-07-2007 05:08 AM               

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Originally posted by DDAY:
No, this is actually wrong. The sources you cite are old and not accurate. The best information on this is an article by Mike Neufeld from a couple of years ago.

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Neither of the articles quoted above were the basis of my first reply, but were those that I could find that cited "the conventional wisdom on the issue" as Jay requested. A new book on this topic, due to be released this fall, shares some of the themes introduced by both sources.

posted 07-07-2007 09:27 PM               

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
Neither of the articles quoted above were the basis of my first reply, but were those that I could find that cited "the conventional wisdom on the issue" as Jay requested. A new book on this topic, due to be released this fall, shares some of the themes introduced by both sources.

I'll be interested to hear your talk at the conference this October and will certainly be reading Neufeld's von Braun book when available.

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Well, I don't see how that could really be the conventional wisdom, because the story of what actually happened has appeared in several books in the last couple of decades (start with R. Cargill Hall's chapter in Vol. 1 of Exploring the Unknown), then go to Reconsidering Sputnik. And of course look at Mike Neufeld's article. I have not personally looked closely at the Vanguard/Jupiter decision, at least not in a long time. I have looked more closely at the "Freedom of Space" issue. My most recent research on this subject traces the origins of this concept back to fall of 1954 (as opposed to February 1955) and a CIA official rather than several science advisors to Eisenhower.

But I think that there has long been this myth, perpetuated in part by the von Braun team, that they lost out to Vanguard--what they thought was an inferior rocket--because of "anti-German bias." It's not correct. They lost out because Vanugard seemed to be a slightly better proposal.

If there is a book due out this fall that makes the tired old claim that it was "anti-German bias," then I look forward to seeing their evidence, and if the evidence is lacking, I look forward to picking it apart in a review. Anybody writing on this subject should at least be aware of the sources I mentioned above, and they should have given me or Neufeld a phone call if they had any questions (I'm in the book and so is Mike, and we don't bite).

As for my talk, it's going to focus on the Freedom of Space issue and some documents that I obtained in the past few years showing that Richard Bissell was a key figure in the development of the "scientific satellite program." The documents are unambiguous about this and what is so wonderful about it is that when you look at the evidence, you cannot help but say "Of course!"

The reason is that Bissell was the guy proposing the U-2 for the CIA, so of course he's concerned about the issue of flying spy cameras over Soviet territory. He _knows_ that the U-2 will violate Soviet airspace. But he can also recognize that at some point you go up high enough that it's not an airspace violation. So he starts thinking that if you fly a nice innocent civilian satellite over the Soviet Union first, then you establish the precedent of overflight (space is "free" and doesn't belong to the country underneath it). So he was really the one guy woh could see the connections better than anybody.

posted 07-07-2007 09:42 PM               

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Originally posted by DDAY:
If there is a book due out this fall that makes the tired old claim that it was "anti-German bias," then I look forward to seeing their evidence, and if the evidence is lacking, I look forward to picking it apart in a review.

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While it does make a brief mention of the side-benefit of the Vanguard being an all-American made rocket, it certainly doesn't argue that as the prime (or even supporting) reason why the Eisenhower Administration picked the Navy over the Army.

Instead, it describes the desire by the Administration to keep their missile and scientific projects separate, without even touching on the "freedom of space" issue. Vanguard is acknowledged as having greater support from the academic community, as a dedicated scientific project.

posted 07-07-2007 10:07 PM               

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Originally posted by DDAY:
But Eisenhower was not making decisions about specific weapons systems and I don't think he had much involvement in the Atlas decision.

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posted 07-12-2007 08:33 AM               

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Perhaps Schmitt was referring to other programs such as Saturn 1 and the F-1 engine as well as a lot of early space projects that started during Ike's tenure but of course Ike was not the impetus behind these projects.

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