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From: dodson@convex.COM (Dave Dodson)
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.astro
Subject: Re: IGY and the dawn of the Space Age
Message-ID: <1991Jun18.171337.4347@convex.com>
Date: 18 Jun 91 17:13:37 GMT
References: <140789@unix.cis.pitt.edu> <1991Jun17.235158.16273@sequent.com> <JMC.91Jun17200833@DEC-Lite.Stanford.EDU>
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In article <JMC.91Jun17200833@DEC-Lite.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
There is a major error in this article.  Explorer was von Braun's satellite,
launched aboard a Jupiter C rocket, which had a Redstone first stage and two
solid fueled upper stages.  The solid fuel rocket in the Explorer's body was
the 4th stage.  Jupiter C was developed to test reentry vehicles for ICBMs.
If you are old enough, you may recall a 1956 or 1957 speech to the nation by
President Eisenhower stating that the reentry problem had been solved, and
displaying a reentry vehicle that had been launched aboard a Jupiter C.

What is called Explorer here really was the Vanguard project.

>There is a gap in Nick Szabo's account of the early space age.
>The President's Scientific Advisory Committee, which recommended
>the Explorer project, successfully recommended that Explorer use
     ^^^^^^^^                                        ^^^^^^^^
     Vanguard                                        Vanguard
>hardware developed entirely separately from military hardware.
>The explicit hope was that this would serve as an example of
>separating civilian from military use of space and would influence
>the Soviet Union to do likewise.  This had several consequences.
>
>1. It didn't influence the Soviet Union in the slightest, since it was
>based on a considerable misconception of what the Soviet Union was
>like.
>
>2. It required forbidding the von Braun group at Redstone from
>launching a satellite based on the Jupiter IRBM rocket.
>The von Braun group was ready much earlier.

As mentioned above, it was the Jupiter C rocket, not the Jupiter IRBM.
The Jupiter IRBM was the first stage later for the Juno rocket, which
was used in 1959 to launch several payloads past the moon.

>3. It made the Explorer project one of minimal capability -
                ^^^^^^^^
		Vanguard
>18 pounds - as compared to 200 and 2000 pounds for Sputniks
>I and II.  I'm not sure the reason for this was entirely
>budgetary; I suspect PSAC felt that any space activity would
>be regarded as science fictionary and wanted to be modest to
>preserve respectability.
>
>4. The shoestring Explorer project experience long delays
                   ^^^^^^^^
		   Vanguard
>and then failed spectacularly twice two months after Sputnik.
>
>5. The von Braun group was given the go-ahead after Sputnik
>and successfully launched a satellite before the first
>successful Explorer launch.
            ^^^^^^^^
            Vanguard

Von Braun launched Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958, if I remember correctly.
This was about 90 days after he had been given approval to proceed with an 
attempt to launch an earth satellite, and included the time to design, build,
and test the satellite, as well as assemble the Jupiter C and wait for good
weather.  The launch occurred less than 4 months after Sputnik 1.

>6. Purity was abandoned completely after Sputnik.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Dave Dodson		                             dodson@convex.COM
Convex Computer Corporation      Richardson, Texas      (214) 497-4234